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Museum tells story of industry in Baltimore City
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The Museum of Industry pays tribute to Baltimore's industrial past.
BALTIMORE (Map, News) - The noise is startling.
Giant wheels turn foot-wide belts around the ceiling and walls, somehow turning and creating grooves in a fist-sized piece of bright silver metal on a table-sized lathe.
Originally the fitting would have been used during the Great Baltimore Fire of 1904 to attach fire hoses to water sources.
Today, the machinery is used in The Baltimore Museum of Industry to show patrons the history of machinery in the city.
“It’s important for us to remember our industrial past,” said Jay Ouellette, education intern at the museum.
The museum is in a building that once housed the Platt Oyster Cannery, the last existing can company in Baltimore City, said Jessica Williams, director of marketing and events.
“This is actually just where a lot of immigrants worked,” she said. “During the summertime, they usually canned oysters and during the wintertime, they usually canned fruit.”
The cannery exhibit features a steam retort machine, one of the predecessors to pasteurization techniques used to sterilize food today.
The floors in the cannery section are original to the factory. Giant photographs of plant workers line the walls.
Working models of various printing presses are across the hall from the cannery. There, museum patrons can help staff make prints to take home. “When you come here, there are things that are hands-on for kids, but we also talk about the history,” Williams said.
In addition to machinery, the museum is also home to a replica of a garment-making factory.
“Many immigrants came to Baltimore with garment-making knowledge,” Ouellette said. “[The museum] shows how immigrants effected Baltimore and how they effected our country.”
Ann McAlpin, 64, has visited the museum five times since she moved to Baltimore City four years ago.
“I think it’s important to know the history of the area you live in or are visiting and this really does give a good history of the area and inventions that are local,” she said.
Mary Pavlik, 39, of Hazelton, Pa., visited Baltimore City several times, but never came to the museum.
“I never realized so much was started here,” she said.
al.robinson@baltimoreexaminer.com
IF YOU GO
WHAT: Baltimore Museum of Industry
WHERE: 1425 Key Highway, Baltimore
WHEN: 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays; 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sundays
ADMISSION: Adults $10, senior citizens and students $6, and children younger than age 4 free
INFO: 410-727-4808 or thebmi.org
