Baltimore City History and Information

Baltimore City was Baltimore City was incorporated in 1796 (Chapter 68, Acts of 1796), as a governmental unit, the City separated from Baltimore County in 1851 when the Constitution adopted that year provided for the separation of the city from Baltimore County. The City was named for Cæcilius Calvert, 2nd Baron Baltimore was the founder of Maryland Colony. The Barony of Baltimore was named after the Calverts' manor in Longford in Ireland. The County Seat is Baltimore.

During the 17th century, various towns called "Baltimore" were founded as commercial ports at various locations on the upper Chesapeake Bay. The Maryland colonial General Assembly created the port (at Locust Point) in 1706 as a tobacco port of entry. The present city dates from July 30, 1729, and is named after Lord Baltimore, who was the first Proprietary Governor of the Province of Maryland. Baltimore grew swiftly in the mid- to late 18th century as a granary for sugar-producing colonies in the Caribbean. The profit from sugar encouraged the cultivation of cane and the importation of food. Baltimore's shorter distance from the Caribbean, compared to other large port cities such as New York City and Boston, reduced transportation time and minimized the spoilage of flour.

Baltimore played a key part in events leading to and including the American Revolution. City leaders such as Jonathan Plowman Jr. moved the city to join the resistance to British taxation. Baltimore joined other cities in protesting Boston's punishment by the British by banding together the merchants to sign agreements to not import from or export to Britain. Dr. John Stevenson and Jonathan Plowman Jr. made Baltimore a center for importation of indentured servants from England during the 1750s and 60's. Baltimore in 1773 was also the place where a Customs officer Robert Moreton was chased out of town for trying to seize the ship Speedwell and its cargo. The story is that Mr. Moreton had ordered the captain to wait on offloading till after he came back. The merchants demanded their cargo and started off loading. When Mr. Moreton returned he declared the ship seized and went to Annapolis to file the paperwork. Upon his return the local merchants chased him and tarred and feathered two men who worked for him. Fearing for his life he first fled to Annapolis and later to Boston.

During the War of 1812, the British declared Baltimore a "nest of Pirates." The city's Fort McHenry came under attack by British forces near the harbor after the British had burned Washington, D.C. Known today as the Battle of Baltimore, American forces won by repulsing joint land and naval attacks.

When the British landed at Sparrows Point, the local residents took up arms and when they had run out of ammunition, they threw pots, pans and anything they could get hold of at the British.[citation needed] They fought to a stalemate at the Battle of North Point after killing the British commander General Ross, who had said upon landing, "We will win this battle or I eat dinner in hell tonight". British reinforcements were not possible thereafter, and their forces subsequently withdrew. The naval engagement inspired Francis Scott Key to write the poem "The Star-Spangled Banner," the lyrics to the United States' national anthem. The battle was memorialized in the Battle Monument, which is on the city seal.

In the years that followed, Baltimore's population grew explosively, due to increased commerce not only abroad but more importantly with points west in the interior of the United States. The construction of the federally funded National Road, now Pulaski Highway, also known as U.S. Route 40 and the privately funded Baltimore & Ohio Railroad made Baltimore a major shipping and manufacturing center. As fortunes were made, the city's distinctive local culture started taking shape, and it started to develop a unique skyline peppered with churches and monuments. On an 1827 visit to the city, John Quincy Adams purportedly nicknamed it "Monument City"--a moniker that remained popular for well over a century.

Baltimore became an independent city in 1851, being separated from Baltimore County at that time. See also City History for more historical details.

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Extended History

Though it was a slave-holding state, Maryland did not secede but remained part of the Union during the Civil War. Slavery was outlawed in Maryland by the state Constitution of 1864. Pro-Southern sentiment led to the Baltimore riot of 1861, when Union soldiers marched through the city. After the riot, Union troops occupied Baltimore, and Maryland came under direct federal administration — in part, to prevent the state from seceding — until the end of the war in April 1865. This was considered a necessary move by the Union to prevent Washington, D.C., from being completely surrounded by seceded Confederate territory. The case Ex parte Merryman, written by Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger Taney (himself a Marylander), dealt with the habeas corpus rights of Marylanders jailed by the Abraham Lincoln Administration and strongly rebuked Lincoln for his actions.

