Take an audio tour of The Peale, Baltimore's Community Museum and the oldest museum building in the United States! Listen to WYPR's Aaron Henkin recount the fascinating stories that surround this historic building. Includes 13 stops.
Hello, I’m Aaron Henkin. We’re standing in the oldest museum building in the United States – the first ever built in the western hemisphere to be a museum. It was opened on August 15, 1814 by artist Rembrandt Peale, and designed by architect Robert Cary Long, Sr., Maryland’s first professional architect. You can see their portraits in the Peale Gallery.
Although modeled after a typical townhouse from the period, Peale's Museum was never used as a home – except for a few nights in September 1814, when the British were bombarding Baltimore's Fort McHenry.
During those anxious days, Rembrandt, his pregnant wife, Eleanor, and their seven children moved into the museum. They hoped the British would think it was a private residence and spare it the devastation they had recently wrecked on the White House and U.S. Capitol in Washington D.C. Fortunately, the British were repelled from Baltimore, and the museum survived.
Its human-scale proportions and warm natural light give the Peale Museum a welcoming feeling, and have lent the building to many different uses over the centuries. I’ll share some of the stories of the Peale’s many lives as we visit its galleries today!
