Baltimore

Baltimore is the largest city in the state of Maryland, the 19th largest in the United States, It is part of the Washington-Baltimore metropolitan area.^[1]

Baltimore was settled in the early 17th century and founded as a town in 1729. It was named after Lord Baltimore, the founder of Maryland. In recent decades the redevelopment of the Inner Harbor, and the gentrification of rundown neighborhoods have been major factors in Baltimore's resurgence.

People

The 2008 population of the city was 637,000; Baltimore County had 786,000. The Baltimore Metropolitan Area had 2.7 million residents, making it the 20th largest in the country. The Washington-Baltimore metropolitan area has a population of 8.3 million.

The city's population rose from 20% black in 1940 to 60% today, and includes many German Americans, Italian Americans, American Jews and Polish Americans. From the 1840s to the 1950s the city was dominated by German Americans.

In the 1940s Jews were concentrated in northwest Baltimore. Germans, Poles, and Italians âoperatives and skilled workers in the city's diversified industries - lived in the south and east, near the harbor. The immigrants' well-defined row house neighborhoods in East Baltimore and Highland-town gave the city its ethnic flavor. The rowhouses in the south and southwest parts of the city, collectively known as South Baltimore, were homes to well-established Germans and Irish.

Until 1964, Jim Crow was enforced both legally and socially, although the schools were integrated in the late 1950s.

Industry

Baltimore was the first city to use manufactured coal gas for energy following the creation of the Gas Light Company of Baltimore, Maryland, in 1816. Thereafter, gas plants were developed throughout the United States.

From 1860 to 1960, Baltimore was an important center of the men's ready-to-wear clothing industries. German-speaking Jews created many businesses that manufactured and sold underwear, men's suits, and specialty items such as hats and umbrellas. The most prominent Jewish businessmen operated at the retail level: Hutzler's, Hochschild Kohn's, and Hechts's were the city's major department stores from the late 19th century through the 1970s.

Education

The new Maryland state constitution of 1864 ended slavery and provided for the education of all children, including blacks. The Baltimore Association for the Moral and Educational Improvement of the Colored People established schools for blacks that were taken over by the public school system, which then restricted education for blacks beginning in 1867 when Democrats regained control of the city. Establishing an unequal system that prepared white students for citizenship while using education to reinforce black subjugation, Baltimore's postwar school system exposed the contradictions of race, education, and republicanism in an age when African Americans struggled to realize the ostensible freedoms gained by emancipation.^[2]

Higher culture

Baltimore is the site of the Johns Hopkins University (1876), a premier research institution best known for its medical school. Other notable schools are the College of Notre Dame of Maryland (1873), Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University (formerly the Peabody Conservatory of Music; founded 1857), and Goucher College (1885) in suburban Towson. Much of the work of higher education is done by the University of Maryland-Baltimore, the University of Maryland-Baltimore County, the University of Maryland, and Towson State University. Morgan State University is a historically black school. The Baltimore Museum of Art, the Peale Museum, and the Walters Art Gallery have notable collections of art, and the B & O Railroad Museum houses an impressive collection of railroad memorabilia. The Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History and Culture, founded in the 1990s, attempts a 'balancing act' by highlighting the importance, endurance, and vitality of African American history and culture, while emphasizing the destructive effects of slavery and racism. The Morris Mechanic Theater, the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, the Baltimore Opera Company, and Fort McHenry (its successful defense against the British in 1814, inspired Francis Scott Key to write "The Star-Spangled Banner") are other major attractions. Nearby Pimlico Race Track is the site of the Preakness Stakes, a major event in horse racing. Druid Hill Park contains the city zoo and a natural history museum. The U.S.S. Constellation, launched in 1854 is a major tourist attraction in the harbor.

