The Amiable Baltimoreans

The first umbrella in America and a Washington monument that predates the one in the nation’s capital were raised in Baltimore. A renowned beauty of the city, Betsy Patterson, married Jerome Bonaparte, but was forbidden by her brother-in-law, Napoleon, from ever setting foot in France. A century later, Wallis Warfield, another Baltimorean, made her own assault on European royalty. Baltimore is the city of Babe Ruth and H.L. Mencken and the final resting-place of Edgar Allan Poe. ＂The gastronomic metropolis of the Union,＂ according to Oliver Wendell Holmes, it is also the home of Bromo-Seltzer.

First published in 1951, The Amiable Baltimoreans presents 250 years of anecdotal history about the city--its buildings, its institutions, its customs, and most of all, its people. Informative, amusing, and sometimes discomforting, it offers an incomparable look into the city’s past and revealing insight into the way it seemed to one informed observer thirty years ago.

Francis F. Beirne was an associate editor of the Baltimore Sunpapers who, for many years, wrote a syndicated column under the name Christopher Billopp. The Amiable Baltimoreans was originally part of the Society of America Series, a group of ＂independent volumes by distinguished writers devoted to the important cities and sections of the country.＂