Baltimore Workers and Industrial Decision-Making, 1890-1917

Abstract

reputation as a southern city, but its industry's resemblance to that of other southern cities has gone largely unacknowledged. City businessmen once customarily referred to it as the Gateway to the South, thereby emphasizing its location at the periphery, but the distinctly southern features of its economy are seldom noticed. Early twentieth-century southern cities, including Baltimore, were different from their northeastern and midwestern counterparts. In the vast industrial belt stretching from New England mill towns to the industrial centers of Michigan, cities were often so dominated by one industry that their names are almost synonymous with their industrial products (Pittsburgh and Detroit, for example). They were centers for production, not transportation, with factory work forces composed mostly of new arrivals to the city. European immigrants were so numerous that ethnic churches, self-help groups, and other institutions were sometimes almost as worker-dominated as craft unions. Industrial economies south of the industrial belt in the early years of the century were, by contrast, almost microcosms of the national economic order. City borders characteristically encompassed a rich array of industries, and greater transportation obstacles prompted vast enterprises (in railroading, for example) to overcome the obstacles. Transportation companies in southern cities often employed more workers than manufacturers. Almost everywhere native whites and blacks, often longtime inhabitants of industrial communities, outnumbered immigrants. '