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AN ECOLOGY OF PEOPLEAND PLACE

M PEOPLE

Extraordinary changes swept across theUnited States and the world between1880 and 1930 (see Map 10). Thesechanges continued to alter ChesapeakeBay life, from the countryside to the city.The region’s population doubled, from2.5 million in 1880 to 5 million by 1930.Many of these people settled in estab-lished rapidly expanding urban centerssuch as Baltimore, Washington,Richmond, and Norfolk. Washington’snumbers grew at an incredible pace, ris-ing from about 75,000 in 1880 to 1.4 mil-lion by 1920. Many people also moved tonewer urban centers such as NewportNews, a sleepy port town that grewquickly after the president of theChesapeake and Ohio Railroad, Collis P.Huntington, chose it as a key terminaland shipyard in the 1890s. In sharp con-trast, the rural population either stayedsteady or began to drop.

Most people living in the region werenative born Americans. Although whiteAmericans outnumbered AfricanAmericans by four or five to one, blackpeople were the majority in many ruralcommunities. While 25 million European

An Ecology of People and Place 119

Chapter EightUrbanization,

1880 to 1930

▫ 1880’s–woodenskipjack sailingvessels speciallyadapted toChesapeake watersfirst produced

▫ 1882–VirginiaAssembly approvesfunding to establishNormal andCollegiate Institutefor Negroes andCentral Hospital formentally ill African-Americans inPetersburg

▫ 1886–adoption ofstandard gauge linksall railroads in regionand nation

▫ 1888–America’s firstelectrified trolley lineopens in Richmond

▫ 1889–nation’s firststate historicpreservationorganization,Association for thePreservation ofVirginia Antiquities,organized inRichmond

▫ 1893–Economic Panicof 1893 plungesnation into five-yeardepression

▫ 1894–protestors,known as Coxey’sArmy, march onWashingtondemanding economicreform

▫ 1898 to 1899–Spanish-AmericanWar fought withSpain

▫ 1900–regionpopulation reaches3 million

▫ 1900 to 1910–internal combustionengines power firstcommerciallysuccessful wheeledvehicles andairplanes

▫ 1904–GreatBaltimore Firedestroys city center

▫ 1914–passengerpigeons becomeextinct in wild

▫ 1914 to 1918–WorldWar I embroilsEuropean powers

▫ 1917–America entersWorld War I on Alliedside

▫ 1918–Allies defeatCentral powers

▫ 1918–worldwideSpanish influenzaepidemic strikesregion

▫ 1918–Migratory BirdTreaty Act outlawskilling of whistlingswans, establisheshunting seasons, andsets bag limits oninternationalmigratory waterfowl

▫ 1920–regionalpopulation exceeds4.5 million

▫ 1921–capturedGerman battleshipOstfriesland(renamed the SanMarco) sunk off CapeHenry in testdemonstrating abilityof aircraft to sinkcapital surface ships

▫ 1926–Robert H.Goddard launchesfirst successful liquidfuel rocket inMaryland

▫ 1929–New York stockmarket crash beginsGreat Depression

SIGNIFICANT EVENTS

1880’s 1888 1900 1900-1910 1914-1918 1920 1929| | | | | | |

Skipjack America’s Region Internal World Region Stocksailboats first electrified population combustion War I population Market

first trolley line, reaches engines exceeds Crashproduced Richmond 3 million 4.5 million

Industrial Expansion and the Gilded Age1880 to 1900

Progressive Era1900 to 1920

The Roaring Twenties1920 to 1929

SusquehannaRiver

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yR

iver

Cho

ptan

kR

iv

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Rapidan River

Pat ap sc o R iver

Cheste

r Rive

r

Potomac River

James River

Mattaponi RiverPamunkey River

Appo

mat

tox

Rappahannock River

Patuxent R

iver

Shen

ando

ah R

iver

Poco

mok

e Riv

er

Nan

tico

ke R

iver

Chesapeake B

ay

Rap

pahan nock River

York River

James River

CapeHenry

CapeCharles

Tangier Sound

River

Poto

mac

Riv

er

KentIsland

SmithIsland

TangierIsland

Chesapeake& Ohio Railroad

Cat

octin

Rid

ge

Sou

th M

ount

ain

Harper's Ferry Gap

Manassas Gap

Bul

l Run

Mou

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ThorofareGap

Thornton Gap

Blu

e R

idge

Mou

ntai

ns

Rockfish Gap

Blue

Ridge

Mou

ntai

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James River Gap

SeashoreNatural Area

CharlesC.SteirlyNatural

Area

GreatDismalSwamp

Battle CreekCypress Swamp

Belt Woods

CaledonState Park

Montpelier Forest

Sugar LoafMountain

Long GreenCreek andSweathouseBranch NaturalArea

Gilpin'sFalls

Ferncliff Wildlifeand Wildflower

Preserve

VirginiaCoast

Reserve

CalvertCliffs Preserve

PineyPoint

PamunkeyIndian

Reservation Mattaponi IndianReservation

Chesapeake and

Delaware Canal

WaterfordHistoricDistrict

MountVernon

SionHill

DismalSwamp Canal

Green SpringsHistoric District

Baltimore and Ohio Railroad

Norfolk SouthernRailroad

Rich

mon

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rede

rick,

and

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mac

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and Ohio Railroad

Chesa

peak

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Baltimore andOhio Railroad

Chesapeake andOhio Railroad

Norfolk Southern RailroadNorfolk Southern Railro

ad

Norfolk Southern Railro

adNorfolk Southern

Railroad

Chesapeake

Baltimore

Salisbury

Cambridge

Chesapeake City

Elkton

Lancaster

York

Frederick

Washington DC

Warrenton

Fredericksburg

Culpeper

Charlottesville

Harpers Ferry

Norfolk

Portsmouth

Richmond

Petersburg

Lynchburg

Newport News

Annapolis

Chesapeake Beach

Jamestown

Williamsburg

Langley Field

Hampton

●

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Gen. William “Billy” Mitchell House

Gen. George C. Marshall HouseClara BartonHouse

Gaithersburg LatitudeObservatory

Fort MyerHistoricDistrict

AlexandriaHistoric District

ChestertownHistoricDistrict

Camp Hoover

120 CHAPTER EIGHT: URBANIZATION

Map 10: Urbanization, 1880 to 1930

0 5 10 25 50 miles

kilometers0 5 10 40 80 North

LEGENDNational Historic Landmark© National Natural Landmark

• City or Town■ Natural or Cultural Feature

Railroad

CanalBayPlainPiedmont


KEY LOCALES

NATIONAL HISTORICLANDMARKS

District of ColumbiaAdministration Building,

Carnegie Institution ofWashington [1910]

American Federation ofLabor Building [1916]

American National RedCross Building [1915-1917]

Arts and SciencesBuilding, SmithsonianInstitution [1881]

William E. BorahApartment, WindsorLodge [ca. 1913]

Mary Ann Shadd CaryHouse [1881-1885]

Constitution Hall [1924-1930]

Corcoran Gallery andSchool of Art [1893]

Elliott Coues House[1880s]

General Federation ofWomen’s ClubHeadquarters [1922]

Georgetown HistoricDistrict [18th-19thcenturies]

Samuel Gompers House[1902-1917]

Charlotte Forten GrimkeHouse [ca. 1880]

Charles Evans HughesHouse [1907]

Lafayette Square HistoricDistrict [18th-20thcenturies]

Library of Congress[1886-1897]

Andrew Mellon Building[1916]

Memorial ContinentalHall [1902]

Meridian Hill Park[1900-1925]

National Training Schoolfor Women and Girls[1909]

National War College[1907]

Pension Building(National BuildingMuseum) [1885]

Zalmon Richards House[1882]

Saint John’s Church[1883]

Sewall-Belmont House[1820, 1929]

State, War, and NavyBuilding (Old ExecutiveOffice Building)[1871-1888]

Mary Church TerrellHouse [1907]

Twelfth Street YMCABuilding [1908-1912]

Oscar W. UnderwoodHouse [19th century]

United States MarineCorps Barracks [1906]

Volta Bureau [1893]

Washington Navy Yard[1800-1910]

David White House[1890s]

Woodrow Wilson House[1915]

Carter G. Woodson House[ca. 1890]

Robert SimpsonWoodward House [ca.1880s-1890s]

MarylandClara Barton House [ca.

