History of Baltimore, 1729-1920 By Joseph L. Arnold With chapter introductions by Elizabeth M. Nix Baltimore, Md: University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) 2015 Table of Contents Preface, Lindsey Loeper and Auni Gelles i Introduction to Chapter 1, Elizabeth M. Nix 1 Chapter 1: From Tobacco Landing to Port City, 1729-1797 3 Introduction to Chapter 2, Elizabeth M. Nix 37 Chapter 2: The Golden Age, 1797-1819 39 Introduction to Chapter 3, Elizabeth M. Nix 74 Chapter 3: Competing Against the Urban Giants, 1819-1860 76 Introduction to Chapter 4, Elizabeth M. Nix 117 Chapter 4: Growth of City Services, 1820-1860 119 Introduction to Chapter 5, Elizabeth M. Nix 158 Chapter 5: A Diverse and Volatile City, 1820-1860 160 Introduction to Chapter 6, Elizabeth M. Nix 185 Chapter 6: Baltimore’s Civil War, 1861-1867 186 Introduction to Chapter 7, Elizabeth M. Nix 201 Chapter 7: Downtown, Neighborhood and Suburb, the Social and Economic Geography of the 202 Baltimore Urban Region, 1865-1920 Introduction to Chapter 8, Elizabeth M. Nix 224 Chapter 8: Getting Around Town: From Walking City To Motor Vehicle Metropolis, 1844-1920 226 Introduction to Chapter 9, Elizabeth M. Nix 266 Chapter 9: The Battle for Baltimore County: Farmers, Suburbanites, and the City, 1865-1920 268 Bibliography 314 Endnotes 324 Preface Joseph Larkin Arnold (1937-2004) was a prominent urban historian, a highly regarded professor, and a key leader at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC). Dr. Arnold joined the faculty of UMBC—then a very young institution—in 1968 after earning a Ph.D. in social history at the Ohio State University. Dr. Arnold fulfilled a variety of campus leadership roles, including a term as Acting Librarian in 1979-1980. He taught undergraduate and graduate courses on American cities, Baltimore history, historical research methods, and comparative urban history, among other topics. In his field he became known as “the dean of Baltimore historians” for his extensive research on Charm City’s transition from a colonial tobacco port to a modern metropolis. The author of six books and over 60 articles, chapters, and reviews, Dr. Arnold was in the final stages of writing a comprehensive social, political and economic history of Baltimore at the time of his death in January 2004. He had started this research within his first decade at UMBC, compiling his research into chapters starting in the late 1970s and then reworking drafts of each chapter countless times. Dr. Arnold was working on revisions with editor Robert Brugger at the Johns Hopkins University Press, who planned to publish his book. He had composed nine chapters, covering the years of 1729 to 1920. In May 2004, the Library renamed its collection of research materials on Maryland history in honor of Dr. Arnold. The Joseph L. Arnold Maryland History Collection includes over 3,300 volumes on Maryland history, biography, and literature as well as newspapers, manuscripts and pamphlets. An endowment to develop the collection further was also established with contributions made in his memory. Tom Beck, Chief Curator of Special Collections, worked with the Arnold family to establish the endowment. He noted that “[Arnold’s] dedication and enthusiasm was delightful to watch and infectious to others.” In 2010, Mary Jane Arnold met with Dr. Kriste Lindenmeyer, then chair of UMBC’s History department, Library Director Dr. Larry Wilt, Chief Curator Tom Beck, and Archivist Lindsey Loeper, to discuss the possibility of making Dr. Arnold’s draft manuscript available to the public. With enthusiasm, those in attendance all agreed to work together to bring the publication to UMBC. Opening both his compiled research files and the unfinished manuscript to the public would not only honor him, but would also benefit future students and scholars of Baltimore’s history – something that he would have found very exciting! This process began with Mary Jane Arnold securing a release from the contract that Dr. Arnold had signed with JHU Press. A project proposal was approved by Dean John Jeffries in June 2013 for the creation of a new Graduate Assistant position to work on the Arnold papers, to be funded in part by the Library, the History department, and the Dean’s Office of the College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences. The graduate student would work part-time with Dr. Anne Sarah Rubin in the Center for Digital History Education (CDHE) and part-time with Lindsey Loeper in Special Collections. Prior to the formal partnership with the Library and History departments, Special Collections staff began to work closely with Mary Jane Arnold to transfer Dr. Arnold’s papers and begin the arrangement and description process required to make the papers open to researchers. Graduate Assistant Shae Adams reviewed all of the available draft chapters, in both digital and print form, i to determine the most complete and most current