Icon at the Baltimore Basilica, Baltimore, Maryland

Digital image produced by Carol M. Highsmith to represent her original film transparency; some details may differ between the film and the digital images.
The Baltimore Basilica, built from 1806-1821, was the first great metropolitan cathedral constructed in the U.S. after the adoption of the Constitution. Officially known as the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, it quickly became a symbol of the country's newfound religious freedom. Two prominent Americans guided the Basilica's design and architecture: John Carroll, the country's first bishop, later Archbishop of Baltimore, and cousin of Charles Carroll, a signer of the Declaration of Independence; and Benjamin Henry Latrobe, father of American architecture, and Thomas Jefferson's Architect of the Capitol.
Title, date, subject note, and keywords provided by the photographer.
Credit line: Photographs in the Carol M. Highsmith Archive, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.
Gift and purchase; Carol M. Highsmith; 2011; (DLC/PP-2011:124).
Forms part of the Selects Series in the Carol M. Highsmith Archive.