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Edgar Allan Poe House and Museum
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Edgar Allan Poe House and Museum
The Edgar Allan Poe House and Museum is a row home at 203 North Amity Street in Baltimore, Maryland, United States. Serving as the home of American writer Edgar Allan Poe in the 1830s, the small, unassuming structure was opened as a writer's house museum in 1949. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1972.
Due to a loss of funding by the city of Baltimore, the museum closed to the public in October 2012. Poe Baltimore, the museum's new governing body, reopened the museum to the public on October 5, 2013. The house is the site for the International Edgar Allan Poe Festival & Awards, held in October of each year.
The brick home, then numbered 3 Amity St., and now numbered 203 North Amity Street, is assumed to have been built in 1830 and rented by Poe's aunt Maria Clemm in 1832. Clemm was joined in the home by her ailing mother, Elizabeth Cairnes Poe, and her daughter Virginia Clemm. Edgar Allan Poe moved in with the family in 1833 around the age of 23, after leaving West Point. Virginia was 10 years old at the time; Poe would marry her three years later, though their only public ceremony was in 1836. Poe lived in the house from about 1833 to 1835.
The house was rented using pension money that Elizabeth collected thanks to her husband, David Poe Sr., who was a veteran of the American Revolutionary War. The home is small and Poe's room on the top floor has a ceiling with a sharp pitch which is six feet high at its tallest point.
In the 1930s, homes in the area, including Poe's, were set for demolition to make room for the "Poe Homes" public housing project. The house was saved by the efforts of the Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore, which made arrangements with the city of Baltimore and opened the home as The Baltimore Poe House in 1949. Former displays in the museum included a lock of Poe's hair, a small piece of Poe's coffin, some original china that once belonged to John Allan (Poe's guardian after Eliza Poe's death), and a large reproduction of the portrait of Virginia Clemm painted after her death as well as many other Poe-related images. An original 1849 obituary by Rufus Griswold in the October 24, 1849 edition of the Philadelphia Dollar Newspaper was also displayed along with a reprint of Poe's original announcement for the creation of a new literary magazine to be called The Stylus — an endeavor that never came to fruition.
During house renovations in 1979, workers lifted the floorboards and found skeletal remains, reminiscent of Poe's story "The Tell-Tale Heart". These were found to be animal bones discarded into what is known as a "trash pit" or midden beneath the home.
In the period from 1980 to 2011, the museum hosted a number of Poe events throughout the year. It claimed, for example, the largest Poe birthday celebration in the world held every January at the Westminster Hall and Burying Ground, where Poe was buried following his death in October 1849. In 2009, the museum staged a third funeral for Poe (theatrical) for the Poe Bicentennial at Westminster Hall. Over 1,200 people attended two services.
In 2011, City of Baltimore officials reduced the museum's subsidy, a decision that ultimately led to its closure in 2012. After the City cut off its $85,000 in annual support in 2011, the museum was operating on reserve funds to the amount of $380,000 in the Poe House Fundraising account.
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Edgar Allan Poe House and Museum
The Edgar Allan Poe House and Museum is a row home at 203 North Amity Street in Baltimore, Maryland, United States. Serving as the home of American writer Edgar Allan Poe in the 1830s, the small, unassuming structure was opened as a writer's house museum in 1949. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1972.
Due to a loss of funding by the city of Baltimore, the museum closed to the public in October 2012. Poe Baltimore, the museum's new governing body, reopened the museum to the public on October 5, 2013. The house is the site for the International Edgar Allan Poe Festival & Awards, held in October of each year.
The brick home, then numbered 3 Amity St., and now numbered 203 North Amity Street, is assumed to have been built in 1830 and rented by Poe's aunt Maria Clemm in 1832. Clemm was joined in the home by her ailing mother, Elizabeth Cairnes Poe, and her daughter Virginia Clemm. Edgar Allan Poe moved in with the family in 1833 around the age of 23, after leaving West Point. Virginia was 10 years old at the time; Poe would marry her three years later, though their only public ceremony was in 1836. Poe lived in the house from about 1833 to 1835.
The house was rented using pension money that Elizabeth collected thanks to her husband, David Poe Sr., who was a veteran of the American Revolutionary War. The home is small and Poe's room on the top floor has a ceiling with a sharp pitch which is six feet high at its tallest point.
In the 1930s, homes in the area, including Poe's, were set for demolition to make room for the "Poe Homes" public housing project. The house was saved by the efforts of the Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore, which made arrangements with the city of Baltimore and opened the home as The Baltimore Poe House in 1949. Former displays in the museum included a lock of Poe's hair, a small piece of Poe's coffin, some original china that once belonged to John Allan (Poe's guardian after Eliza Poe's death), and a large reproduction of the portrait of Virginia Clemm painted after her death as well as many other Poe-related images. An original 1849 obituary by Rufus Griswold in the October 24, 1849 edition of the Philadelphia Dollar Newspaper was also displayed along with a reprint of Poe's original announcement for the creation of a new literary magazine to be called The Stylus — an endeavor that never came to fruition.
During house renovations in 1979, workers lifted the floorboards and found skeletal remains, reminiscent of Poe's story "The Tell-Tale Heart". These were found to be animal bones discarded into what is known as a "trash pit" or midden beneath the home.
In the period from 1980 to 2011, the museum hosted a number of Poe events throughout the year. It claimed, for example, the largest Poe birthday celebration in the world held every January at the Westminster Hall and Burying Ground, where Poe was buried following his death in October 1849. In 2009, the museum staged a third funeral for Poe (theatrical) for the Poe Bicentennial at Westminster Hall. Over 1,200 people attended two services.
In 2011, City of Baltimore officials reduced the museum's subsidy, a decision that ultimately led to its closure in 2012. After the City cut off its $85,000 in annual support in 2011, the museum was operating on reserve funds to the amount of $380,000 in the Poe House Fundraising account.
