Baltimore Home for Fallen Women

[Chris G.]

Hi all

As Tim Riordan and I have been discussing on the thread for "Parallels between Tumbelty & D'Onston: A List" (http://www.jtrforums.com/showthread.php?t=6454), it might appear that the $1,000 legacy for the Home for Fallen Women on North Exeter Street promised under Dr. Francis Tumblety's alleged Baltimore 1901 will might have "window dressing" if that will of 1901 was in fact bogus and "mocked up" by stockbroker Major Joseph R. Kemp and pals after Tumblety's demise in order to lay hands on the late quack's fortune.

In Jack the Ripper: First American Serial Killer aka The Lodger by Paul Gainey and Stewart P. Evans (1995) one of the authors' arguments for the Irish-American quack doctor to have been the Ripper is that he might have experienced remorse toward the end of his life and thus decided to give some of his money to a home for prostitutes.

The Home for Fallen Women was located just north of Baltimore Street near the Shot Tower (1828) and the present-day general post office on E. Fayette Street. It has been demolished and replaced by a modern building.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3394/3526330228_fd9bcb213f.jpg

From Col. J. Thomas Scharf, History of Baltimore City and County, Baltimore, Md., 1881, p. 597.

Some time back I did look through documents on the Home for Fallen Women in the Maryland Historical Society and in those documents I located a list of donors -- but Dr. Tumblety was not among those listed.

Chris

[Chris G.]

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3339/3526854374_f92a675f8d_o.jpg

From Maryland, Its Resources, Industries and Institutions, prepared for the Maryland Board of World's Fair Managers by Members of the Johns Hopkins University and Others, Baltimore, Md., 1893, p. 474.

[How Brown]

Thanks for bringing the posts from the other thread to this new location,C.G.

Very interesting material.

[Nemo]

There's a Mr Kemp mentioned in the annual report for 1897 donating $1


http://i908.photobucket.com/albums/ac287/HowieNina/10.jpg

[Nemo]

The constitution (1897)

http://i908.photobucket.com/albums/ac287/HowieNina/0009-1.jpg

[Chris G.]

Thanks, Nemo!

Chris

[Chris G.]

Hi all

Here are some cell phone photographs I took on Sunday morning showing the location of what I believe was the now, I think, demolished Baltimore Home for Fallen Women. The first shot is looking westward on Baltimore Street toward downtown Baltimore and Tumblety's lodgings in 1900 on North Liberty Street. The tower at the center of the shot is the Phoenix Shot Tower (http://www.baltimore.to/ShotTower/index.html) of 1828. The link provided says it was built to provide all types of shot from duckshot to cannonballs, although my understanding is it was for local hunters, the molten lead having been dropped from the top of the tower into a vat of water. We are around four blocks east of the site of the Home.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3664/3548526271_f6fe1645ae_o.jpg

The building behind the Shot Tower in the photograph at that link above is Baltimore's General Post Office, on E. Fayette Street. The post office is also visible in the next view looking up North Exeter Street taken from just by the site of the Home for Fallen Women, which was located a block south of the site of the present post office, near the corner of N. Exeter and E. Baltimore Streets. Pretty much the whole of the west side of this block of N. Exeter Street in the block below the post office is modern, as is the east side of the street.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3358/3548136001_37c70b2b98_o.jpg

Well, clever pants, Chris George! I believe I was looking in the wrong place for the location of the Home! Here are several photos of where I thought it was, but this is the west side, or even side, and I believe the Home would have been behind me, not where the period building is on the left or the more modern building just up from the corner. Bah! The pics at least give an idea of the type of period architecture that might have been consistent with the look of the Home. I have not located a contemporary view of the Home but will keep looking.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3330/3548945604_05501f520f_o.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2344/3548945586_3acc4733a9_o.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2428/3548945590_a749b7a6cf_o.jpg


Check out this Google Street View (http://maps.google.com/maps?sourceid=navclient&rlz=1T4SUNA_enUS307US213&q=Baltimore+%221++North+Exeter+Street%22&um=1&ie=UTF-8&split=0&gl=us&ei=pz4USubLEdyLtgfy1vGQBA&sa=X&oi=geocode_result&ct=title&resnum=1) of the location which shows that the older building exactly on the corner of N. Exeter and E. Baltimore Street (or west side of N. Exeter) is a family counseling service called Harbor Pointe at 924 E Baltimore St. I now think the Home for Fallen Women was located on the east side of Exeter not the west side, which is completely modern, as you can see, if I am right that the "odd" numbers for the street were then as now on the east side.

Chris

[Nemo]

Here is the full annual report from 1897 that has some stories (some tragic) about the girls and their progress...

[Nemo]

I'm not sure if this is any use - the 1911 annual report

http://mdhistoryonline.net/mdmedicine/cfm/dsp_hospitalinfo.cfm?id=107

There is a reference in this article to photos taken of the interiors and inmates that may still exist...

http://www.citypaper.com/news/story.asp?id=2384