The Great Baltimore Fire on February 7, 1904, destroyed over 1,500 buildings in 30 hours and forced most of the city to rebuild. Immediately afterward, Mayor Robert McLane was quoted in the Baltimore News as saying, "To suppose that the spirit of our people will not rise to the occasion is to suppose that our people are not genuine Americans. We shall make the fire of 1904 a landmark not of decline but of progress." He then refused assistance, stating "As head of this municipality, I cannot help but feel gratified by the sympathy and the offers of practical assistance which have been tendered to us. To them I have in general terms replied, 'Baltimore will take care of its own, thank you.'" (McLane committed suicide on May 30.) Two years later, on September 10, 1906, the Baltimore-American reported that the city had risen from the ashes and "one of the great disasters of modern time had been converted into a blessing."

Baltimore's population peaked at 949,708 in the 1950 Census, which ranked it as the sixth-largest city in the country, behind Detroit, and ahead of Cleveland. For the next five decades, the city's population declined while its suburbs grew dramatically, bottoming out in 2000 at 636,251. In the 21st century, the city's population has stabilized and is again rising, mostly due to revitalization efforts in many city neighborhoods. The mid-July 2004 Census estimate was 641,943.

COLONIAL TIMES TO THE MID 1790'S

When the legislative act creating Baltimore was passed in the summer of 1792, there was no guarantee that the town would be a success, since few of the hundreds of towns founded since the late seventeenth century ever survived. Typically, such legislation created a commission to oversee the town's development. The Baltimore Town Commissioners ( seven residents of Baltimore County appointed by the governor ) were to negotiate the purchase of 60 acres of land from Charles and Daniel Carroll, to survey and lay out 60 lots, and to decide property disputes within the town limits. Although these commissioners could name their successors, the Maryland legislature gave them no real powers. In fact, the small amount of money collected from the sale of the lots was barely enough to pay a clerk for the commission.

During the colonial period, the commissioners, the county court, and a group of church officials ran the new Baltimore Town, a part of Baltimore County. The county court was the dominant body in the local government. It ran both the county and the court. The governor appointed men to this court for indefinite periods. The court ruled through the governor's appointments, acts of the Maryland legislature, and English common law (which was little known or understood). Few of the men who sat on the court were trained lawyers, so their judgments were often haphazard and inconsistent. Even so, these men did not lose sight of their main responsibility to keep social order. Their dockets listed cases of bastardy, runaway servants and slaves, and violations of property rights. The court also imposed levies and took care of roads and bridges.

In this court system, the most visible members were the county sheriff and his assistants, the constables. The sheriff created juries, summoned witnesses, collected fines and taxes, and supervised local elections. As long as Baltimore Town had a small population with simple needs, the informal system of the Baltimore Town Commissioners, and the large county court was more than adequate. By the 1740's, another institution, the Episcopal church and its vestry, had taken a more active role in the local government. A 1747 Tobacco Inspection Act gave the vestry political power when they were given the right to nominate planters as inspectors. The planters, once established, would hold on to their power for another hundred years. The vestry also put a tax on bachelors, tried to uphold laws relating to morals, and taxed every person up to 10 pounds of tobacco for the vestry's support.

The church, along with the court, dominated local government until the eve of the American Revolution. Yet even with the work of the court, the church, and the commissioners, many of the solutions to problems facing the residents of the town were kept in private hands. Education was left to private professional teachers, family tutors, apprentices, and a few church schools. Health care was almost completely in the hands of private physicians. The commissioners made one serious attempt around 1750 to handle a public nuisance; they built a fence around the town to control pigs rooting for food. But the fence was destroyed by the residents for firewood - the first record of widespread looting in Baltimore.

