German Immigrant Labor in Baltimore on the Eve of the Civil War

abstract:This paper focuses on German immigrant labor in Baltimore in 1860, where Germans had become the largest European immigrant group after being impelled to migrate by geopolitical change in central Europe and the dynamics of industrial capitalism. I describe the push factors that drove them to Baltimore and the pull factors in the urban region that attracted them. I then analyze 1860 census data for Baltimore's Ward 1 and integrate this information with broader data from the Historical Statistics of the United States. For some immigrants, their artisanal skills were compatible with small-site craft industries in the transitional economy of the city. However, the data clearly show that German immigrant laborers were concentrated in lower-paid work, indicating little difference between the Germans and other immigrant groups such as the Irish. The paper enables deeper insights into immigrant life in Baltimore during its transition from a commercial city with locally based artisan crafts to an export-oriented industrial metropolis of mass factory labor.