Baltimore was founded in 1729. For a generation it seemed no different from a dozen other small settlements springing up at the head of the Chesaeake Bay; its claim to distinction consisted of a blacksmith's shop, flour mill, and tobacco warehouse. Yet Baltimore was rated for a more dynamic future than its slow beginnings seemed to portend. Spurred by an agricultural revolution in the Maryland and Pennsylvania countryside as well as dramatic disruptions in the Atlantic economy, Baltimore at mid century began to Boom. By 1790 it had risen to become the new republic's fourth largest city with aspirations to overtake the three still ahead: New York, Philadelphia, and Boston. Although the Baltimore of the Jeffersonian era looked utterly unlike the colonial village from which it had emerged, the two shared more than might be apparent at first glance. Baltimore's economy had expanded tremendously, to be sure, but the same forces that sparked expansion around 1750 continued to sustain it fifty years later. Despite the establishment of new governments at the state level in 1776, national level in 1788, and municipal level in 1797, the same festering issues continued to convulse its politics. If Baltimore had become richer and bigger, its occupational structure, wealth distribution, and residential patterns withstood the pressures of growth and looked about the same in 1790 as in 1812. In other words, beneath the frenzied and seemingly chaotic pace of urbanization, Baltimore enjoyed a strong element of stability. For in 1812, no less than in 1929, Baltimore was a pre-industrial town.