Fall 2008 - The Johns Hopkins University Press

Scraping ByWage Labor, Slavery, and Survival in Early BaltimoreSeth RockmanBaltimore’s Alley HousesHomes for Working People since the 1780sMary Ellen HaywardEnslaved mariners, white seamstresses, Irish dockhands, freeblack domestic servants, and native-born street sweepers. Allnavigated the low-end labor market in post-revolutionaryBaltimore. Seth Rockman considers this diverse workforce,exploring how race, sex, nativity, and legal status determinedthe economic opportunities and vulnerabilities of workingfamilies in the early republic.In the era of Frederick Douglass, Baltimore’s distinctiveeconomy featured many slaves who earned wages and whiteworkers who performed backbreaking labor. By focusing hisstudy on this boomtown, Rockman reassesses the roles ofrace and region and rewrites the history of class and capitalismin the United States during this time.Rockman describes the material experiences of low-wageworkers—how they found work, translated labor into food,fuel, and rent, and navigated underground economies andsocial welfare systems. He argues that their labor was indispensableto the early republic’s market revolution, and it wascentral to the transformation of the United States into thewealthiest society in the Western world.Rockman’s research includes construction site payrolls, employmentadvertisements, almshouse records, court petitions,and the nation’s first “living wage” campaign. These rich accountsof day laborers and domestic servants illuminate thehistory of early republic capitalism and its consequences forworking families.“A creative treatment of an intriguing and important topic . . . Theeffort to make slavery history a part of labor history, and vice versa,is commendable, effective, and overdue.”—Peter H. Wood, Duke UniversitySeth Rockman is an assistant professor of history at BrownUniversity and author of Welfare Reform in the EarlyRepublic.Studies in Early American Economy and Societyfrom the Library Company of PhiladelphiaCathy Matson, Series EditorThis pioneering study explainshow one of America’s importantearly cities responded tothe challenge of housing itspoorer citizens. Where andhow did the working poorlive? How did builders anddevelopers provide reasonablypriced housing for lower-incomegroups during the city’sgrowth?Having studied over 3,000surviving alley houses in Baltimorethrough extensive landrecords and census research, Mary Ellen Hayward systematicallyreconstructs the lives, households, and neighborhoodsthat once thrived on the city’s narrowest streets.In the past, these neighborhoods were sometimes referredto as “dilapidated,” “blighted,” or “poverty stricken.” InBaltimore’s Alley Houses, Hayward reveals the rich cultural andethnic traditions that formed the African-American and immigrantIrish, German, Bohemian, and Polish communitiesthat made their homes on the city’s alley streets.Featuring more than one hundred historic images, Baltimore’sAlley Houses documents the changing architectural stylesof low-income housing over two centuries and reveals thecomplex lives of its residents.Mary Ellen Hayward is an architectural historian and museumconsultant who has worked on a number of projectssponsored by the Maryland Historical Trust and the MarylandHumanities Council. She is coauthor of The BaltimoreRowhouse and coeditor of The Architecture of Baltimore: AnIllustrated History, also published by Johns Hopkins.Creating the North American LandscapeGregory Conniff, Edward K. Muller, and David Schuyler,Consulting EditorsGeorge F. Thompson, Series Founder and DirectorJanuary 432 pages 6 x 9¼ 8 halftones, 4 line drawings978-0-8018-9006-2 0-8018-9006-3 $50.00(s) / £27.00 hc978-0-8018-9007-9 0-8018-90 07-1 $25.00(s) / £14.00 pbAmerican HistorySeptember 320 pages 7 x 10 98 halftones, 6 line drawings978-0-8018-8834-2 0-8018-8834-4 $45.00(s) / £24.00 hcAmerican History / ArchitectureTHE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY PRESS 1-800-537-5487 19