Founded in 1931, The Baltimore City Life Museums interpret the history, culture and traditions of Baltimore through innovative exhibits and programs.

The BCLM has eight historic sites, with six situated at the museums' Front Street 'campus'. The Morton K. Blaustein City Life Exhibition Center offers three floors of exhibits relating to Baltimore and its people and is housed in a new building with a 125 year-old cast-iron façade.

The Carroll Mansion dates from around 1808, whilst the adjacent 1840 House is a restored rowhouse that features hands-on activities, open-hearth cooking programs and nineteenth-century costumed interpreters.

Across the street is Brewers' Park, the site of Baltimore's largest Revolutionary War-era brewery and on display in the Center for Urban Archaeology is an array of artifacts, from thousands of years old to more recent finds, including some from Brewers' Park.

Two blocks north of the Carroll Mansion, Shot Tower, built in 1828, is one of Baltimore's last surviving relics of the Industrial Revolution and was known as the 'factory in a smokestack'.

Located at other sites in downtown Baltimore are the Peale Museum, the first in the United States designed specifically to serve as a museum, and the restored home of celebrated journalist and critic, H L Mencken, the 'sage of Baltimore'.