Dashiell Hammett found inspiration for his great detective novels like "The Maltese Falcon" and "The Thin Man" by working at the Pinkerton Detective Agency in what was then known as the Continental Trust Building. He experienced the seedy underbelly of Baltimore city and was stabbed at least once on the job. He was inspired by his intransigent co-workers who served as the foundation for many of his cherished characters. Continental Op, the main character of his first novel, "Red Harvest," was named after the eponymous building. It is also speculated that the falcons that don the Continental Trust Building served as the inspiration for "The Maltese Falcon." "Red Harvest" was a milestone in the detective novel genre. It introduced the world to the hard-nosed detective who lives by his own code. The gritty streets of Baltimore served as the setting for Hammett's personal favorite novel, "The Glass Key," as well as "The Assistant Murderer." Unfortunately, many of the locations described in Hammett's novels no longer exist. The lavish Rennert Hotel, which served as the home base for the corrupt political boss in "The Glass Key" was razed in 1941. Continental Op in "Red Harvest" dreams about a tumbling fountain in Harlem Square Park that was filled in long ago. Hammett was born in Saint Mary's County, Maryland and spent his childhood bouncing between Baltimore and Philadelphia. He started working at Pinkertons in 1915 before serving in World War I in the Motor Ambulance Corps. He soon contracted tuberculosis and was moved to a hospital in Tacoma, Washington. Throughout the 1920's, Hammett lived in San Francisco where he wrote most of his novels, including "The Maltese Falcon." He never forgot his Baltimore roots working for Pinkertons, and his precise memory of streets and locations added a layer of authenticity and realism to his work. Later in life, Hammett got involved with the American Communist Party and was eventually jailed as a result of McCarthyism in 1951 for six months. Jail time took its toll on Hammett, who was already in bad health due to the effect his heavy smoking and drinking had on his tuberculosis. He died in New York in 1961. Today, the Continental Trust Building that housed the Pinkerton Detective Agency is known as One Calvert Plaza. A prominent survivor of the Great Baltimore Fire of 1904, One Calvert Plaza stands as a monument to skyscraper architecture at the turn of the twentieth century.

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1 S. Calvert Street, Baltimore, MD 21202

Ottmar Mergenthaler was only 18 years old when he immigrated to the United States from Germany in 1872 to work with his cousin August Hahl at his machine shop in Washington, D.C. Four years later, after Hahl moved his shop to Baltimore, inventor Charles Moore approached Mergenthaler to redesign a faulty typewriter created to quickly publish legal briefs. Mergenthaler threw himself wholeheartedly at the project, and the result was the invention of the linotype—a machine that revolutionized the print industry and what Thomas Edison referred to as "the eighth wonder of the world."

It took Mergenthaler ten years of tweaking before the first linotype debuted at the New York Tribune. The machine accelerated the printing process by allowing typesetters to easily create molds of type, that is a "line o' type," using typewriter keys. Newspapers could run more efficiently and feature more pages. Linotypes continued in widespread use until the 1960s and 1970s when they were replaced by phototypesetting equipment and computers.

Mergenthaler operated out of Baltimore throughout most of his career. His first shop was a small operation at 12 Bank Lane (the site of the current Blaustein Building at One North Charles Street). He later established a larger factory in Locust Point. In 1894, Mergenthaler moved into a house at 159 West Lanvale Street with his wife and three children. The house was built between 1874 and 1875 by Joseph S. Hopkins, nephew of Johns Hopkins.

Mergenthaler's health was in serious decline when he moved into his Lanvale street home. He suffered a serious attack of pleurisy in 1888 and again in the summer of 1894. His symptoms were so severe he could no longer manage his factory. After brief stints in Arizona and New Mexico, where he hoped the climate might cure him, he returned to his Baltimore home in 1898 where he remained until his death on October 28, 1899.

159 W. Lanvale Street, Baltimore, MD 21217

Heralded as "the greatest writer of our time" by philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, John Dos Passos spent time in and out of Baltimore from his birth in 1896 and lived here from 1950 until his death in 1970. An acclaimed biographer and novelist, Dos Passos is best remembered for his experimental writing style, often emulating the techniques of the camera and the newsreel, particularly in his trilogy of novels, U.S.A.

While Sartre called him "the greatest," Baltimoreans just called him "John." Dos Passos worked in the George Peabody Library as well as the Enoch Pratt Free Library and Johns Hopkins University Library almost daily during his time in Baltimore. Although Dos Passos once described his ideal working conditions as only, "a room without any particular interruptions," the George Peabody Library is majestic—particularly the reading room, which has been called "the setting of a bibliophile's dream," and "the most beautiful room in Baltimore."

