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Photo courtesy of Aaron Henkin

by Beth Maloney and Auni Gelles How do you tell an enormous and complicated story, make it accessible to as many people as possible (during a global pandemic), respect varying individual experiences and opinions, and show just how important that story is? One answer: Use every tool you have.  In this vein, we are thrilled […]

Eddie Bartee Jr. and Eddie Bartee Sr., photographed by J. M. Giordano. Three generations of Bartees worked at Sparrows Point and became union activists.

The Bethlehem Steel community lost a beloved figure when Eddie Bartee Sr. passed away in March at age 85. The son and nephew of steelworkers, he grew up in the company town of Sparrows Point and followed his father into the mill in 1955. The first African American president of Local 2609, he was a […]

The Titan entering the Sparrows Point dry dock

By Ken Jones In a previous post I shared the story of the Sparrows Point Shipyard. One of the significant features of the yard was the large 1,200’ x 200’ flexible building basin (dry dock) that went into operation in 1971. At the time of its construction it was one of the largest dry docks […]

by Joel Miller “If you want to see all we recommend in the ideal public school, go to Sparrows Point.”   –M. Bates Stephens, Maryland State Schools Superintendent, 1906 [1] A company town might seem an odd place to find innovative public schooling, but Sparrows Point’s history provides exactly that. Before Bethlehem Steel occupied the […]

This c. 1949 aerial photo illustrates the shipyard’s proximity to the steel plant.

By Ken Jones As mentioned in my previous posts on the Baltimore Yards and Fairfield Yard, I have been helping process and catalogue the BMI’s Bethlehem Steel collection. As I do my work, I find myself reading the materials or closely looking at the photos I am processing. I’ve become fascinated by this collection of […]

The BMI’s Executive Director, Anita Kassof, shared this image of the museum’s Bethlehem Steel Whirley crane that was used at the Fairfield shipyard during WWII to build Liberty and Victory ships: “This was one of the last photos I took of the BMI’s campus before we closed for the coronavirus. I miss seeing the crane on the skyline each morning as I round the bend of Key Highway on my way to work.”

By Beth Maloney and Auni Gelles The Covid-19 pandemic has changed not only the nature of work for so many across our city but also the ways we are connecting, communicating, and staying close to one another. Even though the BMI is closed, we are working remotely and thinking about how to adapt our existing […]

The busy Fairfield shipyards pictured during WWII, from the BMI’s collections.

by Ken Jones As mentioned in my previous post I have been processing and cataloging the Museum’s Bethlehem Steel collection. As I did my work, I found myself reading the materials or closely looking at the photos I was processing. I became fascinated by Bethlehem’s collection of shipyards in Baltimore – Sparrows Point, the Baltimore […]

The Liberty Ship S. S. Charles Carroll being released from way #2 at Bethlehem Steel Fairfield Shipyard during World War II.

by Ken Jones Being a mid-century born native Baltimorean I was always well aware of “The Point.” I had an uncle that worked there, and a neighbor or two as well. As a kid I knew that they worked there because of the orange dust on their cars or because they had more vacation days […]

The ‘A’ Coke Oven Battery at Sparrows Point, c. 1982, from the BMI’s Bethlehem Steel Collection.

by Joseph Abel “You had to dance with the fire a little bit.” In our last post, Deb Weiner recalled highlights from her interview with Roy Hoover, a longtime crane operator in the Bethlehem Steel shipyards. This week, we get a view from the ground with the reminiscences of Gordon Davis, a jack-of-all-trades who worked […]

Veteran crane operator Roy Hoover in front of the BMI’s historic shipyard crane

by Deb Weiner Editor’s Note: Museum staff were saddened to learn of Roy Hoover’s passing in September 2020. We’re grateful to Roy for sharing insights from his career and ensuring these memories are preserved for future generations.   “Swaying in the wind, you get used to it.” We recently started recording oral histories of people who […]