Baltimore

BALTIMORE, the chief town of Maryland, U.S.A., lies at the head of tidewater upon the Patapsco river, one of the many deep-water estuaries of the Chesapeake bay. The river, like most Maryland rivers, divides and re-divides, there being no fewer than four broad stretches of water within the city limits. Curtis bay and creek, Middle branch and Spring gardens, Northwest branch and Colgate creek all cut more or less deeply into the city and carry the atmosphere of the sea to the very heart of the town. Around these tributaries of the Patapsco, the industrial and com mercial life of the town has developed. There are more than a hundred miles of water-front, much of it in use for shipping or industrial purposes.

The original residential part of the town was close to the water front. But to-day the meadow-land which borders the river and its branches offers few attractions to the dweller who can afford to live at a distance from them. Fortunately for him, Baltimore is situated not only on deep water, but at the fall line of the Pied mont as well. Within a few hundred yards of the water-front, the land begins to rise and within a mile or two is, in many places, 100 or 2ooft. above the sea-level. To the north and west the topography is all but mountainous. There are streams in deep ravines, many of which are parked, and hills, which are the delight of the home-builder but the despair of city-planners and transpor tation experts.

Baltimore is approximately 9m. from east to west and 1 2m. from north to south. The area is 91•93 sq.m., of which 78.72 sq.m. are land. Within this area lives a population of 804,874 In 193o 17.7 % of the native stock were negroes; of the white population the native born constituted 73.o%.

The city is governed under a grant of power from the State known as the city charter. In theory much authority still remains with the State legislature and the city is not proportionately repre sented in that body. Although almost half of the residents of Maryland live in Baltimore less than a third of the members of the legislature are elected by the city vote. In practice, however, the city is almost wholly master of its fiscal affairs. The legislature rarely refuses the requests of its chief municipality and has shown a tendency to be liberal even in the expenditure of funds raised by taxation.

The city government is of moderate simplicity. The chief officials are the mayor, the comptroller and the president of the city council, all elected by popular vote. These three, with the city engineer and the city solicitor, both appointed by the mayor, make up the board of estimates and, with the addition of the city register, the board of awards. The former body makes up the annual budget and the latter awards contracts. The city council,' a unicameral body with 18 members, has broad powers on paper but in practice is little more than a forum where municipal ques tions are publicly discussed.

The per capita cost of government is relatively low, though it has shown a tendency to grow to a point comparable to that of other cities of the size of Baltimore. In 1915, the cost of the whole Mississippi valley. By the time of the outbreak of the Revolutionary War, Baltimore had a population of 6,755, part of this growth being due to the influx of the Acadians who had been driven out of Nova Scotia by the British. French town is still a remembered section of the city. During the Revolution, the city grew rapidly in importance. It had developed a hardy breed of sea-faring men and many privateers were fitted out and sailed from its harbour to prey upon British shipping. One of the most famous of these adventurers was Joshua Barney, who had the distinction of having commanded a ship on a trans-Atlantic voyage at the age of 14. It was the men trained in this war and in the war of 1812 who developed that type of early American ship known all over the world as the Baltimore clipper. The "Anne McKim" was the most famous of these vessels, and the fortune which she helped to bring her owners is the basis of the wealth of one of the best-known Baltimore families of the present time.

Baltimore's part in the Revolution, however, was not confined to privateering. The city supplied more than its quota of Con tinental troops and after the capture of Philadelphia by the British in 1776 it was for a time the meeting place of the Continental Congress. During the Revolution also, the first fortifications were erected on the present site of Ft. McHenry, but that place did not acquire fame until it helped to turn back the British fleet which city government was but $27.44 per person. This reached $48.18 in 1925, however; and although it declined to $35.19 in 1934, the municipal expenses increased from $39,607,00o to $46,480,689 in the same period. The most costly municipal services were educa tion, police and fire protection, and health and hygiene, which con sumed 19.0%, 15.3%, and 5.0% of the expenses of 1934 respec tively. At the same time the bonded debt of the city had increased from $59,614,00o in 1915 and $101,343,000 in 1925 to 982. A great part of this sum was expended in school improve ment, port development, road and boulevard construction, and similar large scale undertakings.

Baltimore has had an unusually high death rate and despite remarkable strides since 1915 it still does not compare favourably in this respect with most northern and western cities. The rate per thousand, in 1935, was 13.4. This high average, however, was al most entirely due to the presence of a large coloured population. The coloured rate, in 1935, was 18•r, while the white rate was only 12.4. The living conditions among the coloured folk have im proved, however, and comparative figures show that their emer gence from poverty has been reflected in the mortality tables.

