While nothing remains to indicate what once transpired here, we pinpoint this location to memorialize the victims of enslavement in America.
Joseph S. Donovan鈥檚 first known business address was here on Light Street, south of Montgomery Street, where he probably began his slave trade before acquiring Austin Woolfolk鈥檚 slave pen in 1843. It was then that ship manifests indicate he was shipping people from Baltimore for sale in the New Orleans market.
According to a 1936 article in the Baltimore Sun, 鈥淛oseph S. Dovovan鈥 (sic) operated a slave market here around 1840 and the 1842 Matchett's Baltimore Directory lists a 鈥淛oseph S. Donovan鈥 at this address. Since the earliest record of him advertising 鈥渃ash for negroes鈥 or of him shipping people south wasn鈥檛 until 1843, it is unclear if his business at this address was in the slave trade.
It is conceivable, though, that he was working the slave trade earlier than the records indicate. Donovan had been managing a tavern since the 1830s, the Vauxhall Garden. As the manager, he was well aware of the business transactions of his regular customers, since one of his services was conveying messages. The business transactions taking place in taverns at this time would certainly have included trading in enslaved workers. It would not have been unusual if Donovan had been acting as agent for some of these traders.
In any case, he raised enough money to be able to purchase Woolfolk鈥檚 pen. Then, as his business grew, he relocated two more times for better access to transportation hubs, once to Camden Street near Light and, finally, to Eutaw Street at Camden.
While nothing remains to indicate what once transpired here, we pinpoint this location to memorialize the victims of enslavement in America.
Intelligence offices were similar to employment agencies, acting as brokers between employees and employers collecting a fee from each. They also acted as brokers for enslavers who didn鈥檛 want to handle the transactions of selling people themselves. This custom of distancing oneself from the sale of a human being became more popular as the slave trade expanded through the 19th century. The General Intelligence Office operated here at Gay and Market (now Baltimore) Streets.
While nothing remains to indicate what once transpired here, we pinpoint this location to memorialize the victims of enslavement in America.
Built before 1782, the Indian Queen Hotel was one of the first public houses erected in Baltimore. It saw many notable guests in its day, such as Presidents Washington, Adams, Van Buren, and Jackson. Francis Scott Key also spent a night here after he had witnessed the 鈥渂ombs bursting in air鈥 over Fort McHenry. It was here that he completed the Star-Spangled Banner.
At that time, the proprietor was a notable hotelier, John Gadsby, who had operated several hotels in his lifetime in Washington, DC and Alexandria, VA. While he ran the Indian Queen, Mr. Gadsby owned 36 people who worked there as waiters. This made him the largest holder of enslaved workers in Baltimore City.
While nothing remains to indicate what once transpired here, we pinpoint this location to memorialize the victims of enslavement in America.
Before trading under his own name, Jonathan Means Wilson was associated with a few other slave traders. During the early 1840s, he worked as an agent for Hope Slatter, then switched to Joseph Donovan in the later 1840s. By 1849, he started his own business on Camden Street a few doors from Light Street. Initially, he was associated here with G.H. Duke, a partnership that lasted until 1856. His new partner was his son-in-law, Moses Hindes. The operation closed at the outbreak of the Civil War.
While nothing remains to indicate what once transpired here, we pinpoint this location to memorialize the victims of enslavement in America.
Elijah Sinners鈥檚 Tammany Hall Hotel was one of the many taverns and hotels in the area where people met to carry on a variety of business transactions. Placing advertisements in local newspapers to arrange business meetings in public houses was a common practice in the early 19th century. In addition to the business of commerce, people would also arrange meetings for social purposes. For example, Thomas Wildey began the International Order of Odd Fellows at an arranged meeting in this location.
The most notorious purpose for arranged meetings at hotels and taverns was for the sale of enslaved people. Austin Woolfolk, for instance, used this location to build up his business until he made enough money to open a slave jail at Pratt and Cove Streets (near today鈥檚 MLK Blvd.) Eventually, the slave trading firm of Franklin & Armfield sent an agent to Baltimore, Franklin鈥檚 nephew James Franklin Purvis, to start operations here in 1831. The F&A business would become the largest traders of people in the U.S., modeling Woolfolk鈥檚 techniques--a network of agents, saturation advertising, and jails/pens as a holding area. Purvis became successful enough that he, too, was able to open a jail in Baltimore at Harford & Aisquith Streets.
While nothing remains to indicate what once transpired here, we pinpoint this location to memorialize the victims of enslavement in America.
Hope Hall Slatter, after working in the slave trade in Georgia for a number of years, moved to Baltimore in 1835 and started building up a business of selling enslaved workers to the Southern market. At this time, cotton was vital to the nation鈥檚 economy. It was just a few years before he gained enough capital to open his own slave jail at 224 W. Pratt Street in 1838. His house was located at one end of the property, while at the other end there was a two-story brick building to house the enslaved. The yard was about 40鈥 x 75鈥, containing some benches, a water nozzle, wash tubs, clothes lines, a brick fireplace, and, of course, an auction block. In addition to housing people to be sold, the jail was used as a kind of rooming house with bars on the windows. Slave traders or enslavers would stay at a hotel or inn while travelling, but they would keep their captives at a jail, such as this, overnight for a fee of 25 cents. Slatter was one of the leading traders in the area, having sold over two thousand people in less than 14 years of trading in Baltimore.
One of his last transactions, before selling his business to Bernard Campbell, was the purchase of about thirty of the seventy+ people who attempted to escape from Washington, D.C., on the schooner Pearl. Slatter and Moore managed to acquire the slaves in order to sell them in Baltimore. A number of traders then sold most of the escapees south. Two of the escapees, however, were sold north due to the intervention of their father, Paul Edmondson, who was a free man. He managed to contact abolitionists in NY, who raised the money to buy two of his children, Emily and Mary. They were sent to NY, where they attended school and were cared for by Harriet Beecher Stowe and Rev. Henry W. Beecher.
Bernard Moore Campbell and his brother Lewis purchased the jail in 1848, when Slatter moved to Alabama. The brothers previously had a modest operation located on Conway Street. Here they expanded considerably, partially owing to the use of the Slatter name.
