The Lithuanian Hall also known as Lith Hall, is the home of the Lithuanian Hall Association. It is a private club

Club

A club is an association of two or more people united by a common interest or goal. A service club, for example, exists for voluntary or charitable activities; there are clubs devoted to hobbies and sports, social activities clubs, political and religious clubs, and so forth.- History...

 located in Union Square, Baltimore and serves as a recreation center and meeting house for social events, including dance nights, musical events, community suppers and cultural events. The hall was founded to serve the needs of the Lithuanian community in Baltimore

Baltimore

Baltimore is the largest independent city in the United States and the largest city and cultural center of the US state of Maryland. The city is located in central Maryland along the tidal portion of the Patapsco River, an arm of the Chesapeake Bay. Baltimore is sometimes referred to as Baltimore...

, Maryland

Maryland

Maryland is a U.S. state located in the Mid Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware to its east...

. The hall is popular with artists and hipsters

Hipster (contemporary subculture)

Hipsters are a subculture of young, recently settled urban middle class adults and older teenagers with musical interests mainly in alternative rock that appeared in the 1990s...

.

History

The hall was established in 1917, and was only referred to by the Lithuanian name Lietuvių Namai until 1968.

During the 1920s the hall was provided as a venue for speeches by prominent members of the Communist Party USA

Communist Party USA

The Communist Party USA is a Marxist political party in the United States, established in 1919. It has a long, complex history that is closely related to the histories of similar communist parties worldwide and the U.S. labor movement....

, such as William Z. Foster

William Z. Foster

William Foster was a radical American labor organizer and Marxist politician, whose career included a lengthy stint as General Secretary of the Communist Party USA...

 and Juliet Stuart Poyntz. On October 13th, 1929, a Jewish branch of the CPUSA hosted a speech by Sol Hurwitz, the editor of the Jewish Daily Forward

The Forward

The Forward , commonly known as The Jewish Daily Forward, is a Jewish-American newspaper published in New York City. The publication began in 1897 as a Yiddish-language daily issued by dissidents from the Socialist Labor Party of Daniel DeLeon...

, and the speech was interrupted by a mob of anti-Communists

Anti-communism

Anti-communism is opposition to communism. Organized anti-communism developed in reaction to the rise of communism, especially after the 1917 October Revolution in Russia and the beginning of the Cold War in 1947.-Objections to communist theory:...

 until the police arrived to disperse them.

External links

• Official webpage
• Baltimore Lithuanian-American Community website
• Website for Lithuanian folk dancing group based at Lith Hall
• Blog for Lithuanians in Baltimore
• Image of Lith Hall from The Baltimore Sun
  The Baltimore Sun
  The Baltimore Sun is the U.S. state of Maryland’s largest general circulation daily newspaper and provides coverage of local and regional news, events, issues, people, and industries....
  
  
• Image of the Hall