History.

It took Baltimore a long time to get under way. From the early days of the colony established on the Chesapeake by the Lords Baltimore, it had been planned to build a city called by their name. Two abortive efforts were made to establish towns and both of them were called Baltimore, but the very site of one is now doubtful and of the other but a single house and a few ruins remain. It was in 1729, finally, that the provincial legis lature directed seven commissioners to purchase land on the north shore of the Patapsco river and lay out a township at the point where Jones falls emptied into the river. This choice proved to be a happy one and the town grew with fair rapidity gradually absorbing surrounding villages including especially Jones town, a hamlet on the other side of Jones falls. Even to-day Jones town, which is included in the district known locally as Old Town, has a character and quality of its own, and the names one sees on the shops are not infrequently those of the descendants of the original villagers. Baltimore's site was well chosen because the deep tidal waters on which it lay cut deep into the heart of the rich grain and tobacco lands which lie around the head of the Chesa peake bay. These lands were being rapidly developed by the German immigrants of the time and in the 175o's, or thereabouts, ships began to load grain in Baltimore harbour for British ports. The business thus established has never left the city, though now the field from which the city draws its grain for shipment is the sailed up the Patapsco in 1814 and so inspired Francis Scott Key to write "The Star-Spangled Banner." Baltimore became an incorporated town in 1797, and after taking its part in the war of 1812, settled down to the cultivation of its trade and its industry. Its relations with the South had always been close and it considered itself a Southern city. It became the recognized market place of the planters of Virginia and points even further afield. Perhaps its most interesting period is that lying between the close of the war of 1812 and the out break of the Civil War. Trade was thriving. Industry was develop ing. The political parties held their conventions as a matter of course in the city. The burghers thereof, becoming wealthy, as pired to culture. Their sons and daughters intermarried with the land-owning gentry of the surrounding country and of Virginia. They had courage and initiative. When the building of the Erie canal made their own efforts seem puny and threatened to divert to New York all the produce of the region beyond the Alleghany mountains, they conceived and built the Baltimore and Ohio rail road whose ambition was to cross the mountains and go all the way to the Ohio river. Most of the legends and heroic tales of Baltimore, which are passed on from generation to generation, date from this period. But the political struggles of the '5os cast a blight over the city. Political disorders became rampant. The Know-Nothing Party got a grip on the life of the town. The election of Abraham Lincoln and the outbreak of the Civil War brought the disruption to a climax. There was a period of wild disorder and then military occupation. For five years and more Baltimore was held by the Federal troops and every established routine of life and trade was interrupted or broken. These were Baltimore's darkest days and their effects were felt for decades after the war had been finished.

Up to the time of the great fire of 1904, the physical aspect of the town was almost exactly what it had been at the close of the Civil War. There had been growth, but there had been little real development. The streets were paved mostly with cobble stones. There was hardly a sewer in the town worthy of the name. There were cesspools in nearly every back-yard and open drains in every street. The drinking water was contaminated and the typhoid rate was high.

Baltimore had always been a solidly-built town. Nearly every one, rich and poor, lived in a house in a block. The usual house was red brick, with white marble steps. There were miles upon miles of street lined on each side with these little Georgian edifices. Business was largely individual. There were many firms which boasted they had remained in the same premises for nearly a century. The warehouses in which they carried on their opera tions were simply the brick residential houses on a somewhat larger scale. In those days, while its manufactured products covered a wide range, Baltimore was essentially a commercial rather than an industrial town. Its chief business was jobbing and the South was its chief customer. Southerners came to Baltimore by the various ship lines which ran up and down the Chesapeake bay and the town in aspect, as in behaviour, was essentially Southern.

The great fire broke out on Feb. 7, 1904, and, in the business district, with the exception of one or two so-called "sky-scrapers" and several banks which had been erected with unusual solidity, few buildings survived. Most of the great changes in the city began at that time. Some of its narrow, tortuous streets were widened and, after some delay, sewers were installed and modern paving laid. A few years later, a modern system for the purifica tion of the water supply was installed. Meanwhile, a change had taken place in the architecture of the city. The old red brick Georgian houses disappeared, and with them went a lot of the old charm. Baltimore became a more bustling, more efficient, more strident city than it had ever been before.