Parks

The story of the Patapsco Forest Reserve (later renamed the Patapsco Valley State Park) near Baltimore reveals notable connections between the Progressive-era movements for forest conservation and urban park planning. In 1903, the Patapsco Valley site, although outside the city boundary, was nevertheless identified by the Olmstead Brothers landscape architecture firm as an ideal site to acquire property for future park development. At the same time, the Maryland State Board of Forestry, seeking to establish scientific forestry research, received donated land for this purpose in the Patapsco Valley. Over subsequent decades, a powerful alliance of urban elites, state managers, and city officials assembled thousands of acres along the Patapsco River. The site evolved into a unique hybrid of forest preserve and public park that reflected both its location on the urban fringe and its dual heritage in the conservation and parks movements.^[3]

History

The 1790s were hard times for the city. The Bank of England's suspension of specie payments caused the network of Atlantic credit to unravel, leading to a mild recession. The Quasi-War with France in 1798-1800 caused major disruptions to Baltimore's trade in the Caribbean. Finally, a yellow fever epidemic diverted ships from the port, while much of the urban population fled into the countryside. The downturn widened to include every social class and area of economic activity. In response the business community diversified away from an economy based heavily on foreign trade.^[4]

Blacks

From the late 1700s into the 1820s Baltimore was a "city of transients," a fast-growing boom town attracting thousands of ex-slaves from the surrounding countryside. Slavery in Maryland declined steadily after the 1810s as the state's economy shifted away from plantation agriculture, as evangelicalism and a liberal manumission law encouraged owners to liberate those in bondage, and as other masters practiced "term slavery," registering deeds of manumission but postponing the actual date of freedom for a decade or more. Baltimore's shrinking slave population often lived and worked alongside the city's growing free black population as "quasi-freedmen." With unskilled and semiskilled employment readily available, particularly in the shipyards and related industries, little friction with white workers occurred. Despite the overall poverty of the city's free blacks, compared with the condition of those living in Philadelphia, Charleston, and New Orleans, Baltimore was a "city of refuge," where slave and free black alike found an unusual amount of freedom. Churches, schools, and fraternal and benevolent associations provided a cushion against hardening white attitudes toward free blacks in the wake of Nat Turner's revolt in Virginia in 1831. But a flood of German and Irish immigrants swamped Baltimore's labor market after 1840, driving free blacks deeper into poverty.^[5]

1850s

Baltimore in the Third Party System had two-party competitive elections, with powerful bosses, carefully orchestrated political violence, and an emerging working-class consciousness at the polls. The fierce politics of the 1850s had galvanized the white workers, most of them German, who opposed slavery. The American Party emerged in the mid 1850s to represent Protestants and to counter the Democratic Party, which was increasingly controlled by Catholic Irish. When Baltimore erupted in violence at the time of Lincoln's inauguration, for example, the pro-Union "Blood Tubs" that took to the streets were veterans of political rioting. The nativist American (Know-Nothing) Party captured the Baltimore government in 1854. The party used patronage and, especially, coercion; its armed forces scared off Democratic voters and forced drunks and immigrants to vote multiple times. The party elected a congressman and governor during its short reign. In 1860 the Democrat-controlled legislature took back the city police, the militia, patronage, and the electoral machinery, and prosecuted some Know-Nothings for electoral fraud. By 1861 the Know-Nothings had split over secession.^[6]

Civil War

Baltimore was torn by the Civil War. Much of the social and political elite favored the Confederacy--and indeed owned house slaves. In the 1860 election the city's large German element voted not for Lincoln but for Southern Democrat John C. Breckinridge. They were less concerned with the abolition of slavery, an issue emphasized by Republicans, and much more with nativism, temperance, and religious beliefs, associated with the Know-Nothing Party and strongly opposed by the Democrats. However the Germans hated slavery and supported the Union.

When Massachusetts troops marched through the city on April 19, 1861, en route to Washington, a rebel mob attacked; 4 soldiers and 12 rioters were dead, and 36 soldiers and uncounted rioters had been injured. Governor Thomas Hicks realized action was needed. He convened a special session of the General Assembly but moved its location to a site in Frederick, a distance from the secessionist groups. In doing this and by other actions, Hicks managed to neutralize the General Assembly to avoid Maryland's secession from the Union, becoming a hero in the eyes of the Unionists in the state. Meanwhile pro-Confederate gangs burned the bridges connecting Baltimore and Washington to the North, and cut the telegraph lines. Lincoln sent in federal troops under Gen. Ben Butler; they seized the city, imposed martial law, and arrested leading Confederate spokesmen. The prisoners were later released and the rail lines reopened, making Baltimore a major Union base during the war.