1890], MontgomeryCounty

Chestertown HistoricDistrict [18th-19thcenturies], Kent County

Gaithersburg LatitudeObservatory [1899],Montgomery County

Nellie Crockett (Deadrisebuy-boat) [1926], KentCounty

Sion Hill [19th-20thcenturies], HarfordCounty

United States NavalAcademy Guard House[1881], Annapolis

William B. Tennison(Bug-eye buy-boat)[1899], Calvert County

Baltimore CityLandmarks

Baltimore (Tug) [1906]

Baltimore and OhioRailroad Roundhouseand Annex, [1884,1891]

Chesapeake (LightshipNo. 116) [1930]

College of Medicine ofMaryland [19th-20thcenturies]

Elmer V. McCollum House[ca. 1920]

H. L. Mencken House[early 1880s]

Mount Royal Station andTrainshed [1896]

Mount Vernon PlaceHistoric District [19thcentury]

Ira Remsen House[1880s]

Henry August RowlandHouse [1880s]

Sheppard and Enoch PrattHospital and GateHouse [1862-1891]

U.S.C.G.C. Taney (CoastGuard Cutter WHEC-37)[1925]

William Henry WelchHouse [1880s]

Talbot CountyLandmarks

Edna E. Lockwood(Log bug-eye) [1889]

Hilda M. Willing(Skipjack) [1905]

Kathryn (Skipjack)[1901]

VirginiaAlexandria Historic

District [18th-19thcenturies], AlexandriaCity

Camp Hoover[1929-1932],Madison County

Green Springs HistoricDistrict [18th-19thcenturies], LouisaCounty

General George C.Marshall House [1925-1949], Loudon County

Gari Melchers Home[1916-1932], StaffordCounty

General William “Billy”Mitchell House [1826,1925], Loudon andFauquier counties

Portsmouth (LightshipNo. 101) [1900-1949],Portsmouth

Variable Density Tunnel[1921-1940], Hampton

Waterford HistoricDistrict [18th-19thcenturies], LoudonCounty

Arlington CountyLandmarks

Charles Richard DrewHouse [1920-1939]

Fort Myer HistoricDistrict [1900s]

Quarters 1 [1899]

CharlottesvilleLandmarks

Shack Mountain[1916-1955]

University of VirginiaRotunda [1822-1826,1898]

University of VirginiaHistoric District[19th-20th centuries]

Richmond CityLandmarks

Jackson Ward HistoricDistrict [19th-20thcenturies]

Main Street Station andTrainshed [1901]

Monument AvenueHistoric District [1887]

Old City Hall [1887-1894]

Maggie Lena WalkerHouse [ca. 1909]

immigrants came to the United Statesbetween 1880 and 1930, only a few tensof thousands settled in the Chesapeakearea; the rest stayed farther north. Mostof the region’s new immigrants moved tobig cities, where many African Ameri-cans were also moving. Once the UnitedStates had entered World War I in 1917,even greater numbers of AfricanAmericans and immigrants were drawnto these cities by the prospect of work inthe many war industries there.

Important technological innovationsfueled this massive rise in population.First, innovators increased the efficiencyof earlier technologies based on wind,water, wood, and coal. Invention of aningenious lubricating system eliminatingthe need to climb high towers fueled abrief boom in metal windmills duringthe first quarter of the twentieth century.Gas engines and electric motorsreplaced wind and other traditionalpower sources by the 1930s. Powered bysteam boilers at the beginning of theperiod, ships, tractors, and a host ofother contraptions and conveyanceswere propelled by internal combustionengines running on gasoline and dieselfuel at its end.

Steel produced in mills using the newBessemer process gave shipwrights,bridge builders, and manufacturers alighter, stronger, and cheaper material.New gas and oil fueled limelight bea-cons shone from the many lighthouses

built to mark headlands, shallows, rockoutcrops, and other navigational hazardsalong the Bay’s busy shipping lanes.Skipjacks–swift, stable, and low draftboats able to navigate the shallow watersof the Bay–were first produced in theearly 1880s (see Figure 84); they repre-sented the technological peak forwooden sailing ships in the region.Evidently named both for the vessel’sability to skip above the waves and for itsskipper-like command of the water, theword skipjack combines the Dutch wordfor ship, schip, with jack, an old Englishword for sailor (as in jack tar). Larger,propeller driven warships, powered bysteam and made of riveted steel plates,slid down the ways in shipyards inWashington, Baltimore, Norfolk, andNewport News (see Figures 85-86).

Slow, limited in their carrying capacity,and (in the north) forced to close whenwater froze during the colder months,most canals lost importance during thisperiod. The Chesapeake and Ohio andother canals that required gated locks tocarry boats across their routes wereclosed. Finding the relatively level grades


Figure 84: Two-Sail Bateau Skipjack, the E. C. Collier, and theHooper Strait screwpile-style Light Station in the background.(Photograph courtesy of the National Park Service and the Library of Congress)

Figure 86: The Great Dry Dock, NewportNews, Virginia, ca. 1905.(Photograph from the Detroit Publishing Companycourtesy of the Library of Congress)

The Chesapeakeand Ohio Canal,

Maryland

Figure 85: Newport News Shipyard,Virginia, ca. 1905. (Photograph from the DetroitPublishing Company courtesy of the Library of Congress)

of canal routes ideal for their trains,railroad owners purchased the assets offailing or bankrupt canal companies andlaid track along what had been their towpaths and berm banks.

Not all canals closed during this era,however. Slack water routes like theChesapeake and Delaware crossing flatlow lying stretches of land separatingmajor waterways significantly shortenedtravel distances, cut travel times, andallowed ships to avoid often dangerousopen ocean waters. Work began duringthe early 1900s to integrate suitablecanals into the network of rivers, bays,coves, and other sheltered coastal watersextending from Maine to Texas todayknown as the Intracoastal Waterway. TheChesapeake and Delaware Canalrequired particularly extensive recon-struction to deepen and widen it suffi-ciently to allow clear passage for modernships (see Figure 87). Unable or unwill-ing to bear the huge costs of renovation,the canal company sold their holdings tothe Federal government in 1919. Ex-pending over $10 million dollars, govern-ment engineers lowered and widened itinto an open water crossing linking theChesapeake and Delaware Bays by 1927.

Steam railroads also reached the peak oftheir development as newly inventedautomobiles, trucks, and airplanesbegan to challenge their predominanceduring the 1910s and 1920s. Turnpikes,roads, and highways began to be pavedwith concrete and asphalt. Soon pavedroads crisscrossed the region, makingdriving cars much more comfortable.Grass covered landing fields for airplanesappeared on military bases, city lots,filled marshlands, and farm meadows.And in 1926, Robert H. Goddardlaunched the first successful liquid fuelrocket on a Maryland beach. Unlike solidfuel gunpowder propelled rockets, whichhad been in use since medieval times,liquid fuel rockets represented a quan-tum leap in power, possessing the poten-tial to carry payloads over vast distanceswith supersonic swiftness.

