Hey Aperio Log followers– we have a new class working on the Parole Femine/Woman’s Lit Club of Baltimore project, and things are kicking into high gear.

We went on a field trip yesterday to get a sense of the literary environs of Mount Vernon, where many of the early members of the WLCB lived, and a neighborhood that served as the cultural center of Baltimore for much of its history. This tour was a follow-on to a tour I organized for last year’s class, which focused on the homes of writers in the Bolton Hill and Midtown/Belvedere neighborhoods, just north and west of where we were this weekend.

We visited the Maryland Historical Society, where the WLCB papers are housed, and took a walking tour of bookstores and authors’ residences, including the home of Hester Dorsey Richardson, one of the brainchilds behind the club. And of course we had to have lunch at Mt. Vernon Marketplace.

Here’s where we went–including a few stops that were planned but we didn’t quite get to. Bookstores and libraries are cross-referenced to my “Books in Baltimore, Then and Now” tour on the izi.TRAVEL app.

1. Maryland Historical Society
2. 113 W. Monument, former home of Hester Dorsey Richardson
3. 711, 825, and 829 Park Ave., residences of Maud Graham Early (and daughters Lily & Eveline), Eliza Ridgely, first secretary of the WLCB, and Elizabeth King, the WLCB Vice President who led the faction wanting to expand the scope of the Club in 1893
4. 515 N. Howard, site of Frigate Book Shop (#14 on Books in Baltimore tour)
5. SW corner of Mulberry & Park, in Baltimore’s old Chinatown, former site of Abe Sherman’s bookstore (#4 (#14 on Books in Baltimore tour)
6. 408 Park Ave., site of New Era radical bookstore (#5)
7. Mt. Vernon Marketplace (LUNCH!)
8. Enoch Pratt Free Library (#6)
9. SE corner Mulberry & N. Charles, site of Remington’s Book Shop (#7), shop frequented by the ladies of the WLCB (and publisher of some of their works)
10. 411 N. Charles, former home of Jane Zacharias
11. 18 E. Franklin, former home of Annie Weston Whitney
12. 516 N. Charles, site of A People United clothing store, Cokesbury religious bookstore (#8), and Haughton & Haughton dressmakers (owned by Louisa C. O. Haughton; read a post about Haughton & Haughton here)
13. 518 N. Charles, site of Louie’s Bookstore & Café (#9)
14. Peabody Library (#10)
15. Peabody Book Shop and Beer Stube (#11)
16. 115 E. Eager, former residence of Mary Spear Tiernan
17. 1024 St. Paul, former residence of Louise Clarkson Whitelock (she later moved about a block away to 5 W. Biddle St)
18. 1037 N. Calvert, home of Letitia & Katharine Wrenshall
19. 937 N. Calvert, home of Elizabeth Mullin

Here are some pictures.

Strolling through the MDHS galleries

Union and Confederate dresses on display

Quiltmaker Mimi Dietrich talks about her quilts in an impromptu gallery tour at MDHS.

Atlas of Baltimore–with David Armenti, Head of Education at MDHS.

Maryland Suffrage News–front page.

Reading Lydia Crane’s handwriting in the WLCB Minutes books.

Perusing programs at the Maryland Historical Society

Puzzling over programs and minutes books in the WLCB collection at Maryland Historical Society

Site where the Frigate Book Shop once stood, in the middle of what was once Baltimore’s theater district

New Era Bookstore building, 400 block Park Ave.

The interior of New Era today.

Lunch!

Enoch Pratt Free Library, desegregated from its inception in 1888

The group on Mt. Vernon Place, just south of the Washington Monument

The only letdown was that we had hoped to see the gorgeous interior of the Peabody Library reading room at 17 E. Mt. Vernon Place. The library was established by George Peabody and opened in 1878, just a few years before the Enoch Pratt Free Library a few blocks away. Like the Pratt, it was intended “for the free use of all persons who desire to consult it.” After becoming part of the Pratt Library system, it was absorbed into the Johns Hopkins University system in 1982 and now houses part of their Special Collections department.

As a wholly inadequate consolation prize, here are some images of the interior taken by others.

And we hit the Baltimore Book Thing in Waverly on our way back to campus– where all the books are free! (Which still doesn’t seem to help Garrison Keillor <cue sad trombones>…)

We had a great time– but I can’t help but wish all those old bookstores were still open.