Famous people's places / Detroit – East Ferry Historic District
Your Heritage House
Closed – archive entry
A hands-on children's museum in a historic East Ferry Street house, founded in 1969 by pianist Josephine Harreld Love to teach Detroit kids Black art, music and history.
01 / The story of this place
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Josephine Harreld Love, a classically trained concert pianist and educator, founded Your Heritage House in 1969 together with textile artist Gwendolyn Harkless Hogue, setting it up inside a historic house on East Ferry Street in what is now Midtown Detroit. Rather than a hands-off museum, Love built it as a hands-on 'laboratory center' where Detroit children could sketch, paint, work with clay, and learn Black history and culture directly, at a time when few institutions in the city gave Black children's art and heritage this kind of dedicated space. Love ran and taught at Your Heritage House for more than three decades, shaping generations of young Detroiters, until her death in 2003. The museum faded from active operation in the years after she died, though her legacy is now honored a few blocks away by a large public mural on Cass Avenue, painted in 2022, that also celebrates gallery founder Dell Pryor.
- Founded in 1969 by pianist and educator Josephine Harreld Love
- A hands-on children's museum, not just a display space
- Taught generations of Detroit children about Black art and history
- Faded from operation after Love's death in 2003; honored today by a nearby mural
Famous Detroiters
Famous people tied to this place 1
Lexicon entries for the people who lived, worked, performed or liked to spend time here.
- Josephine Harreld Love 1914–2003 · concert pianist, musicologist, museum founder
Founded
The children's museum and arts 'laboratory center' Love co-founded in 1969 on historic East Ferry Street; it faded from view after her death in 2003.
Sources & fact check · Checked: 2026-09-25
An independently written bilingual guide. This collection is not an attendance-based ranking.
03 / Events
Events at this place
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Source and former website ↗