In the cities, electrified trolley linesreplaced horse drawn street cars and

carriages. The nation’s first electrifiedtrolley line began operating on Rich-mond’s streets in 1888. City road ways inthe Washington, Baltimore, Richmond,and Norfolk metropolitan areas–formerlyshell-covered, filled with bricks, or stone-cobbles–began to be paved to aid ridersof the just invented and very popularbicycle. By the turn of the century, theseand other routes were graded andwidened to accommodate automobiles,buses, and trucks (see Figure 88). Soonafter, electrified light rail lines startedproviding high speed links betweenChesapeake Bay cities and towns.


Figure 87: Detail of Chesapeake and Delaware Canal survey map.(Sketch by Benjamin H. Latrobe courtesy of the Library of Congress)

Figure 88: Downtown Easton, Maryland, ca. 1920.(Photograph by H. Robbin Hollyday courtesy of the Talbot CountyHistorical Society)

Chesapeake andDelaware Canal,Maryland

Advances in medical knowledge and vig-orous public health policies also hadmajor effects between 1880 and 1930.Researchers were able to subdue ancientplagues such as cholera, smallpox, andyellow fever. Health standards improved,and people lived longer. Many publichealth facilities were built. Sanitariumsand rest homes sheltered those sufferingfrom persistent ailments such as tubercu-losis and mental illness. Preventoriumswere rural institutions built to house citypeople at high risk of contracting infec-tious diseases. Public agencies and privateorganizations established communityhospitals and opened clinics in all butthe region’s most rural parts. Municipali-ties took on more responsibilities, work-ing to improve sewage systems, buildand maintain roads, erect water treat-ment plants, and dam rivers to createnew reservoirs. Advances in naval, aero-nautical, and civil engineering were pio-neered and put into use in militarybases. The Variable Density Tunnel,built in 1921 in Virginia’s Langley Field,was an experimental facility used to testand develop new aircraft designs. Otheradvances in ordinance and logisticaldevelopment occurred in the manyinstallations around Washington, D.C.that were built or expanded to supportAmerican involvement in the Spanish-American War (1898-1899) and WorldWar I (1917-1918).

The arts and sciences flourished in theregion’s many colleges, museums, andconservatories. Chesapeake Bay artists,musicians, journalists, and writers, suchas Baltimore’s wittily acerbic H. L.Mencken, whose row house today is aNational Historic Landmark (see Figure89), contributed greatly to the nation’scultural life. But no amount of skill,sophistication, or scholarship could endsocial problems such as race prejudiceor halt epidemics such as the deadlyworldwide Spanish influenza outbreakthat struck the region in 1918, killingthousands in the Chesapeake region.

Electric current came into widespreaduse as a power source during this era aswell. First treated as a curiosity, it soon litup homes, workplaces, and streets, not

to mention power for phonographs,radios, and movie projectors. It also car-ried messages through and from theregion to the rest of the United States andthe world on telephones developed dur-ing the 1880s and wireless radios thatwere first introduced during the followingdecade. Radio waves, broadcast fromhigh steel towers, brought ChesapeakeBay people into closer contact with theworld than ever before. And steel beganto change the face of towns and cities aswell. As wooden downtown buildingsfell to the wrecker’s ball or burned in cat-astrophic fires (like the blaze that devas-tated Baltimore’s business district in1904), new steel towers rose in theirplace. The newly invented elevatorallowed builders to erect skyscrapers forpowerful corporations on pricey down-town real estate. Washington remainedthe only city in the region to limit theheight of its buildings. It did so to upholda tradition requiring that no buildingshould stand taller than the capitol, a tra-dition that Thomas Jefferson had started;this was formalized into a law in 1899.

The period between 1880 and 1930 isremembered today as a more selfassured, serene, and hopeful time. Wecall its earlier decades the Gilded Age,and its later years the Progressive Era andthe Roaring Twenties. Yet this period was


Figure 89: H. L. Mencken Row Houselocated at 1524 Hollins Street, Baltimore,Maryland. (Photograph by Ronald L. Andrewscourtesy of the Maryland Historical Trust)

Variable DensityTunnel, Virginia

marked by social turmoil, political strug-gle, and wild economic swings. Theboom-bust business cycle that had char-acterized the American economy fromits beginnings continued. The prosper-ous years of the 1880s railroad boom, forexample, were followed by the financialPanic of 1893 and a five-year depressionthat made many unemployed workersdoubt the national ethic that hard workleads to success. In 1894, several hun-dred impoverished workers known asCoxey’s Army (named after Jacob Coxey,a self-taught economist from Massillion,Ohio) came to Washington to protestconditions and press for a federal publicworks program to create jobs. Instead ofbeing heard, they were forcibly removed(see Figure 90). But attempts to improveconditions continued. Unions organized,workers struck for better pay and work-ing conditions, and the federal govern-ment struggled to limit the power of bigbusiness trusts and monopolies. Laborunions vied with the powerful politicalmachines that swapped votes for jobs inthe region’s cities and towns.

Prosperity came to many working inregional shipyards, military installations,and factories that produced arms andmunitions for American troops (whichfought in the Spanish-American War andWorld War I during these years). Butserious social problems persisted.Among these were city slums, wide-spread poverty, child labor and workerexploitation, race and gender bias, immi-grant assimilation, political corruption,and corporate greed. These issues

spurred organizations aimed at reform,including municipal leagues, theAmerican Federation of Labor, the moreradical Industrial Workers of the World,the National American Women’s SuffrageAssociation, the National Association forthe Advancement of Colored People, andthe agrarian grangers and populists.Although they had different goals, mostof these organizations looked to the fed-eral government to pass legislation favor-ing their causes.

People also formed civic organizations toinstill and inspire patriotic sentiments.These groups began preserving siteslinked to colonial forebears, and theybuilt the first monuments honoring CivilWar soldiers. The nation’s first state orga-nization dedicated to historic preserva-tion, the Association for the Preservationof Virginia Antiquities, was organized bya group of socially prominent womenand men in Richmond in 1889. Associa-tion members helped preserve and inter-pret historic sites in places such asWilliamsburg, Jamestown, and thegreater Richmond area. Women in theassociation also made efforts to honorthe Confederacy by linking colonial siteswith Civil War events and personalities.They preserved several battlefields,restored war cemeteries, and preventedthe demolition of threatened sites suchas the White House of the Confederacyin Richmond.

The era also saw the founding of manysocial, cultural, professional, fraternal,and youth organizations. Groups such asthe American Medical Association, theAmerican Anthropological Association,the Boy and Girl Scouts, and theAmerican Bar Association sought andreceived national charters. Each encour-aged technical skill and excellence,moral integrity, citizenship, and other val-ues identified with the middle class. Thegrowing ranks of urban, white collarworkers in Baltimore, Washington, andother American cities embraced thesevalues. And blue collar industrial labor-ers saw to it that their sons and daugh-ters received the educations most wouldneed to move up in society.


Figure 90: Impoverished workers led byJacob Coxey are escorted from the Capitol.(Harper’s Weekly sketch courtesy of the Library of Congress)

White House of theConfederacy, Virginia

More reactionary movements also grewstronger in the early decades of the twen-tieth century. Anti-immigrant and whitesupremacist organizations such as the KuKlux Klan grew increasingly influential.Reinventing itself in 1915 as an organiza-tion that was committed to 100 percentAmericanism and opposed to blacks,Jews, Catholics, and immigrants, the KuKlux Klan quickly grew into the nation’slargest fraternal organization of theperiod. Claiming some 4 million mem-bers, the Klan displayed its power in

September 13, 1926 in one of the largestmarches yet seen in Washington, D.C.(see Figure 91). The organizationdeclined as rapidly as it rose. Rocked byscandals exposing the corruption andhypocrisy of several of its key leaders, its’numbers dropped to less than a few hun-dred thousand members by 1929.Although it again rose to national atten-tion as a reactionary group opposingcivil rights during the 1960s, it did notplay a significant role in Chesapeakeregion life during the remainder of thecentury.

