Built in 1922, the former Enoch Pratt Free Library Branch No. 19 at 606 South Ann Street was one of a large number of branch libraries that opened in the early twentieth century. Between 1908 and 1920, the Pratt Library opened a new branch every sixteen months including new libraries in Hamilton and Mount Washington. The building boom was supported by a 1907 gift from Andrew Carnegie and by the generosity of local residents and community organizations who donated land and funds to support their construction.
In 1920, Baltimore City acquired a lot on Ann Street donated by the Children's Playground Association and William Hooper Grafflin, a Baltimore native, banker, and board member of Johns Hopkins Hospital. Local architect William W. Emmart put together a design and the contract for construction was awarded to R.B. Mason in May 1921. By June 1922, the new Branch No. 19 was open.
During the early decades of the library's operation, a large number of the patrons were European immigrants, especially from Poland. The population of Polish immigrants in Baltimore grew quickly in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century reaching over twenty-three thousand people by 1893. A large share of these residents lived in southeast Baltimore, earning Eastern Avenue the reputation as Baltimore's "Polish Wall Street." After the Pratt began offering "book lists" of suggested readings in 1934, a patron at Branch No. 19, Mrs. Charles D. Sadowski, worked with Miss Sara Siebert, branch librarian, to assemble a list of Polish-language books on the history and culture of Poland along with any English novels translated into Polish.
The history of immigration in southeast Baltimore is woven together with the history of maritime industry. For example, in December 1941 at the beginning of World War II, more than fifty members of the National Maritime Union walked from their hall at 1700 Fleet Street to register as volunteers for civil defense activities. Some of the volunteers were unable to write in English but the branch librarian Miss Annabelle Collins helped in "filling out their blanks." The war effort also inspired residents to turn the library's back yard into a "Victory Garden."
By the 1950s, the Fell's Point Improvement Association began regular meetings at the library and, in the 1970s, the librarians at Branch No. 19 began offering a growing variety of programming for patrons. For example, on June 1, 1974, the library hosted a "family fun festival" with "rock groups, movies, a puppet show, storytelling games, a mahic show contests, and a bake sale." On December 22, 1975, the library invited neighbors to join a free "Community Christmas Party" with seasonal movies, tree decorating, and caroling.
Budget troubles for the Enoch Pratt Free Library system in the early 1980s led to a month-long closure for what was then known as the Fell's Point Library Center in 1981. The library declared the large back yard "off-limits" to patrons because they could not afford to maintain or restore the area. Fortunately, residents pitched in to sustain and support the branch. In spring 1985, a neighborhood group, the Owners' Restoring and Renovating Association, secured a $2,500 matching grant from the city's Neighborhood Incentive Program. They planed to plant new flowers and trees and install tables and benches. When other library visitors learned about the plan, they donated even more time and money to raise over $6,000. The community celebrated the new "reading garden" with a dedication on May 17, 1986.
By 2001, however, years of inadequate funding led the Enoch Pratt Free Library to announce a plan to close five small branches—including the Fell's Point Center. In August 2001, just two weeks before the branches were set to close, then Mayor Martin O'Malley announced that the city had agreed to keep four of the five branches open through partnerships with local nonprofit organizations. The Education-Based Latino Outreach (EBLO) center would move into the former Branch No. 19 and turn it into "a center for immigrants to learn language, assimilation and job skills." According to the Baltimore Sun, Clinton Roby, treasurer of Friends of the Fell's Point Branch, was glad the city avoided selling the building to a private investor, remarking, "We were worried the city was going to take the highest bidder. I'm just glad it's not going to be taken away from the community."
In 2018, after fifteen years of service as the Education-Based Latino Outreach (EBLO) center, the former library is again in need of repairs and improvements. Flooding in the basement is a regular concern. Roof leaks have damaged the interior and forced EBLO to move programs out of the building. Residents, local elected officials, and EBLO staff are working together to seek funding for repairs and return the building back into use as a resource for the community.
Baltimore Clayworks occupies the former Mount Washington Branch of the Enoch Pratt Free Library that opened at Smith and Greeley Avenues on January 5, 1921. Originally known as Branch 21, the building was designed by by local architect Edward H. Glidden on a lot located across from the Mount Washington public school.
Funding for the new branch library came from a 1906 gift from Andrew Carnegie, industrialist and philanthropist, specifically designated to build branch libraries. The gift came with a condition, similar to the requirements for all new Carnegie Libraries, that "the city was to acquire the lots and equip and maintain the buildings yearly with a sum which was to be not less than 10 per cent of the amount expended in construction."
By March 1919, the Mount Washington Improvement Association organized to support the library’s construction and, according to the Sun, received a lot “given by the family of the late John M. Carter in his memory.” In 1951, after three years of contentious debate (The Sun noted “Hell hath no fury like a Mount Washingtonian battling for his library.”), the library closed and the building was turned over to the city schools. After thirty years of access to their own neighborhood library, residents of Mount Washington were now offered the services of a book mobile.