By the 1760's, a rapidly expanding population marked the beginning of Baltimore's change from small town to small city. Between 1760 and the early 1780's the population tripled, growing from 3000 to 9000 people. That increase magnified the young town's social and political problems and forced its citizens to look at better ways of managing. In response to that need, fire companies and special committees were formed. The Mechanical Company, begun in 1763 to provide fire protection, actually performed many of the jobs of municipal government. Later, being politically sensitive, it became a center of opposition to the King of England. Also, a committee of observation, created for the town in 1775, temporarily filled in for the county court and the commissioners when their governing activities were interrupted by the crises and change of the American Revolution.

The Revolution made Baltimore a leading supply center, spurring great physical and economic growth, but this growth only emphasized the lack of an organized management system for the town, and resulted in a series of temporary measures to correct the situation. The creation of an almshouse for the poor, by an act of the Maryland Assembly prior to the Revolution, was one such measure. By this time, the commissioner was also appointing a large number of regulatory agents, a further attempt to meet the increasing demands for services. In one single meeting in 1776, they appointed an inspector of flour, two corders of wood, a weigher of hay, a clerk of the market, a measurer of grain and salt, a culler of staves, a garbler of shingles, and a gauger of liquors. In the mid 1780's, they also appointed a night watch. The Baltimore Town Special Commissioners were formed in 1782 to work on streets, and to light and watch the town. The next year the Baltimore Board of Port Wardens was created to survey and chart the harbor and maintain it for shipping. In 1793, a committee of health was created to deal with the continual problem of yellow fever epidemics.

The last 3 bodies had been formed as a result of complaints by townspeople that the commissioners could not effectively solve the problems of the city. Yet, these other agencies did not do much better. They only added to the confusion of efforts. Baltimore needed its own charter and government to straighten out the situation and to give new direction to the growing town. Earlier petitions to the legislature for a charter in 1782, 1784, 1786, 1791, 1794, and 1796 had failed because people feared increased taxes, there was trouble between Fells Point and the western part of Baltimore Town, and citizens disliked the central government. The pressing needs of the city finally led to the passing of an act in 1796 which led Baltimore to a new phase in its development.

1796 TO THE POST- CIVIL WAR PERIOD

Baltimore's 1796 charter marked the beginning of a modern government. This document created a government, which was more centralized than it had perviously been, but one which still concentrated power in the hands of a ruling elite. There was a mayor and a two part city council. The first branch of the council was made up of two members elected each year from each of the eight new wards. To run for office, a man had to have $1000 in property, be 21 years old, and a resident for three years. The second branch was chosen by electors from the wards, To be a member of this branch, a man had to be over 25, a resident for four years, and have $2000 in property. The mayor had to be over 25 and have $500 in property. He was elected for a two year term by a group of electors from the wards.

The property qualifications and the indirect elections of the mayor and second branch ensured the control of a limited form of government by an upper class dominated by the planter interests. The city council basically ran itself, although the mayor could veto laws. The mayor appointed all municipal officers from a list of nominees given to him by the second branch. All the duties which were previously the responsibility of the town commissioners, special commissioners, and port wardens were now changed to the new corporation. A small group of people, keeping power in their own hands, controlled the city.

For the first 20 years of the newly chartered government, there was little real change from what had existed in the 1770's and 1780's. The planter interests, which ran the state legislature, paid little attention to the growing needs of a new city, as the strict limits they imposed on the municipal government clearly showed. For example, they did not allow it to tax real estate and personal property above a low fixed rate. Those limited monies meant that few services could be provided or expanded. Also, they gave the municipal government power in only a few other areas: repairing and paving streets and taking care of public health and the harbor. The last two were extremely important, the harbor because the city depended upon it for its very life, and the need for health regulations because of the threat of epidemics, from the 1790's until well into the nineteenth century.

Getting funds continued to be a problem. For example, more watchmen were needed to deal with the growing crime problem, yet in 1816 there were only 12 watchmen in the entire city. By 1829, there were only 24, with a total budget of $750. In response to a problem like this, voluntary organizations and private businessmen stepped in, taking increasing control in the government. They created professional societies to govern markets, since city inspectors were so inefficient. Private business created the Baltimore Water Company in 1805 and the Baltimore Gas Light Company in 1816 to fill the gaps in public administration. The government certainly needed the help. According to one critic, it reflected "illogical change" and was only responsive ( albeit poorly ) to crises.

