Free to Bmore Podcast: Justin Fenton
Starting the new year talking to Pulitzer Prize–nominated investigative reporter Justin Fenton. He reflects on his career, uncovering some of the biggest stories in Baltimore, and the impact of local journalism. Listen now ⬇️
Our fish pond is iconic 🐠
The fish pond is part of the original Central Library and dates back to its opening in the 1930s. It was stocked by an anonymous donor in 1933.
It originally sat in the Children’s Garden outside of the department and moved inside after the Central Library’s renovation in 2019.
Atop the pond sits the Young Siren statue, crafted by Artist Perna Krick and donated to the Pratt Library.
The pond is open to little ones and adults during open hours.
Lunch & Learn: “Baltimore’s Own” Soldiers in World War I: No Longer Lost to History
From the first day Camp Meade opened in 1917 to the last day of World War I, draftees from the Baltimore area—and the rest of Maryland—played a crucial and controversial role in bringing the Great War to an end. Hear the incredible story of the 313th Regiment of the 79th Division as never before, told through the first-hand accounts of the doughboys who went over the top and charged into merciless enemy fire and accomplished what their French ally insisted was simply impossible to achieve.
Time after time the French stormed the German-hald heights of Montfaucon over the preceding three years. Time after time they failed miserably. The 313th—affectionately dubbed “Baltimore’s Own” by its adoring cigar-chomping colonel—did so in less than two days. But the cost was high and controversy over its battlefield success has followed the regiment for more than a hundred years. Author Mike Martin spent more than a decade meticulously researching and writing this epic story and brings it to life through the penned words these soldiers recorded themselves in tattered diaries, memoirs, and wartime letters from “over there.”
Mike Martin is a retired long-time Baltimore County high school teacher who was the coordinator of Lansdowne High School’s Academy of Finance program. Affiliated with the National Academy Foundation, Lansdowne was one of only a few Maryland public high schools, and 200 secondary schools in the nation to offer the five-course program in personal finance. Before joining the teaching ranks at age 50, Martin worked in the private sector. Prior to that he was a journalist, working as an editor for the local weekly paper in his hometown Catonsville community. He also spent time as a reporter for both the Baltimore Sun and News American daily papers. It was his passion for writing, and history that prompted him to write his recently published book, Baltimore’s Own: Courage, controversy and the crucial role of the 313th Regiment to end Wor
Free to Bmore Podcast: Dr. Karsonya "Kaye" Wise Whitehead
From filmmaker, to professor, to one of Baltimore's leading voices in racial equity, Dr. Karsonya "Kaye" Wise Whitehead has had an impactful career. This episode of the Free to Bmore podcast, we talk to her about her impact on the local and national media landscape.
Take a listen ⬇️
Black Friday at the Pratt is here now and well, FOREVER!
Score deals of up to 100% on checkouts such as:
-Hotspots
-Chromebooks
-Databases
-Books, e-books, audiobooks
…and MORE!
Start saving by getting a Pratt Library card. But hurry! These deals will last FOREVER!
If you're looking for a family-friendly place that's filled with local history, our Canton Branch is the place for you! Stop by the Branch during open hours and meet our staff for yourself!
Did you know that the Canton Branch is the OLDEST branch in Baltimore City? First opened in 1886, the Branch has continued to serve the Canton, Highlandtown, and Brewers Hill neighborhoods for nearly 140 years!
Glory Edim: "Gather Me"
An inspiring memoir of family, community, and resilience, and an ode to the power of books to help us understand ourselves, from the renowned founder of Well-Read Black Girl.
For Glory Edim, that "friend of my mind" is books. Edim, who grew up in Virginia to Nigerian immigrant parents, started the popular Well-Read Black Girl book club at age thirty eventually reaching a community of half a million other readers. But her love of books stretches far back.
When Edim's father moved back to Nigeria while she was still a child, she and her brothers were left with a single mother and little money, often finding a safe space at their local library. Books were where Edim found community, and as she grew older, she discovered authors and ideas she wasn't being taught in class. In dorm rooms and airplanes and on subway rides, she found the Black writers whose words would forever change her life: Nikki Giovanni through children's poetry cassettes; Maya Angelou through a critical high school English teacher; Toni Morrison while attending Morrison's alma mater, Howard University; Audre Lorde on a flight to Nigeria. In prose full of both joy and heartbreak, Edim recounts how these writers and so many others helped her to value herself: to find her own voice when her mother lost hers, to trust her feelings when her father remarried, to create bonds with other Black women and uplift their stories.
Gather Me is a glowing testament to the power of representation and the lasting impact of literature to gather our disparate parts and put them back together.
Glory Edim will be joined in conversation by award-winning author Jason Reynolds.
Doors will open to registered attendees at 6 pm.
A local bookseller will be on-site and have books available for purchase.
Free parking vouchers are available to program attendees who park at the Franklin Street Garage (15 W. Franklin Street) after 4pm. Ask Pratt event staff for your parking voucher prior to or after the program.
Paul French: "Her Lotus Year"
Before she was the Duchess of Windsor, Bessie Wallis Warfield was Mrs. Wallis Spencer, wife of Earl “Win” Spencer, a US Navy aviator. From humble beginnings in Baltimore, she rose to marry a man who gave up his throne for her. But what made Wallis Spencer, Navy Wife, the woman who could become the Duchess of Windsor? The answers lie in her one-year sojourn in China.
In her memoirs, Wallis described her time in China as her “Lotus Year,” referring to Homer’s Lotus Eaters, a group living in a state of dreamy forgetfulness, never to return home. Though faced with challenges, Wallis came to appreciate traditional Chinese aesthetics. China molded her in terms of her style and provided her with friendships that lasted a lifetime. But that “Lotus Year” would also later be used to damn her in the eyes of the British Establishment.
The British government’s supposed “China Dossier” of Wallis’s rumored amorous and immoral activities in the Far East was a damning concoction, portraying her as sordid, debauched, influenced by foreign agents, and unfit to marry a king. Instead, French, an award-winning China historian, reveals Wallis Warfield Spencer as a woman of tremendous courage who may have acted as a courier for the US government, undertaking dangerous undercover diplomatic missions in a China torn by civil war.
Her Lotus Year is an untold story in the colorful life of a woman too often maligned by history.
Free to Bmore Podcast: Senator Ben Cardin
Senator Ben Cardin shares his insights, most meaningful accomplishments, and the impact he hopes to leave on Maryland. Listen in for an inspiring conversation with one of Maryland's most respected leaders.
Listen now ⬇️