George Peabody, a Baltimore merchant, gave $300,000 to start the Peabody Institute in 1857. The library was meant for the "free use of all persons who desire to consult it".
The Civil War delayed the plans, and the institute was not established until 1866. Local architect Edmund George Lind designed the library in the East Wing, and it opened to the public in 1878.
The library stayed part of the Peabody Institute until 1967, when it passed to the city and then, in 1982, to Johns Hopkins University. Its collection of about 300,000 volumes focuses on the 19th century and includes first editions by Poe, Hawthorne and Melville.