Country & Home

Thesis work 3-28

Introduction
Historiography
Embodying Identity
Following Rome: Architecture
A quest for a truer classicism

Reaching the Average Citizen
The Ineffectiveness of the Revolution
The Economic Impact of the Revolution & Enjoying Post-Revolutionary Success
The Blossoming of a New Nation, as Understood in Baltimore
The architects move in
The War of 1812 as a catalyst
The Battle of Baltimore
The experience of Baltimore
The aftermath of the Battle

The architects’ works

The Monumental City

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People
Charles the Captain & Charles the Governor
John Eager Howard
Bishop John Carroll
Hezekiah Niles

Pattersons
Introduction
For the small port Baltimore Town, the War for Independence offered great economic opportunity and little violence, unlike the experience of most other cities across the colonies. Living in a backwater village, Baltimoreans did not share in the war experience in the same way as did the majority of their compatriots. Consequentially the fruits borne from that War also differed. While the former colonies began to understand themselves as states in new nation, Maryland lagged behind in developing a strong feeling of national consciousness. Pride in one’s personal achievements, family lands, clipper ship, or hometown, was usually stronger that any national pride.
By the opening of the nineteenth century, however, this development of national identity came into clearer view. In a little over a decade, Baltimore found itself embroiled in “the Second War for Independence,” as many understood it: the War of 1812. Ironically, as other states were torn apart by regionalism and sectionalism, mostly due to politics surrounding the war, Baltimore was united.
Unlike the Revolution, this war hit home, in more ways than one. Baltimore seamen found themselves in constant conflict with the Royal Navy and in September of 1814 the British came right up to the doorstep of the city and threatened total annihilation. This intense personal contact with and experience of the War of 1812 catalyzed the development of a national consciousness in a truly revolutionary way in the city and surrounding areas. Division was not totally eradicated, as it never will be, but the Battle revealed to the people that if sectionalism divided them they would fall, but united they stood triumphant. Even prior to the Battle, as the city was torn between different influences coming from the North and South, the region was pushed to grasp at nationalism for a source of stability and pride. Looking internally, Baltimoreans saw division and turmoil, but by looking outwards to their ideal of a nation, whether it existed or not, gave them solace and hope that the potential for greatness actually existed. As September 1814 approached, the city was already charged with nationalism and just needed the spark to light the flame.
The impact of the war, and particularly the Battle of Baltimore, transformed people in such way that it appears that Baltimoreans of all rank embraced and participated in this new perspective of understanding themselves, not only as individual persons associated with particular trades, families or towns, but in an ever increasing way as Americans with a real and true relation to not only their home, but to their country.
To express this burgeoning conception of identity, Baltimoreans fashioned those things which surrounded them, from words to buildings, to reflect their thoughts and feelings. In this work I will explore this phenomenon of identity and nationalism in Baltimore, particularly through the medium of architecture. First I will present the social, political and economic context that laid the groundwork for nationalism. Then, in the second part, I will examine the expressions of changing identity found in the construction of monuments and buildings, both in the design and execution of the works. I intend to explain how architecture served the city as one of the most powerful means of expression both before and after the war. The construction of buildings and monuments became a way for the people to master the power of stone. That power, with its stability, force, and strength, allowed the patriotic citizens to immortalize their nationalistic sentiments by and embodied their ideas within it. I hope to concurrently reveal not only the local, but also the national impact of this process while illuminating the unique situations which gave rise to nationalism and its expressions in Baltimore.
In doing this it is important to remember the people behind the architecture, both the individuals and groups who gave this life to inanimate structure. The stories of men such as Charles Ridgely, John Eager Howard, the Carroll family and others illuminate the homes and other buildings they built or commissioned. …..

Many of these men came from families from England or Ireland who had first come to the southern regions of the Bay and eventually bought property further north as more and more immigrants came. Many of these families first made their money in law or trade.

Baltimoreans were not content to simply let their new burst of Post-Battle patriotism merely be a thing of high-sounding words. They desired to capture the spirit and immortalize it for posterity. They wanted to ensure that their “patriotic zeal” would never die and that they would never forget that they, the freemen, would never be slaves, rather they would hold “‘Tis glorious in our country’s cause to die.”
To accomplish this goal, the citizens of Baltimore set to memorializing the events, people, and thoughts through a number of mediums. Music, poetry, prose, art, even furniture and clothing, all became servants to this task. But perhaps the strongest and most lasting of all was that of architecture. Through this channel, the people literally set their ideals in stone in a public setting visible to every man, thus best achieving what the set out to accomplish.

Historiography
Present day scholarship on colonial Baltimore as well as the period from the Revolution up to the War of 1812 is nearly nonexistent, which poses a considerable problem for any attempts to compare the effects of the Revolution to the War of 1812. There are some older works; the best that exist were written by local historians in the nineteenth century. In discussing the matter with the chief Maryland librarian at the Enoch Pratt Library in Baltimore, he agreed that material on this period is hard to come by. The best he could offer to assist my quest was Schraf's 1879 History of Maryland from the Earliest Days. Fortunately Francis Scott Key secured the study of the Battle of Baltimore and War of 1812. A small canon of works on this subject can be found quite easily; however even these works are not the most useful since they tend to be strictly military histories.

My interest, however, is not in the movement of troops, but in the movement of feeling and thought. Therefore I have looked outside of the immediate locale to the broader setting of the country. There I have found other expressions and understandings of national identity which are similar in their basic concepts and intents, but yet quite different. Other scholars such as David Hackett Fischer, Philip Deloria, and David Waldstreicher understand that the intangible must often be expressed tangibly in order to have any power over people. Each scholar defines and explains nationalism and if manifestations in unique ways and scenarios.

David Hackett Fischer studies the blending of cultures, folkways and their cross influences. In Liberty and Freedom: A Visual History of America's Founding Ideas he explores the power of art and material culture in expressing otherwise intangible ideas. He studies the role the concepts of liberty and freedom played in becoming folkways vital to American life and identity. Fischer believes that “most Americans do not think of liberty and freedom as a set of texts, or a sequence of controversies, or a system of abstractions. They understand these ideas in another way, as inherited values that they have learned early in life and deeply believe.” He states that these values must be studied “by the same methods that any ethnographer would use to study any folkway. A folk belief can be studied from the inside and the outside. We know it from the inside be reenacting it in our minds, and we test the accuracy of that reenactment by studying it empirically from the outside.” His work, which spans from the earliest days up to the present, has been useful interpreting the material culture left behind by the early nineteenth century inhabitants of Baltimore. His method of reenacting thoughts and then testing the accuracy by empirical evidence in the forms of words, images, and actions, is nearly exactly that which I hope to use in my own study of nationalism in Baltimore. By “reenacting” the thoughts and experiences of the citizens of Baltimore between the American Revolution and immediate aftermath of the War of 1812 and then comparing them with the words, images, and records of actions left behind by those people, I believe that an actuate understanding of nationalism in Baltimore may be found.

Similar to Fischer’s work, David Waldstreicher’s In the Midst of Perpetual Fetes has been particularly helpful in identifying expressions and memorializations of self. While Fischer’s focus is broader and more material, Waldstriecher turns to the study of celebrations and rituals, such as parades, to understand nationalism. From his perspective: “In their rituals and their rhetoric, the American revolutionists created a new public called the ‘nation.” He also spends a good deal of time considering the nature of nationalism and all which it entails. Waldstreicher also provides a well grounded explanation of the political setting of this movement. He argues that regionalism emerged during the two and a half decades following the ratification of the Constitution thus leading to the tense domestic politics of the War of 1812. Baltimore, however, was torn, in a way characteristic of the state of which I will address later. Unlike New England or the ‘true’ south, Marylanders were torn apart by these politics that contributed to regionalism elsewhere. Instead, the effect was the opposite: regionalism was broken down, and Baltimoreans turned to nationalism.

In treating the subject of nationalism, Waldstreicher is very thorough. He explains: “Nationalism, the ideology of the ‘imagined community,’ is certainly an abstraction, but it is imagined and practiced locally in distinct, changing ways by different groups for a variety of purposes. How can we do justice to a history of something so imaginary and yet so grounded?” To answer his own question, Waldstreicher offers caveat to those who would try to answer that question by focusing on theory rather than practice:
‘National Character’ was a way of understanding the relationship between the citizen, or national subject, and the state, or national government…If we try too hard to uncover the metaphysics of national identity, we become prisoners of it, as students of national character often have. We lose sight of the histories, global and local, of which the nation is only a part. Here it is less important to theorize some timeless structure of national identity than to uncover its uses in particular moments and movements. In doing so it is helpful to remember that the ‘the nation’ is never just an idea or a thing; it is also a story.
For my purposes, it would be fitting to add “monuments” after “moments and movements” in Waldstreicher’s list as I intend to examine them and similar structures in such a way. By studying the “how,” the particular uses of architecture, instead of fretting over the “what,” the metaphysics of the phenomenon, we can actually see a clearer image of the entire picture. In fact the study of the “how” also leads to further understanding of the “what.” As the subjects of Waldstreicher’s study turned to parades and political ritual to articulate their nationalistic sentiments, and the people of Deloria’s work used Native American imagery to symbolize the same, [NEED TO WORK DELORIA BACK IN] the citizens of Baltimore in the early nineteenth century made reflections of classicism, specifically in architecture, their mode of expression.

But why use architecture as a medium to convey nationalism, particularly why build public monuments of stone? The great late-nineteenth-early-twentieth century social critic, historian, and author, G. K. Chesterton once wrote:
Architecture is a very good test of the true strength of a society, for the most valuable things in a human state are the irrevocable things…And architecture approaches nearer than any other art to being irrevocable, because it is so difficult to get rid of. You can turn a picture with its face to the wall; it would be a nuisance to turn that Roman cathedral with its face to the wall. You can tear a poem to pieces; it is only in moments of very sincere emotion that you tear a town-hall to pieces.
Indeed, this very understanding of architecture gives it its power. The essence of its strength is found in its immutability. Many things last for a little while, but buildings and other structures often last for generations.
[LOOK AT ST GEORGE]

Buildings serve many practical purposes. They house people, businesses, supplies, and place of worship. They are nearly indispensible to society – certainly so for any region of the world that experiences harsh and changing weather. As Chesterton implied buildings at least those coming out of the tradition of Europe, such as those in question here, are permanent. Usually they are built to last generations, and do so quite well. Thus their architects typically put a good deal of thought into their design – not only their structure, but their aesthetics as well. Their exteriors are always in public view, and sometimes so are the interiors. Architecture therefore becomes a venue for the display of tastes of architects and builders; but for those who care to try, architecture can express more than taste. A skilled architect can convey his ideas and values through his buildings just as Fischer and Waldstreicher’s subjects could craft their moments and movements into expressions of their thoughts. Then, once this allegorical language of stone has been mastered, structures become valuable in and of themselves. They need not house any person or object, only thoughts and ideas. Thence comes the creation of the public monument – an impractical structure by most accounts, but a highly symbolic one, and one which the people of Baltimore made so important to their city.

