On this #InternationalWomensDay, we’re looking back on the stories of women residents and business owners of the Flag House. During our interpretive planning research, we discovered a surprising number of women, widows, and women business owners that occupied and operated the Flag House throughout the later part of the nineteenth century. Like Mary Pickersgill before them, these women continued the tradition of utilizing the Flag House to support themselves and their families.
Caroline Pickersgill Purdy left the Flag House in 1867, beginning an era for the Flag House of residential and business use. The first post-Pickersgill woman-operated business appears in the 1868 Baltimore City Directory. Mrs. Eve Unterwagoner, a German immigrant, operates a tavern from the first floor. In the 1870 census, the recently widowed and German native Josephine Long is listed as head of household and “keeper” of a liquor store at 44 E. Pratt Street, the former address of the historic Flag House. Josephine continues to operate the liquor store until 1877. In 1878, she appeared in Baltimore City Directories as the operator of a tobacconist shop at 44 E. Pratt.
Two years later, in 1880, Mrs. Mary Hall is listed in Baltimore City Directories as the proprietor of a secondhand goods store at 44 E. Pratt and dwelling a short distance away at 55 Albemarle Street. The Flag House at this time is also occupied on the second floor by Matilda Dolman, widow age 60, her daughter Harriet Dolman, age 23, and Marguerite Cook, widow age 38. Mrs. Hall continues to sell secondhand goods from the first floor of the Flag House until 1882.
Margaret Elizabeth Bailey (nee Jones) was born in 1870 in Baltimore to Andrew Jackson Jones and Lugene Jones (nee Read) and briefly lived in the Flag House as a child. At age 20, she married Isaac Bailey (58) in Virginia. The couple returns to Maryland sometime before 1910, where they are listed in the census as residing in Chestertown, MD. After Isaac’s death at age 83, Margaret returned to Baltimore and was listed as living with her son Albion and working as a private care nurse. She lived until age 105.
