Where they lived

Membership in the WLCB was defined in part by a shared desire to pursue literary avocations, but also by geographical proximity and socio-cultural networks. These relationships shifted significantly during the years of the Club’s existence, as Baltimore emerged from the schism of the Civil War as a center for industry and a locus of Eastern and Southern European immigration and internal migration of African Americans during the Great Migration.

This map shows how Club membership reflected broader socioeconomic trends. Click on the Legend tab to view the locations of Club member residences between 1890-1915, in 5-year increments.

Early membership was concentrated in the Mount Vernon neighborhood, where Baltimore’s cultural elite congregated in the decades before the Civil War. In subsequent decades, the establishment of upper-middle-class neighborhoods such as Mount Royal (which includes areas now known as Bolton Hill, Reservoir Hill, and Madison Park) to the northwest of downtown, as well as the influx of Jews and then Southern Blacks to the area at the turn of the twentieth century, led the white-only and status-conscious Club to drift increasingly to the north and west, gradually including the neighborhoods surrounding the Goucher College campus (then located near North Avenue) and suburban communities like Roland Park. Expanding streetcar and commuter rail lines and the growing acceptance of women engaging in public life made it possible for Club members to continue meeting at the Academy of Arts and Sciences building in Mount Vernon through 1920.

The towns of Mount Washington (now part of Baltimore City) and Ellicott City maintained a small but consistent presence in Club membership due to the presence of early members and Club leaders who recruited neighbors and friends to join. Other geographical “outliers,” included Louise Malloy, who lived on the east side of the city, and Lizette Woodworth Reese, who lived in the northeastern hamlet of Waverly but consistently attended and contributed to Club meetings. Malloy likely recruited fellow journalists from the Sun and American newspapers to join the Club (though several members who wrote for local newspapers, including Marion V. Dorsey and May Garrettson Evans, also had family connections to the WLCB), while Reese brought her former teacher and colleague at Eastern High School, Laura DeValin, into the fold.

Most frequently, however, Club members recruited friends and neighbors to join the Club, as can be seen by the clusters of members living within a block or two of one another throughout the map.

Addresses were located in Club dues books and membership lists, as well as Baltimore city directories. Approximate locations for some member residences are included due to shifts in the street grid and changes in street names that took place over the course of the 20th century.