[ST GEORGE’s Mystical Understanding] In this age, buildings were more than mere structures: they were allegory – signs and expressions of status, thought, and feeling. Thus they were functioning, practical parts of daily life while perpetually conveying the less concrete aspects of life.

Fischer most eloquently articulates the important relationship between the common man and the impact of symbolic imagery on him:
“[The common man] did not write extended texts and treatises on liberty and freedom that might be analyzed by academic methods. But they left an abundance of evidence that might be studied in other ways…they carried images of liberty and freedom into battle. Complex symbols of these ideas were painted on their battle flags, etched into the musket stocks, carved upon their powder horns, and embroidered on their coats and hats…In a strict and literal sense [they] envisioned their ideas of liberty and freedom. They tended to represent their visions in the form of symbols and images. A symbol might be understood as a vehicle for thinking and as device for transporting thought from one mind to another. More than that, an image does not merely communicate a vision. It can also create it, transform it, and persuade others to adopt it. Some images take on the character of sacred objects. When that happens symbols become icons, which not merely signify but sanctify thought. They are regarded with reverence and protected from pollution.”
This process of envisioning ideas is central to the case of Baltimore. Even more than battle flags and power horns, symbols of liberty appeared in everything from ladies’ dresses and chairs to banks and churches. Even if this same vision conveyed through these things is not blatantly obvious to the present day observer, all of them shared a common iconography understood by the common man of the 1810s. In their appearance, these objects reached out and spoke to the average citizen reminding them of the ideas of liberty and freedom to which they aspired, often to the point of veneration.

While this continued to be the case after the Battle and buildings still were allegory, the citizens of Baltimore desired an even higher means of expressing their new nationalism. Therefore they more pursued a purer understanding of classical architecture [DO I NEED TO SAY MORE ON THAT HERE?] and even did away with the functional element altogether by erecting three of the young nation’s first public monuments – structures utterly impractical for any daily function of physical life, but seemingly quite important to the intellectual and sentimental realms. Beyond the merely visible impact of these structures there lay hidden a text for those who wished to read it. For those who did not deign to look deeper than the aesthetic or even the practical day to day use, the builders learned to write literal words on the stone so the message was unavoidable.
Fischer notes that even from the Revolution, many Americans counted literacy among their skills and so “nearly all American images of liberty and freedom were invented by literate people. In their symbols, words and image often appeared together and became mutually explanatory.” This observation is also crucial to understanding the envisioning of nationalism in Baltimore. Given this high rate of literacy and “the allegorical temperament of the age” those endeavoring to capture the intellectual in the material had to exercise caution in selecting the language to use. Of primary importance to this task was to express these sentiments in a language appealing and understandable to the common man.
“All of these flags, eagles, and Indians represented something new in the world: liberty and freedom as a national idea. As late as 1776, national consciousness was so little developed that out most common words for it did not exist with the meaning we use today. Our modern language of nationality began to develop rapidly during the American Revolution and its immediate aftermath. T……….The Stars and Stripes became a symbol of these ideas, and after 1815 it began to be displayed in a new way. No longer was it only an emblem of sovereignty for ships and public buildings and armies.” Thus it made perfect sense that this already popular language would be harnessed and driven to rise to a new level of expression.
In search of a more powerful allegorical language, the people of Baltimore turned to one of the greatest inspirations in the history of mankind: Ancient Rome. Nearly every leader of aspiring empires, from the Charlemagne to Hitler, has turned to Rome at some point for inspiration. The leaders of young America were no different. While a respectable percentage of the population may have been literate, they did not all possess the same caliber of classical education. Not everyman was well versed in the lines of Cato, Cicero, Vigil and Horace. Nevertheless, classicism was unavoidable. It was already a highly popular model from the days of the Revolution. In Baltimore, as explained earlier, the place of classicism in the wider society had already been secured prior to the War of 1812 thanks to the upper class. Classicism permeated the culture in many ways, albeit in a popular, romanticized form rather than a scholarly, realistic fashion. The common man need not understand Rome in a historical-critical way. He need only know that it was a golden age of patriotism where men and women were willing to lay themselves down on their country’s altar, because their country was the greatest and highest good. It was an era of perfect morals and upstanding citizens where traitors were quickly condemned.
This type of Roman mythology served as the perfect paradigm and people cited it for every purpose.
For example, on August 26, 1814, before the Battle, The Baltimore Patriot ran an article from the New York Merchant Advertiser praising five patriotic women who assisted in the fortification of Brooklyn Heights in New York:
We are requested to notice, and we do it with pleasure, the laudable spirit which shewd itself on Saturday at Brooklin Heights in the ladies who accompanied the Rev. Mr. Lowe of Flushing. When they came to the place where the citizens (who were then at refreshment) had been at labour, they laid down their umbrellas, commenced working, and continued for a considerable time to show a zeal and activity worthy of matrons of Rome in the best days of the republic.
The accreditation of their “zeal and activity worthy of the matrons of Rome in the best days of the republic” is dubious. Not that these fine women did not contribute valiance and energy to this project, but it is doubtful that the “matrons of Rome in the best days of the republic” would have “laid down their umbrellas and commenced working.” Chances are the matrons of Rome would have rested in their villas and sent their slaves out to take care of such work. Furthermore, the matrons of Rome in “the best days of the republic” probably never had a need to fortify their homes against attack. Thus perhaps, in an ironic ways, the (people to be inspired) outshone their role models. However, it was of no great importance whether in reality the matrons of Rome were more commendable than the ladies of New York or not. What truly mattered was that the ladies of the day were encouraged to live up to a great, though potentially mythological, model reinforced by the examples of their contemporaries and the corollaries drawn by and praise given from the press.

Waldstreicher p 81.

EXPLORE THE ICONOGRAPHY HERE


Keeping in mind the context of the times, and the value and uses of architecture, we can come understand how the citizens of Baltimore in the years surrounding the War of 1812, fashioned their material world to communicate what otherwise would be fleeting thoughts, powerless without a stable or lasting form of expression and understanding.

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Baltimore was late in rising, as it was only created in 1729 when ten of inhabitants of Baltimore Country petitioned that a warehouse for tobacco and accompanying town be built on the north side of the Patapsco River on land belonging to Charles and Daniel Carroll. So the land was bought from the Carroll brothers and their tenant John Flemming became the first inhabitant of Baltimore.
The architecture at this period was largely insignificant to the people. Their concern was not with any display of status or conscious expression of thought. What the small evidence of their buildings do reveal, however, is a focus on practicality. “Each new landowner in this area was required to build within eighteen months a house covering not less than 400 square feet on his acre lot in order to secure title. These houses were uniformly of wood without much architectural presentation, and often had old-fashioned gambrel roofs.” Nearly all structures continued to be built of wood until 1799, when the perpetual trouble of fire caused a city ordinance to be passed prohibiting the erection of wooden buildings in the heart of the town. Fortunately good clay and cheap marble could be found in abundance in the surrounding county.
Their economic situation as a tiny new port town did not give them the freedom to build whimsical structures for their own private enjoyment, or for any purpose except function. Sustenance was key; aesthetics only secondary, though evidence suggests the first buildings were not totally devoid of decoration. The late emanate architectural historian Richard Hubbard Howards writes that “Perhaps as early as this day they were painted in bright hues that later made Baltimore a variegated pattern of bold colors; in 1764 the wooden houses were reported painted blue and white, some yellow, contrasting with the occasional red brick structure.” Doubtlessly they were charming colonial structures with their bright colors, but nothing grand or magnificent as the inhabitants of Baltimore did not have time for the luxury of further decoration. As late as 1752, Baltimore, whose occupants now numbered around 300, was surrounded by a wooden wall for protection making it the only walled town in America at that time.
Only one family, the wealthy Carrolls, had the means to building anything grander than a brightly painted shack; and they did. The Carrolls, a noble Roman Catholic family from Ireland had come to Maryland in 1688. One of the brothers who emigrated to Maryland received a commission as attorney general of the colony from Lord Baltimore. This position set him in a good place for advancement in the colonies. ===BIO OF CARROLLS?=== In 1732, they purchased 2,568 acres on the Patapsco for the purpose of mining iron. In the 1750s the family began construction of Mount Clare, an elegant Georgian Mansion. The feel of the city must have certainly reflected that of a Medieval fiefdom: the wealthy lord who owned, at least originally, all the surrounding land lived in his great house removed from the common man’s hovel while they worked for him. In turn, the architecture reinforced these distinctions in colonial Baltimore.

In the 1790s the predominate type of architecture was based the Georgian style so popular in England. Deeply rooted in classical architecture, the Georgian style defined itself by balance and symmetry and largely followed in the footsteps of the sixteenth century Italian architect Andrea Palladio in reflecting the forms of Greek and Roman antiquity.

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While the War for Independence may not have had an immediate impact in the formation of an understanding of national identity in Baltimore, the Revolution brought a unique economic opportunity to the city, which would pave the way for its development in the coming decades.
Likewise, this changed the architecture as it changed the people. While most of the young nation was rejoicing in the strength of the people as a nation community, Baltimoreans reveled in the new earned wealth. With their new fortunes the built really big houses all for themselves!

