A “Mud Machine” dredges Baltimore Harbor

1806

Categories: American Innovation, Immigration
Tags: 1776 – 1816, Baltimore City

Baltimore becomes the first major city to take over direct payment for and management of a method to dredge mud and silt from the harbor. The Mud Machine, with a scoop and a windlass powered by horses on a moveable floating platform, attempts to keep the important shipping channels open to large vessels.

Alexander McDonald, the mud machine’s manager, keeps an invaluable set of records, documenting the workers on the device from 1809-1819. Laborers are primarily Irish immigrants, not enslaved. Seth Rockman in “Scraping By” gives a vivid picture of the hard labor of immigrants and free Blacks, Baltimore’s early working poor.

The current floating Trash Wheel in the Inner Harbor is a modern descendent of the Mud Machine.

View Other Mosaic Pieces

City of Columbia

“Columbia, Maryland, is the best place to raise a family in the country.” Jim Rouse creates a carefully planned city for “joyous living” in 1967.

Maryland Lynching Truth and Reconciliation Commission established

Howard Cooper, African American, at 15 in 1885, is among the youngest persons in US to be lynched. He is lynched in front of the old Towson jail. Maryland is first to create a Lynching Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 2019.

Eubie Blake, musical pioneer in jazz and ragtime

Eubie Blake creates a landmark in the history of Broadway musical theatre in 1921. Blake teams up with Noble Sissle to launch the first All African American Broadway production, Shuffle Along, which runs for 504 performances. President Reagan presents Eubie Blake with a national award.