Wilmington to Fort McHenry Great American Railroad Journeys

I have crossed the Atlantic to ride the railroads of America,

with a new travelling companion.

Published in 1879, my Appletons' General Guide will steer me

to everything that's novel,

beautiful,

memorable,

or curious

in the United States.

Amen.

As I cross the continent, I'll discover America's gilded age,

when powerful tycoons launched a railway boom that tied

the nation together and carved out its future as a superpower.

I'm continuing my journey south.

Indeed, I shall be crossing the Mason-Dixon Line, the boundary

between Pennsylvania, Maryland and Delaware, which,

after Pennsylvania abolished slavery in 1781,

also became the frontier between the slave states and the free states.

This will be my opportunity to reflect on the divisions

between north and south that untied the United Sates,

and on the legacy that they've left to America today.

On this journey I began in the cradle of independence,

Philadelphia,

and continued through the American Civil War battlefield of Gettysburg.

I'm turning south to Baltimore, in Maryland,

before taking in the nation's capital of Washington DC.

I'll then continue to Richmond, Virginia, finishing in Jamestown,

the first permanent English settlement in North America.

Today, starting in Wilmington, I head to Newark on the historical

boundary between the northern and southern states.

Crossing into Maryland, I visit Havre de Grace.

'I explore Baltimore,

beginning with the first passenger railroad in the United States.

I take in the city's most famous institution

and drive the gritty streets of East Baltimore.

I'll end at the spot where the American national anthem was born.

'Along the way, I ride a giant of the railroads.'

HOOTER BLOWS

The drama of an American locomotive bears no comparison with

anything in Europe.

'Discover the explosive origins of an American powerhouse.'

POP!

Whoa!

What a magnificent noise.

I'll find out about life on the wrong side of the tracks...

I'd been to close to 200 funerals by the time I graduated high school.

..and sink my claws into a local delicacy.

Can you give me any idea what's in that sauce?

Absolutely not. That's a secret recipe.

SHE LAUGHS

I've crossed from the state of Pennsylvania

into the state of Delaware,

and my first stop is the city of Wilmington.

On the site of an early Swedish colony,

it came under British rule in 1664, and takes its name

from the Earl of Wilmington, a favourite of King George II.

My guidebook tells me

that Wilmington is the chief city of the state of Delaware,

"regularly laid out, with streets at right angles,

"the principle ones being paved with stone.

"The buildings are uniformly of brick."

It's on the main railway line between Washington

and New York City, but most of us just pass it by, and I've been

surprised to discover that it is a major industrial city,

on America's mighty East Coast.

Wilmington has long been an important

port on the Delaware River.

And when the railroads came here in 1837,

it became a hub for East Coast trade.

HOOTER BLARES

During the 19th century, a number of private railroads were built.

I'm off to visit one that still runs today,

the Wilmington & Western Railroad.

When I swap my colourful jackets for my dirty overalls it's

a pretty good sign that I'm going to ride on a heritage railway!

Hello.

Hello, my name is Phoebe Snow.

How do you do? You are the most beautiful vision in white.

-Oh, thank you!

-Tell me your story, Phoebe Snow.

From 1900 to 1917, I rode the railroad,

advertising clean burning anthracite coal, telling people that

Phoebe says and Phoebe knows that soot and cinders spoil good clothes.

So she keeps her dress bright and white

by riding the road of anthracite.

MICHAEL LAUGHS

-Like that?

-Love it!

-There are many more where that one came from.

The fictional character of Phoebe Snow was used to advertise

the railroad's latest modern features, from clean burning coal

to electric lighting, and dining cars to restrooms.

That was an innovative period for the railroad.

It was just growing and growing, tying this country together.

It made us what we are and we come back to it today in hopes of

reminding people of what it meant to our history and where we came from.

Phoebe, it's been so delightful to meet a good,

-clean Delaware girl like you.

-Indeed!

Nice to meet you as well, sir.

If you'll excuse me, I have to get about my business.

-How are you? Hello.

-Hi.

-Hello, you must be Tommy.

-Hello, good to meet you. Yes.

-I'm Michael. Hello, Michael.

-Hello, John.

-John, good to see you.

So, what a wonderful railway.

How long does it been a heritage railway?

-Since 1966. 2016 is our 50th season.

-Congratulations.

Thank you very much.

'Conductor to 114. You are clear to proceed west.

114, clear to go west, here we go.

If you'd like to do the honours, sir.

Two long.

HOOTER BLASTS

HOOTER BLASTS

And the bell.

BELL RINGS

I love that, don't you love American locomotives with

their great big, long horns and their bells?

Off we go!

HOOTER BLASTS

The drama of an American locomotive bears no comparison with

anything in Europe.

HOOTER BLASTS

Tommy, what was this railway originally?

