How Does Hopkins Fit In?

Does Johns Hopkins — the man, the University, or the legacy — have anything to do it with this?

Yes, in an indirect way.

1873: Johns Hopkins' grant, both integrated and segregated.

When Johns Hopkins wrote a grant in 1873, he directed his trustees to form a new Orphans' Home for Black children and a Hospital for everyone, regardless of race. The letter contains hints of both segregtionist and integrationist policy. It indicates that Hopkins, much like his home city, straddled the line.

Notably, one of the trustees receiving the letter was John W. Garrett, president of the B&O Railroad.

The full letter can be viewed here.

Segregation: Hopkins wants an Orphans' Home for Black children specifically. This goes along with the idea of separation but equal accommodation that was increasingly popular in the state's transportation laws.

Integration: In the same letter, Hopkins wants the Hospital to accept all patients, no matter their race. This is more along the lines of integrationist policy. But he does specify that the Trustees should divide the wards... perhaps suggesting that he believes in separate but equal accommodaitons in the Hospital as well. This is similar to Judge Giles' rulings, such as with Alexander Thompson.

1898: The city was growing, and so was the University.

Johns Hopkins University began teaching students in the fall of 1876. With its renowed intstruction, the school quickly appealed to students from far outside Baltimore.

According to historian Henry Elliot Shepherd's 1898 history of the city, Hopkins had taught 3,146 students by the time of his writing. 34% of these were Baltimore residents, and another 7% came from elsewhere in Maryland. The other 59% came from "sixty-two other States and countries." Shepherd goes on to explain the the University was built on Howard Street, in the center of Baltimore. While it was originally meant to be temporary, the school was taking on more space, cementing its place as a central part of the city.

What does this mean? As Hopkins became a fixture of Baltimore, it was drawing in white students from across the country and the world. They witnessed the day-to-day impact of segregated transport, absorbing it as part of regular life. And when cases ruled that segregation was illegal, and Plessy later reinstated it, they saw the changing regulations take place on the train cars that crisscrossed their home.

For more information, see Shepherd's History of Baltimore, Maryland, pg. 54.

Hopkins and the B&O Railroad had a relationship.

According to Shepherd, the University was financially struggling at the end of the century. Baltimoreans provided "emergency funds" on two occasions, and the state of Maryland granted $100,000 in aid. What caused the problem? Sheperd refers to the B&O Railroad's invovlement with the University draining it of $150,000 annually.

Shepherd doesn't explain the nature of the connection or why the school was giving the B&O so much cash. John W. Garrett, president of the B&O, was an acquaintance of Johns Hopkins and an orignal trustee of the University. B&O railroad stock even made up the University's endowment in its earliest years. But the connection Shepherd refers to is unclear: Garrett died in 1884 and the stocks had been sold earlier.

For more information, see Shepherd's History of Baltimore, Maryland, pg. 56.