Gilded Age

Maryland was not subject to Reconstruction, but the end of slavery meant heightened racial tensions as free blacks flocked to the city and many armed confrontations erupted between blacks and whites. Rural blacks who flocked to Baltimore created increased competition for skilled jobs and upset the prewar relationship between free blacks and whites. As black migrants were relegated to unskilled work or no work at all, violent strikes erupted. Denied entry into the regular state militia, armed blacks formed militias of their own. In the midst of this change, white Baltimoreans interpreted black discontent as disrespect for law and order, which justified police repression.^[7]

Expanded economic activity brought many immigrants from the countryside and from Europe after the Civil War. Concerns for young, single Protestant women alone in cities led to the growth of the Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA) movement. Given the practice of segregation in Baltimore, however, two YWCA's emerged, the (white) Baltimore YWCA founded in 1883 and the Colored YWCA founded in 1896. They merged in 1920.

Progressive era

Political reform began in 1895 with the defeat of the Arthur Gorman-Isaac Freeman Rasin Democratic machine. The great fire of 1904 destroyed 70 blocks and 1,526 buildings in the downtown, and led to systematic urban renewal programs.

Baltimore was a poorly managed city in 1890, despite its economic vitality. Already Boston, Chicago, and New York were moving to modernize their public works infrastructures and to support the construction of capital-intensive, technologically sophisticated sewer and water supply systems. Baltimore lagged behind the other American metropolises because of its culture of privatism and the politicization of its municipal administration. However, during the 1890-1920 period the city responded to the same concerns as Chicago, New York, and Boston. The increase in urban crises, particularly the 1904 fire and the deterioration of sanitary conditions, prompted demands for reform. Moreover, the municipal administration underwent a process of moralization and professionalization in the 1900s. Afterward, Baltimore modeled itself on the other American metropolises and chose to modernize its institutions and address the industrial and urban challenges of the era.

When in 1918 the US government reversed its draft exemption for married workers and required all men to work in essential occupations or serve in the military, professional baseball players either enlisted or joined industrial baseball leagues. Company leagues included those of Bethlehem Steel, which had recreational leagues on both coasts that by 1918 represented a major-league level of competition. Sparrows Point, Maryland, a Bethlehem Steel company town, had a Steel League team, whose results Baltimore baseball fans followed closely. At the same time, fans also followed the draft status and 1918 season of Baltimore native Babe Ruth, then playing with the Boston Red Sox and considering his own options, including joining an industrial league team. In September Bethlehem Steel, fearing competition with other leagues over professional talent, disbanded the Steel League. When the war ended in November, players such as Ruth were free to re-sign with their major league teams.^[8]

Depression and War: 1929-1950

Baltimore was a major war production center in World War II. The biggest operations were Bethlehem Steel's Fairfield Yard, on the southeastern edge of the harbor, which built Liberty ships; its work force peaked at 46,700 in late 1943. Even larger was Glenn Martin, an aircraft plant located 10 miles northeast of downtown. By late 1943 about 150,000 to 200,000 migrant war workers had arrived. They were predominantly poor white southerners; most came from the hills of Virginia, North Carolina, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, South Carolina, and Tennessee. War mobilization brought federal pressure to unionize the work force, and by 1941 the leftist CIO had organized most of Baltimore's large industries, while the more conservative AFL also gained many new members. By 1945, labor unions and ethnics had taken over local politics and liberal mayors enjoyed black as well as white support. The machine was led by Italian Catholic politicians such as Nancy Pelosi's father, Thomas D'Alesandro, Jr., who was mayor in 1947-59; her brother, Thomas D'Alesandro III, was mayor from 1967 to 1971.^[9]

Urban Crisis: 1950-1990

Schools

Integration of Baltimore city schools at first went smoothly, but by the 1970s new problems had surfaced. White flight transformed formerly white schools into mostly black schools, though whites still made up most of the faculty and administration. Worse, the school system had become dependent on federal funding. In 1974, these circumstances led to two dramatic incidents. A teachers' strike highlighted the city's unwillingness to raise teachers' salaries because a hike in property taxes would further alienate white residents. A second crisis revolved around a federally mandated desegregation plan that also threatened to alienate the remaining white residents. The crises were caused by federal policy.^[10]