It was originally built as the Wilmington & Western Railroad,

and the line opened in 1872.

By the 1880s, it had failed

and was purchased by the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad.

When it was the Baltimore & Ohio, what was it doing,

freight and passengers?

Yes, this served the Red Clay Valley

for freight, passengers and US Mail.

And believe it or not, this little valley was just teeming with

industry and farms and people and all kinds of mills.

During the 1920s, demand for rail services on this branch line fell,

and in the 1950s, closure loomed.

A group of volunteers began to lease the tracks at weekends,

and now own and run a section of the railroad.

-How long have you been associated with it?

-Since 1981.

-That's a good long time.

-It's a long time.

Do you think the American public is as engaged with railways as,

say, the British public?

I think maybe the British public is a little more engaged.

It's more of a train culture over there, where we have

a bit of a car culture here.

The line takes tourists on a 20-mile round trip,

along and across the Red Clay Creek, giving them a taste of

the heyday of the railroads

before they were eclipsed by the automobile.

And thousands come each year to experience it.

Excuse me.

Ah.

Do you mind me asking why you've taken the train ride today?

The reason I've taken the train today is because my husband's dream

-to ride a train for the first time.

-How have you found it today?

-How do I like this?

-Yeah.

-I love it. I'm excited.

It's the first time I've ever been on a train.

-How old are you, sir, may I ask, roughly?

-52. 52.

52 years without being on a train.

I always wanted to, but this is the first time. I love it.

Looks like my stop. Bye!

The old mills of Red Clay Creek are long gone,

and I'm keen to know more about America's 19th-century

economic boom and the part that the railroads played in it.

Led by my guidebook,

I'm heading to the countryside north of Wilmington city.

Appletons' tells me that,

"Wilmington's manufactures embrace shipbuilding, cotton

"and wool, flour mills, shoe and leather factories,

"and powder mills."

Here on the outskirts of the city,

on the banks of the Brandywine River,

it's time to discover the city's explosive past.

In my hunt for this industrial heritage,

I've come across a most unusual sight.

I had not expected to find a chateau in the Delaware countryside.

You may not be surprised to know that this belonged to a Frenchman,

the magnificently named Eleuthere Irenee du Pont,

who had been imprisoned during the French Revolution

and arrived in the United States as a political refugee in 1799.

He established a company which has gone down in history as DuPont,

and made an enormous contribution to the United States,

and in particular to its military.

Du Pont founded a gunpowder mill here in 1802, at a time

when this burgeoning nation had a great need of explosives,

first for construction and later for the battlefield.

Still based in Wilmington, DuPont today is one of the biggest

chemical companies in the world.

I'm meeting archivist Lucas Clawson to find out

about its 19th-century beginnings.

-Hello, Lucas.

-Hello.

Lucas, I'm in ecstasy, a beautiful river valley

and a railway line running through it.

What was it that made Monsieur du Pont go into gunpowder?

He had a lot of experience in gunpowder, actually.

He learnt chemistry from Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier in France,

who ran the French national black powder manufactory at Essone.

What brought him out here to this quite remote spot?

First of all, water power.

You know, there's a lot of drop in the Brandywine River,

so it's the perfect place to power your machinery with water.

And secondly, it's remote - in case there's an explosion,

there's no worries about blowing anyone up.

'At one time, this was one of the largest industrial sites

'in the eastern United States.'

So, you told me it was water power.

How does it work?

Well, the first thing you have to do is start the water.

The apparatus here before us is called the sluice gate.

What I'll have to do...is turn this handle...

..which opens up the cover to a pipe...

It takes a few seconds. There's a large pipe that goes underground.

Once it fills up with water you can hear the turbines start.

You certainly can.

Shall we go and have a look at what you've caused to happen down there?

Yes, absolutely.

'Gunpowder was made from charcoal, potassium nitrate and sulphur,

'which needed to be mixed together in water.'

Lucas, that is the most unexpected and magnificent sight,

these enormous rollers powered by water.

-And they were grinding up the powder, were they?

-Yes, exactly.

What sort of precautions could they take to minimise

the danger of accidents?

The main thing to do was to not have people inside the buildings

while these were operating.

Also, workers were supposed to have shoes that didn't have any

type of metal in the soles.

And also, as you walk through the powder yards,

there's a narrow-gauge metal railway,

but as the tracks go in front of each building they turn to wood.

That way there's no chance that the wheels on the cars will make a spark.

So the United States has a Civil War,

and we're very near the dividing point of North and South.

Du Pont was with which side?

Henry du Pont, who ran the factory at that period,

was an adamant Unionist.

Whenever southern states seceded, he cut them off completely.

So how important was his powder to the Union's success, do you think?

The DuPont factory produced 40% of all powder used by all

the United States Armed Forces.

They produced over a million pounds of black powder a year

from 1862 to the end of the war.

