Eastern Female High School , also known as Public School No. 116, is a historic female high school located on the southeast corner of the 200 block of North Aisquith Street and Orleans Street, in the old Jonestown / Old Town neighborhoods, east of Downtown Baltimore and now adjacent to the recently redeveloped Pleasant View Gardens housing project / neighborhood of Baltimore , Maryland , United States . It was built in 1869-1870 and is typical of the Italian Villa mode of late 19th-century architecture. It was dedicated in a large ceremony with speeches later published in a printed pamphlet and attending crowds in early 1870. Old Eastern High is a two-story brick structure that features a square plan, three corner towers (northwest, southwest, southeast), and elaborate bracketing cornices, with a similar wood decorated porch/portico over front entrance on its west side facing Aisquith Street.
31-603: Eastern Female High School was founded (along with its twin sister secondary school Western High School ) in 1844 and was one of the pioneer high schools in the country devoted to secondary education for women . It was designed by Baltimore architect Colonel R. Snowden Andrews (1830-1903), also a former officer in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War . In 1907, the girls high school moved to larger, better equipped quarters further northeast in
62-641: A "Silver Medal High School". Western High school's athletics program ( the Doves ) fields teams in soccer , cross-country , badminton , swimming , lacrosse , dance, tennis , volleyball , basketball , softball and track and field . The Western Doves girls' basketball team won the Maryland public secondary school championships in 1994 and 1995. They were runners-up in the state contests in 1998, 1999, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2007 and 2010. They won 35 or more District IX Baltimore City Championships and have been to State Finals
93-477: A 100% four-year college acceptance rate. The W.H.S.'s "Teacher Academy" offers four classes that prepare students for a career in education. Western also annually produces championship athletic teams and prize-winning performing arts students and sponsors more than 40 different type of clubs, organizations, service groups and publications. In 2012, the news magazine U.S. News & World Report ranked Western High School as 912th nationally and 44th in Maryland as
124-540: A Sunday in odd years, in June. This is because it shares an athletic complex (namely the football field) with its brother school, Baltimore Polytechnic Institute . The girls wear white, ankle-length dresses and carry red roses during the commencement ceremony. It is also customary to release white doves, Western's mascot. Upton, Baltimore Upton is a neighborhood in Baltimore , Maryland , United States. The neighborhood
155-479: A joint, huge, modern campus with the then all-male Baltimore Polytechnic Institute to the west, the city's premier mathematics / science / technology and engineering magnet public high school, previously founded 1883 on little Courtland Street as the Baltimore Manual Training School, and renamed a decade later. The new "Poly-Western Complex", on the drawing boards for five years, was one of
186-550: A new, more expensive building specifically constructed for the girls' high school on Lafayette and McCulloh Streets in the northwestern residential neighborhood of Upton . By this time, the girls had opportunities to take clerical courses. After several other moves, in 1928 the school moved to twin H-shaped structure of red brick and limestone trim in an English Tudor / Elizabethan / Jacobethan architecture on Gwynns Falls Parkway, opposite financier George Brown's estate "Mondawmin" which
217-501: A record 14 times (the most in Maryland history). The Western track and field team are perennial champions, winning multiple city, regional and state championships. They won 29 Baltimore City Indoor/Outdoor Track Championships, 1995-2007(I) 1990–2005, 2007(O), 27 3A/4A North Regional Indoor/Outdoor Track Championships, 1995-2006(I) 1990–2004, 2006(O) and three 3A/4A Maryland State Outdoor Track Championships, 2002, 2005–2006. They were four times
248-528: Is in the western section of the city, roughly between Fremont Avenue and McCulloh Street , extending from Dolphin Street to Bloom Street . Its principal thoroughfare is Pennsylvania Avenue . Located within the Old West Baltimore Historic District , Upton has historically been one of the economic, political and cultural centers of the city's black community. In the early 21st century, it
279-516: Is the focus of the city's urban revitalization programs. At the turn of the 20th century, Upton was one of the most affluent African American neighborhoods in the United States. The Pennsylvania Avenue commuter rail station on the Baltimore and Potomac Rail Road was built in 1884. By the 1920s, Upton was home to most educated African-American property owners in Baltimore. To its south and west were
