The Ghosts of Johns Hopkins

Johns Hopkins destroyed his private papers so thoroughly that no credible biography exists of the Baltimore Quaker titan. One of Americas richest men and the largest single shareholder of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, Hopkins was also one of the citys defining developers. In The Ghosts of Johns Hopkins, Antero Pietila weaves together a biography of the man with a portrait of how the institutions he founded have shaped the racial legacy of an industrial city from its heyday to its decline and revitalization. From the destruction of neighborhoods to make way for the mercantile buildings that dominated Baltimores downtown through much of the 19th century to the role that the president of Johns Hopkins University played in government sponsored Negro Removal that unleashed the migration patterns that created Baltimores existing racial patchwork, Pietila tells the story of how one mans wealth shaped and reshaped the life of a city long after his lifetime.