And what made DuPont's gunpowder dominate the market was

the high quality of the product.

-Michael, I want to introduce you to Angelica.

-Hello.

-Hello.

She will show you this historical piece of machinery called

an eprouvette.

That's the French word for a gunpowder tester.

So what do you have to do?

Well, I have loaded this chamber with about a gram of powder.

I close the lid.

Once I light the fuse, we'll hopefully have a small

explosion which will make the wheel turn.

The wheel has numbers on it, so the further the wheel turns,

the higher the number,

the bigger the explosion, the better the powder.

-Ooh. Do you mind if I light the fuse?

-Please, go ahead.

FUSE FIZZES

POP!

Whoa!

What a magnificent noise!

So, it sent it back a long way.

Yeah, we have some pretty good powder.

It went almost all the way round.

Angelica, that was fantastic.

I go out with a bang.

It's the morning of a new day, and I'm leaving Wilmington

to continue my journey towards the southern sates.

Delaware is bordered to its north by Pennsylvania

and to its west by Maryland,

and I'm travelling towards the point where all three states meet.

I'm headed for Newark, Delaware, which Appletons' tells me

is the seat of several excellent educational institutions.

I'll be going to the University of Delaware.

"And four miles beyond, the train crosses the celebrated

"Mason and Dixon's Line, the boundary between the northern

"and southern states as it enters Maryland."

Now, I know something about that demarcation but nothing

of its history, and it's time to draw a line under my ignorance.

Newark is relatively small, with a population of just 30,000,

and students make up more than half of that number.

The University of Delaware is one of the oldest in the Unites States,

and with the Mason-Dixon Line running by it,

I want to find out what its students know of this historical boundary.

May I ask you what you think is

the significance of the Mason-Dixon Line?

-Isn't is the divider between...

-The North and the South.

..North and the South.

Historically, it was the clear delineation between the North

and the South, and since then cultures have kind of

built a reputation off what is defined as the North and the South.

-What are those cultural differences?

-They're more conservative.

A lot more conservative. And up north, they're a lot more liberal.

The big thing that hits me is the music.

North of the Mason-Dixon Line, it's a lot of hip-hop,

a lot of rock and roll.

Once you go more south, it's blues, country.

Would you feel when you cross from Delaware or from Pennsylvania

into Maryland that you've reached the South?

I feel you wouldn't.

When I think of the South, I think of more like Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina.

Maybe Virginia, but definitely not Maryland.

-When would you think you'd reached the South?

-West Virginia.

Virginia.

-Hm-mm. Not Delaware?

-No.

-Not Maryland?

-No.

-Parts of Maryland.

Cecil County, maybe.

But mostly Virginia and West Virginia.

The Mason-Dixon Line may today be outdated as a dividing line

between two ways of life,

but for nearly 100 years it was the boundary between the southern

slave states and the non-slave states of the North.

Its origins, however, have nothing to do with ideology.

I'm meeting geologist Sandy Schenck of the Delaware Geological Survey.

Sandy, why is it necessary to draw a line, and when?

Well, in the 1760s, there was a dispute between Lord Calvert

of the Maryland colony and William Penn of Pennsylvania

over exactly where the boundary between those two colonies went.

And so how was that to be settled?

In England there were two astronomers that worked for the

National Observatory and they were Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon.

And they were hired by the courts in England to come to the colonies

and divide this peninsula in half.

And then go west and divide Maryland

and Pennsylvania at the northern boundary up here.

Mason and Dixon surveyed,

and in 1768 settled the boundary between Maryland

and Pennsylvania, leaving what later became

the state of Delaware as part of Pennsylvania.

It seems to me that when Pennsylvania abolishes

slavery in 1781, the Mason-Dixon Line assumes a new significance.

Would that be right?

Probably at that time it did divide what people thought of the North

and the South.

Even though Maryland was a slave state, it never joined

the Confederacy

but slaves, certainly,

escaping from Confederate states, heading north for safety,

would consider

crossing the Mason-Dixon Line as a sign

of being safe finally, they're in the North.

Less than 20 years after the land dispute,

this became a line that would split the nation for almost 100 years.

And for black Americans,

life on either side would be dramatically different.

I'm continuing my journey across the line

and heading to the southern states, beginning in Maryland.

The train is crossing the Susquehanna River,

the greatest river of the eastern United States.

At 444 miles,

the Susquehanna is the longest river on the East Coast, running

through New York, Pennsylvania and Maryland, before it

pours into Chesapeake Bay, the largest estuary in North America.

I'm alighting at Aberdeen, and making my way to the pretty

city of Havre de Grace, where the river meets the bay.

Appletons' tells me that, "at Havre de Grace in Maryland,

"the Susquehanna River is crossed on a lofty wooden bridge a mile long."

