Red Emma’s

The story of the little neighborhood of Stone Hill starts with the emergence of Baltimore as a major port; the voracious need for canvas in the age of sail; the assemblage of capital to harness water power, build mills, install machinery; and to construct housing for the workers who operated that machinery. These forces also swept jobs away as synthetics created new challenges and spinning and weaving moved South. Guy Hollyday understands and tells the big story of Stone Hill from early in the 20th century through a series of changes that influenced the community, including the boom years of the World Wars, the privation of the Depression, and the closing of the mills in 1972. Trains chugged along Stony Run, and then they didn't. Open fields became houses. One by one small grocery stores opened, one by one they closed. The oldest interviewees remember a period of company-owned housing, no indoor plumbing, and ill-heated, crowded houses. Guy Hollyday is an old-timer in a neighborhood that continues to evolve. In the 21 years since the publication of the first edition of this book, Stone Hill has continued to change, to grow more affluent, and more a part of the city as the old mills along the Jones Falls Valley are converted to apartments, offices, artist studios, and restaurants...