310-539: The NAACP was based in Upton when it was developed. In the mid-20th century, Upton's population swelled due to the popularity of the neighborhood and the pressures of state racial segregation that kept African Americans confined to certain areas in the city. Single family homes were subdivided into small apartments, and Pennsylvania Avenue's sidewalks were crowded on Saturday nights. Loud music and heavy drinking became popular vices of
341-480: The "Teacher Academy". Western's most rigorous academic program is the "Advanced College Preparatory" Program, ("The 'A' Course"), which was established in 1933 by a joint agreement between Western and the then also all-female Goucher College (formerly located on the 2400 block of St. Paul Street in the Charles Village neighborhood in northern Baltimore City and relocated in the 1950s to the northeast of Towson ,
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#1733085548511372-425: The 3A/4A Maryland State Outdoor Track Championship runner-ups: 1998, 1999, 2003, 2004. In 2009 outdoor track season, the Doves took cities, regionals and states, becoming the 2009 Outdoor Track State Champs. Western has four sets of traditional class colors . Each class inherits their class colors as freshmen. The colors are: Western High School's graduation is traditionally held on a Saturday in even years and on
403-540: The United States. It is the third-oldest public high school in the state of Maryland and part of the Baltimore City Public Schools . Western High was named a " National Blue Ribbon School " of Excellence by the U.S. Department of Education in 2009 and a "Silver Medal High School" by the news magazine U.S. News & World Report in 2012. The Western Female High School was founded in 1844 as one of two "twin sisters" secondary schools for young ladies in
434-471: The black community. Cab Calloway grew up in Upton, and Eubie Blake performed his debut in a club on Pennsylvania Avenue. The Royal Theater, at Pennsylvania and Lafayette, became a mainstay on the Chitlin Circuit . Upton was a base for much of the local and national civil rights movement. Booker T Washington , W. E. B. Du Bois , and Marcus Garvey all visited local churches. The Baltimore chapter of
465-430: The city at the southeast corner of Broadway and East North Avenue (the former Samuel Gompers Vocational High School building, 1938–1953), where it remained for another three decades until 1938, when it moved to East 33rd Street and Loch Raven Boulevard ( Eastern High School (Baltimore) ), until it closed in the late 1980s. Then the old girls school building on Aisquith and Orleans was used as an elementary school through
496-409: The corners of Pennsylvania and Laurens Street. Bus Route 7 runs along Pennsylvania Avenue, and Routes 5 and 21 run near the neighborhood. The Avenue Market sells produce and holds occasional events such as jazz shows. According to the city, 60% of Upton families with children under 5 are living in poverty. The median home sale price in Upton in 2004 (not including Marble Hill) was $ 28,054. Many of
527-574: The county seat of suburban Baltimore County ). Within the "Accelerated College Preparatory" program, students can finish four years of high school work in grade 9 – 11 . During their 12th-grade year they are able to pursue advanced placement or college-level courses. Students who graduate from "The 'A' Course" may enter college or university with " advanced standing ". This rigorous college preparatory program allows students to take honors courses in subjects in which they demonstrate strength. The classes of 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009 had
558-478: The early 1970s. Later in the 1970s the building was converted into apartments. The city transferred the building to Sojourner-Douglass College in 2003 after the institution paid $ 150,000. The college, which also operated in several other former buildings of the Baltimore City Public Schools , ceased operation in 2015. In August 2016 the City of Baltimore listed the building on a foreclosure auction and sold it in 2017. It
589-421: The first time in the old Armitage Hall located at 100 North Paca Street on the western side of downtown Baltimore, between West Fayette and Lexington Streets. In those two small rented rooms, Robert Kerr, the first principal and sole teacher, welcomed thirty-six young women. Thus began the unique legacy of Western, a pioneer in women's education , along with its companion Eastern High , in the United States. Before
620-459: The former Young Women's Christian Association ( YWCA downtown center at the northeast corner of Park Avenue and West Franklin Street in the following year. The people of Western High School opposed the idea of BLSYW being housed in that building. The current principal of Western High School is Britney Horne. Western High offers three academic programs/curriculums: the "Accelerated College Preparatory" ("A Course"), "College Preparatory", and
