The Baltimore Immigration Museum in Locust Point is housed in the former Immigrant House, which was built in 1904 by the German Evangelical United Church of Christ to aid newly arrived immigrants and their children. The museum focuses on immigration to Baltimore in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but also includes exhibits on more recent Hispanic and Asian immigrants. Photo courtesy of the Baltimore Immigration Museum

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“Not many people know that Baltimore was the third most active port — following New York and Boston — at which immigrants from many different nationalities across Europe would arrive in the United States,” said Brigitte Fessenden, president of the Baltimore Immigration Museum in Locust Point.

“We want to highlight and promote the role Baltimore played during the country’s largest wave of immigration in the late 19th and early 20th centuries,” said Fessenden. She herself was born in Germany, and worked as a historic preservation consultant for Baltimore City until she retired. Her husband Nicholas, a former history teacher, is the museum’s historian.

The couple, who live in Columbia, spearheaded the creation of the museum in 2016, to help document Baltimore’s immigrant past, and to pay tribute to the 1.2 million immigrants who disembarked at a pier near Fort McHenry.

The pier was built in 1868 by the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Company, with the cooperation of the North German Lloyd Steamship Company — the main carrier to Baltimore from the port of Bremerhaven, Germany.

Only about 15 percent of the 1.2 million people who came through Baltimore permanently settled here. Those who didn’t stay, continued their travels westward to Cincinnati, Chicago or St. Louis on B&O trains that awaited them next to the ship’s pier — which stood near what is today the modern Silo Point apartment building.

Once home for immigrants

The museum is located in the former Immigrant House, which was built in 1904 by the German Evangelical United Church of Christ to aid newly arrived immigrants and their children, as well as sailors arriving at the port of Baltimore.

Following the end of World War I, the North German Lloyd ships resumed their sailings to Baltimore, but primarily carried cargo. So the Immigrant House became a refuge for sailors who needed a room during their stay in Baltimore, and then a stopover for truck drivers who served the docks and warehouses of Locust Point.

Today, the building is owned by the Locust Point Community Church. In addition to housing the museum, parts of the building are still used for a Sunday school and church office.

The Fessendens hope that in time they will be able to expand the museum’s exhibit space into the immigrants’ sleeping rooms on the second floor.

Between 1904 and 1915, when World War I essentially ended the great wave of immigration, 3,700 people stayed at Immigrant House, each paying $2 a week. There were 20 rooms, each holding four to six people.

In addition to having a place to stay while getting settled in Baltimore or moving on, the temporary residents could take English lessons and receive assistance with job searches, while children would attend a nearby school, even if only for a short time.

“The museum chronicles the history of the so-called ‘Great Wave of Immigration,’ and Baltimore’s role as immigration gateway to America,” said Nicholas Fessenden.

It provides “the international context and tells the story of the major ethnic groups that arrived here: Germans, Irish, Poles, Jews, Lithuanians, Czechs, Italians and Greeks.” Fessenden noted that Germans were the largest immigrant group to settle in Baltimore.

Newer immigrants as well

Since 2017, the museum’s exhibits also relate the more recent history of Hispanic and Asian immigrants to the area, as well as the Great Migration of African Americans from the South to the North.

The two rooms on the first floor of the museum contain descriptive panels, researched and written by the Fessendens, that highlight the various ethnic groups and their new life in Baltimore.

In addition to the informative panels, the museum has a small collection of artifacts, including a 19th century guidebook printed in German, a report on why immigrants should settle in Maryland, and a steamer trunk with a painted inscription reading “Bremen-Baltimore.”

The Baltimore Immigration Museum is located at 1308 Beason St. and is open to the public on weekends from 1 to 4 p.m. There is no admission charge, but donations are welcome. For more information, call (443) 542-2263 or visit www.immigrationbaltimore.org

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