Over the course of several centuries, Baltimore evolved from a Colonial-era port city to a thriving and dynamic city of nearly a million people at the conclusion of World War II As the city grew, a wide variety of industries were established. Railroads, ports, manufacturing sites, and public infrastructure, such as power plants, fundamentally transformed large swaths of Baltimore's landscape. However, the second half of the 20th century saw a dramatic and often traumatic restructuring of the city's economy; individual ...
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Over the course of several centuries, Baltimore evolved from a Colonial-era port city to a thriving and dynamic city of nearly a million people at the conclusion of World War II As the city grew, a wide variety of industries were established. Railroads, ports, manufacturing sites, and public infrastructure, such as power plants, fundamentally transformed large swaths of Baltimore's landscape. However, the second half of the 20th century saw a dramatic and often traumatic restructuring of the city's economy; individual businesses and entire industrial sectors downsized, relocated, or completely collapsed. Today many such areas of Baltimore have changed radically as abandoned manufacturing sites have been demolished or converted to new uses. Images of America: Industrial Baltimore documents a vital component of the city's working past through historic photographs of the people and sites that made the city an essential economic engine of the Industrial Revolution.
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Baltimore is a city that has been transformed with time. It was known as an industrial, blue-collar city from the nineteenth century through about three-fourths of the twentieth with its population peaking at about 950,000 in 1950. In the last quarter of the 20th century, the city and the population began a steep decline, shared with other cities in the "rust belt" as factories closed and economies changed from manufacturing to service. With all its efforts, Baltimore still is in the process of reinventing itself.
Tom Liebel's book, "Industrial Baltimore" (2006) offers what the author terms "a sampling of sites within the city" to give a sense of Baltimore during its years as a center of industry and manufacturing. Liebel is a Baltimore architect, and "Industrial Baltimore" was his first and, as far as I can tell, only book. He is fully in command and engaged with his material in this volume. The book includes Liebel's stage-setting introduction followed by carefully chosen images of the industrial days of the city with the author's annotations and commentary. The book is part of the Images of America series of pictorial histories of American places.
The book offers a brief, accessible overview of a gritty Baltimore. Liebel focuses on Baltimore as a transportation hub. Located on the Chesapeake Bay, it was more inland than most cities on the East Coast and became a hub for both water and rail transportation. Much of the book centers on Baltimore's Inner Harbor which in recent years has become a tourist attraction and the site of upscale homes. It was not always so.
The book begins with early 19th Century as a mill town with some structures that are still standing. It quickly turns to Baltimore as a port city on the Chesapeake Bay with its large deep harbor substantially removed from the Atlantic Ocean. The images capture the port, the ships, the places, and the people. A third chapter discusses Baltimore's extensive rail system with its trackage, warehouses and stations and its close relationship to the Inner Harbor and port. Then, several chapters offer different views of some of the many industries, manufacturing concerns and supportive infrastructure facilities that were developed in Baltimore over the years. A final chapter takes a brief look at how the Inner Harbor has changed from a place of industry and shipping to a site for tourists.
I learned a lot from this brief pictorial history of an industrial American city that I have come to love from my years in Washington, D.C, just south of Baltimore. I loved seeing the diversity of industry in Baltimore, from the large steelyards, to ship building during WW II, to spices, glass making, silversmithing, breweries, pharmaceuticals, clothing, and much more. There are photos of the old Knabe piano manufacturing plant which reminded me of my love for the instrument. The industries and manufacturers are tied in with the transportation network of water and rail that made them possible.
During its industrial days, the manufacturers took pride in their buildings and their unique architecture which still grace the streets of Baltimore. Liebel gives the history of these structures and shows them inside and out. He also shows many workers and places from these former times. Although I learned from the text, the main attraction of this book was in the images. They offer a portrait of large scale industry and transport. I felt awe and loss in seeing these these old industrial structures and places with their complexity, noise, and toughness. For all its crudity, I found poetry in the industrial Baltimore of not long ago together with a sense of hope and purpose.
I enjoyed visiting old industrial Baltimore in this short book. The history and images offer a moving picture of an American city. They more than deserve their place in a series devoted to local histories in America.
