The Peale in Baltimore occupies the first building in the Western Hemisphere designed and built specifically as a museum. Opened in 1814 by artist Rembrandt Peale as Peale’s Baltimore Museum and Gallery of Fine Arts, it displayed portraits, natural history specimens, and the mastodon skeleton exhumed by Charles Willson Peale. The building later served many roles in Baltimore’s civic life, including the city’s first City Hall and a school that became the predecessor of Frederick Douglass High School. After repeated decline, renovation, and reopening, it was restored in 2022 as Baltimore’s community museum, embodying multiple layers of the city’s history.

Baltimore, Maryland · USA