Baltimore Heritage

*Postponed*

In observance of Juneteenth, historian and write Louis Diggs will tell the story of the journey to freedom through Baltimore County revealing sites in the area that were part of the Underground Railroad.

Louis Diggs is a chronicler of African American history specializing in Baltimore County. His work illuminates the historic past of its Black communities. He is the author of ten books focusing on African American history in the Baltimore region. Diggs was honored by the State of Maryland for his contributions in preserving the history of Maryland's Black communities. Diggs led the effort to restore the Cherry Hill African Union Methodist Protestant Church in Granite, Maryland and convert it to the Diggs/Johnson Mini-Museum on African American History.

The Pratt Central Library achieved second place in BAF's Architecture Madness tournament of Baltimore’s best buildings built between 1870 and today and hosted in celebration of AIA Baltimore’s 150th anniversary. In today’s Virtual History, we'll explore what makes this library so special and how it served as a national model for libraries that followed.

Amy Menzer discusses the design and development of WWI Era Historic Dundalk! The Bethlehem Steel Mill at Sparrows Point launched an effort to create a Garden City-style town in 1917 just before the US entered WWI. At the same time, the Federal Government began housing production for war workers. Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. (FLO Jr.) headed the Town Planning division of the new United States Housing Corporation. Several colleagues in the nascent profession of city planning who had worked with FLO Jr. on Roland Park and Forest Hills Gardens were all directly involved in designing Dundalk, including Baltimore architect Edward Palmer, Roland Park Company leader Edward Bouton, and architects Grosvenor Atterbury and Charles Wellford Leavitt. Their plans were inspired by their designs for more affluent areas, including curvilinear streets, separation of uses, green spaces, and restrictive covenants. We will explore how these plans created a new community for workers and managers, but was segregated by race.