Groups pursuing specific social, politi-cal, and economic agendas sometimesmade strange alliances that highlight theera’s complexities. For example, newimmigrants–who competed with AfricanAmericans for jobs as unskilled labor-ers–sometimes found themselves agree-ing with racists who were otherwise farfrom friendly to their interests.

The years between 1880 and 1930 wereparticularly difficult for AfricanAmericans. Although clever marketeers,such as Margaret L. “Maggie” Walker ofRichmond’s Jackson Ward, made sizablefortunes, nearly all African Americanssuffered from poverty and intense dis-crimination. Gains were made in thedecades just after the war–as when theVirginia assembly established theNormal and Collegiate Institute for


Figure 91: The Ku Klux Klan Marches DownPennsylvania Avenue, September 13, 1926.(Photograph courtesy of the Library of Congress)

JACKSON WARD HISTORIC DISTRICT. One ofseveral Richmond city districts named forpresidents, Jackson Ward was a center of AfricanAmerican life and culture in Virginia from 1871to 1905. Today, the district covers a thirty-eightblock area of free-standing and attached two andthree story town houses. Significant figures inAfrican American arts, commerce, andcommunity life, such as John Mitchell, W.W.Browne, Giles B. Jackson, and Margaret L.“Maggie” Walker (see Figure 92), lived in GreekRevival, Italianate, or vernacular homes alongthe ward’s tree-lined streets. The more elaborateof these homes featured spacious yards borderedby ornamental cast iron fences. Today, well-preserved Doric columns, Italianate ironwork, and Eastlake-style Victorian wooden fretwork continue to adorn many town house porches in the district.

Figure 92: Maggie L. Walker Streetscape, Jackson Ward,Richmond, Virginia.(Photograph courtesy of the National Park Service)

Normal and CollegiateInstitute for Negroes,

Virginia

Negroes and the Central Hospital formentally ill African Americans–but thesewere lost when Virginia joined othersouthern states by passing voting lawsthat took the vote from AfricanAmericans in the final years of the nine-teenth century. Other Jim Crow laws for-mally defined people of mixed ancestryas colored or negroes, strictly segregatedthe races, and otherwise treated AfricanAmericans as second-class citizens.

Hopes for African American equalitywere suppressed by terror as well as law.The Black Codes required absolute sub-ordination and subservience, and menbelieved to have violated them were kid-naped, tortured, and hanged by racistvigilantes. Lynchings became distress-ingly common during the depressionyears of the mid-1890s, when racistwhites vented their frustrations on blackneighbors. Hundreds of thousands ofAfrican Americans moved north to citiessuch as Washington, D.C., and Baltimoreto escape lynch law and find work andsecurity. Denied all but the mostunskilled labor, most were forced tomove into neglected tenements in themost rundown parts of town. Municipalagencies and local assistance organiza-tions would not serve them adequately,so they formed banks, churches, and selfhelp associations of their own.

When the nation mobilized for WorldWar I, government authority grew inways not seen since the Civil War. Thefederal government nationalized rail-roads, rationed food and fuel, andworked with states to establish war indus-try boards requiring industries to givefirst priority to military production. Oldinstallations were reactivated and newcamps and stations constructed through-out the region. Hundreds of warshipsand merchant vessels were built in ship-yards in Washington, Baltimore, andNewport News. Uniforms and otherequipment were manufactured inRichmond, Baltimore, and mill townsthroughout the region. Thousands ofChesapeake Bay men, both black andwhite, were drafted. Many of themserved in France. Because they wereserving in a segregated army, most

African American troops were relegatedto digging trenches, carrying supplies,and other manual labor performed bywork battalions. Women, who previouslyhad largely been barred from mostfactory work, took jobs in industriesneeding replacements for departingservicemen. Other women sold warbonds, collected scrap metal for the wareffort, and served as nurses in camps athome and abroad.

The war effort fueled a prosperity thatcarried into the 1920s. Products fromAmerica’s farms and factories foundready markets at home and abroad, andstock speculation heated an already hotmarket. Some items on the progressiveagenda, such as women’s suffrage (seeFigure 93) and prohibition, were enactedinto law. Congress also passed reac-tionary legislation, such as the 1924Immigration Act, which drasticallyslashed immigration quotas and barredfurther immigration from Asia. Othercauses, such as the struggle againstracial discrimination, had to wait forlater times and legislatures.

During this decade, the people of theUnited States looked inward and soughtentertainment in amusement parks,resorts such as Maryland’s ChesapeakeBeach and Piney Point, movie houses,and, for many, speakeasies that cateredto those with tastes for alcohol, gam-bling, and other outlawed vices.


Figure 93: Suffragettes March for the Vote on Pennsylvania Avenue,March 3, 1913. (Photograph courtesy of the Library of Congress)

Chesapeake Beach andPiney Point, Maryland

Central Hospital,Virginia

Baseball, football, and other sportsbecame increasingly popular. Nearlyevery social and business group or insti-tution organized ball clubs. Ball fieldssprang up nearly everywhere. Wood andsteel stands with commanding views ofcarefully tended clay base paths andmown grass playing fields became fix-tures in community landscapes. Playerseverywhere competed on sand lots, citystreets, school yards, and park lawns.Well funded and highly organized profes-sional and college teams played tocrowds of thousands in vast stadiums.Celebrated sports figures, such asBaltimore’s favorite son, George Herman“Babe” Ruth, became popular cultureicons. Ruth’s flamboyant personality andlavish life style came to symbolize theliveliness, prosperity, and excesses of theRoaring Twenties. But the era ended sud-denly on October 29, 1929. On a dayknown as Black Tuesday, an enormousdrop in stock prices plunged theChesapeake region and the rest of theUnited States and the world into a devas-tatingly sudden economic decline. Thisgrim time is now remembered as theGreat Depression.

M PLACE

Between 1880 and 1930, unprecedentedchanges in technology and societyallowed people to transform ChesapeakeBay lands, waters, and skies. Theyaltered the region in ways no one hadthought possible or even desired. Valuableinnovations often affected the environ-ment, sometimes in unexpected ways.For example, after 1886, all railroad com-panies began using a 4 foot, 8.5 inch-wide standard track gauge, making theirlines compatible. This meant that trainscould run freely throughout the region.Thus steam engines of the Baltimore andOhio, Chesapeake and Ohio, and NorfolkSouthern lines could more efficientlybring in western livestock, mid-westerngrain, Pittsburgh steel, Northern manu-factures, and Southern mill products.These imports enriched life in Chesa-peake Bay cities, towns, and farms.

As desirable as these imports were, thetrains carrying them hauled and burned

highly polluting coal. The coal camefrom mines farther inland along theupper reaches of the Potomac andSusquehanna river valleys. Tailings andother wastes from the mines wereflushed into nearby rivers, where theymixed with sediments washed fromdeforested uplands. Farther down river,these waters were further sullied by soilseroded from farm fields, factory wastes,and, finally municipal sewage. Noxiousmicrobes flourished as fish, shellfish,plants, and other aquatic life sickenedand died in the increasingly toxic murkywaters of the Bay estuary.

Each new form of energy took its toll.When natural energy sources such aswood and wind were replaced with coal,oil, and gas, non-biodegradable wasteproducts polluted the region. The burn-ing of coal to fuel furnaces, heat boilers,or turn steam turbines may have gottenrid of the problems caused by earliersources of power– the smoke from woodfires and manure runoff wastes fromhorses, mules, and other draft animals–but coal also created serious problems.Coal burned in engines, plants, andbuildings poured smoke into the region’sskies. Highly acidic coal mining wasteswere released into Chesapeake drainagerivers. Coal miners and stokers breathedever growing quantities of lethal coaldust into their lungs, paying their ownsteep price for progress. Other costs wereharder to measure. While we do knowthat average temperatures worldwidegenerally have been rising since the1880s, no direct evidence has yet provedthat burning coal and other fossil fuelshelped create this trend.