It would be far from the truth to claim that the War for Independence did not have a significant impact on Maryland. However, while it may have been a "Revolution" to "America" at large, it hardly revolutionized Maryland in terms of national identity. The experience of Maryland was a far cry from Massachusetts, New York, Virginia, and the other colonies. Baltimore Town, as it was then, was little more than the sleepy tobacco port it was at its beginning. Marshy, rural, and essentially inland because of its location on the Chesapeake Bay, the small port was not a major target for the British forces which had more important people to pursue. They felt no need to waste time and supplies on a backwater town when trouble brewed elsewhere.
Thus Baltimoreans hardly experienced the same effects as their brethren in Boston and other major cities. They were removed from the immediate war-zones and effects of battle. For most Baltimoreans the war was found in the pages of newspapers and reports, not in their surrounding fields and near their homes. They lacked the experience of fighting the redcoats on the doorsteps of their homes they many others gained. Consequentially the war influenced them differently.
REINSERT JOHN EAGER HOWARD
Baltimoreans were not totally oblivious, of course. Many Marylanders did join the Continental Army and engaged in combat in other places. This Revolutionary experience earned Maryland the nickname “The Old Line State” for the steadfastness of the Maryland militia, even though the Maryland line did not defend Maryland soil.

In addition to the distant military participation by those men such as Howard, Baltimore was politically conscious at this time. For three months in 1776, Baltimore hosted the Second Continental Congress as the advances of British troops across New Jersey brought them too close to Philadelphia for the comfort of the Congress. The proceedings of the Congress during the brief stay in Baltimore had a great impact on the nation as a whole. Washington’s powers were increased and he became the de facto leader of the nation. However, this had little effect on the common Baltimorean who was not present at these meetings. If the common man was concerned with the legislation it was probably only insofar as it impacted economic matters touching their lives.

Initially in 1774 to protest the closing of Boston harbor, citizens “stop all importations from…similar resolutions (161) Burring of the Peggy Stewart (162) While the people met these events with enthusiasm, the nature of the affairs reveals their concept of the broader movement. Rather that understanding the affair as a true revolution, a break from the mother country because of cultural or strong nationalistic sentiments, the people perceived their actions as an economic protest. Ironically though the War for Independence may have been understood mostly in terms of economics in Maryland, it was through the economic opportunities presented to the town was that Baltimore was revolutionized. During the War, the British blockaded the colonies' major ports of Philadelphia, Boston, and New York.. “the necessity of importation present, smaller ports snatched at the opportunity to pick up the other cities' lost business, and Baltimore was at their head. Soon the city, with its unique Clipper Ships, prized for their grace and speed, held a monopoly on importation.
-ship building
-privateering
-in the following decades, Baltimoreans would look back on their exploits on the clippers as privateers and this became a strong point of identification. (Which lasts even up to the present day)
Running food, guns and other supplies.

Local products were also of great importance. The land just north of the city had a rich deposit of valuable iron ore. Prize for making weapons and ammunition, the ironworks of Baltimore County would help supply the Continental Army
Salt works (172)
Flour (Classical Maryland, 1)

Captain Charles Ridgely was a renaissance man active in all of these aspects of the Baltimore experience. Over the course of his 57 years of life, Ridgely was a merchant mariner, the master of a growing agricultural estate and flourishing ironworks, a popular politician, and builder of Hampton Mansion. Born in 1733 in Maryland to parents also native to the colony, Ridgely was removed from his family’s origins in England. However, Ridgely’s material possessions, particularly his mansion, reveal the transmitted memory and association with that country and culture was very much a deep part of his understanding of identity, even after the Revolution. The nationalism he experienced was that of pride and satisfaction in economic independence that was not necessarily divorced from the cultural influence of England. To him, to be American did not mean he could not continue to cling to the practices, tastes, and aspirations of his forbearers.
At a fairly young age Ridgely went to sea serving as a supercargo aboard one of the ships owned by his father. His career on the sea took him to Europe numerous times. In December 1757, as it was entering the English Channel, his ship was captured by a French privateer and he was held as a prisoner of war for a couple months. Thus he had a taste of the turmoil of war. By 1763 he forsook the sea in favor of the life of a planter and industrial entrepreneur.
Charles Ridgely as planter/ironmaster
The Politician: “Captain Charles Ridgely was a member of the Committee of Safety during part of the Revolution”
Ridgely was among the many Baltimoreans who pursued the numerous economic opportunities of the Revolution. The products of his land, particularly iron, were desperately needed by the Continental Army. Moreover, the iron from his mines was especially well suited to the making of cannon and rifle barrels, thus increasing its value and demand. Ridgely, while still keeping his hands in a number of business matters, turned most of his attention to his ironworks. The result of this choice was passed down and related in 1894 by James McHenry Howard, as follows:
“One time when reproached for absenting himself from his place in the legislature and staying at home for the sake making twenty-five dollars a day he replied in a manifesto to his constituents that had been absent from his public duty for reasons that seemed good to himself and intimates that the public was served rather than injured and that twenty-five dollars a day is a good thing to make.”
The attitude captured in this statement is very indicative of Ridgely’s mindset and that of many of his peers. Making some cash was perfectly compatible with serving the country, so long as the country could be served by material goods and not just legislation. Likewise Samuel Smith gifted solider, later to become a hero of the Battle of Baltimore, returned home from the war, much to Washington’s disappointment, to cash in on the economic opportunities of the day. Scottish immigrant Robert Gilmor also left the militia to become a representative of two merchants. He made a fortune out of the wartime European demand for wheat and tobacco and would rise to become one of the wealthiest men in the city. Given their later service to their home and country during the War of 1812, it would be difficult to argue that these men did not care about militarily defending their lands; they just simply did not perceive that to be the only type of service. Their ideal was synthesizing personal financial advancement with assistance to their fellow ‘Americans.’ They, or their fathers or grandfathers had come to the New World in large part to pursue economic happiness. Why should they not follow that dream?
At the close of the Revolution, Ridgely began work on his Hampton Mansion, just north of Baltimore, which is a fine example of Georgian design and the mentality of Ridgely and his peers. Both its location and style were carefully selected by Ridgely to reflect his life as a great America precisely he conceived it.
He chose the heart of his small empire, the grounds of North Hampton Furnace, as the site of his house and testament to self. Previously, the only known structure on the site was a small, one roomed building that may have existed as early as the 1740s when the land still belong to the Darnell family. This building would later become the overseer’s house for the home-farm. In the meantime, it would house Ridgely and his wife, Rebecca, until their new abode was completed. The National Park Service, in whose care the building now rests, in unsure about the precise dates of construction, but the ‘farmhouse’ was tripled in size while the Ridgelys lived there. In the 1980s, the Park Service discovered beautiful paneled walls beneath the horsehair plaster of the rooms added by the Ridgelys. Former curator Lynne Dakin Hastings and others have been unsure of the story of the paneling; however it seems most likely that the Ridgelys installed it for their own personal enjoyment when they resided there. The willingness to live in such a humble dwelling despite their rapidly increasing fortune indicates they still felt tied to the land and the life of a commoner. Ridgely was still one of the ordinary men he represented as a politician. He was still a farmer just like most of the inhabitants of the state. He knew the life of the sea, and still oversaw business ventures just as many men did down in the city. He was entrepreneur along the rest of them; but he had the great fortune of making a lot of money from his endeavors and he was bound to enjoy it in the tradition of his forefathers, as was his right as an American. He would live modestly while his pretentious mansion; but not too modestly, because he at least wanted to enjoy his beautifully paneled rooms.
The construction of the big house spanned over a seven year period ending in 1790, it captures many of the most iconic elements of Georgian architecture. It is very balanced, perfectly symmetrical - even the front and back of the house mirror each other in appearance. At first glance it elegantly idealizes the colonial Georgian style, most certainly British in origin, but colonial striving to live up to the ideals of the mother county. Today the house is a rosy ivory, whitewashed with a paint containing a high level of iron. This gives the house a stronger American feel; however, this was not the case during Ridgely’s life. The house appeared to be made of large stone blocks, more closely resembling the tradition of the British manor houses.
Hampton’s resemblance to the manor houses of England only begins there. Observers have noted that the front elevation of Hampton resembles that of Castle Howard of Yorkshire, England, in its elements. Hampton is undoubtedly simpler and of a much humbler class than its British cousin, begun nearly a century before its colonial counterpart. Certainly there are many differences; however, proportionally they are nearly identical. Unlike Hampton, the portico of Howard is enclosed, but bears the classical pediment. Its dome is heavier, not nearly as airy as Hampton’s; but like the Baltimore house, the dome was an addition postdating initial plans. Castle Howard also lost its ideal Georgian symmetry because of changing needs and wants over the extended period time it took to complete the house. Hampton, however, remained true to its conception and is therefore arguably architecturally superior to its older cousin. Whether the Castle Howard actually influenced the design of Hampton or not is unknown. The architect of Hampton is believed to have been Ridgely himself. With his connections to the Howard family of Maryland (who it must be noted were also removed by a couple generations from their British roots), it is possible that through the transmission of family memories, Ridgely was inspired to imitate the family’s ancestral home. On the other hand of this debate, family legend recorded by James McHenry Howard claimed that it was modeled after an Italian Villa seen by Ridgely on one of his voyages. However, what the family tradition meant by ‘Italian Villa’ could certainly be challenged. Hampton lacks any particular Italianate qualities, except those transmitted through the British understanding of Palladio. The more likely case would be an English Manor inspired by an Italian Villa of Palladio, simply referred to as an ‘Italian Villa.’
Sadly there are no extant writings from Ridgely discussing his actual inspiration. Whatever it may have been, however, it is probable that with all of his travels, he drew from a number of buildings he found attractive. Regardless, it is clear beyond doubt that Ridgely desired a residence of a well respected design that would convey to all who saw it that he possessed great wealth and importance. Ridgely succeeded in this endeavor as he did in all others, even though he died the year construction finished. At its completion, Hampton was the largest house in America and today is the only site within the National Park Service designated for its architectural significance.
With all of is grandeur, Hampton, like the Carrolls’ Mount Clare and the Howards’ Belvedere does not convey any particular sense of nationalism. It maintains ties and continuity with earlier traditions carried over from England. The experience of the Revolution apparently did not inspire Ridgely to any passionate feeling of nationalism that would have caused him to break with that tradition, even less than John Eager Howard. Ridgely was quite happy to construct his mansion in a Georgian, colonial style even though America had divorced itself from Britain. Nationalism would have to wait until the next generation to blossom in the Ridgely family.
[HEY! Don’t FORGET HAMP’S on a HILL!]

