This project proposes to document the lives and the social and physical environment of the African American communuity in Baltimore in the half century following the close of the Civil War. By recording and scanning the wealth of images, maps, newspapers, city directories, and government records available to document the lives of an important segment of this community - the United States Colored Troops who settled in Baltimore after the war - a broader and deeper understanding of it will emerge to enrich the study of this pivotal era in American history. This project will build on and make accessible to a wide audience a window on a long-forgotten but significant group - the urban African American people of 19th and early 20th centuries.
The aftermath of the Civil War was a tumultous period of social and economic readjustment. Thousands of freed slaves flocked to the cities to join other African Americans to form new communities and neighborhoods and to take their place in the social, economic and political life of the city. An important element in these new communities was the black soldiers who fought in the United States Colored Troops (USCT). Until now, very little social history of this period has focused on these new communities and the role of the USCT soldiers in them.
Baltimore is a natural place to focus the study of these communities. It was known as the "Black Capital of the Nineteenth Century," peopled by what Frederick Douglass called "A New Body of Citizens." A rich collection of records, the majority of them at the Maryland State Archives, is available to document the social and economic lives of these new communties by looking at the microcosm which is the returning colored troops. Through maps, photographs, census schedules, city directories, church records, newspapers, census schedules, muster rolls, certificates of freedom, and other documents, the family structures, living conditions, health, and employment histories of these soldiers can be recorded. The records of their lives can provide a revealing look into a community which has long been ignored by social and economic historians.
The Maryland State Archives began the study of these soldiers a number of years ago by assembling biographical information on them, as well as on the buildings in Baltimore associated with the African American community in the 19th century. This resulted in the document packet In the Aftermath of Glory as part of the Archives' "Documents for the Classroom" program. A extension of this study resulted in another document packet Celebrating Rights and Responsibilites: Baltimore & the Fifteenth Amendment. This packet focused on the parade which was held in Baltimore on May 19, 1870 to celebrate the passage of the Fifteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, the largest gathering of African Americans in the U.S. until the civil rights movement of the 1960s.
This proposal is designed to extend the Archives' research on this important community and to make the source images and documents available to scholars and the general public through digitalizing them and placing them on the World Wide Web as part of the American Memory Project sponsored by the Library of Congress and Ameritech. A deeper understanding of the dynamics of this community will enhance and enrich the study of the social, economic and political history of this important time in American history. It will also foster an appreciation for the rich and enduring contributions of this community to American culture and society.
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© Copyright February 23, 2007Maryland State Archives