Immigration Era, Part I:
Port of Pleasant Landings 

By Pennington Parker 

The "Great Wave" of mass migrations to the United States during the late 19th and early 20th centuries is one of history's more compelling stories. These events resonate powerfully in this "Nation of Immigrants," touching virtually every life.

Photo taken about 1870 shows original      B & O immigration facilities built in Locust Point in 1868

The focus on New York's Ellis Island as a point of entry weighs so heavily in the public consciousness that it has, in effect, been accepted as "America's immigration story." Yet, for tens of millions whose American family history originated in Baltimore, a less celebrated port of entry, the story remains largely untold.  

While Baltimore ranked among the nation's leading recipient ports, welcoming as many as 2 million immigrants, this history has received such scant popular and scholarly attention that even many Baltimoreans are unaware of the city's key contribution to the process by which the continent was populated. 

The Baltimore Immigration Project was founded by local businessman Ron Zimmerman to explore, preserve and present to the public this rich heritage as an immigration gateway. Activities include funding original research; collecting and conserving historic documents, artifacts and oral histories, and offering public programs to interpret local immigration history. Honoring the memory and courage of every immigrant who first touched American soil in Baltimore also is a key element of the organization's agenda. Today, there are tens of millions of Americans who could trace their roots to a Baltimore dock.  

Such personal connections, along with the city's strong historic ties to major European ports of embarkation, make our immigration heritage a major potential generator of national and international tourism and economic development activity. Creation of an on-line database of Baltimore immigrants is expected to inspire descendants to visit the city. The Baltimore Immigration Project's mission, activities and progress will be discussed in greater detail in the next issue of BCHS Newsletter. 

The focus of this installment is to introduce the emerging historical record regarding Baltimore's immigrant heritage. The principal sources here are a chapter on Baltimore in Dean Esslinger's Forgotten Doors: the Other Ports of Entry into the United States (M. Mark Stolarik) and research locally by Dean Kimmel and Wayne Nield. While in some ways the city's story is familiar in that it reflects global trends in the influx of immigrants, the research indicates that unique circumstances made the experience for those who disembarked in Baltimore very different from that of the "huddled masses" who arrived in New York. 

Aside from the fact that the sheer number of immigrants who passed through Ellis Island dwarfs the number who arrived at Baltimore, another fundamental distinction stands out. The massive processing facilities in New York were constructed and operated by the federal government, while in Baltimore the immigrant trade was created and driven by the private sector. This difference shaped both how individual and family migrants experienced their arrivals as well as who came, where they worked, settled, who stayed in Baltimore and who traveled west. 

Baltimore's immigration history can logically be divided into two phases by the Civil War. The early immigration activity was concentrated among the wharves of Fells Point and included the importation of African slaves as well as the voluntary movement of European migrants. In 1868, just after the war's conclusion, this activity shifted across the harbor to Locust Point. Research undertaken by the Immigration Project thus far has focused upon this latter period. 

The shift was necessitated by a technological advance. As steamships rapidly replaced sail, the new vessels simply outgrew the length of the Fells Point piers. In 1968, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, which a year earlier had entered into a pioneering partnership with the North German Lloyd Steamship Line, built immigration piers 8 and 9 in Locust Point to accommodate the bigger ships. 

As the purpose was to profit from the growing immigrant trade, the partners were not content to wait for emigrants to come to them. Their agents fanned out across Europe to recruit passengers. Single tickets were sold for passage from Bremerhaven -- Bremen's port -- as well as domestic rail travel from Baltimore for those whose destination was elsewhere in the United States.  

The arrangement between the railroad and shipping line grew out of long-standing trade relations between Bremen and Baltimore. It was facilitated by prominent Baltimore businessman Albert Schumache, a German immigrant and son of a Bremen councilman, who served as a director of the B&O. Ultimately, the railroad would develop similar arrangements with steamship lines sailing from ports including Hamburg and Liverpool.  

Despite the leading role played by private enterprise, the federal government was involved in processing immigrants destined for Baltimore. Customs and medical inspectors routinely examined those bound for these shores. However, whereas processing at Ellis Island may have seemed akin to being herded through an intimidating bureaucratic maze, people arriving in Baltimore were subjected to a less de-humanizing experience. Although approximately a million immigrants arrived at Locust Point, the manageable number disembarking at any given time made the experience seem far less daunting.  

Furthermore, geography played a role, as the inspectors boarded vessels at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay. Often they had completed their on-board examinations by the time ships docked in Baltimore. Unless irregularities were discovered, this allowed most immigrants to proceed with their new lives in Baltimore or to board trains for other destinations. Even for the small percentage of those temporarily detained for further scrutiny, the experience may have seemed more an inconvenience than an imprisonment. There are stories of detainees passing the hours fishing from a pier at the facilities. 

As the influx of foreigners continued to accelerate toward its peak in 1907, the 1868 immigration facilities became outmoded. Indeed, 2004 marks the centennial of the B&O's rebuilding and expansion of what the company would proudly bill as "the nation's largest immigration piers." Today, wood pilings that are the only remnants of the 1904 piers can be seen from the water along Locust Point's north shore. 

The outbreak of World War I in 1914 effectively ended the "Great Wave" of immigration but not before continuing growth in Baltimore's trade finally prompted the federal government to take control of local immigration operations. A federal processing facility was constructed in 1913. The building, adjacent to Fort McHenry, is now occupied by the Naval Reserve Center. Ironically, it is unknown whether the facility ever actually welcomed a single immigrant. Perhaps further research will shed light on this and many of the other unknowns that still obscure Baltimore's rich immigration heritage. 

Parker D. Pennington is senior project designer with Xibitz, Inc., a Baltimore exhibiting firm. He has been assisting the Baltimore Immigration Project almost from its inception.