Baltimore Town incorporated with its neighbor Jones Town on the last day of the year, 1796 to become Baltimore City. The new city’s awkward position as a port set at a practically inland location had begun to pay off. Since the city was one of the westernmost ports, as the nation’s population expanded westward Baltimore became the favored port of many farmers and “men and capital flowed into Baltimore eager to build on the successes of the first group of merchants.” The city quickly bloomed as into a hub of commerce. The ‘first families of Maryland,’ such as the Carrolls, Howards, and Ridgelys continued enjoying the successes of their involvement in shipping, agriculture, politics and industry. However, new blood came onto the scene and younger compatriots who make their money through shipping, privateering and other business ventures joined the older families.

In the late 1790s, Alexander Brown came to Baltimore as a linen merchant, but within a couple years began offering other merchants letter of credit and bills of exchange. In 1809, Alex. Brown & Sons underwrote the first initial public offering in America for the Baltimore Water Company. The Etting and Cohen families also joined in this banking service through J.I Cohen Jr. & Bros.

The mentality of the days of business also is revealing “It is no coincidence that in early nineteenth century account books of mercantile firms, each voyage was listed as an ‘adventure’ and that William Patterson, and important merchant, characterized shipping as a “hazardous and desperate game of chance.’”
Classical Maryland 1-3 good synopsis

The practice of privateering, also expanded and became an adventurous trade in its own right. Classical Maryland 7


This economic growth in Maryland created patrons for the city who would guide the architectural development of Baltimore. “A boom in building was inevitable; while housing had kept up with the growth in population, public and commercial facilities had lagged.”


“We now know that inequities of wealth increased in mid-to-late-eighteenth century America even as the sources of wealth diversified and mixed, competition increased, and a middling interest began to make itself felt. Many contemporaries knew this too. Yet the ideology of meritocracy played too important a role in the late-Revolutionary period to be easily dismissed as a timeless myth. Rather we should see in that ideology an unstable alliance between an inchoate middling interest and various sectionally distinct, insecure landed gentries. Natural aristocracy was a solution to the weakness of the real American aristocracy and its delegitimization in Revolutionary ideology and experience.”

Baltimore certainly experienced this, but of course, following the Revolution instead of beforehand. After the Revolution, jobs diversified, but the distribution of wealth became more and more polarized. The landed gentry families such as the Howards, Carrolls, Dorseys, Ridgelys, Goughs, and others, increasing became more aristocratic in nature.

Waldstreicher explains natural aristocracy as a “virtuous elite [that] constituted no threat to liberty” but yet held a “superior wisdom and virtue.”

As the young nation continued to expand, nationalism began to spring up as well.

In many ways, this physical transformation from the Georgian style to a more pure neo-classical form correlates to the intellectual and ideological shifts of the time
Palladian is no longer in vogue, neither back in Europe or in America.


PREWAR V POSTWAR? The allegorical use of architecture was not especially new or innovative after the Battle of Baltimore, just as the concept of nationalism was not new. Already these things had been developing steadily; but, the Battle of Baltimore catalyzed the movement and took it to a higher level. Thus the influence of classicism was not introduced to the city as a reaction to the invasion, but, the impact of the Battle and War on the thoughts and feelings of the people gave it new life and force.


Their buildings evidence the development of nationalism – their work is definitive of the growth. Beginning shortly after the completion of Hampton, three main architects came to Baltimore more to leave their mark on the city; but not without the people of Baltimore having their say. Maximilian Godefroy, Benjamin Latrobe, and Robert Mills designed many of the most important public buildings of the city erected between 1800 and 1820, as well as the city's two chief monuments: the Battle Monument and the Washington Monument. These structures became the face of the city and reflected the past, present and aspirations of its citizens.

Latrobe & Carroll & The Cathedral
The Baltimore Cathedral was among the most important new buildings to arise in the city thanks to the work of two great men: John Carroll and Benjamin Henry Latrobe.
Latrobe was born in England
Most famous for his redesign of the Capitol and
In 1804 Bishop Carroll sought out Latrobe to design a new cathedral for the diocese to be located in the heart of the city. Latrobe offered to draw up the plans free of charge and the following year presented the Bishop with two very different designs. The first was a Gothic structure -----
Began the Basilica in 1806 – Catholicism adapting to the new nation.


In 1812, trouble for Baltimore loomed on the horizon as tension mounted between Great Britain and the young United States until June 18 of that year when America declared war. Even as war was declared, regionalism divided the nation and Baltimore, as a town in a middle state, was torn between the different regions which had some influence on the city. Four days after the declaration of war, one of the most brutal riots of the city’s history erupted because of the anger of the pro-war Democratic-Republicans of the city over the anti-war Federalists, particularly the newspaper The Federal Republican published by Alexander Contee Hanson. This riot would earn Baltimore the name “Mobtown” because of its extreme violence.
In “A Riotous Affair,” Stephanie Hurter’s description of the physical public sphere of Baltimore during the War provides an insightful image of the city. She writes:
Socially and culturally Baltimore was expanding. With an influx of immigrants from those of Irish origin to French came new competition over jobs and city expansion. The population expanded widely, doubling in the period 1800 to 1820. The number of free blacks jumped radically, from just 3,771 in 1800 to 10, 047 in 1820. Religious differences abounded as city records note the existence of Episcopalians, Catholics, Presbyterians, First German Reformed, Quaker, and Methodist. Further, the hostilities between France, England, and the United States continued to create unrest as embargos and impressments stifled the maritime industry of the port city. As well, in the public sphere, where information was exchanged and debated, transitions from an oral culture dependent upon spoken rhetoric to a more print centered culture began to occur. Newspapers, such as the Federal Republican or the democratically led, Whig, began emerging and the debates that previously had been restricted to those few men of letters, now engulfed the crowds in the taverns and city square.
The consensus and homogeneity previously enjoyed by the inhabitants of Baltimore was crumbling and the tensions that emerged erupted against Hanson. One historian noted about the period, “but there is no period in American history in which fundamental change proceeded with greater power, speed, and effect than in this most obscure of periods.” Rising tensions meant that the public sphere was even less equipped to forge consensus, restrain passion and resolve disputes. While Baltimore's growing urbanization and political unrest contextualize its eruption into chaos, analyzing Hanson and his Federal Republican contributes to our understanding of the existence of streams of paranoia and passion in the public sphere. Analyzing Hanson's paper, his involvement in the Washington Benevolent Society, and the 1812 riot underscores the heated nature of politics during the war of 1812 and the very limited nature of rhetoric within the public sphere.”
As if these riots were not powerful enough, the nationalistic sentiments of most Baltimoreans only continued to grow deeper and stronger as the war continued.

British on the Doorstep
Fine defense of St Michael’s (field book 944)
“Haec olim meminisse juvabit.” So the Niles’ Weekly Register, one of the most popular newspapers at the time, quoted Virgil’s Aeneid. “Someday it will be pleasant to remember all of this.” That was the motto that appeared in the header of every issue of the paper at this time.
- Key
- Niles
“Maryland Federalists such as Francis Scott Key were an odd breed in American politics. They combined the manners of southern gentlemen with very strong feelings of national identity. In the early republic, the strongest American nationalists were apt to be south Federalists and northern Republicans.
In 1814, Maryland Federalists were caught in a dilemma. They disliked Mr. Madison’s war and despised his incompetent administration, but they had no sympathy for the secessionist talk of New England Federalists. They were strongly anglophile, but they watched in dismay as the British warships seized control of the Chesapeake Bay and British troops marched deep into their beloved Maryland countryside. Key regarded the invaders as trespassers on his turf.”
SSB was song of Federalist party
Battle of North Point, 24 Americans killed and 139 wounded. 46 British killed, 295 wounded
March 4, 1815

After the British left and the city began to restore it usual order, Baltimore experienced a tremendous surge of patriotism as it never had. The city on the whole embraced the war; even more so than it already had been prior to the Battle, as evidenced by the riots.

In on January 30, 1815, the Maryland senate “unanimously assented” to a pro-war proclamation in support of the federal government. The statement condemned the British and their allies as well as those members of the Hartford Convention and other such “traitors.” They wrote:
…it becomes all faithful and patriotic citizens to manifest their devotion to the government of their choice, and their firm determination to support the administration, freely elected to conduct their public concerns.
The senate of Maryland, cherishing an ardent attachment to the free institutions of the republic and feeling an unimpaired confidence in the integrity and ability of those, who, in times of extraordinary difficulty, have wisely administered the national affairs, deem the present a proper occasions for declaring their fidelity and adherence to the union, their support of its rights and honor, and their continued approbation of its government.
Therefore resolved, by the senate of Maryland, That we entertain an exalted opinion of the virtue and talents of the president of the United States; and should his able and zealous measures for the honor and prosperity of his country be crowned with deserved success, (as we firmly believe) his administration will unfold a triumphant era in the American history.
Resolved, That we view with detestation the machinations of disaffected citizens to weaken the union, distract the public councils, and embarrass military operations, whereby the enemy is encouraged in his depredations, and the evils of war are protracted.
Resolved, That the war in which our country is engaged was rendered just and necessary, in defense of rights essential to freemen, and which it would be disgraceful to abandon.
Resolved, That the terms of peace proposed by the British government to our commissioners at Ghent are ignominious and humiliating, and excite our highest indignation, and that the war ought to be prosecuted with increased energy, until it an be terminated by an honorable peace, becoming a high-minded nation to accept.
Resolved, That the barbarous and vindictive modes of warfare, practiced by the enemy deserve the execration of all civilized nations, and are only worthy of the triple alliance of British, indians, and blacks.
Resolved, That the brilliant victories, so splendidly achieved by our gallant army and navy, have humbled the pride of the enemy, exalted the character of the nation, and filled the world with admiration of their valor, enterprize and heroism.
P 17

“The last six months it the proudest period in the history of the republic. The review presents us with a galaxy of glorious war deeds, terminating in an honorable peace, happily signed in the very arms of victory; a period without blot or blemish, save in the ill-timed meeting at Hartford which, though it was disreputable to out country, reflected no credit on the enemy.” - March 4, 1815. p 1
“The eagle-banner, sustained by the hand of God, through hosts of heroes, triumphantly waved over Champlain, at Plattsburg, at Baltimore, at Mobile, and New-Orleans”


“the war finished in a blazed of glory, as though the Great Arbiter of all things had decreed that the wisdom and fortitude of our government, and the desperately daring courage, invincible patience and ingenious quailities of our people, should be tried in a short contest, to secure future peace and establish our mild and benevolent institutions. Hail, holy freedom! – What though traitors within, and barbarians without, assailed thy banner, - they have retired before the nervous arm of thy sons, and left thy stars unsullied!”

