Baltimore History Evenings Presents:
Old West Baltimore
Commemorating the Nation’s Largest Registered African American Historic District
We’ll join Philip J. Merrill via Zoom at 7:00 PM on January 21, 2021 to celebrate the publication of his book, Images of America: Old West Baltimore (Arcadia Publishing, 2020).
Merrill founded Nanny Jack & Company in 1994, an archives and consulting agency specializing in creating projects that illuminate the African experience through memorabilia, oral history, and research. The company would eventually house over 30,000 artifacts, including photographs, rare books, folk art, documentaries, music, dolls, furniture, and quilts.
Merrill combed the Nanny Jack & Co Archives to uncover and document the Old West Baltimore Historic District through material culture, oral history, and in-depth research. The book is a culmination of some of this work.
Merrill was as a member of the Chesapeake Collectibles appraiser team on Maryland Public Television for eight seasons and a Black Americana specialist on Antiques Roadshow for six seasons. He is the author of The Art of Collecting Black Memorabilia (Gateway Press 1998), The Black America Series: Baltimore (Arcadia Publishing, 1999), and editor of The World War II Black Regiment that Built the Alaska Military Highway: A Photographic History (University Press of Mississippi, 2002).
