Profs and Pints Baltimore presents: “How ‘Mobtown’ Earned the Name,” a review of riotousness throughout Baltimore’s existence, with Joseph Rosalski, longtime teacher of local history and current assistant professor of history at the Community College of Baltimore County.
Baltimore has no shortage of nicknames, “Monumental City,” “Charm City,” and “the Clipper City” among them. None, however, has stuck quite like the moniker of “Mobtown,” arising not from organized crime but from city residents’ reputation for loosely organized belligerence toward those who get on their bad side.
Join Joe Rosalski, who has taught local history at the Community College of Baltimore County, the University of Baltimore, and Stevenson University, for a nearly 300-year journey back through time to revisit some of Charm City’s roughest moments.
We’ll start with a charitable discussion of how Baltimore residents’ legendary feistiness may have arisen from a sense of personal independence comparable to the spirit of independence that drove the American Revolution.
Then we’ll look at the many ways Baltimoreans have expressed their displeasure over the centuries. You’ll learn about an 1812 attack on a newspaper critical of our nation’s fight against the British, 1835 assaults on the Mount Vernon homes of leaders of banks that had failed, 1839 threats by anti-Catholics to tear down a convent on Asquith Street, and the infamous Pratt Street Riot that produced the first Union casualties of the Civil War.
Moving forward in time, Professor Rosalski will discuss later unrest arising from political, racial, or labor-related tensions, including the Know-Nothing riots of 1856, the railroad riots of 1877, the eruption of unrest after the 1968 assassination of Martin Luther King, and that year’s raid on a draft board by the anti-Vietnam Catonsville Nine.
You’ll emerge from the talk with a much richer understanding of Baltimore’s colorful past and a better grasp of Baltimoreans’ willingness to make their opinions known. (Advance tickets: $13.50 plus sales tax and processing fees. Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID. Doors open at 5. The talk begins at 6:30.)
Image: The 6th Regiment opens fire on an unruly crowd during the Baltimore Railroad Strike of 1877 (Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper / Public domain).
