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the many Northern and midwestern cities. They argue that relatively few of
Baltimore's raw materials came from adjacent areas, that relatively little of its trade
was with those areas, that its banking and financial sector was relatively small and
exercised little influence over its periphery. What was true in 1950 was even more
true in 1930, and the key to this relative metropolitan weakness was the
underdevelopment of Baltimore's financial sector.
The last dimension of the Baltimore metropolitan region that bears
mentioning was its particular relationship to Washington, D.C., 40-odd miles to the
southwest. The character of the relationship between these two cities was not
primarily economic, although Washington, neither an industrial or commercial
center during the 1920s and 1930s, was somewhat commercially dependent on
Baltimore. Rather, this proximity to the nation's capital had a profound, if at times
subtle, political effect on Baltimore. Baltimore-based political forces, from
business lobbyists and local governmental bodies, to protest groups and popular
organizations, often took advantage of Washington's geographic accessibility to
attempt to gain leverage with the federal government. Glenn Martin Aircraft, for
example, located in Baltimore in 1929 partly to be close to the source of military
contracts. And as we will see, groups within the Black freedom movement and the
worker's movement traveled to Washington frequently either to lobby or
demonstrate. And Baltimore was often a staging area for regional or national
marches on the country's capital. Not surprising, there was a reciprocal
relationship, with Washington-based political forces frequently developing special
relationships with Baltimore.^
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