11-26-12: The Baltimore Bank Riot of 1835

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Riot-1126.mp3

If you live around Baltimore and are interested in history, you probably have heard about the Pratt Street Riot in April 1861. But a quarter-century earlier, another mob wreaked death, injury, and a lot of destruction in Baltimore--a bank riot. 

Robert E. Shalhope, emeritus professor of history at the University of Oklahoma, has examined what was going on in Baltimore in 1835 and concluded that the political activity that followed it had a lot to do with how Maryland confronted the Civil War.  His book is The Baltimore Bank Riot: Political Upheaval in Antebellum Maryland.

Sheilah talks to him about the riot--and its parallels to the financial crisis of 2008.