Between the start of the Civil War in 1861 and the emancipation of slaves in the District of Columbia in 1862, more and more local enslavers began using the slave jails to keep potential runaways. By this time, housing the enslaved became the prime source of income for local slave traders. As the Campbell jail was filled with people, tensions mounted to the point of insurrection. Police were called as fighting erupted May 31, 1862. The inmates did manage to fight courageously with whatever they could get their hands on, but it wasn鈥檛 long before they were subdued. In any case, they did make their mark. Some days later, Campbell was scheduled to testify in D.C. concerning compensation for people being freed in the District of Columbia. When he appeared before the committee, it was noted that he had a welt across his forehead and a swollen, black eye.
It was a year later that slave jails were finally closed in Baltimore on July 24, 1863, shortly after the Battle of Gettysburg. It was then that Union troops marched up to the Slatter/Campbell jail and Colonel William Birney presented to the gatekeeper special order #202, 鈥渁n action by the government giving him the authority to free the slaves held in the traders鈥 pens throughout the city.鈥 The colonel and his men found 26 men, 1 boy, 29 women, and 3 infants held in the jail. Sixteen of the men had been shackled together. After they were all set free, the men enlisted in the United States Colored Troops. A large crowd of family, friends, and well-wishers greeted the prisoners as they left the jail.
On Beechwood Drive, leading up to the Rawlings Conservatory in Druid Hill Park stands a small historical marker. Erected in 1992, it sits where the main clay tennis courts in Druid Hill Park once stood. It was at these courts that one of the earliest Civil Rights protests in America took place: a tennis match. On Sunday, July 11th, 1948, a group of black and white tennis players gathered at two of the 鈥渨hites only鈥 clay courts to play. The game was organized by the civil rights activist group the Young Progressives of Maryland.聽 At the time, African American tennis players had to go to separate courts in the park to play tennis. These courts were crumbling and in much worse condition than the 鈥渨hites only鈥 ones. However, this ban on interracial tennis matches was not written in any law. Instead, it was an informal city policy enforced by the police. Because of this, the Young Progressives saw the courts as a good target for a protest. The Young Progressives had already held multiple interracial matches at the clay courts protesting segregation. However, these matches were often on Sundays during church services, so few people noticed them. For the July 11th match, the Young Progressives wanted to draw a larger crowd. They posted a flier reading 鈥淜ILL JIM CROW! DEMAND YOUR RIGHTS! Organize to smash discrimination in recreational facilities.鈥 They also sent a letter to the superintendent of the Bureau of Recreation telling him their plan to hold an interracial tennis match at the park. Their attempts at drawing a crowd on July 11th were more than successful. Hundreds of people had come to the clay tennis courts to support the Young Progressives. The Park Police were also at the courts waiting for the players to start. The players included four men and four women, with two African Americans and two whites in each group. The men were the first to try and start a game. However, as soon as they went to serve the ball, they were immediately told to leave or be arrested. The players refused to leave, and sat down on the courts. The police had to carry them off the court in order to arrest them. The women then attempted to play, but they too were arrested. Along with the players, many people in the crowd and later outside the Northern Police Station were also arrested for disorderly conduct. In total, 22 people were arrested in relation to the protest. Those who were arrested were accused of violating park rules, disturbing the peace, and/or conspiracy to unlawfully assemble. Only 7 people charged with disturbing the peace served out a jail sentence. All of the other charges were dropped because what the protesters had done was not actually illegal. This case was an important first step in Maryland鈥檚 long Civil Rights movement. It was the first time in Maryland history that both Blacks and Whites protestors appeared in court together claiming that Jim Crow laws violated their rights. Today, the tennis courts are still a regularly visited spot in Druid Hill Park. However, the courts that were in use when the Young Progressives played their match in 1948 were removed in 1989. All that stands as a reminder of the old clay courts is the historical sign near the Rawlings Conservatory. The sign, entitled 鈥淧laying for Civil Rights,鈥 is specifically dedicated to the events of June 11th, 1948, including a short explanation of the protest and why it happened. This is meant to ensure that the courage shown by the activists on that day will never be forgotten. The research and writing of this article was funded by two grants: one from the Maryland Heritage Areas Authority and one from the Baltimore National Heritage Area.
While nothing remains to indicate what once transpired here, we pinpoint this location to memorialize the victims of enslavement in America.
The General Wayne Inn was one of the many inns, hotels, and taverns, where enslaved workers were purchased or sold. For instance, the following ad was posted August 4, 1817. 鈥10 or 15 Negroes Wanted. From 10 to 25 years of age, for which, if speedy application is made, the most liberal prices will be given. Apply at John Cugles, sign of General Wayne, head of Market Street, to ZACHARIAH SAMUEL.鈥 The buyer was probably looking for people to 鈥渟ell south.鈥
After its incorporation in the late 18th century, the population of Baltimore grew very quickly along with the expansion of the new country. One of the many 鈥渢rades鈥 that grew along with the city was the sale of people. There was a strong market in Baltimore in the early 19th century for enslaved workers, for several reasons. First, local Maryland farmers had shifted from a labor-intensive tobacco crop to the growing of cereal grains, which required less work and contributed to a surplus of slave labor in the area. Secondly, Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin in 1793, which quickly and easily separated cotton fibers from their seeds. The cotton industry then became incredibly profitable, which fueled a desire for more land and forced labor in the South. The third factor was that the importation of people for sale was outlawed in 1808, meaning enslavers could only obtain enslaved workers from within the United States. Therefore, farmers in Maryland began to sell their surplus enslaved labor to enslavers in the South and West.
This domestic slave trading, known as the Second Middle Passage, replaced the international slave trade in 1808 and became a integral to the new nation鈥檚 economy, which depended heavily on the growth of cotton. Historians estimate that about one million enslaved people were sold and moved around the country between 1808 and the abolition of slavery in 1865. About one-third of all marriages between enslaved people were broken up by these forced relocations. About one-fifth of enslaved children were separated from their parents. Needless to say, the trauma of these forced separations was devastating for the people who suffered through them.
