Preservation Maryland Receives Grant to Support Maryland's First LGBTQ National Register Nominations

With a grant from the Maryland Historical Trust through the Certified Local Government Program of the National Park Service, Preservation Maryland has selected Dr. Susan Ferentinos to begin work on the state’s first National Register nominations for properties significant for their LGBTQ heritage.

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Preservation Maryland is leading a statewide collaboration of academic, municipal, and community stakeholders in a statewide strategy to document and include the important and lasting contributions of Maryland’s LGBTQ community and the places associated with their lives with new nominations to the National Register of Historic Places and the Maryland Inventory of Historic Properties.

With funds from the Maryland Historical Trust’s Non-Capital Preservation Grant program, Preservation Maryland selected Dr. Susan Ferenintos to conduct Maryland’s first – and only the second in the nation – statewide historical context statement on LGBTQ history. Major contributions to the report were made by Benjamin Egerman, librarian and historian, as a public history intern in Preservation Maryland’s Waxter Memorial Internship Program. That first-of-its-kind report and accompanying property list will be completed and made public later in Summer 2020.

Acting upon the findings of the Context Statement, Preservation Maryland, working closely with representatives from the Baltimore City Commission for Historical and Architectural Preservation and the Montgomery County Planning Department, was awarded a grant from Maryland Historical Trust through the Certified Local Government Program of the National Park Service to bring the work to the county and local level.

From a national response to the project RFP, Dr. Susan Ferentinos was selected as the consultant. With extensive knowledge of the Context Statement, Dr. Ferentinos will begin work on the property designations remotely until research facilities reopen safely. These federal and state nominations are to be completed by the end of 2020. The Maryland Historical Trust is providing expert guidance on grant administration and National Register eligibility – and will ultimately usher the nominations through the National review process.

The five following locations were selected for their significance and diversity in property-type to be the first historic properties designated in the state of Maryland for their LGBTQ historical significance:

In Baltimore City, the properties that are planned to be nominated to the National Register include the site of early 1920-30s social events and drag performances in West Baltimore, a long-running bar, and a health clinic important in the era of the AIDS epidemic that is still serving Baltimore’s LGBTQ community. In Montgomery County, the residences of two influential and out Marylanders will be documented and submitted to the Maryland Inventory of Historic Properties.

Of the more than 90,000 properties listed on the National Register of Historic Places, fewer than 20 reference LGBTQ historical significance. There are no sites or districts listed on the National Register of Historic Places in Maryland for LGBTQ historical significance.

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