The most serious crisis occurred around the War of 1812 when (similar to the time during the American Revolution) the city's population doubled, new immigrants arrived, and there was an economic upswing. In addition, people demanded better social services such as water, sanitation and police protection. They complained most bitterly about the Baltimore Water Company for serving only the wealthiest areas of the city, keeping its rates high, its water poor, and its service even worse. Furthermore, the population had spread over the original boundaries of the city, making the question of urban services a touchy political problem between city and county. In 1816, by an act of the Legislature, part of Baltimore County was added to the city, making the corporate area 14.71 square miles.

All these rapid social changes began to break down the powers of the ruling elite that had run the city for the past 50 years. Reform was needed. The city government was too dependent on the state legislature, even a street extension required an act by that group. A series of sweeping reforms in 1817 and 1818 provided some solutions to the problems. In 1817, the municipal government expanded its services by increasing the number of appointed officials and inspectors and creating a district criminal court to work with the problems of keeping social order. In 1818, powers were further enlarged. Among other improvements, the legislature placed no limits on the city's power to tax while giving it the power to sell stock and borrow up to one million dollars. These changes cut down the dependence on voluntary groups, though that process would take a full 30 years to complete. The traditional ruling society, isolated, personal, and private in its character, was losing its political control of the government.

In the 1820's, with the rapid rise of the city and the business and industrial revolutions, the need for a much larger city government became obvious. A government with an expanded role in urban life became possible with the increase in monies from taxes and loans, because now the municipal government could respond to public demands for improved services. That response was visible in the rapid creation of new agencies, resulting, by the eve of the Civil War, in a modern bureaucracy. Unfortunately the response was also visible in the increase of the public debt. Loans started in June 1817 with a 6% stock in $100 certificates, which raised about $40,000. By 1827, the municipal debt had risen to $500,000. After 1827, it grew even faster to support internal improvement projects such as the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. By 1844, the debt had reached nearly $ 6,000,000, so great an amount that payment on it became the city's main expenditure, thus temporarily slowing growth. By 1861, the debt had reached a staggering $15,000,000, supporting, for its day, a fairly complex municipal government.

The movement for greater centralization grew during the 1830's, as the state handed over more responsibilities and the local government created more small agencies to handle them. To detail all the new agencies, officials, and commissions of the expanding bureaucracy would be impossible. The creation of the first free public schools in 1829, in response to a local movement of protest and demand, was a prime example of the ending of the private and the beginning of public society.

Other attempts to provide better police, fire, and water services by placing each under the management of a central department, were, with the exception of the school system, general failures. Rival fire departments continued to riot and often started street battles with each other while buildings burned to the ground. Anger over increased taxes at a time of several severe depressions probably accounted for many of these failures.The situation changed with the rise to power of the Know-Nothing party in the 1850's. Though they had once been against the arrival of immigrants, now the party gave full political power to the lower middle class which had been demanding improved services for years. Between 1854 and 1860, they took over the Baltimore Water Company, created the Public Park Commission and a professional fire department, and began to search for a new, modern city hall. The Civil War slowed down the growth of the municipal government briefly, but, by the 1870's, both services and debt had increased. Water services, police and fire protection, and education continued to be the areas of greatest expenditure.

Obtaining funds to meet the costs continued to be the biggest problem. All through the nineteenth century, the municipal government had been without the power to do its own local assessments, relying instead on the occasionally done state assessments for its tax base. As a result the public debt increased from over $20,000.000 in 1868 to over $36,000,000 in 1888. Much of the money went into the building of modern reservoirs, schools, and the completion of the city hall in 1875, for over $2,500,000. Yet all during this century of expansion, the 1796 charter was still in force with so many appendices that one government critic called it "an incongruous medley of constitutional provisions and statutes enacted at various times and often for merely temporary purposes." The confusion meant that efforts to streamline the government usually failed. For example , between 1880 and 1892 Mayor Latrobe tried to create a board of public works to take better care of the streets and to make other public improvements, but because of inflexible real estate values and taxation problems, cobblestone streets remained until the end of the century.