Well, that has been replaced by a newer structure,

but it's still the case that every train between New York City

and Washington DC must cross the mighty Susquehanna at this point.

When the railroads arrived in 1837,

their tracks ended at each bank of the river

and for 29 years a ferry service connected the two

until the Susquehanna was finally spanned by a bridge.

The landscape has been both asset and obstacle

since the first British colonists arrived, more than 400 years ago.

'I'm meeting Joel Dunn, from the Chesapeake Conservancy.'

Well, here we are, on the very beautiful

banks of the Susquehanna River. Who was responsible for exploring it?

In modern-day history, it sort of started in 1608,

when Captain John Smith came as part of a venture capital company

from Britain to North America to explore the Chesapeake Bay.

Captain John Smith was one of the first English settlers,

and played a pivotal role in the colonisation of America.

Working for the Virginia Company,

he explored and charted this unknown territory, producing journals

and maps that were to be relied upon by settlers for decades to come.

But these so-called new lands were actually home

to 75,000 Native Americans.

This is the map he made when he came here.

Notice the exquisite detail of each river that he drew with

a compass and a pen when he explored the Chesapeake Bay.

We're right here, on the Susquehanna River.

And this is one of the Susquehannock Indians that John Smith met

when he first came here.

What sort of a relationship did he have with the Native Americans?

Smith had a mixed relationship depending on which tribe,

but for the most part it was fairly peaceful.

John Smith knew that he depended upon the Native Americans

because they knew where the food was,

they knew where the best places to live and find fresh water...

John Smith depended upon their information to create

much of this map.

It wasn't simply about map making.

Like all early European settlers, their first job was to survive.

The first permanent English settlement in North America,

they were based at Jamestown, and they were starving.

So Smith was out looking for food,

looking for cultures to trade with, to learn information on how

to survive here in North America, in the Chesapeake Bay.

Can you imagine coming to this river for the first time

without any power and electricity, no Google Maps, no phones,

not knowing what you'd encounter?

He was a really extraordinary individual.

Hey, Garret.

'I'm taking to the water for a feel of what John Smith would have

'experienced and to take a closer look at the wildlife of the region.'

Garret, what sort of wildlife will we see on the Susquehanna?

We'll see plenty of bald eagles, ducks, hawks of all kinds.

Lots of migratory birds come through here on their way from Canada

down to parts of the southern US.

Look, there's deer swimming in the river.

In a few moments we've seen bald eagles,

we've seen great blue herons, we've seen ducks,

and we've seen four young deer bathing in the river.

This is just a paradise of nature.

What you've seen is a touch of wildness, you know, the wildness

this place used to have, the wildness that this place still has.

We protect those special places for future generations

and we celebrate the Chesapeake as a national treasure.

This part of the United States bears the imprint of talented Englishmen.

Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon established a boundary that

endures to this day.

Not long after Captain John Smith explored this region,

the English colony of Virginia imported black slaves from Africa,

beginning a system that has haunted the United States

throughout its existence and gave a significance to the line

between North and South that Mason and Dixon could never have foreseen.

Today I'll explore Baltimore via the city's rail networks,

starting with the first passenger railroad in the United States

and crossing town to the city's most famous institution.

After taking a drive through the gritty streets of East Baltimore

I'll end at the spot where the American national anthem was born.

My next stop will be Baltimore, which Appletons' tells me

"is the chief city of Maryland

"and one of the most important in the United States.

"The present site of Baltimore was chosen in 1729,

"and its name was given in honour of Lord Baltimore,

"the proprietor of Maryland."

Now, I didn't know that, and the state of Maryland was named

after the wife of King Charles I,

so, one way and another,

British aristocracy and royalty have left an important mark

on the world's greatest republic.

I'm arriving in this city on an Amtrak service -

America's principle passenger rail operator -

which, in the 1970s, inherited a network spanning the entire country.

That network owes much to the city of Baltimore,

the birthplace of the passenger railroad.

Baltimore Penn Station really is a treat for the weary traveller,

with these superb glass domes in its ceiling.

It was built more than a century ago and decorated with Tiffany glass.

Fantastic!

Baltimore's fortunes have for ever been tied to its location,

sitting on a deep natural harbour of Chesapeake Bay

which leads into the Atlantic Ocean.

In the early 19th century, the city grew to be

one of the largest seaports on the eastern seaboard,

and when the railroad linked to Baltimore to the expanding Midwest,

it multiplied as a centre of industry and commerce.

For 20 years, in the mid-19th century,

it was the second-largest city in North America.

My guidebook tells me that,

"Two lines of European steamers now start from Baltimore's harbour,

"and through her, two great arteries of traffic -

"the Baltimore and Ohio and the Northern Central Railroads.

"The city is successfully competing for the trade

"of the north and north-west."

