William Duncan McKim photograph collection

Several generations of the McKim family played prominent roles in Baltimore history. John McKim founded Baltimore’s first free public school. His brother Alexander McKim (1738-1842) served during the Revolutionary War and later as a member of Maryland’s House of Delegates and the US Congress.

Isaac McKim (1775-1838) probably the most well known family member, worked in his father John’s shipping business, eventually making it one of the most prosperous in the state. He also served in the state legislature and the US House of Representatives. He was a member of the Protective Society of Maryland and the American Colonization Society.

Dr. William Duncan McKim (1855-1935), son of Haslett and Sally Birkhead McKim, was born in Baltimore in 1855. He studied medicine at Columbia and Leipzig and was the author of “Heredity and Human Progress”. He married Roge Coolidge in 1882, Martha Moran Jones in 1900, and Leonora Jackson in 1915.

Leonora Jackson McKim (1879-1969), the donor of this collection, was awarded the Mendelssohn Prize as a violin student at the Royal School of music in Berlin. She went on to a prominent career in music, performing as a soloist with symphony orchestras in the United States, Germany, France, and Great Britain. She was decorated by Queen Victoria and went on a world tour in 1926.