651-472: The most expensive and largest high school campuses constructed in America up to that time. For most of its history, Western has been a citywide "magnet program" , officially designated as such in 1975. Students must apply and meet certain entrance criteria . Baltimore Leadership School for Young Women (BLSYW), established in 2009, initially occupied the third floor of Western but moved into its own building in
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#1733085548511682-458: The newer Upton residents. Upper-income black families began abandoning the area for neighborhoods away from the center of the city, as part of the suburbanization under way in many cities. In the 1960s and '70s, controversial urban renewal projects destroyed much of Upton's historic architecture, especially in the southwestern portion of the neighborhood. The city constructed public housing projects to accommodate more people but did not replace all
713-478: The old City College building were crowded and difficult with an additional annex building and no surrounding campus in its near downtown and Mount Vernon-Belvedere neighborhood location. Finally a new modern Western High finally opened in its current location at 4600 Falls Road at the northwest corner with West Cold Spring Lane (just east of the stream Jones Falls which divides the city) in September 1967, sharing
744-527: The poor and working class African-American neighborhoods of "The Bottom," and to its east were German-American and Jewish-American neighborhoods. Pennsylvania Avenue was the premiere shopping strip for black Baltimoreans, inspiring comparisons to Lenox Avenue in Harlem . It was home to professionals such as doctors and lawyers, retailers who served a middle class and upscale clientele, jazz clubs, dance halls, theaters, and other public and private institutions for
775-576: The then 15-year-old Baltimore City Public Schools system, along with the Eastern Female High School . Earlier in 1829, the first four "grammar" schools (today's elementary schools ) were established by the newly organized B.C.P.S., two for boys and two for girls, one in each of the four quadrants of the smaller densely populated city that was Baltimore then. On November 1, 1844, the Western High School officially opened its doors for
806-418: The two female high schools were established (as described in the literature of the day, two separate institutions were established in order not to pose an unusual hardship on the young ladies traveling distances through the town), there had been no opportunity for Baltimore girls to get an education beyond the grammar school level. By 1896, a half-century later and several relocations later, W.F.H.S. moved to
837-491: The units that were lost. In addition, once the historic buildings were razed, it was difficult to secure developers to build new construction. The Royal Theater was demolished in 1971. A statue of Billie Holiday , a native of Baltimore, and a frequent performer at the Royal Theatre, is located at 1400 Pennsylvania Avenue. It was unveiled in 1985. The eastern section of the neighborhood, relatively untouched by urban renewal,
868-620: Was declared a national historic district in 1985. This area is today known as Marble Hill. It contains many historic rowhouses of the Queen Anne and Italianate styles, featuring high ceilings, decorative ironwork, and white marble steps. Upton is about a fifteen-minute walk from Downtown Baltimore . It is served by the Baltimore Metro Subway with the Upton/Avenue Market Metro Subway Station underneath
899-497: Was on the southwest corner of North Howard and West Centre Street in the former Baltimore City College building of 1895–1928, which had housed the Boys Vocational High School until 1954 when it merged with Samuel Gompers Vocational High School to form Mergenthaler Vocational-Technical High School in a new brick building and campus in 1955 on Hillen Road, facing Lake Montebello in the northeast city. Western's years at
930-527: Was replaced by one of the earliest enclosed malls in 1956), which was the duplicate of a similar new building for sister Eastern High in 1938 on 33rd Street and Loch Raven Boulevard. In 1954, the year of the racial integration of the Baltimore City Public Schools, the Gwynns Falls site became the home of Frederick Douglass High School , and WHS moved on again. For the next thirteen years WHS
961-506: Was to be developed into an entertainment and arts center, but the building remains vacant as of 2019. Eastern Female High School was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1971. This article about a Registered Historic Place in Baltimore is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Western High School (Baltimore) Western High School is the oldest public all-girls high school remaining in