While nothing remains to indicate what once transpired here, we pinpoint this location to memorialize the victims of enslavement in America.
James Franklin Purvis arrived in Baltimore around 1831 to act as an agent for his uncle, Isaac Franklin, whose firm was the largest purveyor of human beings in the country, Franklin & Armfield of Alexandria, VA. Purvis followed the same business methods the firm copied from another Baltimore slave trader, Austin Woolfolk: network of agents, saturation advertising, and building a jail to use as a holding area for the people being bought and sold.
Like Woolfolk, he started by placing advertisements in local newspapers to arrange meetings at local hotels, like Sinners鈥 Hotel or Whitman鈥檚 Eagle Hotel, where he purchased people to then sell South. It wasn鈥檛 long before Purvis was able to acquire a property at this location to build a slave jail. He also operated from an office at 2 S. Calvert Street near Baltimore Street, possibly choosing this location to be near the docks and the large Centre Market shopping area.
While nothing remains to indicate what once transpired here, we pinpoint this location to memorialize the victims of enslavement in America.
Like all inns and taverns of the early 19th century, the Three Tuns Tavern was used as a meeting place for social and business transactions, not unlike coffee shops today. Austin Woolfolk used this location in his early days as a slave trader before he built up one of the largest slave trading businesses in the country.
While nothing remains to indicate what once transpired here, we pinpoint this location to memorialize the victims of enslavement in America.
Slave trader James Franklin Purvis, followed the custom of the day, which was to use a hotel or tavern as a business address. One of the locations he used for this purpose was Whitman's Eagle Hotel here on West Pratt Street, between Charles and Light Streets. His two other locations where he acquired and/or sold people were 2 S. Calvert Street and on Harford Avenue between Biddle and Preston Streets. He used his Harford Avenue location as his jail, where he kept the people he purchased.
While nothing remains to indicate what once transpired here, we pinpoint this location to memorialize the victims of enslavement in America.
Austin Woolfolk was one of the first major slave traders in Baltimore, beginning as a 19-year-old in 1816. He was instrumental in turning the trade into a business. Like most traders at that time, he started with informal transactions in taverns and hotels. Once he acquired enough people to sell South, he would march them chained together over a thousand miles to Georgia, where his uncle would sell them to local planters. Eventually, he expanded his operation with saturation advertising in newspapers and by distributing handbills throughout the region searching for people to buy. He also employed a network of agents who would scour the region for prospective 鈥渟tock.鈥 Finally, he built a residence and slave jail at Pratt & Cove Streets (near present day Martin Luther King Boulevard). By setting up his business at a fixed location, he gave his trade an air of respectability. The idea of creating a jail/pen for the purpose of collecting and holding people for sale was a new concept at the time. This idea and his business model were emulated by the largest firm of human traffickers in the country, Franklin & Armfield. Woolfolk continued his operation until retiring a very wealthy man in 1842. Joseph Donovan purchased this location and operated there from 1843 until 1846, when he moved to 13 Camden Street near the harbor.
Once his business was established, Woolfolk was able to ship the enslaved from Fells Point and the Inner Harbor to New Orleans and other southern ports, where they were sold to their new owners.聽It wasn鈥檛 long before those being 鈥渟old South鈥 became aware of the hell those two words represented, beginning immediately when their families were broken apart. Knowing what awaited them was more than some could bear. One young woman took her child鈥檚 life and then her own in the spring of 1826 while in Woolfolk鈥檚 pen. In 1821, a man slit his own throat at the wharf after learning that he had been sold to a trader.聽
From "Baltimore's Own Version of 'Amistad:' Slave Revolt" by Ralph Clayton (Full article can be found ) On one night, April 20, 1826, 31 enslaved people, bound with chains, began their fateful journey down to the wharf at the foot of Fell's Point. There, they were placed in small boats and rowed out to the schooner Decatur, at anchor a short distance offshore. Several hours later, the captain, Walter Galloway ordered the anchor pulled and the sails set for the journey down the Chesapeake. There was a common practice of allowing small parties of slaves above deck. Five days out to sea, the captain made his way above deck for inspection.聽During the tour he noticed a great deal of mud on the anchor stocks and took a seat astride the rail to scrape it away. Suddenly, from beyond his field of vision, two enslaved people, Thomas Harrod and Manuel Wilson, rushed toward him, seized his legs, and threw him overboard. After subduing the other crewmen, the newly freed people attempted to make the remaining crewman steer the ship, but they had killed the only two people who knew how to man the schooner. The vessel floated at sea for five days before being apprehended by a whaling ship.聽 In an amazing turn of events, 13 captives escaped. The others were re-captured and sold away.聽One enslaved man, William Bowser, was put on trial for the murders of Galloway and the other seaman. After his capture, he was returned to New York City to await trial. According to the New York Christian Enquirer, Austin Woolfolk attended the trial (an account he was to later deny). During the trial, William Bowser stood and looked directly at Woolfolk. He proceeded to tell the trader that he forgave him for all the injuries he had brought upon him and that he hoped to meet him in heaven. On December 15, 1826, Bowser was executed.聽 Back in Baltimore, Benjamin Lundy, editor of the abolitionist newspaper The Genius of Universal Emancipation, wrote a scathing report, attacking the character of Woolfolk. Calling him a "monster in human shape" for his conduct during the trial of Bowser, Lundy completed the column by stating, 鈥淗ereafter, let no man speak of the humanity of Woolfolk." Woolfolk was incensed and he went looking for Lundy. According to Lundy he was heading toward the post office to mail some letters when Woolfolk found him. An argument ensued, during which Woolfolk, the much stronger of the two men, knocked Lundy to the ground. Although Lundy offered no resistance he was savagely choked and beaten by Woolfolk. Only the quick actions of several bystanders saved Lundy's life.
