Effort to preserve history of the nation's oldest public all-girls high school underway in Baltimore
Founded in 1844, Western High School in Baltimore is one of the only all-girls public schools in the United States.
For Black History Month, WJZ sat down with nine women who were among the first to integrate the all-girls school.
The archive room
Monique Cox is the president of the Western High School Foundation and a 1993 graduate of the school. Part of her role is to organize and preserve the archive room.
It is a room tucked away inside the school, and it is filled with over 180 years of artifacts like shoes, dresses, photos, letters and yearbooks.
One yearbook stands out from the rest. Inside, only nine Black women were pictured.
"The first nine to integrate Western High School in 1955," Cox explained.
"This is Anne Todd Jealous," Cox explained. "In 2015, she spoke about her experience, you know, being part of the first nine, and it was traumatic for her. You know, we're not going to sugarcoat that experience at that time."
"It was traumatic, and she had to heal from that experience to even visit this building," Cox continued
Although it is a tough story to tell, Jealous's photo sits among the now thousands of women who paved the way for the legacy to come.
"We want their history, their legacy, to be a story for our young ladies, to learn from — learn perseverance, to learn to stand on your ground, to learn to advocate for yourself," said Cox.
New era for Western High School
Preserving the space is a small part of a bigger project.
Brittany Horne-Baugh is Western High School's principal.
She said in June 2026, Western will move out of its current building into a temporary "swing" space for two years, as Baltimore City Schools works to rebuild its walls and put history on full display.
"Consider it that the light has been passed on to us, and we must carry that torch," said Horne-Baugh.
Carolyn O'Keefe is the vice president of the Western Foundation and explained that they're working with local archiving experts to learn how to properly preserve the items in the archive room before and after the big move.
She wants to make sure students— both past and present—will be a part of its future in a new archive space that's meant for research inside the soon-to-be school building.
"The new space will also have space for students to actually come in and do their own research and do their own stories," said O'Keefe. "They will learn digital categories, and they will learn how to digitally save and preserve historic pieces."
O'Keefe's hope is that a new archive room inside the new Western High will be a place where students and the community can come in and learn about the women who went to the school.
"That's exactly what we're trying to teach these young ladies…these scholars, to learn those transferable skills," said Cox.
"These stories are so important because our young women don't often travel in and out of the archives room, but they do get on Instagram," said Horne-Baugh.
"They do watch the news, so they will hear about the history, not only just seeing the portraits that are lining these four walls, but this will become embedded in also that charge and that call to action when they know the shoulders that they're standing upon, and they know will walk through these hallways," Horne-Baugh added.
The Western Foundation is also working to identify many of the students who have not been identified in the archive room. Many of them may still have roots in Baltimore.
Their goal is to raise at least $161,000 to help with the cost of storing valuables in a safe, museum-quality, temperature-controlled space for the next two years, and once the new building is complete.
"We're so excited about the new era that Western is entering," said Cox.
