Dedicated in 1901, the Richard Wagner Bust was donated to the city by the United Singers of Baltimore who received the monument as the first prize trophy for the annual Sängerfeste choral competition.

The Wagner Bust is as German as any statute could be. Cast in bronze, mounted on a granite base, and situated on the lawn of the Rogers-Buchanan Mansion, the bust of German composer Richard Wagner was created by a German-born sculptor R.P. Golde based on a portrait by German painter Franz van Lenbach. Though the bust may seem out of place for visitors to Druid Hill Park today, the placement made perfect sense when the sculpture was created.

R.P. Golde was commissioned to create the bust as the first prize for Sängerfeste, an annual choral competition held that year in Brooklyn, New York, with five thousand performers attending. The United Singers of Baltimore won with their performance of D. Melamet’s “Scheiden” (“Parting”). The Singers, who believed that their victory and prize would add to Baltimore’s glory and beauty, donated the Wagner Bust to Druid Hill Park. The bust’s dedication ceremony was a grand affair. Thirty thousand spectators gathered in attendance on October 6, 1901, to watch L.H. Wieman, an agent representing the Baltimore branch of a national, Minneapolis-based flour company, present the bust to the City of Baltimore on behalf of the United Singers. The crowd watched as the Wagner Bust, draped in German and American flags and the singing societies’ banners, was unveiled. The ceremony and the bust’s placement on the mansion lawn served as an expression of Baltimore’s pride in its singers and the German immigrants pride in their heritage and their talent.

Baltimore was home to over forty thousand German immigrants at the start of the twentieth century. Monuments to German artists, philosophers, politicians, musicians, poets, and composers decorate the landscape of many major American cities. Memorials of composers were particularly popular in the era of immigrant monument-building, partly due to the importance of singing clubs in German-American communities.

The Wagner Bust points to the popularity of singing clubs in Baltimore, as does another sculpture by R.P. Golde, that of the composer Conradin Keutzer, located in Patterson Park and also won by the United Singers of Baltimore at the 1915 Sängerfeste.

Mansion House Drive, Druid Hill Park, Baltimore, MD 21217

Monument to a Literary Icon at the University of Baltimore

The Edgar Allan Poe statue sitting in the Gordon Plaza at University of Baltimore has a colorful past. The statue was commissioned in 1911 by the Edgar Allan Poe Memorial Association of Baltimore and was the last work of renowned American sculptor Moses Jacob Ezekiel. Born in Richmond, Virgina, Ezekiel was a decorated Confederate soldier who moved to Europe in 1869 and, in 1910, was knighted by King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy for his artistic accomplishments.

The Women's Literary Club established the Edgar Allan Poe Memorial Association in 1907 and hoped the statue would be completed for the centennial of Poe's birth in 1909, but a lack of funds, a series of mishaps, and poor timing delayed the statue's arrival in Baltimore until 1921. Ezekial completed the first model in 1913 but a fire at a custom house destroyed the sculpture en route to a foundry in Berlin; the second model, completed in 1915, was destroyed in Ezekiel's studio by an earthquake; and the third model, completed in 1916, was due to be shipped across the Atlantic, but was delayed another five years due to World War I. By the time the statue arrived in Baltimore, Ezekiel had already been dead for four years.

After the statue's arrival in Wyman Park during the summer of 1921, more complications arose. The inscription, a quote from Poe's famous poem "The Raven," had two typos and read: "Dreamng(sic) dreams no mortals(sic) ever dared to dream before." In 1930, Edmond Fontaine, incensed over the typo on the word "mortal," came to the park in the middle of the night and chiseled away the incorrect "s." The police arrested Fontaine for his vigilantism but he was never prosecuted.

Over the years the Poe statue suffered from neglect, vandalism, and weather damage. In 1983, the Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore recommended the statue be moved to the Gordon Plaza at the University of Baltimore where it still stands today. The statue has become a mascot of sorts for the university, and during the NFL playoffs it can be seen bathed in a purple light in support of the Baltimore Ravens, a team named after Poe's famous poem.

Krainik, Clifford.

1415 Maryland Avenue, Baltimore, MD 21201

Erected by the Maryland Association of Veterans of the Mexican War

On an auspicious afternoon in late September 1903, a crowd of Baltimoreans converged onto the intersection of Mount Royal Avenue and Lanvale Street to witness the unveiling of the William H. Watson monument. The monument, erected by the Maryland Association of Veterans of the Mexican War, honored Marylanders who lost their lives during the U.S.-Mexican War.

Taking place on the fifty-seventh anniversary of Lieutenant Colonel Watson’s death during the Battle of Monterey, spectators watched as aged survivors of the war took their places on the grandstand. Meanwhile, they also laid eyes on the over ten-foot statue, draped in the flag that had shrouded Watson’s corpse as it left Mexico. The most symbolic moment came when Watson’s last surviving child, Monterey Watson Iglehart, walked towards her father’s likeness and unveiled the statue. The unveiling by Iglehart, born on the day her father died, was the highlight of a ceremony that included speeches from U.S.-Mexican War veterans, politicians, and other dignitaries.