As the United States expanded to the west,

some statesmen feared that the country was becoming too big

and would fall apart,

but the railroads seemed to offer the solution.

As settlers spread westward, connections with those

remote territories became increasingly important.

One railroad originating in Baltimore rose to the challenge.

I've arranged a meeting with David Shackelford,

chief curator of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Museum.

-Dave, hello.

-How are you?

We meet in a spectacular roundhouse.

I mean, I assume it's an old turntable,

but built on the grand scale.

Oh, grand scale, indeed.

I mean, this is truly a crown jewel in Baltimore's railroad history,

and this particular roundhouse was built in 1884

and was designed as a passenger-car roundhouse.

Now, what was the origin of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad?

The origin dates back to the 1820s

and it's a pretty significant period in Baltimore's history

because it's a rival seaport,

so it's battling against New York, Boston, Charlestown, Philadelphia,

and basically it's all about commerce -

moving things from the interior of the United States

to the port and then out.

So they had known of this thing called a "railroad" in England,

and they decided to basically do the next best thing

to invent it yourself is steal that,

bring it to the United States and basically build their own railroad.

So the Baltimore and Ohio is actually charted in the 1820s,

before the Liverpool to Manchester Railway is opened,

which is reckoned to be the first intercity railway,

but I take it that it's not open before that point.

Construction begins July 4, 1828,

and it would actually begin service in 1830,

so, at that point, it's kind of interesting,

because there's only 23 miles of rail in the entire country,

and 13 miles would run from Baltimore to

a little town named Ellicott's Mills, Maryland,

so, in the grand scheme,

23 miles would grow to hundreds of thousands of miles.

With 3 million from investors,

the B&O Railroad expanded gradually at first,

but, by the time of my guidebook, it had spread across the Midwest,

all the way to the Mississippi River.

The first commercial rail route, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad,

laid the foundations for what was to become, in the 19th century,

America's most important industry.

Sadly, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad does not exist today.

What happened?

Very similar to what happened to a lot of railroads

in the late 1950s, '60s and '70s,

and for a variety of reasons,

which include a late transition from steam engine to diesel.

There was overregulation from the government

and basically it's the increase in the trucking and airline industry

that really take a major bite out of freight.

TRAIN WHISTLES

Could I see some of the highlights of your collection?

-I'd love to show you around.

-Thank you.

The first railways used wooden tracks and horse-drawn carts.

When steam engines replaced horses,

passenger carriages still drew on stagecoach design.

The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad originally imported its locomotives

from Great Britain, until Peter Cooper designed and built

America's first steam locomotive, the Tom Thumb.

It's one of the many engines at the museum.

So, this is an extraordinarily early locomotive. When does that date to?

Yeah, this locomotive dates back to the earliest days of the B&O - 1832.

And that's, you know, contemporary with Stephenson's Rocket.

This looks nothing like it.

And that was intentional.

The problem with the B&O track was it had sharp curves

and steep grades,

and so they decided initially to use horses,

and then eventually they would come up with these shorter,

narrower and squatter engine designs,

but from that would grow the modern American steam engine.

And, just judging by sight,

it looks like the track gauge is the same as Britain - 4'8½.

Yes, it is, and that was one of the technology transfers or "thefts"

that we like to refer to, is that when they came back,

they decided pretty early on to maintain that 4'8½ gauge.

We're cousins, after all.

The Baltimore Railroad depot was the scene of yet another landmark achievement

in 1844, when the first official telegraph message was received here.

TELEGRAPH CLICKS

-I'm sorry to interrupt you.

-Yeah, that's fine.

-My name's Michael.

-Jim.

Hello, Michael.

Hi, Hubert George.

Very good to see you, Hubert.

You're using some very historic telegraphy equipment here.

And the origins of the telegraph are linked, are they not,

with the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad?

Yes, the first practical demonstration, public demonstration

of telegraphy occurred here in Baltimore

at the Baltimore Ohio Railway Depot

so this is really a central location for the origins of telegraphy

in the United States.

Morse was the inventor of telegraphy, was he?

Morse is often called the inventor of telegraphy.

He developed a practical and very simple electromagnetic

telegraph system.

But he wasn't the sole inventor, but he was very good

at publicity and self-promotion.

Did he invent the code, the Morse code?

No, he didn't. That was primarily Alfred Vail, his assistant,

who was responsible for the code.

Alfred Vail took down the message sent by his employer Samuel Morse

from the US capital in Washington.

Each set of dots and dashes corresponded to

a letter of the English alphabet.

The code was transmitted using electrical signals over a wire.

Telegraphs and railways are natural bedfellows.

You can run the wires alongside the tracks - is that right?

That's correct. First of all,

the railways provided a ready right of way for telegraph bonds.

Additionally, in order to run a railroad safely,

you have to standardise time.