Drugs

Heroin usage in Baltimore reveals the explosive rise of illegal drug use in the United States in the 1960s. In the late 1940s there were only a few dozen African-American heroin addicts in the Pennsylvania Avenue area of the city. Heroin use began largely for reasons of prestige within a group that most middle-class blacks looked down on. When the Baltimore police formed the three-man narcotics squad in 1951 there was only moderate profit in drug dealing and shoplifting was the addict's crime of choice. By the late 1950s young whites were experimenting with the drug, and by 1960 there were over one thousand heroin addicts in the police files; this figure doubled in the 1960s. A generation of profiteering young, violrent black dealers took over in the 1960s as violence increased and the price of heroin skyrocketed. Increasing drug usage was undoubtedly the primary reason for burglaries rising tenfold and robberies rising thirtyfold from 1950 to 1970. Soaring numbers of broken homes and Baltimore's declining economic status probably exacerbated the drug problem. Adolescents in suburban areas began using drugs in the late 1960s.^[11]

Backlash

In the 1950s and 1960s, white Southern racial politics moved north into Baltimore and other cities. White Southerners came to Baltimore by the thousands during World War II, permanently altering the city's political landscape. Southern whites built on existing racial restrictions in Maryland to approximate the customary lines of demarcation further south. Working whites mobilized to prevent school integration after the 'Brown' decision of 1954. They believed that their interests were being sacrificed to those of black Americans. As working-class whites began to feel increasingly embattled in the face of federal intervention into local practices, many turned to the 1964 presidential primary campaign of George Wallace who swept the white working class vote. Durr (2003) explains the defection of white working-class voters in Baltimore to the Republican Party as being caused by their fears that the Democratic Party's desegregation policies posed a threat to their families, workplaces, and neighborhoods.^[12]

Recent

Mayor Sheila Dixon, a Democrat, was forced to resign in 2010 as part of a plea bargain; already convicted of a misdemeanor for stealing donated gift cards intended for poor children, she was facing yet another trial on perjury charges.

Religion

Baltimore has long been a major center of the Catholic Church. Important bishops include John Carroll (1735-1815, in office 1789-1815), Francis Kenrick (1796- 1863, in office 1851-65), and especially James Cardinal Gibbons (1834â1921, in office 1877-1921).

In 1806-21 Catholics constructed the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, based on a neoclassical design by Benjamin Henry Latrobe. A $34-million restoration was based on Latrobe's original plans and was completed in 2006.

The Methodists were well received in Maryland in the 1760-1840 era, and Baltimore became an important center.^[13] Sutton (1998) looks at Methodist artisans and craftsmen, showing they embraced an evangelical identity, Protestant ethic, and complex organizational structure. This enabled them to express their anti-elitist or populist "producerist" values of self-discipline, honesty, frugality, and industry; they denounced greed, and sought an interdependent common good. Such producerist views drew on aspects of the Wesleyan ethic, appropriated the commonweal traditions of eighteenth-century republicanism, and initially resisted those of classical liberal, individualistic, self-interested capitalism. They also accorded well with and helped produce the emerging amalgam of American populist, restorationist, biblicistic, revivalistic activism that Sutton terms "Arminianized Calvinism."

Inside the Methodist Church the artisans were reforemers who focused on three substantive and symbolic targets, each of which would democratize Methodist conferences: lay suffrage and representation; inclusion of the local preachers, who constituted two-thirds of Methodist leadership; and election of the officers who carried the administrative, personnel, and supervisory power, the presiding elders. The appeals made on behalf of these democratizations, Sutton shows, drew imaginatively on both producerist and Wesleyan rhetoric. By the 1850s Sutton shows that the corporate ideals and individual disciplines of religious producerism were expressed in trade unionism, in evangelical missions to workers, in factory preaching, in workers' congregations, in temperance and Sabbatarianism, in the Sunday school movement, and in the politics of Protestant communal hegemony.

Famous sons and daughters

Spiro Agnew, Republican who was Baltimore's county executive (1962-66), and vice president under Richard Nixon (1969-73), when he was forced to resign because he was still taking bribes from Baltimore clients.
James Cardinal Gibbons, Catholic archbishop 1877-1921).
Edgar Allan Poe (born 1809 in Boston) died and was buried in Baltimore in 1849.