Our Bookshop’s History

The U.S. Congress passed the “Volstead Act,” the popular name for The National Prohibition Act, on October 28, 1919. The act established the legal definition of intoxicating liquors as well as penalties for producing them. The Volstead Act prohibited the sale of alcohol. Despite being the law of the land, the federal government lacked the resources to enforce it. Baltimore was notoriously lax regarding enforcement, creating the perfect environment for the establishment of a neighborhood speakeasy.

The Peabody Bookshop & Beer Stube was founded in 1922 by 2 German brothers. Prohibition lasted from 1920-1933, and during this time, it was illegal to drink beer in public. The Peabody soon became a popular destination for poets, musicians, artists, and Bohemian culture in Baltimore's Mount Vernon neighborhood.

You had to enter a secret door at the back of the bookshop. After walking through rows of used books, you would then walk down a narrow staircase of about maybe 8-10 steps into a dark and private space. The room contained about 10 round tables, a piano, fireplace, and short bar against the north side of the building. It was an adventure to go downtown and visit the bookshop with my dad.

Brothers Hugo and Siegfried Weisberger, Austrian immigrants, started the bookshop together. I’m told it was first a pushcart selling books on sidewalks, and then eventually, they could afford a bricks and mortar bookstore.

After his brother died, Siegfried became sole owner in 1931. Weisberger ran the bookshop successfully for nearly 20 years, and during this time, it became a legendary haunt for poets and pundits, graduate students and misfits, painters, dreamers, and local journalists for the Baltimore Sun newspaper, including famous drinker F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Weisberger walked away from the business as book purchases faltered, and his energy and passion for his life project began to wind down. He abandoned the Peabody in 1954, convinced by long-time patron H.L. Mencken that the "Age of the Boob Tube" had arrived, and people were no longer interested in "books and ideals and culture. America only wants dollars and television.” He felt he had failed to create a Bavarian/Austrian nostalgia project from 1870s Germany. Burned out and disillusioned, Siegfried walked away and died in Baltimore a few years later.

The Peabody reopened under the ownership of Paul P. Adler and Irving Mindess. Its reputation as a literary saloon remained strong, and the location remained popular with students from the University of Maryland and Johns Hopkins University.

In 1957, a woman empresario and local real estate developer purchased the bookshop from Adler and Mindess. Her name was Rose Hayes. The frequently married Rose Boyajian Smith Pettus Hayes, the Stube's second most important proprietor, took over the place in 1957. The Peabody, which by then had a reputation for sedate Bohemianism, would segue into a moderate Beat Generation mode and then mild hippie-ism. It was a stop on the "hip" circuit of the time, along with Morris Martick's Lower Tyson Street Saloon and Leon's Bar on Upper Tyson.

Prohibition begins

The Stock Market Crash, beginning of the great depression

President Roosevelt begins fireside chats

End of WWII

Birth of Charles C. Lancaster III

Peabody Bookshop Opens in Chinatown