You can't have time being different at different locations along the right of way

and additionally, if you want to control train movements

over a broad territory in an efficient manner,

you have to have some form of instantaneous communications.

So to truly run a practical and efficient railway

you had to have the telegraph.

Hubert, I wonder if you would demonstrate to me

how this machinery works maybe by sending Jim a message.

All right, I'll send you a...

We're going to send the original message that

Mr Morse sent to Mr Vail on May 24th, 1864.

This is it.

"What hath God wrought" - that was the original message?

-That is correct.

-Presumably a biblical citation.

That's correct.

Hubert, how many years were you in telegraphy?

I learned code when I was 13 years old from my grandfather.

And I started to work as a telegraph operator

when I was 17 years old.

May I ask which years you were working for the railway?

1941 till 1965.

And I was promoted into a supervisor.

I'm a third generation Morse code writer.

My grandaddy and my daddy were both experts.

They could copy a message on a typewriter

and be talking to you on any subject you wanted to

and never miss a stroke.

It doesn't seem like you've forgotten your Morse code.

I haven't. I've gotten a little slower and rusty on it.

Didn't seem rusty to me!

HUBERT LAUGHS

The telegraph revolutionised long-distance communication

and laid the groundwork for the telephone, fax and internet

on which we depend today.

The rapid growth of the railroads created great wealth

for investors and prosperity for the city of Baltimore.

I'm hopping onto the single line of the Baltimore Metro System.

Originally built in the 1970s,

it was later extended to a hugely important Baltimore institution -

the Johns Hopkins Hospital, to which I'm headed.

My guidebook tells me that,

"the Johns Hopkins University was endowed with over 3 million

"by Johns Hopkins, a wealthy citizen who died in 1873,

"bequeathing an immense property to charitable purposes.

"The Johns Hopkins Hospital was endowed with over 2 million."

I'm on my way to the hospital

to witness this philanthropy on a grand scale.

During the later 19th century,

new millionaires emerged,

who made their names in retail, steel and the railroads,

and many of them used their fortunes to benefit philanthropic causes.

'I'm meeting Ronald Petersen,

President of the Johns Hopkins Hospital.'

Hello, Ron, I'm Michael.

-Hello, Michael. How are you?

-Very good to see you.

-What a spectacular place to meet.

-Yes, it is, indeed.

I've been reading about the spectacular philanthropy

of Johns Hopkins. Who was he?

Well, he was a very interesting individual -

a Quaker, merchant, banker, financier,

who was an early investor in the B&O Railroad.

In fact, he was on the board and amassed a great deal of stock.

I think he was the largest stockholder,

and he ended up giving away all of his wealth,

some 7 million, in 1873.

He endowed a university and a hospital -

an interesting combination.

Well, he had this vision that,

if it would be possible to collate a first-class university

with a first-class hospital,

then something special might be done for humankind.

By 1893, both the university and hospital had been built.

The founders hired four of the most impressive young physicians

of the time, offering them rare and tempting research opportunities.

Today, it's an internationally renowned institution,

occupying 30 buildings and employing around 41,000 people,

including 2,700 doctors.

I'm meeting Dr Edward McCarthy,

a Professor of Pathology and Orthopaedic Surgery.

So, Ed, was there a Pathology department at the beginning,

at the core of the hospital, as endowed by Johns Hopkins?

Yes, the Pathology department was the original foundation

of the hospital, founded by William Welch.

The laboratory... His laboratory was the first building on this campus,

and his mission was to get real strong science,

real strong pathology,

and medicine was built on top of that.

And what is it that you pathologists do?

You look at bones, you look at organs,

you look at tissue - what are you doing?

Well, the role of the pathologist is to, number one, make a diagnosis,

and above all, we are the teachers of other doctors,

informing them what their patient has,

what they should do about it

and what the prognosis of that particular disease is.

Would it be possible to have a look at what you're up to?

-Sure. Good.

-Thank you.

In their 123-year history, the Johns Hopkins institutions

have made some of the most far-reaching advances in medicine.

They were the first in America to develop kidney dialysis and CPR,

the first to introduce rubber gloves during surgery,

and the first to admit female students.

So, Michael, this is Dr Armin Kharrazian.

He is a pathology resident...

-How do you do?

-Nice to meet you. How are you?

..and he's looking at a thyroid gland right here.

That is a thyroid gland?

Yeah, so we have a thyroid gland. It was taken out yesterday.

I'll continue measuring the thyroid

and then after that they'll get processed in our lab

and we'll look under the microscope,

for any cancer or any other sort of disease in it.

As you look at that from the exterior,

is there anything self-evidently wrong with it?

Yeah, so, this one actually looks pretty good.

You can't really tell until we look under the microscope,

but it's probably a benign or a noncancerous process

-going on in there.

-But, nonetheless, the thyroid had to come out.