Praise of privateered
“now hold many of the ports of great Britain and Ireland in actual blockade. They have captured at least two thousand British ships, and were just getting into the best way of managing them. By the mastery of their seamanship, they laughed at pursuit; or, ike the eagle of the Alleganies, pounced on their game. The force, power and effect of the class of vessels generally used as privatterss began to be universally acknowledged; and the government lately took up a plan (which, I believe I first recommended) for annoying the enemy by them. We had done enough for glory on the sea; and it was time to have entered the contest in a way by which we could have done our enemy the most harm, to bring about peace, and secure it.
But no sooner had we acquired the skill and experience necessary to give the war its full force, than the sword was returned to its scabbard. It was ‘not drawn without cause nor sheathed without honor,’ and we hail returned peace with unspeakable joy.”
“however great the sufferings of the war, we have great countervailing advantages such as the acquirement of knowledge, renown, internal wealth and strength, and security; of which we design to take a future opportunity to speak – proud in the belief that America now stands in the first rank of nations; a rank that, granted at present, by courtesy, to her gallantry, she will COMMAND a little while hence, through her increased population and multiplied resources of wealth and power.”


“The grateful citizens were not contented with bestowing praises upon their defenders, so they devised a memorial as perpetual and enduring as marble could make it. In now great city of Baltimore…may be seen a noble monument designed in white marble.”


EXPLORE CHOICE OF MONUMENT STRUCTURE HERE
It would have been easy for Baltimoreans have chosen the use of different iconographical language less distant than ancient Rome. The predominant British heritage of young nation contributed a wellspring of legends, heroes, and symbolism to fuel nationalistic sentiment. Of course, the obvious objection to using this heritage is the simple fact that Baltimoreans no longer identified with British nationalism and therefore these sources were insufficient. Yet, perhaps surprisingly, this was not the thought of the Revolution era.
For example, the Liberty Trees popular during the Revolution had deep English roots. Old trees “symbolized ancient folk-rights of freedom and liberty” and were used through out English history as symbols of struggle against oppression. Throughout the colonies, including Maryland, revolutionaries selected a strong, venerable tree in their town to decorate and gather under to celebrate their liberty and freedom. Even with its ancient heritage, arguably stretching back to even the time of the pre-Roman druids, the people were able to make this tradition their own. In looking at this example one must also take into account the uncertainty of -----
This British heritage would not do for the increasing nationalistic Baltimore. Rather then expressing itself in the terms of England, the contemptuous country, the citizens reached out to antiquity, to what they believed to be an era of perfect national unity: the Roman Republic. From Rome they borrowed column and obelisk. Thus, to honor their heroes, the citizens of Baltimore did not merely bedeck a venerable old oak as they had in past times, but instead they erected two monuments of stone. These monuments, one to Washington and one to the Defenders of Baltimore, were the first such public memorials to be built in the United States.

Monuments – the choice of an obelisk or column over a tree
Liberty Pillars & Obelisks – DHF 99-100
Robert Alexander ascribes the creation of such a public memorial to Revolutionary France and claims that “the first American-made war memorial, Maximilian Godefroy’s Battle Monument in Baltimore…might have been erected in Paris more than a decade earlier.” It seems extraordinarily unfair to pay all credit for the monument and its counterpart, the Washington Monument to the French.
It is true that Godefroy was a Frenchman; however, the citizens of Baltimore had quite distinct plans for their memorials, and were unafraid of controlling their contracted designers. It is also important to note that Godefroy and his fellow Frenchman Joseph Ramee, lost the competition to design the Washington Monument to the only American-trained architect, Robert Mills. Even Alexander mentions, albeit in a footnote, in his biography of Godefroy, that he was partially commissioned to design the monument because of a “general feeling of guilt over the lack of recognition and remuneration he received for his two months of hard work, October-November, 1814, on the Baltimore defenses.”
The same year 2 monuments would be erected: one to George Washington, and one in memory of the Battle of Baltimore. No major monument had been erected before then, and none would follow, except for a small marker to one of the Defenders, until thirty-five years later when Baltimoreans decided to erect yet another monument to the heroes of the Battle of Baltimore. Then seven years later came yet another monument to Washington. Only a full fifty years after the commencement of the first two monuments was a monument erected in honor of something else besides George Washington of the Defenders of Baltimore.

Godefroy
Maximilian Godefroy was one of the most popular and influential architects in Baltimore between1810-1820.
Born in 1765 in Paris, Godefroy experienced the turmoil of the French Revolution first hand. In 1803 he was arrested and held prisoner without trial for nearly two years for allegedly holding ideals contrary to the Napoleonic regime. In 1805 he sailed in exile to the United States and arrived in Baltimore in December of that year.

“The period from 1805 to 1819 he spent largely in Baltimore, where he moved in an intellectual and cultured society to which his education, taste and wit gave him entrée. From this select group of friends came most of his clients and supporters. Yet even their power and resources were limited, and in 1819 Godefroy returned to Europe.”

Godefroy was particularly concerned with the appearance of his buildings and the impressions he was making on others through them
In “Public Memorial and Godefroy’s Battle Monument,” Robert Alexander labels Godefroy’s Battle Monument “a Revolutionary monument” in the sense that “the Public Memorial as we know it is essentially a creation of the Revolutionary age in France.”

Alexander identifies two artistic sources of the Revolutionary monuments: the obelisk or column and sepulchral imagery, the latter of which was preferred in France.


Mills
Godefroy requested the commission to design the Washington Monument in 1809-1810, but none of his designs were accepted. (20-21 Smithsonian article)
American Robert Mills' design is accepted. (22)

The Battle monument was commissioned within a year of the Battle.

The monument will go on to become one of the defining symbols of the City. Today it appears on the city flag and seal.



March 25, 1815 Niles Weekly
The Committee of Vigilance and Safely issued:
“The return of peace having terminated the active duties of the committee of vigilance and safety, its members are now desirous of preparing a suitable tribute of respect to the memory of our brave but unfortunate fellow citizens who feel in defense of this city, on the memorable 12th and 13th September last, and have accordingly unanimously resolved as follows:
1st That a MONUMENT be erected in a place to be hereafter designated by the committee, within the city or precincts of Baltimore.
2d. That the thanks of the committee be and they are hereby presented to Maximilian Godefroy, esq. for his patriotic and voluntary offer, gratuitously, to prepare designs for the inspection of the committee, and to superintend the execution of the one of their choice.
3. That three designs presented by Mr. Godefroy are entitled to, and receive the approbation of the committee, and the one denominated by him Facial be and is hereby adopted.
4. That the unexpected funds of the committee of vigilance and safety, be and the same are hereby appropriated to the foregoing object.
5. That in aid of this fund, a subscription paper deposited at the mayor’s office on Monday the 3d of April next – that it remain there until the 4th day of July following, and that no person be allowed to subscribe more than five dollars.
6th. That the names of the subscribers, but not the sums subscribed, be published on the Saturday of each week until the subscription be closed.
7th. That the corner stone be laid on the 12th September next, that there be a grand procession – that the relatives of the deceased be invited to attend, and that a suitable address be delivered on the occasion.
8th. That the original subscription paper carefully enveloped for its preservation, be deposited within the corner stone, and that a copy thereof be filed with the register of the city.
9th. That Mr James A Buchanan, Richard Frisby, Henry Payson, Samuel Hollingsworth and Joseph Jameson, be and they are hereby specially charged with the execution of the foregoing resolution. .
EDWARD JOHNSON
Chairman of the committee of vigilance and safety.
Page 55



p158 April 29, 1815

Description of the Monument
To the memory of the Citizens who fell in defense of Baltimore, on the twelfth and thirteenth of September, eighteen hundred and fourteen.
The deep interest which must be excited by a monument, the design of which is so honorable to the feelings which gave it birth, and the brave men to whom it is to be dedicated, make it desirable that the public should be enabled to form a correct idea of the fabric which the city of Baltimore has so honorably resolved to erect to the memory of those citizens who fell nobly fighting in defense of their country.
Mr. Maximilian Godefroy, informed of the intention of the Committee of Vigilance and Safety, offered three plans for this most laudable purpose – The first was a simple Obelisk of Verd Antique, (green antique) marble, ornamented with bronze – The second, a Sarcophagus or rather, a Cenotaph, in the antique style, adorned with appropriate bass reliefs; the length of each was to have been 39 feet, in allusion to the 39 years of American independence – That which the committee has chosen, is entirely allegorical, and consists of three parts. (See Godefroy book for rest)
WAS BALTIMORE REALLY THE FIRST CITY TO ERECT MOMUMENTS? yes
Aquila Randall
Local historian Christopher George
Armistead (field book)
MOVE Hence the importance of the names on the Battle Monument, the inscription on Aquilla’s, and the writing on the Washington Monument.
Aquila was believed to be the first Maryland militia man killed in the battle

Other places did not get around until later (Ft Niagara, Queenston Monument)
Ft Stephenson 1885
Home & Country versus Country & Home
In 2 years, the emphasis is reversed!!