The following month Woolfolk's trial on charges of attempted murder took place in Baltimore. During the trial he denied having been present at the trial of Bowser and brought several witnesses into the court in his defense. Nevertheless the jury found Woolfolk guilty. When Woolfolk rose to hear the sentence that Judge Brice had decided upon, many in the court were stunned to learn that it was to be a fine in the amount of only one dollar. After the trial, Austin Woolfolk continued as one of the leading traders in the history of slavery, profiting by tens of thousands of dollars* a year well into the 1830's.* Hundreds of thousands of dollars in today's currency
While nothing remains to indicate what once transpired here, we pinpoint this location to memorialize the victims of enslavement in America.
Baltimore was one of the nation鈥檚 largest seaports by the early 19th century. In addition to receiving raw goods from the recently opened Northwest Territory (area northwest of the Ohio River) and shipping them around the world, it was also a major hub for the transport of enslaved people. Packet boats arrived regularly from the Eastern Shore with an array of products, including enslaved people to be sold to the many local traders. The enslaved would be sold from the ships or the nearby auction houses. Yates and Harrison (located on this wharf) was one of the auction houses on and near the docks that took advantage of the proximity to ships loaded with cargo. More than 20,000 people were 鈥渟old south鈥 from here.
For more information on the growth of the slave trade in Baltimore, see General Wayne Inn entry.
The Southern District Police Station at the corner of East Ostend and Patapsco streets was constructed in 1896. The building was designed by local architect Jackson Coale Gott. Born in 1829, Gott established his own firm in 1863, joined the American Institute of Architects in 1871. His works include the Maryland Penitentiary completed in 1894, two years before the police station. For close to a century, the building served as a police station complete with holding cells and a courtroom until the station closed in 1980.
In 1999, the building was given new life when it was bought and renovated by the South Baltimore Learning Center (SBLC). The police station still holds its original floors, a jail cell, and even bullet holes in the former shooting gallery. In their historic building turned state-of-the-art learning center, SBLC educates over a thousand adults each year with a variety of adult education and related life-skills training focusing on adult literacy and helping students achieve a Maryland High School Diploma.
South Bond Street features a handful of nineteenth century wooden houses, including several built before the War of 1812. A relatively diverse population of European descent made up the neighborhood during the early 1800s. Martin Breitenoder, a German, owned a bakery at 820-22 S. Bond (c.1802). His neighbors included a French cabinetmaker, an Italian named S. Belli, who manufactured 鈥減hilosophical apparatus and other works in pewter and lead,鈥 and an Irishman who ran a tavern at the 鈥淪ign of the Revenue Barge.鈥 Irish, English, and Scottish boot and shoemakers are nearby, one of whom, Edward Hagthorp, made fine shoes at 816 S. Bond.
The street鈥檚 finest house, 830 S. Bond (c. 1783) passed from builder Thomas Winning to his daughter in the 1790s before Thames Street innkeeper Daniel James acquired the house after the War of 1812.
809 South Bond Street is a good example of the simple wooden houses that filled Fells Point at that time. Deed research has only identified the owners as far back as 1851, when the property was sold to John Fernandis and Maria Locke.
This church is the oldest in the Upper Fells Point Historic District, completed in 1848. Originally dedicated as a 鈥渕ariner鈥檚 church,鈥 it has been home to several community institutions over the past 170+ years.
South Broadway Baptist Church is the present-day name belonging to the oldest congregation established by Lumbee Indians in Baltimore City. The congregation鈥檚 first meetings are recorded as having taken place in 1952, but services were held in different Lumbee homes and rented storefronts until 1967, when the congregation purchased its first building at 1117 W. Cross Street, and adopted the name West Cross Street Baptist Church. As the church grew, so did the Indian community鈥檚 interest in it. West Cross Street Baptist got permission from the Fells Point Methodist Board of Missions to use the church at 211 S. Broadway for their annual homecomings, due to its capacious size and location on 鈥渢he reservation.鈥 In 1977, Mayor William Donald Schaefer attended a homecoming celebration and the congregation shared with him their desire to purchase the building at 211 S. Broadway. The City of Baltimore helped to arrange a loan for the down payment and funds to rehabilitate the historic structure. Members of the church organized fundraising efforts to pay back the loan. On June 11, 1978, they lined up at a vacant lot at the corner of N. Ann and E. Baltimore streets for a 鈥渧ictory march鈥 to their new space. A majority Lumbee congregation attends South Broadway Baptist Church to this day.
South Broadway Baptist wasn鈥檛 the first Indian institution to occupy 211 S. Broadway. In 1970, the Southeast Community Action Agency (caa) leased 211 S. Broadway on behalf of the American Indian Study Center. The Center used the back entrance of what was still 鈥渢he Methodist church鈥 at that time. It occupied an office adjoining the sanctuary, an office on the second floor, and held culture class in the fellowship hall, until it acquired its current facility at 113 S. Broadway, in 1972. In partnership with the Baltimore City Board of Education, the Center made a successful application for federal Indian Education funding and Baltimore鈥檚 Indian Education Program began in 1973. Its first office was the room on the second floor of 211 S. Broadway that the American Indian Study Center had previously occupied. The office later relocated to a Baltimore City Public School.
Just outside the limits of Baltimore City, on a piece of land jutting out into the Patapsco River, Maryland鈥檚 first steel plants were built. In 1887, the Maryland Steel Company purchased an area of agricultural marshland called Sparrows Point. Four years later in 1891, the steel mill opened and made the first steel ever produced in Maryland. While the mill manufactured steel for many different purposes, its main focus was on making steel for shipbuilding. One of the most important ships ever built at the Sparrows Point shipyard was the SS Ancon. The Ancon, built between 1901 and 1902, was one of 鈥渢wo of the first cargo steamers of a large size ever constructed in this country,鈥 according to the January 1902 edition of Marine Engineering. It was also the first ship to officially pass through the Panama Canal in 1914, which was a massive turning point in world trade.
