History of the Lithuanians in Baltimore

The history of the Lithuanians in Baltimore dates back to the mid-19th century. Thousands of Lithuanians immigrated to Baltimore between the 1880s and 1920s. The Lithuanian American community was mainly centered in what is now the Hollins-Roundhouse Historic District. Baltimore's Lithuanian community has founded several institutions to preserve the Lithuanian heritage of the city, including a Roman Catholic parish, a cultural festival, a dance hall, and a yeshiva.

In 1920, 2,554 foreign-born White people in Baltimore spoke either the Latvian language or the Lithuanian language.

In 1940, 2,839 immigrants from Lithuania lived in Baltimore. These immigrants comprised 4.7% of the city's foreign-born white population.

In the 1960 United States Census, Lithuanian-Americans comprised 44% of the foreign-born population in South Baltimore's tract 22-2.

By 1991, there were an estimated 20,000 Lithuanians living in the Baltimore area.

The Lithuanian community in the Baltimore metropolitan area numbered 11,024 as of 2000, making up 0.4% of the area's population. In the same year Baltimore city's Lithuanian population was 1,519, 0.2% of the city's population.

In 2013, an estimated 1,092 Lithuanian-Americans resided in Baltimore city, 0.2% of the population.

As of September 2014, immigrants from Lithuania were the one-hundredth and second largest foreign-born population in Baltimore.

Lithuanians began to settle in Baltimore in 1876. The wave increased greatly during the 1880s and continued in large numbers until the 1920s. By 1950, the Lithuanian community numbered around 9,000. These Lithuanians settled primarily in a neighborhood north of Hollins Street that became known as Baltimore's Little Lithuania.

Three Roman Catholic churches have been designated as Lithuanian parishes: St. Alphonsus' beginning in 1917, St. John the Baptist Church from 1888 to 1917, and St. Wenceslaus beginning in 1872. St. Alphonsus' is the only remaining Lithuanian parish in Baltimore, as St. Wenceslaus was re-designated as a Bohemian parish and St. John the Baptist Church closed in 1989.

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