The Baltimore Book: New Views of Local History

By Linda Shopes

Book Overview

Baltimore has a long, colorful history that traditionally has been focused on famous men, social elites, and patriotic events. The Baltimore Book is both a history of "the other Baltimore" and a tour guide to places in the city that are important to labor, African American, and women's history. The book grew out of a popular local bus tour conducted by public historians, the People's History Tour of Baltimore, that began in 1982. This book records and adds sites to that tour; provides maps, photographs, and contemporary documents; and includes interviews with some of the uncelebrated people whose experiences as Baltimoreans reflect more about the city than Francis Scott Key ever did.

The tour begins at the B&O Railroad Station at Camden Yards, site of the railroad strike of 1877, moves on to Hampden-Woodbury, the mid-19th century cotton textile industry's company town, and stops on the way to visit Evergreen House and to hear the narratives of ex-slaves. We travel to Old West Baltimore, the late 19th-century center of commerce and culture for the African American community; Fells Point; Sparrows Point; the suburbs; Federal Hill; and Baltimore's "renaissance" at Harborplace. Interviews with community activists, civil rights workers, Catholic Workers, and labor union organizers bring color and passion to this historical tour. Specific labor struggles, class and race relations, and the contributions of women to Baltimore's development are emphasized at each stop.

In the series Critical Perspectives on the Past, edited by Susan Porter Benson, Stephen Brier, and Roy Rosenzweig.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0877228175
• ISBN13: 9780877228172
• Release Date: October 1991
• Publisher: Temple University Press
• Length: 488 Pages
• Weight: 3.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 9.0" x 11.0"

Customer Reviews

A Different way to look at Charm City.

If you want to scratch below the well presented surface of Baltimore (Harbor Place, Camden Yards, Ravens Stadium, and the gentrified Fells Point and Canton), take a look at this book. Some of the socially and historically more important neighborhoods of Baltimore are given themed walking tours. Accompanying each tour is a historical and social narrative explaining why this particular corner of Baltimore mattered so much in the history and society of the city. It's a great way to find out new things about neighborhoods that have seen their ethnic charm and style replaced by affluent banality.