This museum dedicated to Baltimore’s industrial history is fittingly housed in an 1889 building formerly utilized for the packing of oysters, fruit, and vegetables from the Eastern Shore. By that time, canning was the city’s second-largest industry. Baltimore had established itself as a major national trade and commerce hub due to its geographic location—the westernmost port on the Atlantic seaboard—and infrastructure as the site of the first American commercial railroad, which linked the Port of Baltimore with interior farmlands.
Among the many stories in the museum’s various galleries, visitors can discover the Jewish immigrant from Nazi Germany who invented that most Baltimore of flavors—Old Bay seasoning. Visitors can also learn about rise and fall of Maryland’s largest employer, Bethlehem Steel, and the linotype machine, described by Thomas Edison as “the eighth wonder of the world.”