Given U.S. activity in the Caribbean at the time, and the monument’s connection to the U.S.-Mexican War, the memorial presented a counterpoint to the overall anti-imperialist sentiment that existed in Baltimore. By highlighting the valor and honor of Baltimore’s U.S.-Mexican War heroes, the public viewed the veterans as heroes of a conflict which greatly benefited the United States, as opposed to participants in an unjustifiable land grab. Thus, the monument served to legitimize the United States’ imperialist endeavors of the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries.

The monument, created by sculptor Edward Berge, was originally located at Lanvale Street and Mount Royal Avenue. In 1930, the monument was moved to Reservoir Hill—what was then the entrance to Druid Hill Park—because of a planned extension of Howard Street. Today, the monument blends into the scenery of west Baltimore. The war that it commemorates has faded from memory.

, Richard Hardesty and David Patrick McKenzie, underberlly, January 24, 2013

W. North Avenue, Baltimore, MD 21217

The Key Monument on Eutaw Place is a grand reminder of how Baltimoreans have kept the memory of the Battle of Baltimore and the War of 1812 alive over two hundred years. Francis Scott Key was a Maryland lawyer and slaveholder who was on board the British vessel HMS Tonnant during the evening of September 13 and morning September 14, 1814, as part of a delegation to try to negotiate the release of prisoners. Key was stuck on board the British vessel to helplessly watch as the British Navy shelled Fort McHenry and Baltimore throughout the night.

At dawn, Key saw the Stars and Stripes still flying over the fort. That morning, the unsuccessful British allowed Key to return to shore, and on the return trip, he wrote a poem describing his experience the night before. The poem was quickly published in two Baltimore papers on September 20, 1814, and days later the owner of a Baltimore music store, Thomas Carr of the Carr Music Store, put the words and music together in print under the title "The Star-Spangled Banner."

Before his death in 1907, Baltimore resident Charles Marburg gave $25,000 to his brother Theodore to commission a monument to his favorite poet, Francis Scott Key. Theodore selected French sculptor Marius Jean Antonin Mercie known for monumental sculptures of Robert E. Lee (1890) in Richmond, Virginia, and General Lafayette (1891) in the District of Columbia. The Key Monument was added to Eutaw Place in 1911.

The monument was restored in 1999 after a multi-year fundraising campaign by local residents. In September 2017, the monument was spray painted with the words "Racist Anthem" and splashed with red paint to highlight Key's legacy as a slaveholder. The city quickly restored the monument.

W. Lanvale Street and Eutaw Place, Baltimore, MD 21217

Construction on the Battle Monument began on September 12, 1815, a year to the day after Baltimore soundly defeated the British in the War of 1812, and the monument endures as a commemoration of the attack by land at North Point and by sea at Fort McHenry. In addition to serving as the official emblem for the City of Baltimore on the city flag, the work is extraordinary in the history of American monument building for a number of reasons. Architecturally, it is considered to be the first Egyptian structure in the United States with a base, designed by French-born architect Maximilian Godefroy, to look like an Egyptian sarcophagus. The base sits on 18 layers of marble, symbolizing the 18 states that then belonged to the Union. The main column is of Roman design and depicts a fasces: a bundle of rods held together with bands in a symbol of unity. In an age when the United States had few public monuments at and when war memorials focused on generals and commanders, the Battle Monument stood out for its focus on the common soldier recognizing all 39 of the fallen soldiers, regardless of their rank, in a ribbon of names spiraling up the central shaft. Italian sculptor Antonio Capellano created Lady Baltimore — one of the oldest monumental sculptures in the country. She wears a crown of victory on her head and holds a laurel wreath in her raised hand as a symbol of victory over the British. In her lowered hand, she holds a ship's rudder as a testament to Baltimore's nautical role in the war. Both arms are now prosthetics after having been blown off in storms. Both also were created by well-known Baltimore artists. The raised hand with the wreath is the work of Hans Schuler, and the lowered hand with the rudder is by Rueben Kramer. The same year that the monument was adopted as Baltimore's emblem, it also helped give rise to the city's nickname as "The Monumental City." In 1827, President Adams visited Baltimore and stayed at a nearby hotel. The Battle Monument had been completed and work was underway for the nation's first public monument to President Washington in "Howards Woods," soon to become the Mt. Vernon neighborhood. At a dinner with dignitaries and veterans from the war, President Adams gave the final toast of the evening: "Baltimore, the Monumental City: may the days of her safety be as prosperous and happy as the days of her danger have been trying and triumphant!" Baltimore's new monuments made an impression on the President, and enough to spark a name that has lasted nearly 200 years.

Watch our on this monument!

101 N. Calvert Street, Baltimore, MD 21202