DC Public Library System

The ghosts of Johns Hopkins, the life and legacy that shaped an American city, Antero Pietila

eng

Includes bibliographical references (pages 257-293) and index

individual biography

portraitsillustrationsmaps

index present

non fiction

The ghosts of Johns Hopkins

bibliography

1062506983

Antero Pietila

the life and legacy that shaped an American city

"Johns Hopkins destroyed his private papers so thoroughly that no credible biography exists of the Baltimore Quaker titan. One of America's richest men and the largest single shareholder of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, Hopkins was also one of the city's defining developers. In The Ghosts of Johns Hopkins, Antero Pietila weaves together a biography of the man with a portrait of how the institutions he founded have shaped the racial legacy of an industrial city from its heyday to its decline and revitalization. From the destruction of neighborhoods to make way for the mercantile buildings that dominated Baltimore's downtown through much of the 19th century to the role that the president of Johns Hopkins University played in government sponsored 'Negro Removal' that unleashed the migration patterns that created Baltimore's existing racial patchwork, Pietila tells the story of how one man's wealth shaped and reshaped the life of a city long after his lifetime"--, Provided by publisher

Part I: The pragmatic opportunist. Johnsie's Baltimore -- The Civil War : blue and gray -- A brush with death -- America's richest spinster -- Doctors rob graves -- part II: The racial dynamics of modern Baltimore. The Monumental City -- Governments create slums -- Mobtown in the 1950s -- Activism builds up -- A cat of a different color -- Part III: Pushing out the lumpenproletariat. A citadel of hope -- Rough road to renewal -- The knockers -- The price of poison

Life and legacy that shaped an American city