Going home with Mike
Wednesday, June 11 2008 | Comments (0)
A long way from Baltimore.
Mike Rowe spends around 300 days a year on the road filming Dirty Jobs. His home is now a motel room in whichever town he happens to be working in at the time, but it wasn't always so. Mike origoinally hails from Baltimore, Maryland.
Mike owes that city a lot. It was there that he found the opera - the beginning of it all. He attended Overlea High School and the Community College of Baltimore County at the Essex campus. Later he graduated from Towson University, also in Maryland. He's also performed in several commercials and narrated several shows while still there. The city was kind to him, so what's it like to the average person?
Baltimore is the largest city in Maryland with a population of about 650,000. Baltimore is also the 20th largest metropolitan area in the country. It is a major seaport, providing mostly to midwestern markets.
Baltimore was the second leading port entry for immigrants in the 1800s. It was once an industrial town, but it now a service sector-oriented town. The largest employer is Johns Hopkins University and the hospital.
The present city was formed July 30, 1729, and is named after Cæcilius Calvert, Lord Baltimore, who was the first Proprietary Governor of the Province of Maryland - this name came from a place in Ireland. Cæcilius Calvert was a son of George Calvert who was awarded the Barony of Baltimore in County Cork Ireland in 1625 by King James I of England. George Calvert became the first Lord Baltimore.
Baltimore grew quickly during the 18th century as a granary for sugar-producing colonies in the Caribbean. Baltimore's shorter distance from the Caribbean, compared to other large port cities such as New York City and Boston, reduced transportation time and minimized the spoilage of flour.
Baltimore played a key part in events leading to and including the American Revolution. City leaders such as Jonathan Plowman Jr. moved the city to join the resistance to British taxation. Baltimore joined other cities in protesting Boston's punishment by the British by banding together the merchants to sign agreements to not import from or export to Britain.
During the War of 1812, the city's Fort McHenry came under attack by British forces near the harbor after the British had burned Washington, D.C. Known today as the Battle of Baltimore, U.S. forces won by repulsing joint land and naval attacks.
Francis Scott Key, a local lawyer being held captive on a British ship near the fort, observed the bombardment and wrote what became "The Star-Spangled Banner" as a poem recounting the attack.
Baltimore at night.
In the years that followed, Baltimore's population continued to grow, due to increased commerce not only abroad but also with points west in the interior of the United States. The construction of the federally funded National Road (a route now followed by U.S. Route 40) and the privately funded Baltimore & Ohio Railroad made Baltimore a major shipping and manufacturing center.
Maryland remained part of the Union during the Civil War, despite the fact that many of the blacks living there were free. Slavery was outlawed in Maryland by the state Constitution of 1864.
The Great Baltimore Fire on February 7, 1904, destroyed over 1,500 buildings in 30 hours and forced most of the city to rebuild. The city grew in area through a series of annexations of new suburbs from the surrounding counties, the last being in 1918.
In recent years, efforts to redevelop the downtown area have led to a
revitalization of the Inner Harbor. Up until the late 1970s, the harbor had been merely abandoned warehouses full of rats and rotting piers.
Now it is a city bustling with workers, although not all as dirty Mike. Only a city built on manual labor and dirty jobs could create a a worker like Mike.
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