“Who is Malachi Mills and Why Should He Have a Museum?”

In the United States, there are only a handful of historical museums dedicated to ordinary working class people. Here in Baltimore, the Irish Shrine Museum celebrates the Feely family, an immigrant Irish family representing the thousands of workers who built the tracks that became the railroad network today.

Plans are underway for a second museum to preserve the only wooden house left on the 1500 block of West Baltimore St. It may have been built by carpenter Malachi Mills, a possible mixed race American born on the Eastern Shore, who came to Baltimore to make a living for himself.

In this talk, we will explore the life of Malachi Mills, why his life sheds valuable insight into our past, and how seemingly ordinary lives are truly extraordinary.