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.