In 1916, Bethlehem Steel bought the steel plant. During Bethlehem Steel鈥檚 ownership, Sparrows Point would become a pivotal steel manufacturer. In the 1930s and 鈥50s, the plant produced steel beams used in the Empire State Building, the Golden Gate Bridge, and the Chesapeake Bay Bridge. During World War II, Bethlehem Steel plants produced about one fifth of the entire Navy at the time. Sparrows Point, along with the nearby Bethlehem-Fairfield Shipyard, helped build 鈥淟iberty鈥 cargo ships for the United States鈥檚 Emergency Shipbuilding program during the war. The Sparrows Point and Bethlehem-Fairfield Shipyards built two of the first 14 Liberty ships ever launched. At its height in the 1950s, the complex at Sparrows Point was the largest steel plant in the world and employed 33,000 workers.
The plant also had a lot of influence in the history of civil and workers鈥 rights in Baltimore. In 1890, 84 Hungarian and African American workers at the mill unsuccessfully went on strike due to poor work conditions. For years, workers at the plant called for unionization and better treatment. Eventually, Bethlehem Steel set up the Employee Representation Plan (ERP) at Sparrows Point. However, the ERP did not actually help the workers much, and acted more as a way to stop them from forming labor organizations. This struggle continued until 1941, when Bethlehem Steel allowed its workers to form their own union. Even with unionization, they continued to face workers鈥 issues until the steel plant closed down in 2012.
Alongside the problems with labor rights, African American workers also encountered racism at Sparrows Point. While the plants were not segregated, the workers and their families were placed in totally separate communities based on their race. African American housing was often of lower quality than the white housing. One exception to this was the thriving African American enclave of Turner Station. Among the most notable people who lived in Turner Station was , whose cancer cells were the source of the first immortal human cell line. Lacks moved to Turner Station in 1941 so that her husband, Day Lacks, could work at Sparrows Point. In 1941, Executive Order 8802 was passed, banning racial discrimination in defense industries, which included Sparrows Point. Later on, the Consent Decree in 1974 was signed. This helped to ensure equal pay and opportunity for the plant鈥檚 non-white workers. In 2001, after a long period of financial downfall, Bethlehem Steel declared bankruptcy. After this, Sparrows Point would be owned by four different steel companies before it was liquidated in 2012.
Today, the area is still a large industrial hub, hosting distribution centers for companies like Under Armour and Amazon. However, most of what remained of the huge steel plant has been demolished. Though its importance in American history is often overlooked, the people who worked and lived near the plant still carry on its monumental memory.
In the 1930s, when the managers at Bethlehem Steel remained staunchly opposed to unionization, labor activists at Sparrow鈥檚 Point faced real challenges. According to Ellen Pinter, men couldn鈥檛 wear union buttons for fear of losing their jobs. During the struggles for unionization in the mills, several of the organizers were foreign-born residents of neighborhoods like Highlandtown in the southeastern section of the city along Eastern Avenue. These activists tried to organize their fellow workers by speaking to them in their native languages in places where ethnic workers would congregate. For these activists, immigrant and native-born, public speaking became the best way to advance their cause. Nathaniel Parks, a retired steelworker and former resident of Sparrow鈥檚 Point, describes one way that activists exercised their right to free speech during the early 1930s:
鈥淭he company never did allow people to come in and talk union at Sparrow鈥檚 Point. It was an island鈥nd it happened that the car pulled up a half a block from this corner鈥nd a lady got out [of the car] and a man got out, and they walked over to this iron [street light] pole, and then she handcuffed him to the pole. And then he started putting in his spiel about union: what its advantages was, what they were trying to do. And then, the police, they were in a quarrel; they didn鈥檛 know what to do. They ran around trying to find a hacksaw or something to get him untied from this pole. And he got his spiel before they got him. And then when they put him in this patrol wagon and carried him on the other side of the bridge, he was still with his head out of the window鈥lasting out just about what the union was in for, what the people was in for. Oh, it was really nice to see what was going to happen the way the company was treating men on the jobs in those days鈥︹During the 1930s and 1940s, a traffic island at the intersection of Eastern Avenue and Lehigh Street became a hotspot for pro-union soapbox speakers. Many of these speakers were women, the daughters and wives of steel workers. Most of the work in the steel mills at this time was restricted to men. Male labor activists, therefore, faced the potential of unemployment and blacklists if they were caught organizing. Women, however, did not face this direct threat and used their voices to rally support for the union. Besides speaking in a public arena, like the traffic median on Eastern Avenue, women also went door-to-door and backyard-to-backyard, preaching to women about the union cause as they went about their housework.
Light and music onced poured out the windows and door of the Sphinx Club on Pennsylvania Avenue but only club members (and musicians) could get inside to enjoy the drinks and entertainment. Today, the building sits boarded-up and waiting on a planned redevelopment by the Druid Heights CDC to bring back music and life to the block. In December 2002, Sevety-three-year-old jazz singer and educator Ruby Glover gave a tour of the Avenue to a Baltimore Sun reporter lamented the sight of the Sphinx Club sitting vacant. "It was always kept so well. Tilghman must be turning over in his grave." Charles Phillip Tilghman founded the club in 1946 and ran the business as an elegant private club up until his death in 1988. Tilghman recruited Furman L. Templeton, director of the Baltimore Urban League (with offices nearby at 1841 Pennsylvania Avenue), to chair of the club's advisory board. Glover recalled the scene:
There's nothing there that even gives you the image. It was always so pretty, so lit up. It really was a private club. And my impression was that it was for elite blacks. That was where they hung out. And you could always sing when you went in because they kept a house band, Chico Johnson and his organ trio and Earlene Reed, singing in there.Ruby Glover recalled how musicians always went to the Sphinx Club right after nearby jazz venues, including Club Tijuana on Clifton Avenue, Red Fox on Fulton Avenue, and The Comedy Club and The Ubangi Club on Pennsylvania Avenue, closed for the night. She explained:
And whomever was down The Avenue performing, after the clubs closed that's where you went. Put on a good show in there. If you were a musician all you had to do is ring the bell. They'd tell you, 'Hey, come on in here, give us a little song.'But four years after Charles Tilghman's death the "old Sphinx Club" shut down. By 2002, the Baltimore Sun described it as "dreary." The building continued to remain vacant and boarded for over two decades. Fortunately, the Druid Heights Community Development Corporation is seeking to change that. In 2011, the Druid Heights CDC announced their plans to turn the building and an adjoining property into the Negro Baseball Museum and Restaurant鈥攂ringing new jobs and visitors to Avenue again.
