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Reviews
| A Guide to Patapsco Valley Mill Sites: Our Valley's Contribution to Maryland's Industrial Revolution. By James Walter Peirce. Bloomington, Ind.: AuthorHouse, 2004. xx+125 pp., maps, illus., index. $14.00 pb (ISBN 1-4184-5297-1).
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In A Guide to Patapsco Valley Mill Sites, James Peirce provides a comprehensive list of historic mill sites in the Patapsco River drainage of north-central Maryland. Emerging in Carroll County to flow east and drain into the Chesapeake Bay at Baltimore, the Patapsco River has provided power for many industries in the past few centuries. This industrial legacy has left traces over the landscape of Baltimore and its hinterland, and these traces are the subject of Peirce's book.
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Peirce is a volunteer ranger at Patapsco Valley State Park and the historian for the Prince George's County (Maryland) Council of the American Legion. Two surveys of historic mill sites, which he conducted in 1993–94 and 2003–04, provided the basis for this book, a reference work listing every site investigated by Peirce. The four sections of the book correspond to four basic geographical areas within the study region: Part I, Baltimore Harbor (covering the City of Baltimore, Baltimore County, and northeastern Anne Arundel County); Part II, Elkridge to Marriottsville (covering southwestern Baltimore County, northwestern Anne Arundel County, and Howard County); Part III, Marriottsville to Parr's Spring (covering Howard and Carroll counties); and Part IV, Marriottsville to Westminster (covering Baltimore, Howard, and Carroll counties). Each area is further subdivided within its own section of the book to facilitate site groupings. Peirce provides a map of the entire study region with outlines of the 23 sub-areas, and each sub-area section begins with a map showing the locations of the sites in that locale.
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The length of the individual site entries varies, with some receiving over a page while others merit just a few lines. Each entry begins with the site name and date(s) of activity. Peirce uses an inclusive definition of mills encompassing paper, textile, grain, iron, oil, powder, fulling, and lumber, among others. He also includes other industrial sites such as canneries, tanneries, kilns, foundries, and distilleries, as well as a few community sites such as churches that were related to industrial settlements. The chronological scope of the book is impressive, with sites ranging from the early-18th century to the mid-20th century.
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Almost every entry contains four sections: a description of the site location, a brief chronology, a description of the condition of the site in 1993, and a description of the condition of the site in 2003. If a site is known by multiple names, these are listed in a section after the location. Peirce personally visited most of the sites, so the site descriptions are quite detailed, but for those sites that no longer exist aboveground or are hard to access for whatever reason (such as being on private property), the information presented on location and condition is less detailed. The chronology section for each site is basically a listing of important dates and events and whatever other trivia Peirce could find. The following excerpt from the entry on the Baltimore Iron Works Company is typical of the chronology sections£
1729: They discover iron ore at Moale's Point. 1731: Charles Carroll and four other investors begin the second iron works in Maryland. They construct a 28' stack, a bridge house, casting house, a coal house 76'x 36', wheelhouse and bellows. ... 1750s: They employ 150 slaves working in the iron works. 1764: They assess the furnace at 50,000 British pounds. Investors receive a 55% return on their investment. ... 1830s: A Map of Baltimore lists the furnace at this location. 1921: The last recorded remnants of a dam are discernable (p. 7).
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Other than the maps, the only illustrations in the volume include an image that appears to be a 19th-century advertisement for a distillery and site plans for four sites (all of which are located in Patapsco Valley State Park). At the end of the book, Peirce includes a one-page bibliography of books, newspapers, magazines, and maps that contain information about the industrial history of the region. He also provides a glossary of site types, lists of "Some Historic Firsts in the Patapsco Valley" and "Some Famous People in the Patapsco Valley," and an index.
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A Guide to Patapsco Valley Mill Sites was published by the author through a private publishing website, but the physical quality of the book is quite pleasing. The binding is tight, the design is well-done, and the book was printed on high-quality paper. However, the physical appearance and the wealth of information contained in this volume do not hide all problems. The manuscript was not copyedited well, for there are frequent spelling and typographical errors as well as some minor layout problems. While the amount of information presented is staggering, no attempt is made either to place the Patapsco Valley into the larger context of industrialization in Maryland or to place individual sites in even a local historical narrative. Each site stands on its own. The volume as a whole is only contextualized by a half-page overview of generalized Maryland history. Other than the bibliography (which, with a very few exceptions, is not referenced in the text) and Peirce's personal experiences in visiting these sites, no indication exists of where the information presented was obtained.
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The largest problem with this book is the maps Each map was hand-drawn (presumably by Peirce), and the writing can sometimes be difficult to read. While the master map of the study region indicates the location of the various sub-areas, the broader geographical areas used to organize the four sections of the book are not clearly delineated on maps. The author does not always explain symbols or indicate individual maps' positions in relation to the larger geography of the region. This can be frustrating for those generally familiar with certain areas but who cannot always place the sites on Peirce's maps in relation to what is known. Finally, while the four site plans are generally well done, they do not contain scales.
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| Despite these drawbacks, overall, A Guide to Patapsco Valley Mill Sites is an exemplary amateur publication and represents a valuable addition to the growing literature on industrial and labor heritage in Maryland. Cultural resource management professionals and local scholars will find little in this book that is new or not easily available elsewhere. The information presented will be of interest primarily to those people with a personal interest in Baltimore and Maryland history or industrial heritage in the Middle Atlantic region. Nevertheless, Peirce has provided an admirable service by making this information easily accessible, much of it probably for the first time. This book and the research that went into it were clearly a labor of love for Peirce (his prologue and epilogue, each in the form of poems, evoke his personal attachment to the land), and he has amassed a tremendous amount of information. In the background section Peirce writes: "It is hoped that this study will interest you in our history and that you will take enough of this interest to visit some remnants of the Industrial Revolution. It is further hoped that you will then become involved in their preservation" (p. xv). In his introduction he acknowledges that much research and site location has yet to be done. Peirce's work can perhaps provide a valuable model for more people interested in Maryland's past and inspire them to care for and protect the material remains of this heritage. |
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