The Patapsco Valley, located in a woodland setting between Baltimore and Washington, witnessed the establishment of numerous foundries, iron mills, and textile factories from the late 18th century until well after the Civil War. The author draws upon 19th-century diaries, newspapers, and journals to chronicle the growth and development of these early industries, and their destruction in the terrible flood of July 1868.
After extensive research in eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century tax and land records, ledgers, journals, and newspapers, architectural historian Henry K. Sharp convincingly demonstrates how the five Ellicott brothers created America's first factory town, not in New England, but in Maryland's Patapsco River Valley, and modeled it according to the Quaker concept of community. As the first merchant mills prospered in grain, other entrepreneurial spirits added cotton mills and ironworks. By the Civil War, the valley was a booming industrial center, but what the powerful and unpredictable river had given it swiftly destroyed in two terrifying floods. Perceptive and elegantly written, this book challenges long-held beliefs about the origins of the Industrial Revolution in the United States, and brings to life once more a time and place almost lost to history.
