Mount Vernon Cultural Walk: Peabody Institute

Be Here Stories

The Mount Vernon Cultural Walk is created by The Baltimore National Heritage Area (BNHA), which promotes, preserves, and enhances Baltimore's historic and cultural legacy and natural resources for current and future generations. A walking tour of this and other destinations is available at www.explorebaltimore.org/tours. Located at 1 East Mount Vernon Place In 1857, George Peabody gave Baltimore $1.4 million to improve its cultural life, which lagged behind its rapid economic growth. His bequest established the Peabody Institute, a cultural center featuring America’s first music conservatory. Born in 1795, Peabody came to Baltimore from Massachusetts at age 20, made a fortune in dry goods and banking, and departed to become a London-based financier. He donated more than half his wealth to charitable ventures. His impact on Baltimore was considerable: setting new standards in philanthropy, he greatly influenced America’s rising millionaire class—and especially Johns Hopkins and Enoch Pratt. Delayed by the Civil War, the Peabody Institute opened its elegant Italianate Renaissance Revival building in 1866 and has trained generations of musicians since then. However, it barred Blacks for 82 years. One Baltimorean whose application was denied, Ann Wiggins Brown, later became an acclaimed singer who inspired George Gershwin’s songs for Porgy and Bess. The Institute’s alumni include celebrated classical musicians Andre Watts and Manuel Barrueco. Luminaries such as Leon Fleisher and Nadia Boulanger have taught here. World-renowned Baltimoreans Hilary Hahn and Philip Glass studied here as children. Since 1977, the Peabody Institute has been affiliated with Johns Hopkins University.