Homewood Museum Outdoor Audio Walk

Hello and welcome to this outdoor audio walk around Homewood Museum, spotlighting sites associated with the Federal period historic house and former estate on Johns Hopkins University’s Homewood campus. As we walk together today, we will follow a trail of landmarks across the campus named for this National Historic Landmark, which was constructed between 1801 and 1806 and owned by members of Maryland’s prominent Carroll family until 1838. The house once had many outbuildings surrounding it that served a variety of domestic and agricultural functions, including separate living quarters for the enslaved men, women and children. Homewood’s architecture influenced the later design of many of the university’s most important buildings. We will be stopping at Homewood Museum, the Homewood Orchard, the Carriage House and other significant sites connected with the history of this historic house.Homewood was the summer retreat and country home of Charles Carroll Jr., Harriet Chew Carroll, and their five children in the first quarter of the 19th century. Homewood was also a site of bondage for at least two enslaved families, William and Rebecca Ross and their two children, and Izadod and Cis Conner and six of their 13 children. Over the same 25-year period, at least 25 enslaved individuals lived and labored at Homewood. We can begin to understand family life, work life (domestic and agricultural), and the struggles experienced by the free and enslaved residents of Homewood by examining how their interpersonal relationships influenced—and were influenced by—Homewood’s architecture and furnishings.Tour produced, voiced and edited by Anne Louise Hollmuller, JHU BA/MA History '18.