Dragging the Waters: Pestilence, Policing, and the Public Good in Postbellum Baltimore

Abstract

This article argues that urban governance in its modern form emerged through the coherence of three complementary elements: state-backed capital growth, austere administrations of social services, and an encompassing police state that worked to legitimize itself as an ally and protector of commercial capitalism. While this dynamic might sound familiarly current, this article details how its roots were well visible in the post-Civil War United States. Municipal government abetted capital growth by adopting an unquestioned acceptance that what was good for business was good for the public. Crucially, the “public” in the postbellum United States was not a utopic or abstracted sanctuary in which a cohesive citizenry gained equal access. In investigating the uneven deployment of resources allocated by city agencies and emergent inequalities within booming commercial relations, it becomes clear that the public good referred to the output generated through the marriage between local government, capital, and municipal police.