Baltimore and the Reginald F Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History and Culture (1/6/2024)

Saturday, January 6, 2024

We arrived in Baltimore before the Reginald F Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History and Culture opened, so we did some walking around before it started to rain.

Carrol Museums includes the Carrol Mansion (c 1811,
purchased 1818 by the son-in-law of Charles Carroll),
where Charles Carroll, the only Catholic signer of the
Declaration of Independence, spent his winters until his
death (1832) as the last surving signer of the Declaration

Residence (c 1792) of Edward Johnson who was mayor
of Baltimore during the War of 1812

Carrollton Inn's Fava Building (1996), incorporates a
cast-iron façade from the original Fava Building
(1869-1876, for the G Fava Fruit Company on
S Charles St); what is unique is that the façade was
accordioned onto five faces of the new building

Also part of the Carroll Museums is the
Phoenix Shot Tower (1828) that was the
tallest building in United States until 1846;
here shot was produced by pouring molten
lead through colanders and allowed to drop 
down a shaft of a tall tower where the
perfectly globular drops landed in a water
barrel; such shot was used for hunting

Holocaust Memorial (1980) with a sculpture (1987-1988, by
Joseph Sheppard) depicting suffering victims in a flame of death

Reginald F Lewis Museum of Maryland African American
History and Culture (2005, by Philip Freelon and Gary Bowden)

Maryland Blacks in Labor: Replica (2005) of the
Statue of Freedom (1863, by Philip Reed and
other enslaved workers) that stands atop
the Capitol Building of the United States

Maryland Blacks in Sports: A diminutive leotard (2000) of
gymnast Dominique Dawes, and a signed ball, replica
uniform and hat (1993) of Leon Day, as well as his
Baseball Hall of Fame Medallion (1995)

Matthew Henson, Arctic explorer and likely
the first person to reach the North Pole

No Lost Sheep (2020, by Beverly D W Paul)
depicts Araminta "Minty" Ross, whom we
 know as Harriet Tubman, born in Maryland

Turtle Shell Agidigbo/Nigerian Thumb Piano

Barred from joining fraternal organizations,
Blacks resorted to starting their own
associations; however, in 1775 free blacks
were inducted into the Boston Masonic Lodge

In 1776, the British masons departed, leaving the Blacks without a lodge. but with a permit to meet as a lodge.  In 1784, the Black masons petitioned the Grand Lodge of England for a charter, and received permission to establish a regular masonic lodge, with all rights and privileges.

Special Exhibit: Vision & Spirit | African American Art: Works from the Bank of America Collection:

Forward Together (1997, by Jacob Lawrence)

Coming to Jones Road #3: Aunt Emmy
(1999, by Faith Ringgold)

Untitled (Muhammed Ali) (1970,
by Gordon Parks)

Dark Loop (1982, by Martin Puryear) is a woodcut

Caretaker (2000, by Lawrence Finney)

Unidentified graphite on paper, perhaps by Nathan Jones?

I Am a Man - Sanitation Workers Strike (1968,
by Ernest C Withers)

Next door to the Reginald F Lewis Museum is the
Star Spangled Banner Flag House (1793) that was rented by
Mary Pickersgill in the early 1800s; she was commissioned
in 1813 to sew a garrison flag for Fort McHenry,
which was the flag that inspired Francis Scott Key
to write the lyrics that would become the national anthem

The facsimile in the courtyard
shows the size of the original flag

Next: Baltimore Museum of Art.