Peabody Institute

The Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University is a private music and dance conservatory and preparatory school in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1857 and affiliated with Johns Hopkins in 1977, Peabody is the oldest conservatory in the United States and one of the world's most highly-regarded performing arts schools. History Philanthropist and merchant George Peabody (1795–1869) founded the institute in 1857 and opened it in 1866 with a bequest of about $800,000. This sum, from his personal fortune, was amassed initially in Massachusetts and later augmented in Baltimore (where he lived and worked from 1815 to 1835). It vastly increased through banking and finance during following residences in New York City and London, where he became the wealthiest American of his time. Completion of the white marble Grecian-Italianate west wing/original building housing the institute, designed by Edmund George Lind, was delayed by the Civil War. It was dedicated in 1866, with Peabody himself, traveling across the North Atlantic Ocean, speaking at the ceremonies on the front steps in front of landmark Washington Monument circle before a large audience of notaries and citizens including hundreds of assembled pupils from the Baltimore City Public Schools. Under the direction of well-known musicians, composers, conductors, and Peabody alumni, the conservatory, concerts, lecture series, library and art gallery, led by men of literary and intellectual lights along with an annual awarding of gold, silver and bronze medals with certificates and cash prizes to top graduates of the city, known as the "Peabody Prizes", attracted a considerable national attention to the Institute and the city's growing culture.