“Charles and John would emigrate to Maryland, where John died a man of modest means. By contrast, Charles achieved remarkable successes, establishing a new Carroll fortune and founding a vital and impressive family.” – Hoffman 36

Thesis Update

Introduction
Historiography
PART I
The Ineffectiveness of the Revolution
The Economic Impact of the Revolution
Enjoying Post-Revolutionary Success
(move this section to part 2?)
Understanding Self in the early Nineteenth Century
The Blossoming of a New Nation, as Understood in Baltimore
Following Rome: Architecture
A quest for a truer classicism


The War of 1812 as a catalyst
The Battle of Baltimore
The experience of Baltimore
The aftermath of the Battle

PART II
Embodying Identity
Reaching the Average Citizen

The architects and their works
The new city

Lossing Online
http://freepages.history.rootsweb.com/~wcarr1/Lossing2/Chap40.html

Introduction
Following the wake of the Revolution, the former American colonies began to fuse together to form a new nation. This formative period in the history of the United States witnessed the legendary "melting pot" of Crevecoeur's lore. While one Frenchman may have been impressed by this cultural synthesis, Marylanders found themselves confronted with a host of conflicting ideals and values. On one hand a large sector of the population consisted of strong cultural anglophiles who upheld traditional notions of society, and yet were at the same time among the most fervent believers in the political and economic values espoused by the Founding Fathers.
For the small port Baltimore Town, the War for Independence offered great economic opportunity and little violence, unlike the experience of most other cities across the colonies. Thus Baltimoreans did not share in the war experience in the same way as did the majority of their compatriots. Consequentially the fruits borne from that War also differed. While the former colonies began to understand themselves as states in new nation, Maryland lagged behind in developing a strong feeling of national consciousness. Pride in one’s personal achievements, family lands, clipper ship, or hometown, was stronger that a national pride.
By the opening of the nineteenth century, however, this development of national identity came into clearer view. In a little over a decade, Baltimore found itself embroiled in “the Second War for Independence,” as many understood it: the War of 1812. Ironically, as other states were torn apart by regionalism and sectionalism, mostly due to politics surrounding the war, Baltimore was united.
Unlike the Revolution, this war hit home, in more ways than one. Baltimore seamen found themselves in constant conflict with the Royal Navy and in September of 1814 the British came right up to the doorstep of the city and threatened total annihilation. This intense personal contact with and experience of the War of 1812 catalyzed the development of a national consciousness in a truly revolutionary way in the city and surrounding areas. Division was not totally eradicated, as it never will be, but the Battle revealed to the people that if sectionalism divided them they would fall, but united they stood triumphant. Even prior to the Battle, as the city was torn between different influences coming from the North and South, the region was pushed to grasp at nationalism for a source of stability and pride. Looking internally, Baltimoreans saw division and turmoil, but by looking outwards to their ideal of a nation, whether it existed or not, gave them solace and hope that the potential for greatness actually existed. As September 1814 approached, the city was already charged with nationalism and just needed the spark to light the flame.
The impact of the war, and particularly the Battle of Baltimore, transformed people in such way that it appears that Baltimoreans of all rank embraced and participated in this new perspective of understanding themselves, not only as individual persons associated with particular trades, families or towns, but in an ever increasing way as Americans with a real and true relation to not only their home, but to their country.
To express this burgeoning conception of identity, Baltimoreans fashioned those things which surrounded them, from words to buildings, to reflect their thoughts and feelings. In this work I will explore this phenomenon of identity and nationalism in Baltimore, particularly through the medium of architecture. First I will present the social, political and economic context that laid the groundwork for nationalism. Then, in the second part, I will examine the expressions of changing identity found in the construction of monuments and buildings, both in the design and execution of the works. I intend to explain how architecture served the city as one of the most powerful means of expression both before and after the war as a way for the people to master the power of stone and embody their ideas within it. I hope to concurrently reveal the national impact of this process while illuminating the unique situations which gave rise to nationalism and its expressions in Baltimore.






Historiography
Present day scholarship on colonial Baltimore as well as the period from the Revolution up to the War of 1812 is nearly nonexistent, which poses a considerable problem for any attempts to compare the effects of the Revolution to the War of 1812. There are some older works; the best that exist were written by local historians in the nineteenth century. In discussing the matter with the chief Maryland librarian at the Enoch Pratt Library in Baltimore, he agreed that material on this period is hard to come by. The best he could offer to assist my quest was Schraf's 1879 History of Maryland from the Earliest Days. Fortunately Francis Scott Key secured the study of the Battle of Baltimore and War of 1812. A small canon of works on this subject can be found quite easily; however even these works are not the most useful since they tend to be strictly military histories.
My interest, however, is not in the movement of troops, but in the movement of feeling and thought. Therefore I have looked outside of the immediate locale to the broader setting of the country. There I have found other expressions and understandings of national identity which are similar in their basic concepts and intents, but yet quite different. Other scholars such as David Hackett Fischer, Philip Deloria, and David Waldstreicher understand that the intangible must often be expressed tangibly in order to have any power over people. Each scholar defines and explains nationalism and if manifestations in unique ways and scenarios.
David Hackett Fischer studies the blending of cultures, folkways and their cross influences. In Liberty and Freedom: A Visual History of America's Founding Ideas he explores -------? His work has been useful interpreting the material culture left behind by the early eighteenth century inhabitants of Baltimore.
Philip Deloria’s Playing Indian and David Waldstreicher’s In the Midst of Perpetual Fetes have been particularly helpful in identifying expressions and memorializations of self.

Waldstriecher turns to the study of celebrations and rituals, such as parades, to understand nationalism. He explain: “Nationalism, the ideology of the ‘imagined community,’ is certainly an abstraction, but it is imagined and practiced locally in distinct, changing ways by different groups for a variety of purposes. How can we do justice to a history of something so imaginary and yet so grounded?”

“In their rituals and their rhetoric, the American revolutionists created a new public called the ‘nation.”

“‘National Character’ was a way of understanding the relationship between the citizen, or national subject, and the state, or national government…If we try too hard to uncover the metaphysics of national identity, we become prisoners of it, as students of national character often have. We lose sight of the histories, global and local, of which the nation is only a part. Here it is less important to theorize some timeless structure of national identity than to uncover its uses in particular moments and movements. [or in my case, monuments] In doing so it is helpful to remember that the ‘the nation’ is never just an idea or a thing; it is also a story.”

Waldstreicher argues that regionalism emerged during the two and a half decades following the ratification of the Constitution thus leading to the tense domestic politics of the War of 1812. Baltimore, however, was torn, in a way characteristic of the state of which I will address later. Unlike New England or the ‘true’ south, Marylanders were torn apart by these politics that contributed to regionalism elsewhere. Instead, the effect was the opposite: regionalism was broken down, and Baltimoreans turned to nationalism.

As the subjects of Waldstreicher turned to parades and political ritual to articulate their nationalistic sentiments, and the people of Deloria’s work used Native American imagery to symbolize the same, the citizens of Baltimore in the early nineteenth century made reflections of classicism, specifically in architecture, their mode of expression. Architecture

Why monuments?
There is a practical purpose. Buildings are quite functional, and monuments are way of honoring the dead. Tombstones are nothing new. But the style chosen by the builders transforms these banal common structures to something more allegorical. In particular the monuments do more than merely honor the dead: they also express the spirit of the living and speak to the future.
- lasting for generations
- immutable
- publicly visible sign
- expression of security with beliefs
- gives form and reality to fleeting thoughts
- monuments in structure and form evoke Rome -> more powerful with the body of history raising it up
also begins a national trend

The great late-nineteenth-early-twentieth century social critic, historian, and author, G. K. Chesterton once wrote: “Architecture is a very good test of the true strength of a society, for the most valuable things in a human state are the irrevocable things…And architecture approaches nearer than any other art to being irrevocable, because it is so difficult to get rid of. You can turn a picture with its face to the wall; it would be a nuisance to turn that Roman cathedral with its face to the wall. You can tear a poem to pieces; it is only in moments of very sincere emotion that you tear a town-hall to pieces.”
Indeed, this very understanding of architecture gives it its power. The essence of its strength is found in its immutability. Many things last for a little while, but buildings and other structures often last for generations.

“But how is a taste in this beautiful art to be formed in our countrymen, unless we avail ourselves of every occasion when public buildings are to be erected, of presenting to them models for their study and imitation? . . . . the comfort of laying out the public money for something honourable, the satisfaction of seeing an object and proof of national good taste, and the regret and mortification of erecting a monument of our barbarism which will be loaded with execrations as long as it shall endure. . . . You see I am an enthusiast on the subject of the arts. But it is an enthusiasm of which I am not ashamed, as its object is to improve the taste of my countrymen, to increase their reputation, to reconcile them to the rest of the world, and procure them its praise”
PART I

Baltimore Town becomes a City


The Ineffectiveness of the Revolution
It would be far from the truth to claim that the War for Independence did not have impact Maryland. However, while it may have been a "Revolution" to "America" at large, it hardly revolutionized Maryland in terms of national identity. The experience of Maryland was a far cry from Massachusetts, New York, Virginia, and the other colonies. Baltimore Town, as it was then, was little more than a sleepy tobacco port for most of the Eighteenth Century. A marshy, rural, and essentially inland because of its location on the Chesapeake Bay, the small port was not a major target for the British forces which had more important people to pursue. They felt no need to waste time and supplies on a backwater town when trouble brewed elsewhere.
Thus Baltimoreans hardly experienced the same effects as their brethren in Boston and other major cities. They were removed from the immediate war-zones and effects of battle. For most Baltimoreans the war was found in the pages of newspapers and reports, not in their surrounding fields and near their homes. They lacked the experience of fighting the redcoats on the doorsteps of their homes they many others gained. Consequentially the war influenced them differently.
Baltimoreans were not totally oblivious, of course. Many Marylanders did join the Continental Army to go engage in combat in other places. This Revolutionary experience earned Maryland the nickname “The Old Line State” for the steadfastness of the Maryland militia, even though the Maryland line did not defend Maryland soil.
In addition to the distant military participation, Baltimore was politically conscious at this time. For three months in 1776, Baltimore hosted the Second Continental Congress because the movement of British troops across New Jersey brought them too close to Philadelphia for the comfort of the Congress.
Proceedings of the Congress during the brief stay in Baltimore did have a great impact on the nation as a whole. Washington’s powers were increased and he became the de facto leader of the nation. However, this had little effect on the common Baltimorean who was not present at these meetings.

Initially in 1774 to protest the closing of Boston harbor, citizens “stop all importations from…similar resolutions (161) Burring of the Peggy Steward (162) It seems that this was not so much as full and true revolution, a break from the mother country, but and economic protest.
Ironically though this may have been understood mostly in terms of economics, it was through that the town was revolutionized.
(move up section on blockade?)
A monument to those Marylanders who fought in the Revolution was never erected.


