Thanks to Jordon Steele, University Archivist at Johns Hopkins University, Sheridan Libraries for this guest blog post on the Roland Park Company records and an upcoming panel discussion on the  Roland Park Company’s lasting legacy in architecture, planning and society. Discover more about this archival adventure through monthly posts by Jordon and his colleagues on the Sheridan Libraries blog.

The Roland Park Company Records were donated to Johns Hopkins University’s Sheridan Libraries in 2010. This rich and diverse collection of correspondence, photographs, architectural drawings, and related corporate records provides a window into one of the most important development companies of the 20th century. Upwards of 400 cubic feet, upon arrival only a small portion of the Roland Park Company Records were fully processed and therefore accessible to researchers. Responding to overwhelming research demand from audiences ranging from the local community to international scholars, the Sheridan Libraries successfully applied for a grant from the Council on Library and Information Resources to hire a full-time, professional project archivist to arrange and describe this collection according to archival best practice.  The collection will reopen to researchers, fully processed and accessible, in March 2014.

Please join us for an exciting program featuring the only two scholars that have published research based on the collection: Professor Robert Fishman, Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning, University of Michigan and Paige Glotzer, PhD Candidate, Department of History, Johns Hopkins University. They will be joined by Garrett Power, Professor Emeritus of Law, University of Maryland School of Law and the panel chair, Mary Ryan, John Martin Vincent Professor of History, Department of History

The Roland Park Company: Building History in Baltimore and Beyond

Tuesday, April 9, 2013, 5:30 pm to 6:30pm
Mason Hall Auditorium, Johns Hopkins University
Find more information on the event from JHU or on Facebook.

This panel will convene urban studies and land planning scholars to discuss the impact of the Roland Park Company’s projects on urban and suburban development, housing policy, race and ethnic relations, and architectural tradition.  From the company’s start in 1891 through the mid-20th century, Baltimore’s Roland Park Company made a major impact on the city’s built environment, played a major role in defining the characteristics of suburbs and suburban life that are now second nature, and left behind a checkered legacy that endures to this day.