Baltimore Museum of Industry

Educational programming: in fy2022 the bmi offered a suite of curriculum-aligned educational programs to school groups in both in-person and virtual formats. Although the Museum had been closed to on-site school visitors for more than a year during the pandemic, bookings resumed in fy22 and the Museum ended the year with more than 24,000 visits from students, teachers, and chaperones. The bmi also continued to offer the popular Maryland engineering challenges, resuming to an in-person format for these highly regarded stem competitions. Simultaneously, the Museum continued to offer outreach services such as the popular city kits program. The Museum's resources complement classroom learning and support efforts to ameliorate pandemic-related learning loss. Teachers have expressed appreciation to the bmi for providing resources that have helped them keep students meaningfully engaged and for offering them in flexible formats.

Public programming: while returning to in-person programming in fy2022, the bmi also maintained a robust schedule of virtual programming, after hearing from participants that they still enjoyed having this option. The Museum's popular "Baltimore narratives" monthly online lecture series drew 100+ viewers each month, offering insightful perspectives on a wide range of topics related to Maryland's industrial history. In-person programs included monthly oyster gardening workshops, community concerts, artist meet-and-greets, book launches, and crafting classes for adults and children. Programs such as these attracted more than 3,200 participants.

Exhibitions & collections: exhibitions play an important role in fulfilling the bmi's mission. In fy2022, the bmi was pleased to open fire & shadow: the rise and fall of bethlehem steel, a long-term exhibition that chronicles the stories of steel workers at the Baltimore's sparrows point mill. It marks the culmination of the Museum's multi-year bethlehem steel legacy project, which garnered widespread media coverage. Through its reframing the narrative initiative, the bmi unveiled interpretive updates in several of the Museum's in fy2022. The updates feature the stories of immigrants, women, and people of color in various industries to better represent the region's diverse heritage. These and other exhibitions draw heavily upon the bmi's archival collections, which contain more than 10,000 linear feet of records from dozens of Maryland businesses, as well as over 80,000 photographic images and a 5,000-volume research library. Although most of these collections are only available on-site, the pandemic accelerated efforts to digitize the bmi's resources and make them remotely accessible.