In the late nineteenth century, sport fish-ermen and government scientists pub-lished reports speculating that increasedwater pollution was threatening the eel-grass in Chesapeake Bay waters. Otherreports showed that water chestnut andEurasian watermilfoil–invasive waterplants accidentally introduced into Baywaters by passing ships–began takingspace, light, and nutrients away from eel-grasses and other native water plantssometime between 1880 and 1900. Moreand more aware of how important


submerged aquatic plants are to Bayecology, the region’s scientists and con-servationists began to study the lifecycles and habitat needs of these andother invasive species at this time.

Forests also suffered from populationand industrial expansion. By 1900, lessthan 30 percent of the Chesapeake Baywatershed’s original forests remained.Woodsmen could no longer find stand-ing trees large enough to supply the shin-gles and shakes widely used for roofsand siding (see Figure 94). Looking fornew sources of supply, they began tomine the ancient bald cypress andAtlantic white cedar trunks buried inbogs on the Pocomoke River and else-where. Most of the cleared lands in theCoastal Plain and Piedmont valleys wereturned to agricultural or livestock uses.People also drained wetlands to createmore farmlands and to destroy thebreeding grounds of mosquitoes andother insect pests. Such activities alsochanged the composition of tidewaterforests. Farther inland, clear cuttingincreased erosion and altered the chemi-cal composition of soils by exposingthem to sun, wind, and rain. Thesechanges made it harder for young treesto reclaim logged tracts, especially insteep, hilly areas. And foreign tree dis-eases–chestnut blight and Dutch elm dis-ease–all but exterminated chestnut andelm trees in the region.

Pollution and intensified use also hadserious impacts on Chesapeake Bay fish

and shellfish populations in this period.We find evidence of this in Virginia’s andMaryland’s state game records, first keptin the 1880s. These show that Americanshad, Atlantic menhaden, alewife her-ring, American croaker, and other fin-fishsupported a large commercial fishery. By1920, more than 60 million pounds offish were reported to have been takenfrom Bay waters. Of this amount, 12 mil-lion pounds, then valued at $850,000,were caught in Maryland. The remaining48 million pounds, worth $2.4 million atthe time, came from Virginia waters.About 90 percent of the entire catch con-sisted of alewives, croakers, shad, andAmerican menhaden.

We do not have statistics showing exactlyhow far fish populations had declined.But the situation concerned fish andwildlife officials enough to cause themto begin opening fish hatcheries by thelate 1870s. They were concerned notonly by over-fishing, but also by the con-struction of dams that blocked spawningstreams, keeping fish from swimmingupriver to lay their eggs and deprivingtheir young of a safe habitat. Hatcheries,artificial oyster beds, cages, and artificialponds holding large numbers of dia-mondback terrapins sold to marketsbecame increasingly common by theturn of the century. Bag limits were en-acted to limit over-harvesting of econom-ically important species, but poachinggrew into a major problem as fishermenignored these limits. Oystermen couldnot make a living by working clam banksin the open water, because these bankshad been depleted. Guarding their owngrounds from small watch houses stand-ing on tall support timbers pounded intotidal mud, many continued to raid eachother’s beds and nurseries.

Birds were affected by environmentalchanges as well. In the early 1900s, con-cerned bird enthusiasts–members of thenewly founded Audubon Society–beganconducting bird counts on the Bay everyChristmas. Their activities, along withthose of state fish and game agents,became important tools for estimatingbird population sizes, varieties, and dis-tributions. Observations made by


Figure 94: Carting Shingles. (From The Trans-formation of Virginia, 1740-1790 by Rhys Isaac; used by per-mission of the University of North Carolina Press ©1982)

ornithologists helped show how otherchanges in the environment affectedbirds. They noted that drought anddecreases in eelgrass and other under-water plants threatened populations ofcanvasback ducks and other waterfowl.

Unrestricted market and sport shooting,too, had devastating effects on some birdpopulations. Finally, Congress passed theMigratory Bird Treaty Act in 1918. The actoutlawed the killing of rare whistlingswans, established limited hunting sea-sons, and set bag limits for waterfowlmigrating across international boundaries.But no legislation could protect devastatedpopulations of Carolina parakeets andthe once-common passenger pigeon.The last representatives of these speciesdied in zoos during the 1920s, markingtheir final extinction and alarming con-cerned people everywhere.

THE CULTURAL LAND-SCAPE OF URBANIZATION

M PEOPLING PLACES

As noted, revolutionary industrial devel-opments and population changes helpedpeople make indelible marks on theregion’s cultural landscape between 1880and 1930. Many of these marks are stillvisible today. Chesapeake Bay cities be-gan to assume their modern appearancesas skyscrapers, government buildings,commercial establishments, apartment

houses, tenements, row houses, andmany other structures rose over streetspaved with Belgian block cobbles, con-crete slabs, and poured asphalt. Initially,self-propelled bicycles competed forspace on these streets with horse andmule drawn carts, wagons, and street-cars. Trolleys, trucks, buses, and automo-biles dominated the region’s roads andbyways by the end of the period.

In the region’s cities, new immigrants set-tled into urban ethnic neighborhoodswith signs in both English and theirnative languages. They added oniondomes and other familiar architecturaltouches from their home countries to themany churches, shops, and halls erectedin popular styles–first in the ornateVictorian, classical, romantic modes,then in the traditional colonial revivalstyle, and finally in the streamlined artmoderne and art deco styles.

Wealthier citizens usually lived on fash-ionable avenues in or near city centers(see Figure 95). Yet many of the moreaffluent classes began moving out of citycenters to new suburbs constructed inthe nearby countryside along trolley andrail lines. Often they moved to escapethe clutter and noise of crowded urbanlife. In the suburbs, they engaged the ser-vices of shopkeepers and skilled, whitecollar workers. Often, these workersreturned to rented apartments or roomsin the city after work. Wealthier residentsof cities and suburbs hired live-in ser-vants who slept in separate quarters inthe main house or in small buildings onhouse grounds.

Rural county seats became smaller repli-cas of major cities. Market, mill, and can-nery towns also grew larger and morecomplex. But most smaller towns and vil-lages in more remote areas–places suchas the Maryland Coastal Plain fishing vil-lage of Crisfield and other locales in theextreme southern, western, and easternparts of the region–did not change muchbetween 1880 and 1930. Although mech-anization made farming more efficient,and improvements such as refrigeratorcars hurried perishable foods to marketmore quickly, rural farms mostly remained


Figure 95: Baltimore’s Mount Vernon District.(Photograph courtesy of the Dennis Montagna Collection)

as they were, maintaining earlier dimen-sions and staying in the same locations.

People continued to live in greater num-bers north of the Potomac River. TheEastern Shore and southeastern Virginiacontinued to be sparsely populated.Mass migrations of rural AfricanAmericans and poor whites occurredduring and after World War I. Mostly,these people moved to Washington orBaltimore, but many also took up resi-dence in Richmond and Newport News.Their migration sent overall rural popula-tions into a decline that has yet to end.

M CREATION OF SOCIALINSTITUTIONS

The focus of the region’s social life shiftedeven further away from the family domes-tic sphere to more community centeredorganizations. This shift was reflected inthe many new meeting halls, churches,campgrounds, resorts, and other facilitiesbuilt between 1880 and 1930. Commu-nities also arranged for the constructionof many new courthouses, office build-ings, primary and secondary schools,university campuses, and teacher’s col-leges both in cities and in rural locales.Most of these structures were built usinglocally available wood, stone, brick, andglass construction materials. Railroadsand ships brought in metal structural ele-ments and fixtures. Architectural flour-ishes were crafted in Chesapeake Bayworkshops or imported from elsewhere.Terra cotta tiles, stained glass, cut crystalwindows, and intricately sawn timberfretwork were among the many em-bellishments popular during the period.

