North Carolina Office of Archives and History

Baltimore . . . a Picture History, 1858-1958 by Francis F. BeirneReview by: Richard WalserThe North Carolina Historical Review, Vol. 35, No. 2 (APRIL 1958), p. 258Published by: North Carolina Office of Archives and HistoryStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/23517076 .

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258 The North Carolina Historical Review

Baltimore ... a Picture History, 1858-1958. Commentary by Francis F. Beirne. (New York: Hastings House. Compiled under the auspices of the Maryland Historical Society. 1957.

Pp. vi, 153. $5.00.)

Few people anywhere are more in love with their city than Baltimoreans. And no wonder! For though it is now

sixth in population among American cities, it has retained the warmth and pleasant atmosphere of an old town, fussy in its ways but always agreeable. One thinks of it in the com

pany of Boston, New Orleans, San Francisco, never in a list

including New York, Washington, Detroit, or Chicago. Ransacking the files for old prints and photographs to tell

its story, the compilers of this book have come up with a host of pictures illuminating the friendly and soft quality of their

city. Never southern, never northern, Baltimore emerges here as a comfortable old lady assured of herself but a little worried about her grandchildren. The buildings, the ships, the people—all are smiling, even George Peabody and Johns Hopkins. Enoch Pratt looks a bit dour.

But this no book of portraits. As one closes it, he remembers

the old B. & O. locomotives, the tobacco-store Indians, the

pagoda at the lake. The ravages of the great 1904 fire are

almost forgotten. It is hard to believe that the picture-choosers could have

done a better job. Thus I am sad to report that Mr. Beirne's

commentary does not match the jauntiness of the visual pages. He sounds somewhat staid, with not nearly enough humor

to match his material. And why hide the famous white steps on the inside bottom corner of page 148? I would have dis played them on the frontispiece. Maybe they are common

place to Baltimoreans, but to the outsider they have a quiet symmetrical beauty far surpassing the first (!) Washington Monument. They are the unique hallmark of a great city.

Richard Walser. North Carolina State College, Raleigh.

Richard Walser.

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