For a hundred years, perhaps, the wealth and fashion of the town had promenaded every afternoon along the length of Charles street. Hereon faced the smartest shops, the restaurants, the clubs, the hotels. Here, at its intersection with Monument street rose the tall Doric column which serves as a memorial to George Washington and which gave the city its one-time cognomen of "the Monumental city." On the cross-shaped square about the monument were the houses of the richest and most exclusive residents of the city. This was the very heart of fashionable Baltimore. But the residents have moved to the smart new suburbs to the north of the town. The middle classes have been spreading out in other directions. To the west and north-west are miles and miles of cottage and bungalow "developments." The remain ing houses in the centre of the town, bereft of their former owners and their former state, tend to become first lodging houses, then "converted" flats and finally, the abodes of small businesses. Great areas have been taken over by the negroes, who formerly lived in the alleys behind the larger houses. Occasionally one of these blocks has been taken over for an apartment house, a department store, or an office building.

Industries.

This change in outward aspect reflects a pro f ounder change that has been going on in the economic structure. The old Baltimore was singularly self-contained. It was a port, but its great days as a port had passed with the passing of the Baltimore clipper. The two trunk line railroads which had their terminals there—the Baltimore and Ohio and the Pennsylvania handled for the most part bulk cargo, like coal and grain. The or dinary citizen was hardly conscious of the fact that the town was a seaport, for the big ships rarely came into the inner harbour. It was during the World War that large scale manufacturing busi ness became the rule in Baltimore. There are in the city and immediately around it great steel plants, chemical and fertilizer works, copper works and similar heavy industries, each of which has drawn into its orbit great hordes of workers of a type with which the city was hardly familiar in the pre-War days. Many of these industries are not the result of local initiative, but of outside capital, drawn to Baltimore by its location on deep water and its rail facilities and by the fact that it is closer to the West than any other of the great seaports. As a result of these developments Bal timore is in much closer relation with the rest of the country and especially with New York, than ever before.

To a greater extent, perhaps, than most people believe, Balti more is tributary to New York. The only really great industrial enterprise which owes its being to Baltimore initiative and Balti more capital is the Baltimore and Ohio railroad. That corporation usually has been loyal to the city of its birth and given Baltimore some consideration in all its plans for development. But the Pennsylvania railroad inevitably considers Baltimore as a sub sidiary outlet, rather than a prime terminal. The Western Mary land and the Maryland and Pennsylvania, the two other inde pendent steam roads operating out of Baltimore, are more local in character. The last mentioned has not even tide-water terminal facilities.

Other great industries which operate in Baltimore, such as the Bethlehem Steel company and the United States Industrial Alco hol company, are controlled in New York. Exceptions are found in some of the chemical companies, particularly those engaged in the manufacture of fertilizers, but even in this group many that were formerly independent are now units in some national cor poration. The centre of gravity of all such undertakings is inevi tably found in New York.

Note should be made here of one great exception to the general rule. There is a business, though not an industry, which originated in Baltimore and has always centred there. This is the so-called surety business. One of the original American companies for bonding employes was organized in Baltimore in 189o. Even after the inevitable combinations, there were in 1936 still three large fidelity and casualty companies in the city doing, in the aggregate, more than $67,000,000 of business a year.

In 1904 there were 2,158 manufacturing plants in Baltimore, employing 65,00o workers and with a payroll of $25,507,000 and a product valued at almost exactly $15o,000,000. In 1929, the num ber of plants had fallen to 2,14o but the number of workers had increased to 85,655, the payroll to $96,384,335 and the products to $814,782,197. The figures for 1933 reflect the influence of the depression, as but 1,747 companies paid 6o,936 workers $51,826, 17 7 for productions of goods valued at $358,775,233. These figures do not tell the entire story, however, for several of the largest manufactories, like the Bethlehem Steel company, are situated just beyond the city limits and statistics for corporations producing a single product are omitted. Sugar and copper are two of the most important of the city's products, but in the list supplied from official sources, clothing leads. The table of lead ing industries (1929) was as follows : Value Item $I. Clothing . . . . . . . 64,671,672 2. Slaughtering and meat packing . . 3. Non-ferrous metal products . . . . 4. Tin cans and tinware . . . • 5. Printing and publishing. . . . . . 6. Fertilizers . 2 2,500,588 7. Foundry and machine shop products . . 8. Bread and other bakery products. • 21,312,457 9. Furnishing goods, men's . • 10. Chemicals • 12,942,414 II. Canning . . . . . . . . . • 11,770,243 The statistics which show the development of Baltimore as a port are more interesting and perhaps more significant. In 1900 the port handled 7,941,580 tons of cargo. In 1926 the figure had reached 22,906,205 tons but declined to 9,271,141 in In 190o Baltimore was a great shipping port for agricultural products. For obvious reasons much of this business has since disappeared. Corn exported in 190o was valued at more than $18, 000.000. In 1935 corn shipments worth only $3o8 left the port. During the same period oats declined from $1,300,000 to a negli gible figure and cotton exports fell from $8,000,000 to $29,851. Wheat exports dropped too low to be recorded and wheat flour fell from $11,000,000 to $73,741. Food animals similarly declined from $5,000,000 to $2,375. Although coal shipments rose from one to thirty million dollars between 190o and 1926, but $200,000 worth left the port in 1935. Other non-agricultural products, however, increased. Thus iron and steel manufactures including machinery, tools and hardware grew from $6,000,000 to $15, 000,000; and while copper fell from $16,000,000 to $4,087,085, chemicals jumped from less than half a million to a figure ap proaching nearly two million.