Domestic and community buildings,decor, and ground plans were generallytidy and ornate. Their well ordered stylecelebrated middle class values of com-fort and respectability, which were thesocial ideal at the time for most peoplein the region. Wealthy women belongingto the Garden Club of Virginia, for exam-ple, began sponsoring the restoration ofgardens and grounds of historic planta-tions, homes, churches, and mills duringthe 1920s. They and like-minded people

thought that such projects both beauti-fied the landscape and provided exam-ples that helped instill immigrants andthe poor with so-called American values.By adopting these values, the theorywent, impoverished people would risefrom poverty and immigrants wouldcompletely assimilate into Americansociety. Not surprisingly, then, this middleclass design sense also showed up in thehostels, soup kitchens, and settlementhouses of relief organizations such as theSalvation Army; in facilities run by theYoung Men’s and Women’s Christian andHebrew Associations and similar com-munity support groups; in social clubscatering to particular classes, profes-sions, or ethnic groups; and in publicinstitutions such as sanitariums, poorhouses, hospitals, and penitentiaries.

M EXPRESSING CULTURALVALUES

The middle class ethos also showed upin the architectural designs of the manybuildings erected to house cultural insti-tutions between 1880 and 1930. Statelymonuments and imposing stone andbrick museums and libraries, oftenendowed by wealthy philanthropists,shot up in the region’s cities and in manyof its larger county seats and towns. Bigcities such as Baltimore, Washington,and Richmond supported conservatories,opera houses, art institutes, science organi-zations, zoological parks, and botanicalgardens. Schools, colleges, and universi-ties also mushroomed. The more suc-cessful of these soon moved from centercity office buildings to suburban cam-puses on the edges of towns. The mostelaborate campuses boasted suites ofbuildings in the same architectural style.These were often located on tastefullywinding tree lined roads in park-like set-tings. As these suburban campuses drewbusinesses to their areas, many soon gotswallowed up in just the sort of urbanexpansion they had tried to escape.

Popular culture also flourished in thesedecades. Saloons; dance, music, andvaudeville halls; gyms; ballfields; and

The Cultural Landscape of Urbanization 131

amusement parks went up everywhere.These were mostly housed in brick orwooden-framed structures, with stylesranging from utilitarian sturdiness togaudily colorful flashiness. Burlesquehalls, bordellos, and–during prohibition–speakeasies, catered to tastes that couldnot be openly acknowledged elsewhere.

Modernist movements emerged in artisticcommunities in Washington and othercities during the turn of the century.Their creators strove to break with pastcultural traditions. They shared a rebel-lious spirit, wishing to undermine thehigh culture they associated with elitistclass distinctions and Old World snob-bery. Modernists tried to create a new,native born cultural vocabulary that allAmericans could understand and appre-ciate. Their sense of design replacedostentation, literalness, and Victorianclutter with simplicity, abstraction, andstreamlined sleekness. Modernist cul-tural values found expression in art mod-erne and art deco skyscraper andcommercial design; in streamlined loco-motives, airplanes, and automobiles; inliterature; and in the decorative arts.

Rural areas, by contrast, largely main-tained more traditional cultural values.This was especially the case in southeast-ern Virginia and the Eastern Shore,where many homes continued to bebuilt in traditional local styles, includingthe central-hall dogtrot layout and themodest bungalow format. Some of themore well-to-do rural families chose tolive in standardized, prefabricatedhomes sold through mail order catalogsby new companies such as Sears andRoebuck. Manufacturing plants shippedthese in pieces by rail, delivering them toconstruction sites. Commercial and pub-lic buildings in rural areas also tended toreflect more conventional cultural view-points and tastes.

M SHAPING THE POLITICALLANDSCAPE

Political struggles between rich and poor,labor and management, white andblack, progressives and reactionaries,and native and foreign born Americans

shaped political aspects of the region’scultural landscape. People gathered inhalls, town squares, fields, stadiums, andother public spaces to debate the issuesof the day. Lawmakers voted for moreand more funds for larger and moreornate halls of government. Courthouses,records halls, and prisons grew in sizeand grandeur as more and more policeofficers, lawyers, jurists, and clerksenforced laws enacted by federal, state,and local legislators. Today consideredquaint and charming, the fortress-likeappearance of many of these structuresactually reflects the need at the time toprotect law enforcement personnel fromlynch mobs and possible attacks of anar-chists and other political radicals.

Federal office buildings, courthouses,and other facilities rose in all cities andmost county seats as people looked tothe central government for solutions topolitical problems. Imposing castle-likearmories surrounded by brick or stonewalls were built to store munitions andtrain troops. They were also intended toserve as fortresses in the event of civilrevolt. Wilderness lands and historicallysignificant sites were set aside fornational forests, wildlife refuges, parks,and monuments. Created in 1915, theUnited States Coast Guard maintainedChesapeake Bay lighthouses and policedthe region’s shipping lanes and fishinggrounds. Also, for the first time in thenation’s history, the government contin-ued to maintain and build military bases,testing grounds, and munitions depots ata time when no war was in progress.Many of these facilities had been builtduring World War I, and most were con-sidered necessary to maintain nationalsecurity in an increasingly dangerousworld.

M DEVELOPING THECHESAPEAKE ECONOMY

Industrial mass production came todominate most of the region’s economyduring this period. Manufacturingprocesses were usually centralized inlarge factory complexes near rail lines,waterways, or sources of raw materials


(see Figure 96). Workers and machinerywere often housed in stout brick plantcomplexes. These were frequently sur-rounded by fences or walls of brick orstone. Massive smokestacks belchedsmoke into the air, and raw factory wastesflowed into the nearest rivers and streams.

Working long hours at low wages, factoryworkers tended to live in row houses,tenements, or small one or two familyhouses near work (see Figure 97). Super-

visors and managerslived in larger middleclass homes, usually onlands affording com-manding views of fac-tory complexes. Mostfactory owners favoredhigh-style mansions onlarge, landscaped lots,for both their maindwellings and theircountry homes. Manyof their main dwellingswere built in more fash-ionable parts of townor in suburbs–far fromthe grime and filthpouring from theirplants. Others had theirgreat houses built close

to their factories. In northern parts of theregion, many officers of corporationsowning factories and other companiescompeted with one another to buildever-taller and more ornate skyscrapersin city business districts.

Banks, brokerages, insurance compa-nies, specialty shops, professional officecomplexes, and department stores lineddowntown boulevards. Vast rail andstockyards occupied expanses of openground behind city terminals, whileforests of ship’s masts filled the skiesalong long lines of piers, shed-coveredwharves, and warehouses stretchedacross urban waterfronts (see Figure 98).Ships and trains brought unprocessedbulk products such as wheat, sugar cane,corn, cattle, and petroleum to concreteand steel mills, refineries, and storagetanks on the outskirts of Chesapeake Baycities. Short haul rail lines and trucks car-ried fresh farm produce to nearby citiesand towns. Commercial fishermen andoystermen brought their catches to Baycanneries or local marketplaces.

Tourism and the entertainment indus-tries boomed as large numbers of moreaffluent people looked for enjoyableways to fill their leisure time. Commu-nities and businesses throughout theregion began using outdoor billboards,newspaper ads, and other new advertisingtechniques to draw cash carrying visitors


Figure 97: Baltimore Row Houses, 1981:The 500 block of South Chapel Street inthe Fells Point neighborhood.(Photograph by Elaine Eff courtesy of the Painted ScreenSociety of Baltimore, inc.)

