Do you want to learn more about Johns Hopkins history? Hopkins Retrospective has helped with the creation of online and physical exhibits that explore different aspects of the history of our university.  

These exhibits—all of which have been developed by students, archivists, curators, and historians—have uncovered aspects of our university’s history and highlighted the experiences of our community members. They combine historic photographs, documents, and interviews to make this history accessible. 

Current Exhibitions

If Homewood’s Walls Could Talk: A History of An American House

Sepia-toned photo of two open wooden doorways with large, half-circle transoms decorated with sun motifs. The doors lead out onto a lawn and lush landscape.
Interior View of Homewood House, undated, Special Collections, Johns Hopkins Sheridan Libraries.

October 21, 2025 – January 10, 2027

 

Homewood Museum
On view with regular admission, Free-$12

In conjunction with the 250th anniversary of the United States and the 150th anniversary of Johns Hopkins University, this house-wide exhibition explores Homewood’s 224-year history, from its 1801 construction for the family of Declaration of Independence signer and enslaver Charles Carroll of Carrollton, through its 1902 acquisition by Johns Hopkins University, to its 1980s restoration and launch as a historic house museum. Using archival photography, textiles, student diaries, historic documents, furniture, oral histories, and more, the exhibition amplifies the voices of those who lived, worked, or learned at Homewood, allowing visitors to understand how individual histories contribute to a larger story of the house, the university, and the United States. Read more here.

The exhibition and related programming are made possible, in part, by the Johns Hopkins University Sesquicentennial Celebration, with additional support from John Guess, A&S ’71, SAIS ’76 (MA); Hopkins Retrospective; and the Program in Museums & Society at the Krieger School of Arts & Sciences.

Learn more about the exhibition

Hybrid Exhibitions

A graphic with a photo on the left and a slanted color background with white text on the right. The left is a photograph of the Homewood Estate, a two-story neo-classical home. The text on the right says, "A Sense of Place Hidden Stories of the Homewood Campus".

A Sense of Place: Hidden Stories on the Homewood Campus

In 2014, students from the Hopkins Program in Museums and Society explored the history of the Homewood campus alongside experts in heritage studies. In a hands-on, exploratory course, they developed “A Sense of Place,” a series of ten interpretive signs that highlight locations around campus and explain their significance in Hopkins and Baltimore history. The signs, produced through a partnership with environmental design students at the Maryland Institute College of Art, were installed in September 2014.

Online Exhibitions

A banner for an online exhibit with the title "Hopkins and the Great War". A red star sits in the center of the title. Behind the title are black and white images of soldiers in uniform sitting on marble steps.

Hopkins and the Great War

Before, during, and after America’s entry into the conflict, World War I challenged Johns Hopkins intellectuals’ ideas about the international world order, the problem of war, and the role of the university and hospital in wartime. This exploration of World War I at Hopkins draws together materials that demonstrate the war’s impact on those who lived and worked on the Homewood and East Baltimore campuses.

Four fair skinned students sit at a wooden table, all smiling in as the converse with one another. Overlaid is stylized text that says Jews at Hopkins A Digital History.

Jews at Hopkins: A Digital History

This student-curated project exhibits different aspects of Jewish life across Johns Hopkins University’s history.  It gives a sense of what it meant for different students to be Jewish on campus, and how their identity affected other Jewish students and the University at large. 

Graphic with text and black and white photograph. Text at the top reads Activist Campus in red letters and Johns Hopkins University in the Age of Protest in white smaller text. The photo behind shows wooden structure spray painted with words such as "Free Mandela" and "JHU Divest Now". Two students stand nearby.

Activist Campus: Johns Hopkins University in the Age of Protest

This student-curated exhibition tells the story of how Johns Hopkins University, during a dire financial crisis and located in a Baltimore resistant to certain changes, sought to navigate through the late 1960s and early 1970s era of rising social consciousness and student unrest. 

A graphic with text on the left and a photo in the shape of a circle on the right. The text reads Defining Letters The Correspondence of Daniel Coit Gilman. In the photo on the right, a black and white photo shows Gilman sitting at a table reading a letter he holds in one hand.

Defining Letters: The Correspondence of Daniel Coit Gilman

This exhibit highlights select items from the complete series of founding Johns Hopkins President Daniel Coit Gilman’s digitized correspondence available from the Sheridan Libraries of Johns Hopkins University. Gilman’s correspondents include prominent educators, scientists, politicians, and literary figures. 

Graphic of text overlayed on a image. The text reads The History of Student Life at JHU in all caps. Behind the text a black and white photo with blue tint shows a group of Chinese and Asian students sitting on bleachers smiling.

The History of Student Life at JHU

This student-curated project explores the history of Johns Hopkins through the lens of the undergraduate student experience, tracing the development of an institution through a population that spends only four years on campus but has an extraordinary influence on the university.