This book is a comprehensive narrative of the history and development of Baltimore County from its origins through the twentieth century. The authors describe major events and analyze their impact. The book also addresses the activities of women and blacks, whose contributions have often been neglected in the past, and describes occasions of city-county cooperation and differences.
Economic and social life in the upper Chesapeake during the colonial period diverged from that in southern Maryland and Tidewater Virginia despite similar economic bases. Charles Steffen's book offers a fresh interpretation of the economic elite of Baltimore County and challenges the widely accepted view that the life of this privileged class was characterized by permanence, stability, and continuity. The subjects of this study are not the tiny knot of Tidewater aristocrats who have dominated scholarly inquiry, but the numerically predominant but largely unknown "county gentry" who constituted the bedrock of the upper class throughout Maryland and Virginia. Because most Tidewater aristocrats shunned the northern frontier of Chesapeake society, Baltimore proves an ideal location for exploring the uncertain world of the county gentry. Most of the men who climbed the ladder of economic and political success in Baltimore, hoping to establish dynasties, watched with dismay as their children slipped back down that ladder in the later colonial years. The absence of entrenched oligarchies gave to the upper levels of county society a striking degree of fluidity and impermanence. In chapters dealing with the plantation workforce, the landed estate, the merchant community, and the established church, Steffen demonstrates that this openness pervaded all dimensions of the life of the gentry. Steffen's analysis of the complicated social and political realignments produced by the Revolution provides a fitting conclusion to his study, for in the independence struggle the openness of the gentry was most clearly revealed. In its vivid portrayal of the men and women who comprised the bulk of the gentry, From Gentlemen to Townsmen sheds new light on the complex economic and social life of the Chesapeake.
This book is a goldmine of genealogical information for the Northern Baltimore, Maryland, area. The author identifies the original settlers of the Seventh Election District area and follows their descendants for three generations. Many of the first pionee
A tribute to the enduring courage and spirit of children of Baltimore from the mid 1800s-early 1900s. In a city that has been, at once, blessed with a rich port and torn apart by war, filled with pristine parks and scarred by the ravages of industrial life, childhood has reflected the ever-changing times and culture in American life. From baseball games and trips to the zoo to schoolyard pals and amusement park rides, children explored the world around them. The nostalgia and innocence of well-born youth, however, mingled with the harsher realities that many boys and girls knew as their daily lives - laboring in the mills and factories, the haphazard destruction of fires and storms, the segregation of public places and the cold and hunger so keenly felt during the Great Depression.
How politics and race shaped Baltimore's distinctive disarray of cultures and subcultures. Charm City or Mobtown? People from Baltimore glory in its eccentric charm, small-town character, and North-cum-South culture. But for much of the nineteenth century, violence and disorder plagued the city. More recently, the 2015 death of Freddie Gray in police custody has prompted Baltimoreans—and the entire nation—to focus critically on the rich and tangled narrative of black–white relations in Baltimore, where slavery once existed alongside the largest community of free blacks in the United States. Matthew A. Crenson, a distinguished political scientist and Baltimore native, examines the role of politics and race throughout Baltimore's history. From its founding in 1729 up through the recent past, Crenson follows Baltimore's political evolution from an empty expanse of marsh and hills to a complicated city with distinct ways of doing business. Revealing how residents at large engage (and disengage) with one another across an expansive agenda of issues and conflicts, Crenson shows how politics helped form this complex city's personality. Crenson provocatively argues that Baltimore's many quirks are likely symptoms of urban underdevelopment. The city's longtime domination by the general assembly—and the corresponding weakness of its municipal authority—forced residents to adopt the private and extra-governmental institutions that shaped early Baltimore. On the one hand, Baltimore was resolutely parochial, split by curious political quarrels over issues as minor as loose pigs. On the other, it was keenly attuned to national politics: during the Revolution, for instance, Baltimoreans were known for their comparative radicalism. Crenson describes how, as Baltimore and the nation grew, whites competed with blacks, slave and free, for menial and low-skill work. He also explores how the urban elite thrived by avoiding, wherever possible, questions of slavery versus freedom—just as wealthier Baltimoreans, long after the Civil War and emancipation, preferred to sidestep racial controversy. Peering into the city's 300-odd neighborhoods, this fascinating account holds up a mirror to Baltimore, asking whites in particular to reexamine the past and accept due responsibility for future racial progress.
Nicknamed both “Mobtown” and “Charm City” and located on the border of the North and South, Baltimore is a city of contradictions. From media depictions in The Wire to the real-life trial of police officers for the murder of Freddie Gray, Baltimore has become a quintessential example of a struggling American city. Yet the truth about Baltimore is far more complicated—and more fascinating. To help untangle these apparent paradoxes, the editors of Baltimore Revisited have assembled a collection of over thirty experts from inside and outside academia. Together, they reveal that Baltimore has been ground zero for a slew of neoliberal policies, a place where inequality has increased as corporate interests have eagerly privatized public goods and services to maximize profits. But they also uncover how community members resist and reveal a long tradition of Baltimoreans who have fought for social justice. The essays in this collection take readers on a tour through the city’s diverse neighborhoods, from the Lumbee Indian community in East Baltimore to the crusade for environmental justice in South Baltimore. Baltimore Revisited examines the city’s past, reflects upon the city’s present, and envisions the city’s future.
The North Baltimore neighborhood of Remington has a proud and industrious history. Stone from its quarries built the foundations of homes in the city, and the Jones Falls turned its mills to feed hungry immigrants who found a home in the neighborhood. By the end of World War II, the population of the area began to decline, yet through floods, depressions and even a mosquito plague, generations of residents remained in the neighborhood to help build a tightknit community. Drawing on interviews with locals and her own meticulous research, historian and neighborhood resident Kathleen C. Ambrose chronicles the history of Remington. Join Ambrose as she journeys from Remington's earliest days through the twentieth century--and even as she takes a glimpse at the future of this vibrant community.
