Today I set off for The Baltimore Museum of Industry. Since the city's beginnings it has often been known as the working man's town and this museum depicts the history of the workers and small business owners who helped to make Baltimore the Greatest City in America.
Baltimore has long been recognized as a major industrial center and is home to the nation’s first passenger railway, the country's oldest gas company and the creation of the larger tennis racket head just to name a few.
The museum is housed in the old Platt & Company Cannery. At the turn of the century, the Inner Harbor was home to 80 cannery's which processed everything from fruits to vegetables to oysters.
Jacob Fussell, the father of ice cream industry got his start here in Baltimore. As the owner of a dairy farm he would turn the extra cream into ice cream to turn a profit. His ice cream was so popular that he ended up making the jump and started the first ice cream factory in the country. The first ice cream "trucks" were filled with ice and salt; too much of both the ice cream would be frozen solid and could not be sold. Here is a replication of the wagons which would roam the streets.
One of the coolest things in the museum was actually outside. The Working Point was created out of 90 tons of left over machinery from a variety of Baltimore's industries. My favorite part of the whole thing is the way the chain bends and folds giving fluidity to the rigid grouping of steel. Man my art history professor would be impressed with that one.
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