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132
SECTION II
GROWTH FROM THE GRASSROOTS, 1930-1934
Baltimore, then, in 1930, was a major metropolitan area, a constituent part
of the great urban chain of the northeastern United States, located on the
southernmost border of that chain. At its core, Baltimore was comprised of a
dynamic, expanding industrial-commercial region and a city with distinct legally-
drawn boundaries; while the two greatly overlapped, they were by no means
identical. Also, this urban core existed in a particular symbiosis with a system of
hinterlands that were divided into virtual Northern and Southern zones. Internally,
the urban region of Baltimore was a web of communities of varying characteristics,
traditions, and institutions. Underlying this web of communities were
contradictory, evolving structures of class, race/ethnicity, and gender that,
ultimately, were the key determinants of the shape and course of the social struggle
in the that region.
The Crash occurred at a time when the level of social struggle in Baltimore
was low and the popular forces largely demobilized. Therefore, for the social
movements of Baltimore, the period of 1930 through 1933 was a period of
rebuilding from the grassroots up - rebuilding within a structural context that had
evolved for decades and which was experiencing profound and complex dislocations
as the Great Depression advanced.
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