Poe Baltimore Awarded Grants for America 250 Programming

As the nation prepares to commemorate the 250th anniversary of American independence in 2026, Poe Baltimore is proud to announce new funding for programs that connect Baltimore’s Revolutionary past to the legacy of Edgar Allan Poe.

Maryland Historical Trust and Maryland Heritage Areas Authority recently announced the award of $44,100 to Poe Baltimore for our forthcoming “Revolution & Remembrance: Baltimore’s Patriots and the Poe Family” program which will include bus tours, diorama, and lecture series at Carroll Mansion and Westminster Hall. This year Poe Baltimore was also awarded a $4,000 Inclusive History Grant from the Maryland 250 Commission. 

These funds will support expanded exhibits, a new Revolutionary-themed bus tour, and additional public programming leading into the Semiquincentennial next year. Tour highlights to include burial sites of Poe’s grandparents and other Revolutionary-era figures at Westminster Hall, the expanded exhibits at the historic Carroll Mansion—once home to Declaration signer Charles Carroll of Carrollton—and the grave of Samuel Chase, another Baltimore signer.

This project builds on Poe Baltimore’s multi-year program to reveal the hidden history the Edgar Allan Poe family’s service during the American Revolution. Our most recent programming was made possible via $20,000 Heritage Investment Grant from the Baltimore National Heritage Area, awarded in 2024 to open the Poe, Revolution & the Marquis de Lafayette exhibit on view now at Carroll Mansion. In 2022-24, Poe Baltimore worked with Westminster Preservation Trust, Sons of the Revolution in the State of Maryland, and several others to update interpretive signage at Westminster Hall, where over 300 veterans of the Revolution and War of 1812 are buried, alongside literary legend Edgar Allan Poe.

More details will unfold in the months ahead as we continue preparations for 2026!