Labor Heritage in Southeast Baltimore
Tour Description
A tour of selected labor heritage sites in Southeast Baltimore created by Rachel Donaldson in 2014.
Locations for Tour
O'Connor's Liquors and the Steel Workers Organizing Committee
O'Connor's, a package store and restaurant, has been located since the early 1920s in the heart of Greektown at the corner of Eastern Avenue and Oldham Street. In the 1940s, this unassuming, two-story, brick building played a significant role in the…
Pemco International Corporation
Founded in 1911, the Pemco International Corporation site on Eastern Avenue is a reminder of the enduring environmental legacy of Baltimore’s industrial businesses. First known as the Porcelain Enamel Manufacturing Corporation, the company produced…
United Steel Workers Locals 2609 and 2610
Two aging union halls on Dundalk Avenue help the story of Baltimore’s steel industry. In 1942, steel workers had won their right to unionize and established the United Steel Workers’ of America. When the two-story tan brick building at the corner of…
Turner Station
Tucked away in the southeastern corner of Baltimore County, and separated from the rest of Sparrow’s Point by a creek, Turner Station is where many African American workers at Bethlehem Steel and nearby factories lived with their families from the…
Dundalk Town Center
Bethlehem Steel owned and operated Sparrow’s Point as a company town near the expansive mill complex from the 1890s through the early 1970s. In 1916, however, Bethlehem Steel departed from the model of company-owned housing when it commissioned the…
Speaker's Corner on Eastern Avenue
In the 1930s, when the managers at Bethlehem Steel remained staunchly opposed to unionization, labor activists at Sparrow’s Point faced real challenges. According to Ellen Pinter, men couldn’t wear union buttons for fear of losing their jobs. During…
International Seamen’s Union Headquarters, Seamen’s Defense Committee and National Maritime Union
At the corner of Broadway and Eastern Avenue, stands a modest three-story brick building with corbeling below a flat roof supported by heavy brackets and full cornice line. Over the course of the twentieth century, this building was home to three of…