The Economic Impact of the Revolution
While the War for Independence may not have had an immediate impact in the formation of an understanding of national identity in Baltimore, the Revolution brought a unique economic opportunity to the city, which would pave the way for its development in the coming decades.
"In the late 1750s…Baltimore was a tiny tobacco port on the Patapsco River, with only a handful of houses. Forty years later the city would assume its place as the second largest in the nation, a position it would hold until the Erie Canal brought New York to the fore in the 1830s. (Classical Maryland, 1)"

With the British blockading the colonies' major ports of Philadelphia, Boston, and New York, and the necessity of importation present, smaller ports snatched at the opportunity to pick up the other cities' lost business, and Baltimore was at their head. Soon the city, with its unique Clipper Ships (MORE ON THE CLIPPER?) held a monopoly on (CM 4-5)
-ship building
-privateering
-in the following decades, Baltimoreans would look back on their exploits on the clippers as privateers and this became a strong point of identification. (Which lasts even up to the present day)
Running food, guns and other supplies.

Local products were also of great importance. The land just north of the city had a rich deposit of valuable iron ore. Prize for making weapons and ammunition, the ironworks of Baltimore County would help supply the Continental Army (story of Charles Ridgely)
Salt works (172)
Flour (Classical Maryland, 1)

Post-Revolutionary Success
Baltimore Town was incorporated with Jones Town on the last day of the year, 1796 to become Baltimore City. Its awkward inland location began to pay off as the city was one of the westernmost ports. Thus as the nation’s population expanded westward Baltimore became the favored port of many farmers.
Classical Maryland 1-3 good synopsis
Will Paterson, Classical Maryland 4
“After the Revolution men and capital flowed, Classical Maryland 5
expansion of privateering, Classical Maryland 7
This economic growth in Maryland creates patrons for the city. The ‘first families of Maryland,’ more firmly establish themselves during this period. The families that had already been established during the colonial period are influential in agriculture, politics and industry. They are joined by younger compatriots who make their money through shipping, privateering and other business ventures.

“A boom in building was inevitable; while housing had kept up with the growth in population, public and commercial facilities had lagged (A.5).”


“We now know that inequities of wealth increased in mid-to-late-eighteenth century America even as the sources of wealth diversified and mixed, competition increased, and a middling interest began to make itself felt. Many contemporaries knew this too. Yet the ideology of meritocracy played too important a role in the late-Revolutionary period to be easily dismissed as a timeless myth. Rather we should see in that ideology an unstable alliance between an inchoate middling interest and various sectionally distinct, insecure landed gentries. Natural aristocracy was a solution to the weakness of the real American aristocracy and its delegitimization in Revolutionary ideology and experience.”

Baltimore certainly experienced this, but of course, following the Revolution instead of beforehand. After the Revolution, jobs diversified, but the distribution of wealth became more and more polarized. The landed gentry families such as the Howards, Carrolls, Dorseys, Ridgelys, Goughs, and others, increasing became more aristocratic in nature.

Waldstreicher explains natural aristocracy as a “virtuous elite [that] constituted no threat to liberty” but yet held a “superior wisdom and virtue.”

Understanding Self in the early Nineteenth Century


The Blossoming of a New Nation, as Understood in Baltimore

Following Rome: Architecture
During this period three main architects left their mark on the city; but not without the people of Baltimore having their say. Maximilian Godefroy, Benjamin Latrobe, and Robert Mills designed many of the most important public buildings of the city erected during this time, as well as the city's two chief monuments: the Battle Monument and the Washington Monument. These structures became the face of the city and reflected the past, present and aspirations of its citizens.


Searching for a Truer Classicism
In the 1790s the predominate style was based the Georgian architecture popular in England. Deeply rooted in classical architecture, the Georgian style defined itself by balance and symmetry and largely followed in the footsteps of the sixteenth century Italian architect Andrea Palladio in reflecting the forms of Greek and Roman antiquity.
Hampton Mansion, just north of Baltimore, is a fine example of such design. Built over a seven year period ending in 1790 by Captain Charles Ridgely, it captures many of the most iconic elements of Georgian architecture. It is very balanced, perfectly symmetrical, with even the front and back of the house mirroring each other in appearance.
Typical central portico with pediment,
Observers have noted that the front elevation of Hampton resembles that of Castle Howard of Yorkshire, England, in its elements. Hampton is undoubtedly simpler and of a much humbler class than its British cousin. Certainly there are many differences; however, proportionally they are nearly identical.
The portico of Howard is enclosed, but bears the classical pediment. Its dome is heavier, not nearly as airy as Hampton’s.
The construction of Howard began nearly a century before Hampton.
Like Hampton, the dome was an addition postdating initial plans. Howard also loses its symmetry.

Hampton is distinctly America, but at the same time bears heavy traces of British influence.

In many ways, this physical transformation from the Georgian style to a more pure neo-classical form correlates to the intellectual and ideological shifts of the time.

Palladian is no longer in vogue, neither back in Europe or in America.
The Architects
Latrobe
Latrobe was born in England
Most famous for his redesign of the Capitol and
Began the Basilica in 1806

The War of 1812 as a catalyst
War 1812

British on the Doorstep
Fine defense of St Michael’s (field book 944)


- Politically Federalist v. Democratic-Republican
- Riots
- Newspaper exchanges

“A Riotous Affair,” a fantastic internet project put together by Stephanie Hurter of George Mason.

Baltimore earned the name “Mobtown” because of its violence and riotousness.
Stephanie Hurter description of the physical public sphere of Baltimore during the War in her exploration of the Baltimore riots over ---- Hanson and his newspaper publishing house provides an insightful image of the city:
Socially and culturally Baltimore was expanding. With an influx of immigrants from those of Irish origin to French came new competition over jobs and city expansion. The population expanded widely, doubling in the period 1800 to 1820. The number of free blacks jumped radically, from just 3,771 in 1800 to 10, 047 in 1820. Religious differences abounded as city records note the existence of Episcopalians, Catholics, Presbyterians, First German Reformed, Quaker, and Methodist. Further, the hostilities between France, England, and the United States continued to create unrest as embargos and impressments stifled the maritime industry of the port city. As well, in the public sphere, where information was exchanged and debated, transitions from an oral culture dependent upon spoken rhetoric to a more print centered culture began to occur. Newspapers, such as the Federal Republican or the democratically led, Whig, began emerging and the debates that previously had been restricted to those few men of letters, now engulfed the crowds in the taverns and city square.
The consensus and homogeneity previously enjoyed by the inhabitants of Baltimore was crumbling and the tensions that emerged erupted against Hanson. One historian noted about the period, “but there is no period in American history in which fundamental change proceeded with greater power, speed, and effect than in this most obscure of periods.” Rising tensions meant that the public sphere was even less equipped to forge consensus, restrain passion and resolve disputes. While Baltimore's growing urbanization and political unrest contextualize its eruption into chaos, analyzing Hanson and his Federal Republican contributes to our understanding of the existence of streams of paranoia and passion in the public sphere. Analyzing Hanson's paper, his involvement in the Washington Benevolent Society, and the 1812 riot underscores the heated nature of politics during the war of 1812 and the very limited nature of rhetoric within the public sphere.”

Waldstreicher argues that regionalism emerged during the two and a half decades following the ratification of the Constitution thus leading to the tense domestic politics of the War of 1812. Baltimore, however, was torn, in a way characteristic of the state of which I will speak more of later. Unlike New England or the ‘true’ south, Marylanders were torn apart by these politics that contributed to regionalism elsewhere. Instead, the effect was the opposite: regionalism was broken down, and Baltimoreans turned to nationalism.



The Battle of Baltimore
The experience of Baltimore
“Maryland Federalists such as Francis Scott Key were an odd breed in American politics. They combined the manners of southern gentlemen with very strong feelings of national identity. In the early republic, the strongest American nationalists were apt to be south Federalists and northern Republicans.
In 1814, Maryland Federalists were caught in a dilemma. They disliked Mr. Madison’s war and despised his incompetent administration, but they had no sympathy for the secessionist talk of New England Federalists. They were strongly anglophile, but they watched in dismay as the British warships seized control of the Chesapeake Bay and British troops marched deep into their beloved Maryland countryside. Key regarded the invaders as trespassers on his turf.”
SSB was song of Federalist party

Battle of North Point, 24 Americans killed and 139 wounded. 46 British killed, 295 wounded
The aftermath of the Battle
Baltimore experiences a surge of patriotism. The city on the whole becomes more pro-war, even more so than it already had been as evidenced by the riots.

PART II

Remembering the Dead and Inspiring the Living

Baltimoreans were not content to simply let their new burst of patriotism merely be a thing of high-sounding words. They desired to capture the spirit and immortalize it for posterity. They wanted to ensure that their “patriotic zeal” would never die and that they would never forget that they, the freemen, would never be slaves, rather they would hold “‘Tis glorious in our country’s cause to die.”
To accomplish this goal, the citizens of Baltimore chose to literally set their ideals in stone in a public setting visible to every man.
Why does nationalism have to be expressed in stone? It seems more powerful as a free floating ideology.

“The grateful citizens were not contented with bestowing praises upon their defenders, so they devised a memorial as perpetual and enduring as marble could make it. In now great city of Baltimore…may be seen a noble monument designed in white marble.”