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Like James Keelty, who built many of the rowhouses in Edmondson Village, many of the neighborhood鈥檚 new residents were Catholic and attended church to the east at St. Edward's on Poplar Grove or farther west at St. William of York. After James Keelty鈥檚 daughter died in 1922 at the age of six, he decided to build a new church for his neighbors and donate the building to the Archdiocese who dedicated the building as a memorial to Nora Bernardine Keelty.
Completed in 1929, the church was designed by architect Francis E. Tormey who also designed the Furst Memorial Chapel at Most Holy Redeemer Cemetery and churches including St. Piux V (1907) at Edmondson Avenue and Schroeder Street, St. Josephs's (1913), and St. Bernard's (1926).
St. Edward's organized in 1878 as a mission of St. Peter the Apostle, which was led by Fr. Owen B. Carrigan. Carrigan supervised the construction of the first church in 1880 for a congregation that likely included Catholic workers from factories scattered across the Gwynns Falls Valley.
In 1923, the church expanded with a new school, convent, and rectory. A growing congregation of 5,000 people forced the church to hold nine masses every Sunday. In 1938, the congregation started a campaign for a larger building and dedicated the present church on March 9, 1941.
A true gem of Baltimore religious architecture, the handsome Gothic Revival tower of St. Luke鈥檚 Church is matched by its richly detailed sanctuary. While architect J.W. Priest oversaw the completion of the building in 1857, five other architects also played some part. Unlike many historic congregations that left the neighborhood, St. Luke鈥檚 opened its doors on July 10, 1853 and has kept them open for over 150 years.
There are few places where you can stand in the middle of a room and almost everything you see is made or decorated by Tiffany: glass, paint, finishes, etc. St. Mark's Evangelical Lutheran Church on St. Paul Street, with its entire interior designed by the Tiffany Company of New York, is one of them.
In the 1890's, the St. Mark's congregation engaged architect Joseph Evans Sperry (who would later go on to design Baltimore's Bromo Seltzer Tower, among other notable buildings) to help them build a new church. Sperry came up with a Romanesque design that is known for its heavy stones, arched doors and windows, and short columns. Romanesque design comes from central and western Europe, where many of St. Mark's congregants also traced their lineages. To this day, an Estonian congregation called EELK Baltimore Markuse Kogudus continues to use St. Mark's for worship each month. In 1898, the church was completed and since then has been one of Baltimore's outstanding examples of Romanesque architecture.
On the inside, St. Mark's engaged the Tiffany Glass Decorating Company, under the direction of Rene de Quelen (Tiffany's head artist), to come up with a plan that was equally fitting to the grand architecture. De Quelen used a Byzantine approach, with deep colors, lots of jewels, and many mosaics. Louis Comfort Tiffany, son of Tiffany's founder and then head of the company, had studied art in Paris and had spent time in Spain and North Africa where he learned about this approach to decorating, and is thought to have helped direct de Quelen in his approach. The interior boasts Tiffany windows and Rubio marble inlaid with mother of pearl for the altar, pulpit, and lectern.
At a ground-breaking ceremony for the Immanuel Reformed Church on June 24, 1922, twelve trustees, including Charles C. Zies, Sr. and John H. Weller, signed a contract for the construction of the new building. Plans filed a few days later for a white marble structure with a capacity of 750 people at a cost of $50,000. In May 1924, the new building served as the site of celebration for the 鈥済olden jubilee鈥 of the Baltimore Classis of the German Synod of the East of the Reformed Church in the United States, including lectures by Rev. Dr. H.G. Schlueter on 鈥淭he Historical Background of Baltimore Classis鈥 and Rev. J.G. Grimmer on 鈥淏altimore Classis Then and Now.鈥 A classis is an organization of pastors and elders that governs a group of local churches.
In the late 1950s, the church followed others in the neighborhood in a move away from the area, breaking ground on April 7, 1957 at a site on Edmondson Avenue west of Rolling Road in Catonsville. The new building is a 鈥渃ontemporary brick church.鈥 By 1958, the building was home to St. Mark鈥檚 Baptist Church, also known as St. Mark鈥檚 Institutional Baptist Church, that continues to worship at the building up through the present.
The story of Hampden鈥檚 name can be traced back to St. Mary鈥檚 Community Center. Originally established as St. Mary鈥檚 Episcopal Church, the congregation started meeting in Hampden in the 1850s. Under the leadership of Henry Mankin this congregation petitioned the Diocese of Maryland for a new Episcopal church for his neighborhood, which was accepted in 1854. Mankin also named the neighborhood in honor of John Hampden, an English politician. Mankin admired him for the stand he took on taxation of the American colonies. Prior to American Revolution, Benjamin Franklin and John Adams were among those who referenced John Hampden to justify their cause.
The congregation鈥檚 original location was at Falls Road and 36th Street. However in 1858 the city needed this location for a reservoir, and along with the surrounding properties, condemned the original location. Today the reservoir is no longer in use and is now part of Roosevelt Park. Without a location to meet the congreation went a year without services. On May 31, 1860 construction began on a new church on Roland Ave.
At the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861, St. Mary鈥檚 first reverend left to become a chaplain for the Union Army, yet he did not resign his commission. He reported in 1863 that the church was burned down, but not before the carpeting had been stolen. In addtion Union soldiers camped on what is today Union Ave and stole the wooden fence for firewood. While the Federal Government did compensate the parish in a settlement, it was not enough for it to continue its work. The parish nearly closed. It was not until 1872, after the first reverend resigned, that a new rector was elected. A year later the congregation was able to raise the funds to lay a new cornerstone to rebuild the church where the structure stands today.
St. Mary鈥檚 operated as a church until 1999. It evolved into the St. Mary鈥檚 Community Center in 2002. Today the Baltimore Shakespeare Factory performs in the center鈥檚 Great Hall. This company recreates as closely as is possible the staging conditions, spirit, and atmosphere created by Shakespeare鈥檚 theatre company during the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods.