In 1980, Deborah Bedwell, along with four sculptors and four potters, opened Baltimore Clayworks in the former Pratt Library branch. Born in West Virginia, Bedwell moved to Maryland and took a job as an art teacher at Malcolm Middle School in Waldorf in the late 1960s. According to 2010 profile by Karen Nitkin in Baltimore Magazine, in 1969, she signed up for a ceramics class at University of Maryland, College Park but on her first attempt using the potter’s wheel the centrifugal force threw her to the floor. She left the room on a stretcher but didn’t give up on ceramics. In 1978, Bedwell was a graduate student at Towson University and, along with eight friends in the ceramics department, she had the idea of organizing a studio.
The first few years were a struggle. The group had purchased the building for less than $60,000 but renovations cost nearly three times as much. In 2012, Bedell recalled, “The first 10 years were focused on bringing in students and potential purchasers of pottery and sculpture. We pedaled very fast to keep it afloat.” Their hard work paid off and, by 1999, Clayworks was able to expand into an additional structure, an 1898 stone building formerly used as convent for the Sisters of Mercy, St. Paul.
Unfortunately, financial trouble returned by the end of 2016 the nonprofit was over a million dollars in debt. In July 2017, the board of Baltimore Clayworks announced their decision close the organization and file for bankruptcy. Fortunately, a new board changed course, hired a new executive director, refinanced their mortgage, and, by October 2018, paid back their debt—ensuring a future for the historic library and a beloved community arts institution.
Since 1951, the Edmondson Village Branch of the Enoch Pratt Free Library at the corner of Edmondson Avenue and Woodridge Road has served as a treasured community institution for nearby residents and readers. The building's Colonial Revival architecture reflects the design of the adjacent Edmondson Village Shopping Center whose developers, Jacob and Joseph Meyerhoff, originally donated the space for the library.
The first proposal to build a library in the area came a different developer, James E. Keelty, who erected thousands of the rowhouses in the area between the 1920s and the 1940s. In 1927, James Keelty offered to donate the lot at the northwest corner of Edmondson Avenue and Edgewood Street to build a new branch library. He even planned to "erect a library building on the lot and give the city its own time in which to pay for the structure." His generosity won support from the area's City Council member, Thomas M.L. Musgrave, who remarked:
People living in the Ten Hills, Rognel Heights and Hunting Ridge sections have been trying to get a branch of the Pratt Library for some time, and it now looks like all they need is the cooperation of the city and the library trustees to supply it immediately.
But the gift came with one big condition. Keelty also wanted the city's permission to put up a new building at the southwest corner for "moving pictures, stores and bowling alleys" at a time when residents in Baltimore's segregated white residential neighborhoods fiercely opposed most commercial development. Likely responding to this opposition, Mayor Broening vetoed the proposal in July 1928 and the library was never built.
Fortunately, local residents, led by members of the Edmondson suburban group of the Women’s Civic League, stepped up to the challenge of creating a library for their community. In 1943, local residents from Ten Hills and Edmondson Village came together to start a lending library they called the Neighborhood Library Group. The effort grew quickly and the organizers asked the developers of Edmondson Village Shopping Center to donate a space for the community. The Enoch Pratt Free Library took charge of the small “library station” and, with strong support from neighborhood residents, opened a small Colonial Revival branch library in 1951. Renovated between 2008 and 2010, the library remains a beloved and vital destination for readers and other library users today.
"My library shall be for all, rich and poor without distinction of race or color, who, when properly accredited, can take out the books if they will handle them carefully and return them."
These were the words of Enoch Pratt in 1882 when he gave a gift of over $1 million to Baltimore City to create a central library and four branches. By 1894, the Pratt Library had the fourth largest collection in the country and one of the most active circulations.
With assistance from Andrew Carnegie, the library system and its branches grew tremendously in the early 1900s, expanding to over 20 neighborhood branches. In 1927, the citizens of Baltimore voted to spend $3 million in city funds to build a new Central Library building.
The construction of the current central library building on Cathedral Street began in 1931 and was completed in 1933. Architect Clyde N. Friz hoped to avoid the old-fashioned institutional character of the past in his design and instead to give the library "a dignity characterized by friendliness rather than aloofness," as Pratt Director Joseph Wheeler stated. The new building allowed the library to form specialized departments, such as "education, philosophy, and religion," "industry and technology," as well as the "popular library," now known as the fiction section.
Although allowing for expansion, the design of the new building retained one of Pratt's steadfast requirements: that there be no stairs leading into the main entrance. This seemingly odd requirement, and one that certainly went against the grain of architectural design for grand civic institutions at the time, was based Pratt's philosophy that the library should be open to all people. Pratt saw grand stairs as an impediment, especially to a growing segment of the reading population: women who may be pushing babies in strollers.
Far before the advent of the Americans with Disabilities Act and its accessibility requirements for public buildings, the main entrance to the library pointedly tell the story of Pratt's vision and commitment to inclusivity.
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