It had to come out. Yeah, exactly.

And every time you do that, you're learning more and more.

-Of course.

-Armin, thank you so much.

-Thank you.

-Great to talk to you.

Health care is today the largest employer in Baltimore,

where the Johns Hopkins institutions constitute a major industry.

To end my day, I'm visiting another Baltimore landmark.

Established in 1782,

Lexington Market is one of the oldest in the country.

I'm tempted by the local cuisine.

I've arranged a cooking lesson with Demi

at Faidley's Seafood,

a family business founded in 1886,

where they make an award-winning crab cake.

What makes crab cakes special in Baltimore?

-Oh, our crab meat.

-Yeah.

-The Maryland crab, it's the best crab in the world.

-Why?

Because of the Chesapeake Bay, the brackish water, they are very sweet.

They're called "blue", are they? Are they actually blue in any way?

Yes, they are. When they're live, they are a blue crab.

This one happens to be soft,

if it was a hard crab, he'd be biting me,

and so that's the colour,

-and then, when they're cooked, they turn orange.

-Wow.

OK, and so, you can eat them out of the shell

or this can of meat happens to be of Maryland crab meat,

but it's only the swimmer fin.

It's the biggest piece. It's the jumbo lump.

-Yes.

-It's absolutely wonderful.

It's only from the swimmer fin,

so it takes about 60 crabs to make a pound of crab meat.

Goodness. Demi, may I help you to make some crab cakes?

Absolutely. We add just a few ingredients.

We're going to start with this Maryland crab meat.

We're going to sprinkle a little bit of oat-based seasoning

over the top of the meat

and then we're going to toss in some crushed premium saltines,

and they're hand-crushed,

and I don't mean small pieces, but fairly dime-sized pieces.

'The crackers bind the crab cake together

'by absorbing the final ingredient - the family's home-made sauce.'

-Can you give me any idea what's in that sauce?

-Absolutely not.

That's a secret recipe.

So, we fold this sauce with the cracker,

and we're going to form it into a cake,

and the large cake size was actually the size of my mother's hands.

That's the perfect Maryland crab cake.

I would make one a different size, I guess, wouldn't I?

-Yeah, yours are a little bit bigger. OK.

-Let's have a go.

-So you put the crab on the bottom of your hand like that.

-Gently.

-And gently pack it together.

-And very gently pack it together.

And you can see - feel how delicate it is in your hand. Good job.

A little sloppy, but...

I'll fix it for you.

-Oh, well fixed. Look at that.

-There you go.

All fixed.

'The crab cakes are then baked in the oven for just five minutes.'

-Thank you.

-That's perfect.

-Wow.

Oh, the taste of the crab and that hint of the sauce. Lovely.

Beautiful, beautiful Maryland crab.

That's... That's perfection.

It's the second day of my stay in Baltimore.

I want to get under the skin of the city.

From the 17th until the 19th century, Maryland was a slave state,

and its proximity to the Mason-Dixon Line

attracted slaves on the run escaping to the free North.

In 1870, five years after the end of the American Civil War,

free African-Americans made up 17% of Baltimore's population.

Today, the majority of the population of Baltimore is black,

and recently, the city has been blighted by riots

and accusations against the police of racism and brutality.

I wonder, what is the connection

between the condition of the black community today

and America's dark history of the Civil War and slavery?

-D, hello. I'm Michael.

-How are you doing, Mike?

-D, nice to meet you.

-Good to see you.

-Are you going to take me for a ride?

-Yeah, let's go.

-Thank you.

'D Watkins, a one-time drug dealer,

'is now a university professor and writer.

'He's going to show me the neighbourhood of East Baltimore

'where he grew up.'

Yeah, so this is my old block, right here - Castle Street.

What was your neighbourhood like when you were a kid?

I grew up in the height of the crack era.

You almost had to develop an instinct to survive.

I'd been to close to 200 funerals by the time...

by the time I graduated high school.

How did you start out in life?

I started out on the streets.

Erm, I was a good kid, a good student, things like that,

then my older brother was murdered,

and I followed in his footsteps and went onto the streets for a while,

erm, selling drugs and things like that.

When you were selling drugs,

was that profitable and was it dangerous?

Both. When you live in a place like Baltimore,

where 97% of the people born in poverty die in poverty,

everybody's looking for an escape.

Some people escape by using it and some people escape by selling it.

I was just fortunate enough to make some money

and afford myself some opportunities.

The problems you're telling me about,

-are they confined to the black community?

-Yes.

Johns Hopkins University just completed a study that shows

a poor black person with some college has less of a chance

of getting a job than a poor white person who's done jail time,

so the system is way lopsided.

Give me an historical context.

What is the connection between the condition of the black community

of Baltimore today, and slavery?

What's the connection?

Well, you have a 270-some-year gap in education.

