Ship owner Isaac McKim built a house here in 1808. St. Vincent de Paul Roman Catholic Church bought the property in 1879 and built a large social hall beside the house, naming the complex Carroll Hall. Parish societies used the hall, but high rental fees and a no-alcohol policy kept other organizations from renting space. In 1888 the Church sold the complex-including an auditorium, bowling alley, lecture rooms, billiard parlor, and offices—at a loss.
By 1905, the hall became the Labor Lyceum. Sixteen unions had headquarters here, including the bakers, beer drivers, bottlers, brewers, butchers, firemen, roofers, sailmakers, tailors, and wagoners. During the labor turmoil of the era, the hall hosted mass meetings of immigrant workers who spoke various languages. Of one 1909 gathering, the Baltimore Sun observed, "there reverberated about the halls the sounds as of a tower of Babel."
In 1913 about 100 women garment workers marched from the Labor Lyceum to a downtown train station where they joined middle-class women's suffragists traveling to Washington, D.C., to demonstrate for women's rights.
In the 1920s the National Wallpaper Company took over the building. By 1950 it housed the I.L. Candy and Toy Company; it later became a warehouse. In 2007, the Helping Up Mission turned the building into a residential
facility for men in long-term recovery.
(Inscription under the image in the upper right) The 1000 block of East Baltimore Street, 1909. Left to right: Second Presbyterian Church (1852-1924), Talmud Torah, Phillip Mirvis Tea Company, Labor Lyceum (1023 East Baltimore). Courtesy of the Jewish Museum of Maryland, 1985.90.14.
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