Light Industrial

Accession Number P75-54-0244g, Hughes Company Glass Negatives Collection,

Courtesy of the Photography Collections, University of Maryland, Baltimore County

Another view of a portable classroom at Warren and Williams Streets, 1923.  This space clearly focuses on vocational training, which helped prepare children from the working classes for future factory work.

State of the Art in 1915

After several months of delays, the Baltimore Sun reported on August 6, 1915 that the Lake Montebello plant in Northeast Baltimore had begun filtering water for public consumption.  The Hughes Company photos, taken July 12, 1915, show the brand new facilities just a few weeks before full-scale operations began.  These images show the beauty of the plant's interior and exterior architectural features. 

Accession Number P75-54-0830g, Hughes Company Glass Negatives Collection,

Courtesy of the Photography Collections, University of Maryland, Baltimore County

Accession Number P75-54-0834g, Hughes Company Glass Negatives Collection,

Courtesy of the Photography Collections, University of Maryland, Baltimore County

Modern Neighborhoods

Image Number Neg Z9. 269. PP8, Hughes Studio Photograph Collection,

Courtesy of the Prints and Photographs Division, Maryland Historical Society

The annexation provided more opportunity for builders to change what was considered a “neighborhood” in Baltimore. Their creations led to “White flight” in Baltimore well before the widely known period after WWII. This period in Baltimore shows not only the shift toward contemporary housing but also a focus on housing reform. Organizations such as the Baltimore Housing Authority formed during this time, showed both a city and federal focus on state of housing. It is important to acknowledge that the slum clearance program was meant to fix housing but more important contain the poor, specifically Black residents. After WWII, the Housing Authority planned for the creation of high rise apartments to control the poor population. The expansion of Baltimore neighborhoods between the wars initiated issues still battled today, as many cities see middle class families move away to upscale secluded suburbs, leaving exposed poor conditioned neighborhoods within the city.

Selected Bibliography

Argersinger, Jo Ann E. Toward a New Deal in Baltimore: People and Government in the

Great Depression. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1988.

Boger, Gretchen. “The Meaning of Neighborhood in the Modern City: Baltimore’s

Residential Segregation Ordinances, 1910-1913.” Journal of Urban History 35, no. 2 (2009): 236-258.

Counihan, Harold J. Moving Maryland Forward. Baltimore: Maryland Department of

Transportation, State Highway Administration, 2008.

Durr, Kenneth. "When Southern Politics Came North: The Roots of White Working-

Class Conservatism n Baltimore, 1940-1964." Labor History 37, no. 3 (1996): 309-331.

Farrell, Michael R. The History of Baltimore Streetcars. Sykesville: Greenberg

Publishing Company, Inc. 1992.

Fischler, Stanley I. Moving Millions: An Insider Look at Mass Transit. New York:

Harper & Row, Publisher, 1979.

Fogelson, Robert M. Downtown: It’s Rise and Fall, 1880-1950. New Haven: Yale

University Press, 2001.

Glazer, Aaron Michael. "Fade to Gas: The Conversion of Baltimore’s Mass Transit

System from Streetcars to Diesel-Powered Buses." Maryland Historical Magazine 97, no. 3 (September 2002): 337-357.

Goddard, Stephen B. Getting There: The Epic Struggle Between Road and Rail in the

American Century. New York: BasicBooks, 1994.

Hayward, Mary Ellen. Baltimore’s Alley Houses: Homes for Working People Since the

1780s. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008.

Hayward, Mary Ellen and Charles Belfoure. The Baltimore Rowhouse. New York:

Princeton Architectural Press, 1999.

Henderson, Peter Harry. “Local Deals and the New Deal State: Implementing Federal

Public Housing in Baltimore, 1933-1968.” PhD diss., Johns Hopkins University, 1994.

Mueller, Kevin A. The Best Way to Go: The History of the BTC, Baltimore Transit

Company. S.I.: K.A. Mueller, 1997.

Orser, William. “The Making of a Baltimore Rowhouse Community: The Edmonson

Avenue Area, 1915-1945.” Maryland Historical Magazine 80, no. 3 (1985): 203-227.

Pietila, Antero. Not in My Neighborhood: How Bigotry Shaped a Great American City.

Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2010.

Rice, Roger L. “Residential Segregation by Law, 1910-1917.” The Journal of Southern

History 34, no. 2 (1968): 179-199.

Sachs, Bernard J., George F. Nixon, and Harold E. Cox. Baltimore Streetcars: 1905-

1963: The Semi-Convertibles Era. Baltimore: The Baltimore Streetcar Museum, Inc., 1984.

Weiner, Deborah. "From Modern Victory to Postmodern Defeat: Two Baltimore Housing

Projects." Maryland Historian 26 (1995): 23-48.

Role of Education

Accession Number P75-54-N574g, Hughes Company Glass Negatives Collection,

Courtesy of the Photography Collections, University of Maryland, Baltimore County

I am drawn to this photo, perhaps because it shows students in the context of their physical environment.  Taken in May of 1923, this class photo shows students at the Curtis Bay School on a concrete retaining wall in front of a building that appears to be made of cinder block.  To my eye, this building could as easily be a factory as a school house.  The Strayer Report describes this school in the following terms: "Inadequate site--Playground 17 square feet--Inadequate fire protection--Impossible fire escape--Inadequate artificial light." (Strayer 368)

Modular Spaces

Accession Number P75-54-0241g, Hughes Company Glass Negatives Collection,

Courtesy of the Photography Collections, University of Maryland, Baltimore County

This interior view of the portable school house at Warren and Williams Streets shows several environmental features that progressive reformers sought to advance.  Although the desks are pushed close together, this classroom includes large windows for natural light and a source of heat, shown near the back of the room.

Increased Demand at Loch Raven

Accession Number P75-54-A393g, Hughes Company Glass Negatives Collection,

Courtesy of the Photography Collections, University of Maryland, Baltimore County

The Loch Raven damn, built in 1915, was raised in 1923 to 240 feet in order to meet residential and industrial demand.  This image, taken in 1920, shows the damn at its original height of 188 feet.

1920s Prefab

Accession Number P75-54-0242g, Hughes Company Glass Negatives Collection,

Courtesy of the Photography Collections, University of Maryland, Baltimore County

Modular classrooms are something I associate with relatively contemporary times, so the sight of portable classrooms in the 1920s was a surprise! This portable school house at Warren and Williams Streets in South Baltimore was photographed by the Hughes Company for the Winter Homes Corporation in May of 1923.  It may have been an extension of the old Southern High School, which was built at this intersection in 1910, expanded in 1926 and 1956, and replaced by a newer building on Covington Street in 1978.

Late to the Game

Accession Number P75-54-0489g, Hughes Company Glass Negatives Collection,

Courtesy of the Photography Collections, University of Maryland, Baltimore County

Originally in this blog, I set out to explore changes to the water systems in Baltimore -- both drinking water and waste water utilities.  What I found, however, is that the Hughes Collection did not support my interest in the history of the city's sewer system.  The story of the development of the sewers, although interesting, actually predates the 1918 annexation.

Student Population Soars

Accession Number P75-54-N490g, Hughes Company Glass Negatives Collection,
Courtesy of the Photography Collections, University of Maryland, Baltimore County

Changing laws about child labor and the age of mandatory school attendance led to a student population boom in Baltimore's schools in the 1920s.  Students were met with a severe shortage of classroom space, buildings in terrible physical condition, and a slow municipal response to remedy the situation.  This image shows Nathaniel Ramsey School #96 at Smallwood and Ashton Streets in the Carrollton Ridge neighborhood, where the total enrollment in June of 1920 was 554.