You know, slaves couldn't go to school. Slaves couldn't read.

Slaves couldn't take part in the American dream.

They wasn't even able to be in control of their own bodies,

let alone be able to get an opportunity to...

to create a life for themselves in this country.

'After getting his first degree,

'D went on to get a masters in teaching

'from the Johns Hopkins School of Education.

'Today, as an author and university professor,

'he's using his experience to inspire the next generation.'

I'm a writer. I work with young people. I train young journalists,

and my focus is literacy, teaching people how to read

and helping people become thinkers.

I know another guy who does financial literacy.

He teaches people what to do with their money.

I know another guy who is into fitness.

He has young kids running up and down the block, you know,

making sure they're not, you know, injecting themselves with poison,

and that they're healthy,

so all of these different moving parts

are needed to make real change,

and figuring out ways where we can...we can...

we can build with each other, support each other,

share ideas and things like that, is what's needed.

BELL RINGS Baltimore's Light Rail network

runs along the city's streets

towards my final destination, Fort McHenry.

BELL RINGS

Completed in 1803, the star-shaped fortification

occupies a headland at the mouth of the inner harbour.

Throughout the 19th century, it was the cornerstone of Baltimore's

defences, and the site of a very significant battle.

My guidebook tells me that

"the entrance to Baltimore Harbour is defended by Fort McHenry,

"which was unsuccessfully bombarded by the British fleet

"in the War of 1812."

In the short time that I've been in America,

I've discovered that Americans have a much clearer memory of this war

than the British do,

and that could be because,

just before the British forces reached this point,

they'd burnt down the White House.

'I'm meeting Fort McHenry Park Ranger Scott Sheads.'

Scott, why were the United States and United Kingdom

at war with each other between 1812 and 1814?

Well, some 37 years after the American Revolution,

which gave us our independence from Great Britain,

we had the Napoleonic Wars.

England and France caught in a global struggle, worldwide,

and the young America is caught up in this,

and so, both England and France have put economic blockades against us,

and so, in 1812, we declare war on Great Britain.

We certainly don't have the means or the money to

cross the Atlantic Ocean and invade England,

but we can invade Canada.

That's just up the road here, and so, if we can invade Canada,

we might be able to have England lessen the sanctions against us.

But it was a disaster.

The American forces were no match for the powerful

and experienced British Army,

who went on to mount further attacks.

So, in August of 1814,

50 British warships, 5,000 British troops,

march on Washington DC and defeat the American army,

twice their size, enter the nation's capital and burn the White House,

the President's house, the Capitol and other government buildings.

The glow of Washington is so powerful

that citizens here in Baltimore, 40 miles away,

could see the glow of Washington burning on the horizon,

and they knew Baltimore would be next.

And it was.

Not quite three weeks later,

British warships moved up the Patapsco River towards Fort McHenry.

The Battle for Baltimore raged for over 25 hours,

but a 1,000-strong force of citizens and soldiers held firm.

So, on that morning, September 14, at dawn's early light,

four young fifer and drummer boys come out,

and with them, they bring a large American flag,

and as the flag is hoisted,

those young fifer and drummer boys

play the national song of America - the Yankee Doodle.

MUSIC: Yankee Doodle

And the tune is heard by a young American on a ship in the harbour -

Francis Scott Key.

And from that vantage point,

he sees the flag going up for the first time,

and knows that the Americans have achieved a victory,

and so, in those few moments,

he is inspired to write four stanzas that will become known as

the national anthem of the United States.

-HE RECITES:

-"Oh, say, can you see, by the dawn's early light,

"what so proudly we held at the twilight's last gleaming?

"And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air,

"gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.

"Oh, say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave

"over the land of the free

-"and the home of the brave?"

-MUSIC: Star-Spangled Banner

Scott, I've so often heard the words of the Star-Spangled Banner.

I found them obscure and difficult to understand, but, of course,

coming here, now, it's all unravelled.

It's all absolutely clear.

Heroism at Fort McHenry inspired the Star-Spangled Banner anthem,

and when you hear an American crowd sing it,

their fervour and patriotism are impressive.

As the United States expanded,

the railways knitted together this vast country,

and, after the Civil War,

they helped to unify it across the Mason-Dixon Line,

but here in Baltimore,

you sense that there are two nations divided by a boundary of privilege.

One is predominantly white, the other predominantly black,

and no amount of singing about victory over the British

two centuries ago is going to bring them together.

The United States remains a work in progress.

'Next time, I'll pick up my spending money.'

This bundle is 80,000.

I've never held anything like that much money in my life.

'I'll visit the newsroom that revealed the Watergate scandal...'

It went from this break-in all the way to the White House.

'..before discovering how Abraham Lincoln met his end.'

And, from just a few inches, fired a shot

that hit him right behind the left ear.