Figure 98: Oyster Fleet inBaltimore Harbor, ca. 1885.(Photograph courtesy of the NationalArchives)

Figure 96: Aerial View of Ellicott Mills Looking North TowardEllicott City, Maryland.(Photograph courtesy of the National Park Service and the Library of Congress)

to local attractions. These includedbeaches, hotels, health resorts, spas,campgrounds, amusement parks, andrecreation grounds.

M EXPANDING SCIENCE ANDTECHNOLOGY

As noted, scientific and technologicaldevelopments of this period made animprint that continues to dominate theregion’s cultural landscape to the presentday. In this era, technologies basedmostly on muscle power, wood, sail,steam, coal, and iron gave way to a moremodern set centered on petrochemicals,steel, and electromagnetic energy. Theera also saw a shift from a wide range oflocally available natural resources thatcould be used pretty much as they wereto a much narrower range of importedsubstances that could be modified intoa multitude of refined and syntheticproducts.

Scientists working in research centerssuch as Baltimore’s Johns HopkinsUniversity and the campuses of theUniversity of Maryland made majoradvances in medicine, chemistry, andengineering. Scientists at the agriculturalextension stations of regional land grantcolleges developed new ways of farmingthat improved yields and conserved soiland water. The first steam powered trac-tors appeared, along with new, moredurable, and increasingly efficient typesof metal corn cribs, barbed wire andchain link fences, and other agriculturalinnovations. Samuel Langley and otherscientists in the region’s many armycamps and naval facilities made majorcontributions to aeronautical, nautical,and military engineering.

Regional artisans and mechanics alsocontinued to refine their crafts and skills.Fishermen and shipwrights used the newmaterials and manufacturing techniquesto improve vessel design and developnew types of tackle and gear. The grow-ing popularity of sport fishing createdmarkets that allowed Chesapeake Baycarvers to bring wooden decoy art tonew heights. And because cheap, massproduced furnishings were easy avail-

able, more people came to appreciatethe value of finely handcrafted items.Those who could afford them sought outhandmade decorative merchandise,increasing demand and raising produc-tion levels.

M TRANSFORMING THEENVIRONMENT

The new technologies emerging in thisera gave people the ability to transformthe region’s environment in ways notthought possible by their ancestors. Newmachines and energy sources allowedpeople to move and manipulateunheard of volumes of goods and materi-als. Pumps and dredges drained wet-lands to destroy habitats of mosquitoesand other disease carrying pests.Swamps and marshes also turned intomunicipal waste dumps or were filled tocreate new land for development. Eventhe earth gave way as men blasted rockwith dynamite and moved it with steamshovels, bulldozers, barges, and trucks.

Monumental buildings supported bysteel frames and clad in stone and brickmasonry were constructed in denseurban cores along avenues whosedimensions had not been changed sincecity founders had first laid out their origi-nal street plans. These included cityhalls, office buildings, churches, rail ter-minals, train sheds, and departmentstores. Powerful Washington politicianMayor Alexander Shepard, motivated vot-ers to approve expenditures aimed atclearing up some of the congestion clog-ging the city. He wanted to turnWashington into a place that reflectedboth the nation’s power and the highcost of its real estate. Shepard narrowedand paved the city’s wide boulevards,planted ornamental shade trees, clearedshanties and makeshift market stalls, andordered railroads to meet city specifiedgrade levels at street crossings. The citywas also beautified by new elegantlylandscaped parks, cemeteries, hospitalgrounds, and college campuses. Many ofthese were designed by such prominentdesigners as Calvert Vaux and FrederickLaw Olmsted, Jr.


Johns HopkinsUniversity and

University ofMaryland

Other efforts to streamline urban devel-opment in the region soon followed.Congress passed the Highway Act of1893, providing funds to begin linkingcities and suburbs throughout the regionwith landscaped parkways. AndWashington’s central mall, park system,and monuments–along with the BeauxArts architectural style of many of theedifices built in the early twentieth cen-tury–can be traced to the recommenda-tions of the 1902 MacMillan Commission.Made up of a blue ribbon board thatincluded Olmsted, architects CharlesMcKim and Daniel Burnham, and sculp-tor Augustus Saint-Gaudens, the commis-sion’s findings soon became a modeladopted by other American cities,including Richmond and Baltimore.

A vast network of new roads, interurbanrail lines, and, later, flying fields linkedChesapeake Bay cities with the country-side. Planned suburban developments,such as Roland Park, began to appearalong the margins of developed urbanareas (see Figure 99). Roland Park is alarge-lot wooded residential preservebuilt by the Olmsted firm on the outskirtsof Baltimore between 1891 and 1910. Anelegant, upper middle class communityof homes built in several popular styles,Roland Park gradually changed from afreestanding suburban community to aresidential city neighborhood as Balti-more expanded around it in the 1920s.

In rural areas, farmers using new reapers,tractors, fertilizers, and insecticideschanged their products. Many turnedfrom large scale cultivation of tobacco,wheat, or corn to production of the moreperishable fruits, vegetables, poultry, anddairy products demanded by urban andsuburban consumers. Automobiles andtrucks dominated the region’s hinterland.Farmers drove produce to markets, fairs,and railheads; suburbanites navigatedfrom home to work or school; and cityfolk took drives in the country.Continually improved, many of theseroads have since become U.S. Routesand State Highways.

M CHANGING ROLE OF THECHESAPEAKE IN THEWORLD COMMUNITY

Urban growth, technological change,and national involvement in world affairscreated demands for imports and fastercommunications. In meeting thesedemands, the Chesapeake Bay regiongrew more firmly linked with the worldcommunity. As in earlier periods,wharves, warehouses, and the manyhulks of maritime vessels that sank or set-tled to the bottom of Chesapeake Baybetween 1880 and 1930 testify to itsactive maritime trade. This trade stimu-lated the development of deepwater har-bors at Baltimore, Norfolk, and NewportNews. Surviving skipjacks recall theProhibition years at the end of this peri-od, when ships smuggled contrabandalcohol through those ports. Ever denserconcentrations of army camps, navalfacilities, and munitions plants in andaround Washington, D.C. bear witness tothe United States’s growing ability to pro-ject power beyond its borders in foreignconflicts, such as the Spanish-AmericanWar and World War I. These military sitesinclude the Washington Navy Yard, theUnited States Marine Corps Barracks,and Alexandria’s Torpedo Factory, Thehulk of the battleship Ostfriesland,surrendered by Germany following the


Figure 99: Shopping Center in suburban Roland Park, designed bythe Olmsted firm between 1891 and 1910.(Photograph courtesy of the Library of Congress)

Washington Navy Yard,Washington, D.C.

United States MarineCorps Barracks andTorpedo Factory,Virginia

Roland Park, Maryland

end of World War I and renamed the SanMarco, further testifies to the rise ofAmerica as a global power. Resting at thebottom off Cape Henry, she was sunk byarmy bombers on July 21, 1922 underthe command of air war pioneer ColonelWilliam “Billy” Mitchell in a demonstra-tion that conclusively showed that capitalships could be sunk by bombs droppedby airplanes.

FURTHER INFORMATIONForemost among the many sourcescontaining useful informationsurveying this period in ChesapeakeBay history are these works:

Carol Ashe, Four Hundred Years ofVirginia, 1584-1984: An Anthology(1985).

Carl Bode, Maryland: A BicentennialHistory (1978).

Daniel J. Boorstin, The Americans (1973).

Robert J. Brugger, Maryland: A MiddleTemperament,1634-1980 (1988).

Suzanne Chapelle, et al., Maryland: AHistory of Its People (1986).

Frances W. Dize, Smith Island,Chesapeake Bay (1990).

Federal Writers’ Program, Maryland: AGuide to the Old Line State (1940a).

——-, Virginia: A Guide to the OldDominion (1940b).

Frederick A. Gutheim, The Potomac(1968).