Reaching the Average Citizen

Fischer most eloquently articulates the important relationship between the common man and the impact of symbolic imagery on him:
“[The common man] did not write extended texts and treatises on liberty and freedom that might be analyzed by academic methods. But they left an abundance of evidence that might be studied in other ways…they carried images of liberty and freedom into battle. Complex symbols of these ideas were painted on their battle flags, etched into the musket stocks, carved upon their powder horns, and embroidered on their coats and hats…In a strict and literal sense [they] envisioned their ideas of liberty and freedom. They tended to represent their visions in the form of symbols and images. A symbol might be understood as a vehicle for thinking and as device for transporting thought from one mind to another. More than that, an image does not merely communicate a vision. It can also create it, transform it, and persuade others to adopt it. Some images take on the character of sacred objects. When that happens symbols become icons, which not merely signify but sanctify thought. They are regarded with reverence and protected from pollution.”
This process of envisioning ideas is central to the case of Baltimore. Even more than battle flags, musket stocks, and power horns, symbols of liberty appeared in everything from ladies’ dresses and chairs to banks and churches. Even if this same vision conveyed through these things is not blatantly obvious to the present day observer, all of them shared a common iconography understood by the common man of the 1810s. In their appearance, these objects reached out and spoke to the average citizen reminding them of the ideas of liberty and freedom to which they aspired, often to the point of veneration.
Fischer notes that even from the Revolution, many Americans counted literacy among their skills and so “nearly all American images of liberty and freedom were invented by literate people. In their symbols, words and image often appeared together and became mutually explanatory.” This observation is also crucial to understanding the envisioning of nationalism in Baltimore. ---------
Hence the importance of the names on the Battle Monument, the inscription on Aquilla’s, and the writing on the Washington Monument.
Aquila was believed to be the first Maryland militia man killed in the battle

A Language of the People

Given this high rate of literacy and “the allegorical temperament of the age” those endeavoring to capture the intellectual in the material had to exercise caution in selecting the language to use. Of primary importance to this task was to express these sentiments in a language appealing and understandable to the common man.
The people thus turned to one of the greatest inspirations in the history of mankind: Ancient Rome. Nearly every leader of aspiring empires, from the Charlemagne to Hitler, has turned to Rome at some point for inspiration. The leaders of young America were no different. While a respectable percentage of the population may have been literate, they did not all possess the same caliber of classical education. Not everyman was well versed in the lines of Cato, Cicero, Vigil and Horace. Nevertheless, classicism was unavoidable. It was already a highly popular model from the days of the Revolution. In Baltimore, as explained earlier, the place of classicism in the wider society had already been secured prior to the War of 1812 thanks to the upper class. Classicism permeated the culture in many ways, albeit in a popular, romanticized form rather than a scholarly, realistic fashion. The common man need not understand Rome in a historical-critical way. He need only know that it was a golden age of patriotism where men and women were willing to lay themselves down on their country’s altar, because their country was the greatest and highest good. It was an era of perfect morals and upstanding citizens where traitors were quickly condemned.
This type of Roman mythology served as the perfect paradigm and people cited it for every purpose.
For example, on August 26, 1814, before the Battle, The Baltimore Patriot ran an article from the New York Merchant Advertiser praising five patriotic women who assisted in the fortification of Brooklyn Heights in New York:
We are requested to notice, and we do it with pleasure, the laudable spirit which shewd itself on Saturday at Brooklin Heights in the ladies who accompanied the Rev. Mr. Lowe of Flushing. When they came to the place where the citizens (who were then at refreshment) had been at labour, they laid down their umbrellas, commenced working, and continued for a considerable time to show a zeal and activity worthy of matrons of Rome in the best days of the republic.
The accreditation of their “zeal and activity worthy of the matrons of Rome in the best days of the republic” is dubious. Not that these fine women did not contribute valiance and energy to this project, but it is doubtful that the “matrons of Rome in the best days of the republic” would have “laid down their umbrellas and commenced working.” Chances are the matrons of Rome would have rested in their villas and sent their slaves out to take care of such work. Furthermore, the matrons of Rome in “the best days of the republic” probably never had a need to fortify their homes against attack. Thus perhaps, in an ironic ways, the (people to be inspired) outshone their role models. However, it was of no great importance whether in reality the matrons of Rome were more commendable than the ladies of New York or not. What truly mattered was that the ladies of the day were encouraged to live up to a great, though potentially mythological, model reinforced by the examples of their contemporaries and the corollaries drawn by and praise given from the press.

Waldstreicher p 81.

EXPLORE THE ICONOGRAPHY HERE

“All of these flags, eagles, and Indians represented something new in the world: liberty and freedom as a national idea. As late as 1776, national consciousness was so little developed that out most common words for it did not exist with the meaning we use today.
Our modern language of nationality began to develop rapidly during the American Revolution and its immediate aftermath. T……….The Stars and Stripes became a symbol of these ideas, and after 1815 it began to be displayed in a new way. No longer was it only an emblem of sovereignty for ships and public buildings and armies.” Thus it made perfect sense that this already popular language would be harnessed and driven to rise to a new level of expression.

Embodying Identity
EXPLORE CHOICE OF MONUMENT STRUCTURE HERE
It would have been easy for Baltimoreans have chosen the use of different iconographical language less distant than ancient Rome. The predominant British heritage of young nation contributed a wellspring of legends, heroes, and symbolism to fuel nationalistic sentiment. Of course, the obvious objection to using this heritage is the simple fact that Baltimoreans no longer identified with British nationalism and therefore these sources were insufficient. Yet, perhaps surprisingly, this was not the thought of the Revolution era.
For example, the Liberty Trees popular during the Revolution had deep English roots. Old trees “symbolized ancient folk-rights of freedom and liberty” and were used through out English history as symbols of struggle against oppression. Throughout the colonies, including Maryland, revolutionaries selected a strong, venerable tree in their town to decorate and gather under to celebrate their liberty and freedom. Even with its ancient heritage, arguably stretching back to even the time of the pre-Roman druids, the people were able to make this tradition their own. In looking at this example one must also take into account the uncertainty of -----
This British heritage would not do for the increasing nationalistic Baltimore. Rather then expressing itself in the terms of England, the contemptuous country, the citizens reached out to antiquity, to what they believed to be an era of perfect national unity: the Roman Republic. From Rome they borrowed column and obelisk. Thus, to honor their heroes, the citizens of Baltimore did not merely bedeck a venerable old oak as they had in past times, but instead they erected two monuments of stone. These monuments, one to Washington and one to the Defenders of Baltimore, were the first such public memorials to be built in the United States.

Monuments – the choice of an obelisk or column over a tree
Liberty Pillars & Obelisks – DHF 99-100
Robert Alexander ascribes the creation of such a public memorial to Revolutionary France and claims that “the first American-made war memorial, Maximilian Godefroy’s Battle Monument in Baltimore…might have been erected in Paris more than a decade earlier.” It seems extraordinarily unfair to pay all credit for the monument and its counterpart, the Washington Monument to the French.
It is true that Godefroy was a Frenchman; however, the citizens of Baltimore had quite distinct plans for their memorials, and were unafraid of controlling their contracted designers. It is also important to note that Godefroy and his fellow Frenchman Joseph Ramee, lost the competition to design the Washington Monument to the only American-trained architect, Robert Mills. Even Alexander mentions, albeit in a footnote, in his biography of Godefroy, that he was partially commissioned to design the monument because of a “general feeling of guilt over the lack of recognition and remuneration he received for his two months of hard work, October-November, 1814, on the Baltimore defenses.”



Monumental

The same year 2 monuments would be erected: one to George Washington, and one in memory of the Battle of Baltimore. No major monument had been erected before then, and none would follow, except for a small marker to one of the Defenders, until thirty-five years later when Baltimoreans decided to erect yet another monument to the heroes of the Battle of Baltimore. Then seven years later came yet another monument to Washington. Only a full fifty years after the commencement of the first two monuments was a monument erected in honor of something else besides George Washington of the Defenders of Baltimore.

WAS BALTIMORE REALLY THE FIRST CITY TO ERECT MOMUMENTS? yes
Aquila Randall
Local historian Christopher George
Armistead (field book)

Other places did not get around until later (Ft Niagara, Queenston Monument)
Ft Stephenson 1885


March 25, 1815 Niles Weekly
The Committee of Vigilance and Safely issued:
“The return of peace having terminated the active duties of the committee of vigilance and safety, its members are now desirous of preparing a suitable tribute of respect to the memory of our brave but unfortunate fellow citizens who feel in defense of this city, on the memorable 12th and 13th September last, and have accordingly unanimously resolved as follows:
1st That a MONUMENT be erected in a place to be hereafter designated by the committee, within the city or precincts of Baltimore.
2d. That the thanks of the committee be and they are hereby presented to Maximilian Godefroy, esq. for his patriotic and voluntary offer, gratuitously, to prepare designs for the inspection of the committee, and to superintend the execution of the one of their choice.
3. That three designs presented by Mr. Godefroy are entitled to, and receive the approbation of the committee, and the one denominated by him Facial be and is hereby adopted.
4. That the unexpected funds of the committee of vigilance and safety, be and the same are hereby appropriated to the foregoing object.
5. That in aid of this fund, a subscription paper deposited at the mayor’s office on Monday the 3d of April next – that it remain there until the 4th day of July following, and that no person be allowed to subscribe more than five dollars.
6th. That the names of the subscribers, but not the sums subscribed, be published on the Saturday of each week until the subscription be closed.
7th. That the corner stone be laid on the 12th September next, that there be a grand procession – that the relatives of the deceased be invited to attend, and that a suitable address be delivered on the occasion.
8th. That the original subscription paper carefully enveloped for its preservation, be deposited within the corner stone, and that a copy thereof be filed with the register of the city.
9th. That Mr James A Buchanan, Richard Frisby, Henry Payson, Samuel Hollingsworth and Joseph Jameson, be and they are hereby specially charged with the execution of the foregoing resolution. .
EDWARD JOHNSON
Chairman of the committee of vigilance and safety.
Page 55

Godefroy
Maximilian Godefroy was one of the most popular and influential architects in Baltimore between1810-1820.
Born in 1765 in Paris, Godefroy experienced the turmoil of the French Revolution first hand. In 1803 he was arrested and held prisoner without trial for nearly two years for allegedly holding ideals contrary to the Napoleonic regime. In 1805 he sailed in exile to the United States and arrived in Baltimore in December of that year.

“The period from 1805 to 1819 he spent largely in Baltimore, where he moved in an intellectual and cultured society to which his education, taste and wit gave him entrée. From this select group of friends came most of his clients and supporters. Yet even their power and resources were limited, and in 1819 Godefroy returned to Europe.”

Godefroy was particularly concerned with the appearance of his buildings and the impressions he was making on others through them
In “Public Memorial and Godefroy’s Battle Monument,” Robert Alexander labels Godefroy’s Battle Monument “a Revolutionary monument” in the sense that “the Public Memorial as we know it is essentially a creation of the Revolutionary age in France.”

Alexander identifies two artistic sources of the Revolutionary monuments: the obelisk or column and sepulchral imagery, the latter of which was preferred in France.




Mills
Godefroy asked to do the Washington Monument in 1809-1810, but none of his designs were accepted. (20-21 Smithsonian article)
American Robert Mills' design is accepted. (22)

The Battle monument was commissioned within a year of the Battle.

The monument will go on to become one of the defining symbols of the City. Today it appears on the city flag and seal.