History of Baltimore City College

[2] An effort to expand that academic power and allow the then named "Central High School of Baltimore" to confer Bachelor of Arts degrees began following the Civil War in 1865, and continued the following year with the renaming of the institution as "The Baltimore City College", which it still holds to this day, with also the retitling of its chief academic officer from "principal" to "president", along with an increase in the number of years of its course of study and the expansion of its courses.

in the late 19th and early 20th centuries was accepted by many other colleges and universities entitling City graduates to enter upper-division schools at the sophomore year, (which was also coincidentally a privilege also accorded to its later local academic and athletic rival for 127 years - "Poly", the Baltimore Polytechnic Institute, founded 1883 as the Baltimore Manual Training School, later renamed 1893).

[3] As the importance of higher education increased in the early 20th century, the High School's priorities shifted to preparing students for college.

[5] The school underwent major demographic changes following the U.S. Supreme Court's unanimous ruling in the May 1954 decision "Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas" case that called for an end to racial segregation.

[8] After another period of neglect in the late 1980s after the decade long stimulating and long leadership of the "New City College" program, curriculum and admissions standards under Principal Solomon Lausch, by the early 1990s, to the mid-1990s, with an increase in funding from the BCPS school system, and the selection of the high school to be one of the few to sub-contract out its maintenance and support functions to the Educational Alternatives, Inc. private system (E.A.I.)

[11] The creation of a male high school "in which the higher branches of English and classical literature should be taught exclusively" was authorized unanimously by the Baltimore City Council on March 7, 1839.

[1] Enrollment was restricted to white, male students of Baltimore City who had completed grammar school and passed an entrance exam.

[13] The renovated new school building was the former old "Assembly Rooms", a Greek Revival architecture civic landmark, built in 1797 by architects Robert Cary Long, Sr. and Col. Nicholas Rogers (ancestor owner of the estate which became Druid Hill Park) to accommodate social events for Baltimore's social elite at the Baltimore Dancing Assembly, which had begun in the 1780s.

The school was next door to the famous Holliday Street Theatre, where the poem "The Defence of Fort McHenry", now known as the "Star Spangled Banner" written by Frederick and Georgetown lawyer and amateur poet, Francis Scott Key, (1779-1843), was first performed on its stage in October and November 1814, following the Battle of Baltimore, with the British Royal Navy and Army attack on Baltimore during the War of 1812, (now known as "Defenders' Day") on September 12-13-14, 1814.

of B. held its first commencement ceremony in 1851 with noted local philosopher, author and civic leader Severn Teackle Wallis, (1816-1894), as the guest speaker, (Wallis has a bronze statue to his memory and many city accomplishments at the eastern end from the Washington Monument of Mount Vernon Place/East Monument Street facing the intersection with St. Paul Street.

Under the direction of Waters, the school day was divided into eight periods lasting forty-five minutes: four sessions were held in the morning and four in the afternoon.

In the 43rd Annual Report of the Board of Commissioners of the Public Schools to the Mayor and City Council, the president of the board wrote: The subject of chronic lamentation,—the Baltimore City College Building,—which for the past fifteen years has afforded annually such abundant matter for melancholy regrets, not withstanding all the fervent promises and eloquent professions of interest that have been made from time to time extended, still remains as a crumbling monument of our withered hopes and blasted expectations.

[23] It was not until 1873, when a fire spread from the Holliday Street Theatre to the "Assembly Rooms," that the city council finally decided to expend the resources to erect a new building for the school.

[27] In 1876, ceremonies were held in the adjacent Academy of Music for the new Johns Hopkins University, which had established several buildings alongside City College under its first president, Daniel Coit Gilman.

[28] That same year BCC's academic program underwent further changes with the introduction of a one-year track, which provided an opportunity for students who could not complete the entire course of study because they needed to enter the labor market.

[29] Courses in the one-year track focused on providing students with pragmatic skills, such as "book-keeping", "commercial arithmetic", and "business correspondence".

[29] City College's first extracurricular activity, the Bancroft Literary Association, was established the same year to provide a forum for student debate.

[41] When the school board was alerted of the matter, it attempted to censor the edition, passing a resolution requiring the Green Bag to be reviewed by Principal Francis A. Soper.

Therefore, during the 1920s, alumni began campaigning to provide a proper building for the school, and in 1926, ground was broken for a massive Collegiate Gothic stone castle with a 38-acre (153,781 m2) campus, on a hill in the newly annexed northeastern suburbs at 33rd Street and The Alameda.

The four-level "Castle on the Hill", which was surmounted by a 150 ft (46 m) tower and designed by architects Buckler and Fenhagen, cost almost $3,000,000 and accommodated 2,500 students.

[49] When Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 led to U.S. entry into World War II, blood donor projects, stamp and bond drives, and the dedication of service flags gave the City College a wartime atmosphere.

More than three-quarters of the students participated in the Victory Corps, which sponsored courses in communications, map reading, judo and the study of the poisonous and non-poisonous plants on Pacific islands.

[30] The names of all of the fallen, including two Medal of Honor recipients, are inscribed on a bronze memorial, which sits today in the center of the school.

That same year the school system announced its intent to make City College coeducational; however, the all-male tradition did not end easily.

Alumni argued for the uniqueness of a single-sex education system, and a task force studying the issue voted 11–6 in favor of keeping the all-male tradition.

In a stunning reversal, the board of school commissioners voted to admit women citing constitutional concerns over equal rights.

[8] During this period of decline, the "A" Course was discontinued by Principal Joseph Antenson, who contended that the program was racially discriminatory—an argument Paquin had made nearly three decades earlier—and opted for a standardized curriculum.

[9] Wilson, with the aid of alumni and parents, was able to secure more funding and autonomy from the school system, which were used to redesign the curriculum and to introduce the IB Diploma Program in 1998.

[10] The following year, the Toronto National Post reported on the two-month-long task of searching for the perfect high school in Great Britain, the United States, and Canada.

[63] However, the previous year City College was a victim of vandalism at the hands of a group of children ranging in age from 8 to 15, as a renovation of the school neared completion.