As regards imports the figures indicate a port serving a grow ing industrial territory. Sugar, for instance, hardly appears in the 1900 figures. It headed the list in 1935, its total value being about $6,440,000. The same thing is true of petroleum, which was in significant in 190o but totalled about $3,15o,000 in 1935. No copper ores or copper manufactures were imported in 190o. In 1935 this commodity was high on the list with a value of $948, 208, but rubber and coffee ranked higher. Rubber, not imported in 1900, was worth $2,193,301 and coffee had risen from $1,800, 00o to $2,504,847. Baltimore's imports during this period shifted largely from manufactured goods to raw materials for her own and the middle western industries. There was thus a great increase in tonnage, but actually a slight decline in value.

Education.

First among the educational institutions of Balti more is the Johns Hopkins university. The two main divisions of this, the city's proudest possession, are the university proper, which lies in a section to the north called Homewood, and the med ical school, together with the hospital, on Broadway, in the eastern part of town. The relations between town and gown have been close ever since the days of Daniel Coit Gilman, the first president of the university, and the members of the faculty have almost in variably played a considerable role in the civic life. The gradual development of the medical school, until it outshines the uni versity proper, has brought into the social activities of the city a great number of physicians and research workers.

The University of Maryland, a State-supported institution, whose agricultural and undergraduate departments are situated at College park, near Washington, maintains in Baltimore its profes sional departments, the schools of medicine, pharmacology, den tistry and law. Third of the trio of higher educational institutions comes the Peabody Institute. As originally endowed by George Peabody, the Boston philanthropist, the institute was in three parts, a library, an art gallery and a conservatory of music. The art gallery has been abandoned ; the library, insufficiently endowed, has remained, nevertheless, of considerable dignity and impor tance, while the conservatory, whose funds have been increased by additional bequests, contained 1,535 students during Goucher college, formerly the Woman's college of Baltimore, is a well-equipped undergraduate school of high standing for young women with an enrolment of 65o and a staff of 76. Founded (1885 ) by the Methodist Episcopal Church, it is now almost completely non-sectarian and ranks with the better women's colleges in the country. Loyola college (185 2) is conducted by the Jesuits for the higher education of Roman Catholic youth. There were 205 stu dents enrolled in 1936-37. For negroes there is Morgan college (1867), an excellent co-educational institution which has a con siderable endowment and a student body of over 600.

In addition to the Peabody library the city also possesses the Enoch Pratt free library, and the support of this, the chief public library of the town, has been largely taken over by the city gov ernment which appropriated $3,000,000 (192 7) for a central building to take the place of the existing plant. The Pratt library maintains 27 branches and many stations in addition to the central building. The Walters Art gallery, one of the striking private col lections of the world, was willed to Baltimore in 1931 by Mr. Walters and opened to the public in 1934. The Maryland Institute, on the other hand, is one of the oldest art schools in the country, and while it has not sufficient gallery space to display the various collections which have accrued to it by bequest, it holds a series of exhibitions during the year, some of which are of importance.

Baltimore is also provided with a thriving municipal art mu seum. Started when a group of individuals set up a tiny collection in an old house during 1914, the museum is now housed in a hand some building built from municipal funds in 1928. A new wing is now being constructed with federal funds. The museum pos sesses a library, conducts an educational program and makes loans to Baltimore public schools. (H. Ow.)