Among a sea of church steeples that dot East Baltimore, the five domes of St. Michael the Archangel Ukrainian Church stand apart with their burnished glow. Since 1992, the Cossack Baroque style church, modeled after Saint Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv, has been home to Baltimore鈥檚 Ukrainian Catholic community, though the founding congregation pre-dates the current building.
Since the 19th century, Baltimore has witnessed three waves of Ukrainian immigration. The first began in the 1880鈥檚 and continued through World War I, with most Ukrainians arriving in the United States at that time hailing from West Ukraine. These immigrants were Catholic and established the first St. Michael the Archangel Ukrainian Church in 1893 meeting mostly in private homes or at other local Catholic churches.
The second wave of Ukrainian immigration occurred in the 1930s, when Ukrainians left their homeland to escape Soviet persecution and the threat of being sentenced to Soviet labor camps or sent to Siberia. The Holodomor famine, which resulted in millions of deaths of Ukrainians between 1932 and 1933, was another factor that motivated immigration. The famine was man-made, the result of programs implemented by Josef Stalin that took farms away from peasants and forced them to live on collective farms. As a result, agricultural productivity plummeted, causing severe food shortages. When Ukrainians rebelled against the Soviet agricultural collectivization policies, Stalin put towns in Ukraine on a blacklist and prevented them from getting food.
In the 1980鈥檚, Jewish Ukrainians again immigrated to the United States to escape the rising antisemitism present in the Soviet Union. During this time, 70% of Baltimore鈥檚 Soviet Jewish population were Ukrainians, with one-third of them hailing from Odessa.
Although St. Michael the Archangel Ukrainian Catholic Church moved locations several times, it was important to the congregation that they remain in East Baltimore where a Ukrainian community had planted roots and grown. By 1912, the congregation moved from meeting in homes to having services in a building at 524 block of S. Wolfe Street. The current church, located on the corner of Eastern and Montford avenues, across from Patterson Park, was consecrated in 1992.
From the beginning, the new church stood out from other East Baltimore houses of worship. Modeled after the Saint Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv, St. Michael the Archangel boasts five teapot-shaped onion domes covered in gold leaf and 45 tons of copper. The outer surface of the church is covered in stucco. The bell from the church on S. Wolfe Street was moved to the current church鈥檚 bell tower.
Overall, the estimated cost of St. Michael the Archangel totaled $1.25 million, including the lot on Eastern Avenue, purchased from the city for $10,000. A 2022 article in The Sun reported that some funds for the church came from parish pierogi sales.
Saint Peter Claver Church at Pennsylvania Avenue and Fremont Street takes its鈥 name from a sixteenth-century Spanish priest who is considered the patron saint of slaves. The building dates back to 1888 making it the city鈥檚 second oldest African-American Roman Catholic Church. True to the inspiration of Saint Claver, the congregation and their leaders, have long been active in seeking equal rights for African Americans in Baltimore. Father Henry Offer led the church from 1960 to 1971 and was a member of the NAACP and Urban League. In 1968, he was one of the city鈥檚 African American leaders to speak out after the riots following the death of Martin Luther King, Jr., criticizing Governor Spiro Agnew for laying blame for the unrest on local black activists. Later that same year, the parish chartered buses to transport its members, as well as community residents, to the Poor People鈥檚 March on Washington. The march, planned by the by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference before King鈥檚 death, was led by Civil Rights activist Ralph Abernathy. In 1966, Father Philip Berrigan advocated for the disinvested urban neighborhoods from his position at the church. Berrigan, whose long career as a Catholic activist included burning Vietnam War draft cards with his brother Daniel Berrigan and others of the Catonsville Nine. In the years leading up to this, Berrigan worked from St. Peter Claver to establish the Baltimore Interfaith Peace Mission and actively lobbied and demonstrated for the city鈥檚 African American communities. Another Civil Rights activist coming from St. Peter Claver in the 1960s was Father John Harfmann. In 1967, Harfmann, who was white, worked with Black activist Dickey Burke to provide recreation opportunities in West Baltimore through Operation CHAMP. During his tenure at the church, he also participated in integration activities with church members and actively supported efforts of BUILD (Baltimoreans United In Leadership Development) to create housing, provide job opportunities, and rebuild neighborhoods in the city. At his funeral, fellow priests remembered how Harfmann was 鈥渨holly dedicated to being a priest in the African American community,鈥 and recalled him as 鈥渁 tireless fighter for justice who did things that people said were not possible.鈥 Today, the church continues their long tradition of civil rights and community activism, in part, by hosting the No Boundaries Coalition that works to unite communities around the church that have historically been divided by racial and economic barriers.
Now in its sixth decade, the St. Philip鈥檚 edifice still serves the vibrant community that built it, despite the exigencies of Baltimore鈥檚 history over the years since the building鈥檚 dedication in 1958.
The ordinary or quotidian in architecture often masks the unique, especially if time serves to dull the patina of something鈥檚 newness. St. Philip鈥檚 Lutheran Church is case-in-point: a faded Modernist gem, the church nevertheless embodies the remarkable story of its congregation鈥檚 persistence.
Now in its sixth decade, the St. Philip鈥檚 edifice still serves the vibrant community that built it, despite the exigencies of Baltimore鈥檚 history over the years since the building鈥檚 dedication in 1958.
Home to the nation鈥檚 second-oldest African American Lutheran congregation, St. Philip鈥檚 is also the first church in America to be built under the auspices of urban renewal. Accordingly, its design reflects both church-goers鈥 rapidly-changing expectations in the years after World War II and city planners鈥 embrace of modernist planning solutions. Set back from the street and moderately scaled鈥攍ike a suburban house鈥擲t. Philip鈥檚 Lutheran Church reflects mostly the ideas of its pastor at the time, the Rev. Francis B. Smith. Congregational lore and extant sketches by Rev. Smith attest to his direct involvement in the building鈥檚 design; the architect, Frederic Moehle, seems mostly to have translated Rev. Smith鈥檚 directions into the final, three-dimensional form.
