Location

Just northeast of Hillen Road & E Cold Spring Lane on Morgan State’s campus

GPS: 39° 20′ 49.27″ N 76° 35′ 2.91″ W

History

The idea to erect a Frederick Douglass statue on the campus of Morgan State University was conceived in 1943. The notion was presented to and carried out by the Maryland Educational Association. Artist James E. Lewis was chosen to design the monument, an associate professor at the university, Lewis was the obvious choice for the project. By 1956 the memorial was completed and unveiled in front of the school’s Holmes Hall, a building named for Morgan’s first black president, Dwight O. W. Holmes

Notes

The eight-foot tall bronze cast stands in a high traffic area of campus directly north of the school’s stadium. Douglass is shown in a dignified stance with a cane in his right hand (the cane given to him by Abraham Lincoln’s widow, Mary Todd). A second monument to the great orator can be found at the Frederick Douglass Isaac Myers Maritime Park at Harbor East.

Nearby

• Columbus Obelisk
• Policeman’s Memorial in Lauraville
• Martin Luther

Links

• On Panoramio & Flickr
• Douglass on Wikipedia

Location

1035 E 33rd Street, across from the YMCA (Street View)

GPS: 39° 19′ 41.26″ N 76° 36′ 5.62″ W

History

Born and raised in the Waverly community, Lizette Woodworth Reese was a Baltimore public school teacher for forty-seven years. In the 1890s, she began drawing praise from critics and audiences alike for her rural-themed poems. Her highest regarded piece is the sonnet ‘Tears‘ from her 1909 collection A Wayside Lute. She was co-founder of the Woman’s Literary Club of Baltimore, serving as chairman of poetry until her death in 1935.

Hand-chiseled in marble by artist Grace H Turnbull, the sculpture depicts a Shepard and his herd. In-line with Lizette Reese’s country style, the memorial is a reference to the above-mentioned poem, ‘Tears‘. Another piece by Turnbull on public display in Baltimore is the Naiad statue in the eastern section of Mount Vernon Place. The playful sculpture sits in a fountain between the bronze casts of George Peabody and Severn Teackle Wallace. In stark contrast to the style of the Reese Monument, the Naiad is sensual and mysterious. Grace Turnbull was many artists. She was a writer, a painter and a sculptor. She never smoked, drank or read newspapers, her life an example of her philosophies. A woman of inherited wealth, she never had to take orders for her work. Ater graduating from the Maryland Institute of Art, Turnbull traveled the world in search of inspiration, yet she always returned to her home in Charm City. Her Spanish style house in Waverly was designed by her architect brother and contains four sculpted exterior beams, each containing religious imagery. The yard surrounding the estate is littered with her work, fine art springing out amidst the garden landscape. The residence and its contents were auctioned off last November for $315,000. Grace Turnbull died, in 1976, at the age of ninety-five.

Notes

Entitled the Good Shepard, the memorial was dedicated, in 1939, on the grounds of Baltimore’s Eastern High School. In 1986, the school closed down and merged with Lake Clifton High, a campus not far down the road. At some point the sculpture was placed at Clifton where it temporarily resided until April of this year, when it was returned to its original home on 33rd street. In May, two dedication plaques were placed at either side of the marble monument. The historic Eastern High building is now occupied by Johns Hopkins University. Memorial Stadium once stood directly across the street.

Nearby

• Martin Luther
• Mother’s Garden
• Bell Tower at Stadium Place

Links

• On Panoramio & Flickr
• Lizette Woodworth Reese criticism
• Grace H Turnbull article in the City Paper

Location

Harford Road & E 32nd Street (Street View)

GPS: 39° 19′ 37.64″ N 76° 35′ 1.89″ W

History

The Board of Park Commissioners dedicated the garden to all the mothers of Baltimore in 1926. Two years later a tablet was fitted to a stone and placed at the site, marking the memorial. Mayor William Donald Schaefer rededicated the garden, in 1984, to his mom Tululu Schaefer. In recent years, the Coldstream Homestead Montebello Community Corporation introduced a plan to improve the facilities of Clifton Park, including Mother’s Garden. Once the summer home of Johns Hopkins, Clifton was the intended site for the hospital bearing his name, but was deemed too far from the city’s core. Instead, the land was turned into a municipal golf course and community park.

Notes

At the northern tip of Clifton Park, the memorial is a strangely peaceful place. A small domed edifice surrounded by benches sits on top of the hill, and a pedestrian bridge crosses a forgotten pond. Situated between Harford Road and the golf course’s 5th hole green, Mother’s Garden is across the street from Montebello Elementary School.

Nearby

• Martin Luther
• On The Trail Statue
• Columbus Obelisk

Links

• On Panoramio & Flickr

Location

Hillen Road & E 32nd Street (Street View)

GPS: 39° 19′ 39.52″ N 76° 35′ 19.59″ W

History

Unveiled on October 31, 1936, the Martin Luther Monument is the work of Baltimore’s Hans Schuler. After studying under William Henry Rinehart, Schuler traveled to France with fellow artists Edward Berge and J Maxwell Miller to continue his studies. In 1901, he won the Salon Gold Medal in Paris, the first American to do so. One of the city’s premiere sculptors, Schuler was director of the Maryland Institute College of Art from 1935 to 1951, resigning a year before his death.

A gift of a prominent local jeweler, Arthur Wallenhorst, the 18-foot tall statue of Luther once greeted visitors at the Mount Royal entrance to Druid Hill Park. In 1959 it was moved to it’s current spot over-looking Lake Montebello. A second statue of the German protestant, also by Schuler, was erected in 1947 at the The Lutheran Theological Seminary in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

Notes

Situated in a small park slightly south of the lake, Martin Luther’s likeness gestures sternly with right hand raised. Two benches once flanked the statue, but only their supports remain. Baltimore’s Commission for Historical & Architectural Preservation, or CHAP, has been maintaining the monument since 1980.

Nearby

• Mother’s Garden
• Columbus Obelisk
• Reese Monument
• Bell Tower at Stadium Place

Links

• Martin Luther at Wikipedia
• On Panoramio & Flickr
• Hans Schuler article in City Paper

Location

Harford Road & Walther Avenue, just northeast of Lake Montebello (Street View)

GPS: 39° 20′ 10.82″ N 76° 34′ 28.74″ W

History

To commemorate the three-hundred year anniversary of Columbus discovering America, a forty-four foot obelisk was erected in Charm City. Made of brick with a stucco finish, the monument to Columbus is the oldest in the country, and world, that is still standing. Originally it was placed on the estate of French Consul to Baltimore, Charles Francois Adrian De Paulmier, Chevalier d’Anmour, and was moved to its current location in 1964. Rumor has it that one evening De Paulmier was entertaining guests, which he did frequently, and they started discussing the great men of the western world. It was mentioned that there was not a single monument to Christopher Columbus in America. De Paulmier promised to change this fact, placing the monolith on his property shortly thereafter.

Notes

Directly across the street from Herring Run Park, northeast of Lake Montebello on Harford Road, the memorial is tucked into a wooded corner. A well-trimmed hedge and garden encircle the obelisk and enormous aged trees tower around the structure. The park surroundings are as tranquil as any in the city, making this one of the finer environments I have found a monument in. The inscription on the front reads: Sacred to the Memory of Chris. Columbus Oct. XII MDCC VIIIC.

Nearby

• Policeman’s Memorial in Lauraville
• Martin Luther
• Mother’s Garden

Links

• On Panoramio & Flickr
• Columbus memorials throughout the US
• Columbus monuments page