Category Archives: 1850s

Plug Uglies: The Gang with Their Own City

By Nick Dupree (Yesteeyear.com, 4/11/2012) “…The Plug Uglies grew and grew to be the most powerful and feared club of nativist thugs in history, the term “plug ugly” itself becoming genericized to mean any such stovepipe hat-wearing street tough. While … Continue reading

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Awl-Mighty Mobs

By Brennen Jensen (Baltimore City Paper, 10/28/1998) On Nov. 3, Baltimoreans (well, about half of them anyway) will march to the polls to vote. Public schools will be closed and the evening’s sitcoms will be interrupted as the results trickle … Continue reading

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“Disagreeable” Child Corpses Stink Up Baltimore Streets in the 1850s

(The Baltimore Sun, 8/21/1850) “Disagreeable. — The practice of conveying to the grave, in carriages, the bodies of deceased children, is provoking the censure of many ministers of this city. They say that in many instances the smell of the … Continue reading

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Husband, Wife and Unborn Child Killed by Bags of Batshit, 1854

Horrible Tragedy in Baltimore (The New York Times, August 23, 1854) On. Saturday last, at dinner time, at Fells Point, an industrious German, who had been engaged in unloading a ship, was, with his wife, seated upon a bag of … Continue reading

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