Despite its modest exterior, St. Philip鈥檚 created considerable architectural drama within. Alone among Baltimore鈥檚 contemporary religious buildings, St. Philip鈥檚 low ceiling is illuminated extensively by continuous, floor-to-ceiling windows along both sides. An extensive clerestory window (now, unfortunately, covered over) washed the altar and its podium with 鈥渋neffable light.鈥 Otherwise, the original finishes of the church interior were entirely consistent with the Modernist鈥檚 creed: unfinished block and brick masonry (stacked bond), naturally-finished wood, linoleum tile floor, and serene abstraction throughout the space.
Rev. Smith and the St. Philip鈥檚 congregation fought hard to wrest those qualities from the City鈥檚 鈥淯rban Renewal Plan 3-A鈥 鈥 a.k.a. the 鈥淏roadway Redevelopment Plan鈥 鈥 laid out by architect Alex Cochran and first announced publicly in 1950. St. Philip鈥檚 had occupied a historic structure on Eden Street, designated by Plan 3-A to be demolished and appropriated for Dunbar High School鈥檚 expanded athletic fields. No provision was made in Cochran鈥檚 original plan to relocate St. Philip鈥檚, but a decade of persistent negotiation between Rev. Smith and Baltimore鈥檚 Redevelopment Commission resulted in the congregation鈥檚 purchase of the present site on Caroline Street. Construction proceeded apace, a year before Cochran鈥檚 own celebrated design for the nearby Church of Our Savior (now demolished) could begin.
Recent changes have tarnished St. Philip鈥檚 architectural shine: roof-top AC units, faux-wood paneling, 鈥渢raditional鈥 chandeliers, and much-needed heat-resistant glazing. An addition at the south-east corner provided accessibility for the disabled. But the building is still substantially the building it was in 1958. Especially on the exterior, the church鈥檚 bulk and orientation still express an ease belied only by Johns Hopkins Hospital鈥檚 looming physical presence immediately to the east. What appears 鈥渜uotidian鈥 is, therefore, merely that superficial change wrought by time; what is of interest at St. Philip鈥檚 remains entirely present, if just below the surface.
In the mid-nineteenth century, Catholic residents of Hampden belonged to the St. Mary of the Assumption parish in Govans, a distant walk from the burgeoning neighborhood. Since the industrial mill village had been built by the owners of the mills for their predominantly white Protestant workers, they had made no accommodations for Catholics to worship in the area. At least until an Irish-Catholic immigrant named Martin Kelly started a small Catholic community. Kelly erected the first non-company housing along Falls Road east of the mills, which grew into the Hampden we know today. Kelly鈥檚 extended family occupied many of the sixteen homes Kelly erected in the 1850s. Others were likely owned by mill employees who could afford to leave the mill villages or by shopkeepers selling goods to other residents in the mill villages. Kelly built a large home for himself on Hickory Avenue, known colloquially as the Kelly Mansion. Fellow Catholics likely knew the house well. Seeking a place to worship closer to home, Kelly persuaded a priest to hold services in his home's parlor, using the piano as an altar. After Kelly's death, his son John donated the land and funds for a new Catholic church in Hampden called St. Thomas Aquinas. Rev. Thomas Foley laid the cornerstone of St. Thomas Aquinas Church on May 12, 1867. The building, designed by famed local architect George Frederick and constructed at the cost of $20,000, was completed on June 18, 1871. Archbishop Martin John Spalding attended the dedication. Today, the church complex consists of the church, rectory, school, and convent. The school was founded in 1873 and the current building went up in 1937. At the time, the school had 320 pupils and a staff of eight, hired from the School Sisters of Notre Dame. In 1973, St. Thomas Aquinas clustered with nearby parishes. Grades one to five attended St. Thomas Aquinas, while middle school students attended St. Bernard's in Waverly. Middle schoolers returned to St. Thomas Aquinas in 1996, seven years after St. Bernard's had become a Korean National Parish (which closed just a year later in 1997). The school reached a crisis point in 2010 when the archdiocese closed thirteen of sixty-four parochial schools in Baltimore. St. Thomas Aquinas avoided closure due to the leadership of its principal, Sister Marie Rose Gusatus. The school took in students from surrounding parishes. However, the school only remained open for another six years. In 2016, the Archdiocese closed St. Thomas Aquinas School along with Seton Keough High School in Southwest Baltimore and John Paul Regional School in Woodlawn. While the archdiocese claimed enrollment in Catholic schools had begun to stabilize after decades of declining enrollment, funding remained low as enrollment costs were kept low to make the schools more affordable. Also, in response to the need for costly improvements, the archdiocese decided it would be best to consolidate the schools.
St. Vincent Cemetery opened in 1853 on a 5-acre parcel located on the country estate of philanthropist Johns Hopkins, which was then located just outside of Baltimore City in today's Clifton Park. Parishioners at St. Vincent De Paul Church had previously used the St. James Cemetery on Harford Road which closed and sold to the city that same year. The church moved all of the bodies interred at St. James to the new St. Vincent Cemetery. In 1940, St. Vincent de Paul Church stopped selling burial plots on the grounds but continued to bury anyone who already held a deed. In the 1950s and 1960s, the cemetery suffered from neglect and repeated vandalism. In 1982, the cemetery closed and many of the grave markers were destroyed or removed in an intentional effort to discourage any attempt to disturb the bodies interred. Left in disarray for thirty years, the graves nearly disappeared under thick weeds and five tons of trash and illegally dumped debris. Fortunately, since 2010, the volunteer-led Friends of St. Vincent Cemetery have been slowly restoring this historic site. Genealogist and volunteer archivist Joyce Erway began compiling research on the cemetery as she investigated her own family tree in the 1990s. Over two decades, she helped to expand the list of known burials at St. Vincent from just 450 to over 4,000 people. Among these known burials is Peter Storm, a local coppersmith who was born on January 22, 1762 and died on November 4, 1842. Storm participated in the battle of Yorktown in 1781 and in the defense of the city against the British attack in 1814. Peter Storm's funeral was held at St. Vincent de Paul Church, and he was initially buried in St. James Cemetery and reinterred at the northeast Baltimore location in 1853.
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