Site #5: South Baltimore, 1979
Dates
- 1979
Conditions Governing Access
The collection is open for research use.
Historical Note
In 1979 the recognized boundaries of South Baltimore included the neighborhoods of Brooklyn/Curtis Bay, Cherry Hill, Federal Hill, Locust Point, Riverside, and Sharp-Lendeanhall. South Baltimore residents were from many races and ethnicities. The numerous neighborhood schools, worship services, and gathering halls reflect that diversity. At the time of the BNHP many of these neighborhoods were struggling with the aftermath of various urban renewal projects.
Of particular note is the neighborhood of Sharp-Lendeanhall, which some accounts
put its founding as 1790 (Jensen, 2005). Located between Federal Hill and Interstate 395, this small community, begun by free African Americans, stretched to where the Baltimore Convention Center now stands. Other sources note that the most significant vestige of that community is the “Little Montgomery Street Historic District.” Through the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, working class German and Irish immigrants, and freed blacks lived side by side and competed for work on the railroads and at the port (Commission 2004). According to the Commission for Historical and Architectural Preservation: “By the 1890s, the twenty-four blocks of Sharp-Leadenhall were a thriving residential-industrial community with three churches, three public schools, a police station, and dozens of major and minor manufactories (Commission 2004).
In the early 1970s, large portions of the northern half of the community were marked for the “dollar house” urban renewal program. Today it has the Sharp Leadenhall Planning Committee, Inc., which is a coalition committed to community revitalization.
Sources:
“Little Montgomery Street,” Commission for Historical and Architectural Preservation, accessed May 12, 2004, http://www.ci.baltimore.md.us/ government/historic/districts/littlemontgomery.html.
Brennen Jensen, “Sharp Focus: South Baltimore Neighborhood Goes ‘Hollywood’ to Spotlight Decades of Civic Disservice,” Baltimore City Paper Online, May, 5 2004, accessed on April 12, 2005, http://www.citypaper.com/special/review.asp?id=3684.
“Community Builders Tour: Sharp Leadenhall Planning
Committee, Inc.,” Timberland Company, 2004, accessed on April 11, 2005,
http://www.communitybuilderstour.com/signup.aspx?event=Baltimore.
Extent
26 Items : 26 oral histories
Language of Materials
From the Collection: English
Scope and Contents
The Baltimore Neighborhood Heritage Project Oral History Collection contains paper records and audiocassette recordings from 1978 through 1980. The paper records are composed of the files kept on each narrator (the person being interviewed) and the administrative needs of the project. Narrator records contain biography forms, interview notes, and tape indexes for approximately 212 narrators. The interview notes briefly describe the circumstance surrounding the interview(s) session. The tape index includes the name of the narrator, the name of interviewer, the number of tapes, the tape(s) length, and the primary subjects covered. Seventy-nine of the records include transcripts. Transcript length ranges from 8 to 65 pages. Some are single-spaced; others are doubled-spaced. The interviews range from twenty-five minutes to three hours in length. One file, #183, and its accompanying cassette(s) were removed from the collection.
Thirty-two interviewers participated in the project. Typically, the interviews were one-on-one sessions between interviewer and narrator; however, single interviewer and double-narrator situations occurred, as did three group “nostalgia” sessions. Most interviews were prefaced by unrecorded, pre-interview sessions that occurred days before the recorded interview.
Each narrator abstract includes the following information when available: the BNHP interview number; the name of the interviewer; the date of the interview; the place of the interview; the length of the interview; the number of tapes used; the length of the transcript; and the file contents, such as subject index, interview notes, and biography form. The abstracts follow the numerical order of the interview number. However, interview numbers are not consecutive, but site specific. That is to say, any omitted number within a site can be found in another site.
When controversial or outdated terms, especially those referring to race and ethnicity, are mentioned in the abstract, the politically-correct term is used and the term or terms used by the narrator has been placed in parenthetical (“ ”) quotation marks. Specific terms from the interviews and textual uncertainties are often placed in parentheses alone ( ). Maiden names of female narrators are placed in brackets [ ].
Repository Details
Part of the H. Furlong Baldwin Library Repository
H. Furlong Baldwin Library
Maryland Center for History and Culture
610 Park Avenue
Baltimore MD 21201 United States
4106853750
specialcollections@mdhistory.org