Schools were another problem. The public wanted good education while, at the same time, it demanded lower taxes; understaffed, crowded, and poorly maintained schools resulted. In 1888 it was proposed that 3 additional land areas be added to the boundaries of the city subject to the approval of the voters involved. The residents in the northern and western sections approved, but those in the east rejected the proposal.

It was not only a lack of funds and an out-of-date charter that caused such problems. Blame also rested with the huge ward-based Democratic machine which had developed after the Civil War. The machine could solve ( for favors) community level and personal problems but could not deal with the larger city-wide difficulties. This system was often corrupt, and it had reduced the power of the central municipal government by spreading throughout the wards.

Challenged since the 1870's, the Democratic machine was finally overthrown in the mid 1890's by a group of Baltimore Reform League Republicans, Democrats, and the press, all generally representing an upper class moral conscience.

1890'S TO THE END OF WORLD WAR II

In 1898, the new reform government's first major project was to draft and enact a new charter. The charter gave more power to the mayor, ended the old two-house council, reorganized schools under central governing units, and limited the power of utility functions. The new charter created eight departments, each of which was supervised by a board made up of heads of sub-departments and grouped according to their duties. The most radical of the new departments was the Board of Estimates, which, for the first time, placed the budget-making process and financial control of the city under one central body. The charter tried to overhaul the lax supervision system which had caused the city so many problems for so long.

The Charter of 1898 and the creation of home rule 20 years later provided Baltimore with the organization and revenue base which it needed to modernize its services. Prior to 1918 the General Assembly of Maryland had to pass all local laws affecting Baltimore City. At the election of November 1922, the voters, through petition, substituted a unicameral Council in place of the two branch Council that had existed since the city's incorporation. The last land addition to Baltimore was made by the Annexation Act of 1918 by which the boundaries were extended to include the thickly populated suburban sections of Baltimore and Anne Arundel Counties adjacent to the city line. Since then the city boundaries have remained the same.

The twentieth century gave rise to a municipal government much larger than in previous years. The growth was costly. The municipal government of 1825 had spent about $200,000. By 1925 that figure had increased to over $50,000,000. Other changes throughout the early years of the twentieth century included the creation of the Department of Public Works in 1925, huge improvements in the areas of health, modern sewage and drainage systems, pure water supply, better street cleaning (assisted to a degree by the 1904 fire) the expansion and updating of the public school system, more organized planning of city design, and the streamlining of the fire and police department. By the time of the Second World War, the inner city was decaying, ghettos had formed, and racial prejudices still governed many municipal policies.

WORLD WAR II TO THE PRESENT

In 1946 the Baltimore Charter was again revised and approved by the voters in November of that year. Attempting to more nearly equalize the value of a vote throughout the city, the larger councilmanic districts were given more councilmen and the less populous districts were given fewer councilmen. The number of boards and commissions was cut down by consolidation. The merit system was extended to cover all personnel below the grade of department head, with a few exceptions.

The present Charter was revised and approved by the voters in 1964. It differs from the previous Charter largely because of reorganization of the City's financial management and procedures. Beginning in the 1960's, two major changes have developed in the municipal government. One has been the massive federal involvement in the cities since the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, with programs like the War on Poverty, Model Cities, and urban renewal.

The other change has been one of image-making. This change goes back to the administration of Theodore McKeldin (1963-67), with efforts by the municipal government to be involved heavily in projects like homesteading, the inner harbor development, and neighborhood associations. Organizations like the Citizens Planning and Housing Association, founded 40 years ago and once usually at odds with local government, now work with the administration at times seeming to be more a part of the government, than a citizens' group. Growth, upheaval, change, and all the problems which go along with them have characterized the history of Baltimore.

These familiar themes, as much a part of the present as they were of the past, will no doubt continue well into the decades to come.

Baltimore City History and Information

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Extended History