versions. Cited sources in the chapters were also compared and an expanded bibliography was created. Graduate Assistant Auni Gelles completed this work in 2014; she also worked with Mary Jane Arnold to complete archival processing on the first phase of the Joseph L. Arnold papers (Collection 111), prepared the finding aid for the collection, and wrote a biography of Dr. Arnold. The compiled, unedited chapters were then sent to Dr. Elizabeth M. Nix, Assistant Professor at the University of Baltimore. In addition to her own Baltimore-based scholarship, Dr. Nix’s experience working on the collaborative local history publication, Baltimore ’68: Riots and Rebirth in an American City (Temple University Press, 2011), was highly valued for this project. The introductory essays that she wrote for each of Dr. Arnold’s unfinished chapters lead the reader to publications and scholarship produced in the ten years since his passing, and these additional perspectives should both compliment and challenge Dr. Arnold’s work. The development of historical analysis moves quickly, and Dr. Nix’s essays acknowledge the changes that Dr. Arnold could not have anticipated. Theresa Donnelly completed copyediting the manuscript in 2014. With the exception of a few corrections to names or dates, little relating to the content of Dr. Arnold’s chapters was changed. It is his voice that remains in the manuscript. Lindsey Loeper formatted the manuscript in June 2014. Many people contributed to the on-going success of this project and they have been listed below. We are particularly thankful for the continued partnership of Mary Jane Arnold – her dedication and spirit have driven this project from the beginning. Robert J. Brugger, Johns Hopkins University Press Dr. Matthew Crenson, Johns Hopkins University Dr. Elizabeth M. Nix, University of Baltimore Dr. John Jeffries, UMBC Dr. Scott Casper, UMBC Dr. Larry Wilt, UMBC Tom Beck, UMBC Dr. Kriste Lindenmeyer, Rutgers University – Camden Dr. Marjoleine Kars, UMBC Dr. Anne Sarah Rubin, UMBC Dr. Daniel Ritschel, UMBC Theresa Donnelly, M.A. History at UMBC, 2013 Shea Adams, M.A. History at UMBC, 2013 Auni Gelles, M.A. History at UMBC, 2015 Lindsey Loeper, Archivist with assistance from Auni Gelles University of Maryland, Baltimore County ii Introduction to Chapter 1 From Tobacco Landing to Port City, 1729-1797 by Elizabeth M. Nix How did Baltimore grow from a tiny hamlet in 1730 to the third most populous city in the nation in 1800? Joseph Arnold answers this question in the opening chapter of his sweeping account of two hundred years of Baltimore history. Arnold convincingly argues that Baltimore's success was not due to one charismatic individual who had a compelling vision or to an enthusiastic band of boosters who charted a pragmatic plan for economic growth. Rather, Arnold shows readers that the town’s success as a speculative settlement was birthed almost by the land itself. Arnold paints a picture of the gradual elevations that surrounded the harbor on the Chesapeake Bay, which seemed to provide an efficient route for tobacco rolling roads. When farmers exported their cured leaves to Europe in the 1730s and 1740s, Baltimore jostled for their business with many other tobacco landings along the basin. Arnold demonstrates the advantages of Baltimore’s location in the critical 1750s, when many nearby farmers switched to wheat as a cash crop. The swift streams that flowed into the harbor provided waterpower for grain mills, a crucial piece of the flour supply chain that demanded that farmers process cereal grains before they shipped them. In his comparisons to other fledgling towns in the Mid-Atlantic, Arnold points out that in the Baltimore region farmers could operate most efficiently. They grew their crops in the hinterland, hauled them to Baltimore for milling and then put their sacks of flour on ships that sailed directly to the West Indies and western Europe. The hills, streams and harbor seemed custom made for the profitable flour trade, and by 1776, Baltimore Town had grown into the sixth largest port in the colonies. To demonstrate the way that Baltimore’s early elite combined traffic in tobacco, flour, and slaves to build the basis for other commercial enterprises, Arnold highlights the career of William Lux, a wealthy exporter, merchant, and farmer, and the eventual owner of some of the thriving ropewalks and tanneries that filled the growing town. He shows that Lux and other successful Baltimoreans supported the cause of independence in the Revolutionary War and reminds readers that the conflict provided a boost to the town’s economy. Despite its anti-British stance, Baltimore came through the war unscathed; the British never occupied the town or attacked it, freeing up its merchants and manufacturers to supply the rest of the colonies. Arnold argues that Baltimore capitalized on its enviable position in the post-Revolutionary period, and new residents poured in.