For much of the nineteenth century, Black workers, both enslaved and free, dominated the ship caulking trade. The work was dangerous and demanding, but it also gave some Black Baltimoreans a path to economic power and autonomy, allowing them to buy their freedom, purchase property, support their families, and build community institutions. Among Baltimore’s best-known Black ship caulkers was Frederick Douglass.
On this episode of Maryland Unfolded, host Dr. Kalima Young speaks with architectural historian Sarah Groesbeck about Baltimore’s Black ship caulkers, the lives they built along the waterfront, and efforts to preserve the historic Ship Caulkers’ Houses in Fells Point. Groesbeck is a board member of the Friends of the Ship Caulkers’ Houses and the Society for the Preservation of Federal Hill and Fells Point…