Alice Jane Lippson, The Chesapeake Bayin Maryland (1973).

Paul Metcalf, ed., Waters of Potowmack(1982).

Allen Morger, Virginia Bourbonism toByrd,1870-1925 (1968).

Lucien Niemeyer and Eugene L. Meyer,Chesapeake Country (1990).

Edward C. Papenfuse, et al., Maryland: ANew Guide to the Old Line State(1979).

Morris L. Radoff, The Old Line State: AHistory of Maryland (1971).

Emily J. Salmon, ed., A Hornbook ofVirginia History (1983).

Mame and Marion E. Warren, Maryland:Time Exposures,1840-1940 (1984).

John R. Wennersten, Maryland’s EasternShore: A Journey in Time and Place(1992).

Major environmental studies includethe following:

William C. Schroeder and Samuel F.Hillebrand, Fishes of Chesapeake Bay(1972).

James P. Thomas, ed., Chesapeake(1986).

P. R. Uhler and Otto Lugger, List of Fish ofMaryland (1876).

David A. Zegers, ed., At the Crossroads: ANatural History of SouthcentralPennsylvania (1994).

These useful atlases and geographicsurveys graphically depict large-scale development patterns inChesapeake Bay cultural landscapesof the period:

Michael Conzen, ed., The Making of theAmerican Landscape (1990).

David J. Cuff, et al., eds., The Atlas ofPennsylvania (1989).

James E. DiLisio, Maryland, A Geography(1983).

Donald W. Meinig, The Shaping ofAmerica.Volume 3: TranscontinentalAmerica,1850-1915 (1999).

Edward C. Papenfuse and Joseph M.Coale, eds., The Hammond-HarwoodHouse Atlas of Historical Maps ofMaryland,1608-1908 (1982).

Helen Hornbeck Tanner, ed., The Settlingof North America (1995).

Derek Thompson, et al., Atlas ofMaryland (1977).

Kent T. Zachary, Cultural Landscapes ofthe Potomac (1995).


Studies of individual, small-scalecommunities include this work:

Jack Temple Kirby, Poquosson (1986).

Biographical accounts providinginsights into individual lives includethe following:

Carl Bode, Mencken (1969).

John Sherwood, Maryland’s VanishingLives (1994).

William W. Warner, Beautiful Swimmers:Watermen, Crabs, and the ChesapeakeBay (1976).

Cultural life of the period isexamined in these texts:

Helen Chappell, Chesapeake Book of theDead (1999).

James M. Lindgren, Preserving the OldDominion: Historic Preservation andVirginia Traditionalism (1993).

Esther Wanning, Maryland: Art of theState (1998).

Dorothy Hunt Williams, Historic VirginiaGardens (1975).

Examples of the many studiessurveying key aspects of social life ofthe period include the following:

Dieter Cunz, The Maryland Germans(1948).

Bianca P. Floyd, Records and Reflections:Early Black History in Prince George’sCounty,Maryland (1989).

Mary Forsht-Tucker, et al., Associationand Community Histories of PrinceGeorge’s County (1996).

Kenneth T. Jackson, The Ku Klux Klan inthe City,1915-1930 (1967).

——-, Crabgrass Frontier: TheSuburbanization of the United States(1985).

Terry G. Jordan and Matti Kaups, TheAmerican Backwoods Frontier (1989).

Suzanne Lebsock, Virginia Women, 1600-1945 (1987).

Roland C. McConnell, Three Hundredand Fifty Years (1985).

Vera F. Rollo, The Black Experience inMaryland (1980).

Helen C. Rountree, Pocahontas’s People(1990).

Bruce G. Trigger, ed., Northeast (Vol. 15,Handbook of North American Indians,(1978).

Edward C. Papenfuse, et al., Maryland: ANew Guide to the Old Line State(1979).

Wilcomb E. Washburn, ed., History ofIndian-White Relations (Vol. 4,Handbook of North American Indians,1988).

Works containing useful insights intoperiod political life include:

James B. Crooks, Politics and Progress:The Rise of Urban Progressivism inBaltimore,1895 to 1911 (1968).

Robert B. Harmon, Government andPolitics in Maryland (1990).

Key economic studies include thefollowing:

Paula Johnson, ed., Working the Water(1988).

Joanne Passmore, History of theDelaware State Grange and the State’sAgriculture,1875-1975 (1975).

Glenn Porter, ed., Regional EconomicHistory of the Mid-Atlantic Area Since1700 (1976).

John R. Wennersten, The Oyster Wars ofChesapeake Bay (1981).

Useful analyses of the region’sscientific and technologicaldevelopments during the period maybe found in these texts:

Geoffrey M. Fostner, Tidewater Triumph(1998).

Thomas F. Hahn, The Chesapeake andOhio Canal (1984).

David C. Holly, Chesapeake Steamboats(1994).

David A. Hounshell, From the AmericanSystem to Mass Production, 1800-1932(1984).

Further Information 137

Walter S. Sanderlin, The Great NationalProject: A History of the Chesapeakeand Ohio Canal (1946).

David G. Shomette, Tidewater TimeCapsule (1995).

——, Shipwrecks on the Chesapeake(1982).

Fred A. Shannon, The Farmer’s LastFrontier:Agriculture,1860-1897 (1945).

Surveys examining the region’s builtenvironment include the following:

Pamela James Blumgart, At the Head ofthe Bay: A Cultural and ArchitecturalHistory of Cecil County, Maryland(1995).

Michael Bourne, et al., Architecture andChange in the Chesapeake (1998).

Henry Glassie, Pattern in the Material FolkCulture of the Eastern United States(1968).

——-, Folk Housing in Middle Virginia(1975).

Bernard L. Herman, Architecture andRural Life in Central Delaware, 1700-1900 (1987).

Terry G. Jordan, American Log Buildings(1985).

Gabrielle M. Lanier and Bernard L.Herman, Everyday Architecture of theMid-Atlantic (1997).

Marilynn Larew, Bel Air: An Architecturaland Cultural History,1782-1945 (1995).

Calder Loth, Virginia Landmarks of BlackHistory (1995).

Susan G. Pearl, Prince George’s CountyAfrican-American Heritage Survey(1996).

Paul Touart, Somerset: An ArchitecturalHistory (1990).

Dell Upton, ed., America’s ArchitecturalRoots (1986a).

——-, ed., Holy Things and Profane(1986b).

——-, and John Michael Vlach, eds.,Common Places (1986).

Donna Ware, Ann Arundel’s Legacy: TheHistoric Properties of Ann ArundelCounty (1990).

Christopher Weeks, ed., Where Land andWater Intertwine: An ArchitecturalHistory of Talbot County, Maryland(1984a).

——-, ed., Between the Nanticoke andthe Choptank (1984).

Archeological studies include these:

William M. Kelso and R. Most, eds., EarthPatterns (1990).

Paul A. Shackel and Barbara J. Little,Historical Archaeology of the Chesa-peake,1784-1994 (1994).

Paul A. Shackel, et al., eds., AnnapolisPasts (1998).

These are among the many studiesfocusing on the development ofWashington D.C. as a cosmopolitancenter:

Constance M. Green, Washington: AHistory of the Capital, 1879-1950(1962).

Frederick A. Gutheim, Worthy of theNation (1977).

Elizabeth Jo Lampl and KimberlyWilliams, Chevy Chase (1998).

Fredric M. Miller and Howard Gillette, Jr.,Washington Seen: A PhotographicHistory,1875- 1965 (1995).

The evolution of Baltimore as theregion’s most important urbancenter is traced in these works:

Alan D. Anderson, The Origin andResolution of an Urban Crisis:Baltimore,1890-1930 (1977).

Isaac M. Fein, The Making of an AmericanJewish Community (1971).

Leroy Graham, Baltimore:The Nineteenth-Century Black Capital (1982).


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