The library was a gift from entrepreneur George Peabody to the people of Baltimore for their kindness and hospitality, and remains free and open to the public as part of the Sheridan Libraries Special Collections at Johns Hopkins University. In the reading room, one can find the library's collection of more than 300,000 volumes housed in five tiers of ornamental cast-iron balconies that stretch from the marble floor to skylights 61 feet above. There too, one could find John Dos Passos.

Bald and bespectacled, Dos Passos hunched over his desk researching American culture and writing his own works. Often confused for a librarian, he helped library visitors locate books in the card catalog, understand antiquated text, and complete research papers.

Although Dos Passos never wrote a book set in Baltimore, the city provided the author with more than just rooms in which to work. Baltimore helped pique Dos Passos' literary interest. The author recalled as a boy, "I would hide in the shadows so that I wouldn't be sent off to bed. I'd listen till my ears would burst" to stories of old storytellers and watermen, stories in which Baltimore "was the center." Shortly before his death, he described Baltimore as a city that "imbues the inhabitants with a certain dignity" where "neighborhoods had a special flavor."

Dos Passos, John. By David Sanders. The Paris Review, 2012.

The George Peabody Library. 2005.

O'Grady, Tom.����The Dos Passos Review. 1.2.

Shivers, Frank R., Jr. Maryland Wits and Baltimore Bards. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985.

17 E. Mount Vernon Place, Baltimore, MD 21202

Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Karl Shapiro was a true Baltimorean. As a young man in the 1920s and 1930s, Shapiro fed his literary ambitions with the city's rich cultural history; for instance, writing love poems at Fort McHenry where Francis Scott Key was inspired to pen the Star-Spangled Banner. In 1939, Shapiro enrolled in the Enoch Pratt Library School at the library's central branch, an experience that would greatly influence his life and his writing.

Shapiro later expressed his gratitude to Enoch Pratt Free Library, by capturing it in the lines:
"Voltaire would weep for joy, Plato would stare.
What is it, easier than a church to enter,
Politer than a department store, this center,
That like Grand Central leads to everywhere?"

Open to all Baltimoreans since its 1894 founding, the city's first non-segregated cultural institution does indeed "lead to everywhere," thanks to the library's numerous resources and founder Enoch Pratt's firm belief in inclusiveness. The architecture of the 1933 Central Branch building exemplifies Pratt's philosophy. Designed to mirror a department store, library patrons, not just librarians, could access the books, and large exhibit windows advertised library news to passersby. Following Pratt's requirements, the building's entrance remained without stairs for the convenience of women pushing strollers. This revolutionary design went on to inspire library architecture nationwide.

Shapiro enjoyed studying to be a librarian; however, World War II intervened. "I couldn't take the final exam because I was drafted," Shapiro explained. "Because of my background of two years of college...they put me in the company headquarters office and gave me a typewriter." As the company clerk, Shapiro was never far from writing materials and had "endless amounts of empty time"–-everything a poet needs. He wrote prodigiously, sending his poems stateside to his Baltimorean fiancée, Evalyn Katz, who then published them.

Although 9,000 miles from home, the Pratt Library was never far from Shapiro's mind. He frequently wrote to his former colleagues, signing his letters with "Very best wishes to you and the Library." Meanwhile, the library also contributed to the war effort, housing various headquarters and providing basement air-raid shelters.

When the war ended in 1945, the library returned to business as usual, but Shapiro did not. Having left America only a student, he returned home an established poet. Shapiro published four books and received several prizes including the Pulitzer Prize during the war. Assuming a radically different life than the one he had left, Shapiro taught at several universities, and describes his role as "not really a professor, but a sort of mad guest." He also worked as the Poetry Consultant to the Library of Congress, a position known today as the Poet Laureate; edited poetry magazines; and of course, wrote poetry. All the while, Shapiro embodied the philosophy of Enoch Pratt, relentlessly fighting against prejudice and injustices both in his poetry and with his actions, until his death in 2000.

Enoch Pratt Free Library. Enoch Pratt Free Library, n.d. Web. 7 June 2012.

Phillips, Robert.����The Paris Review Spring 1986. Web. 7 June 2012.

��Wired for Books. Ohio University, 1988. Web. 7 June 2012.

400 Cathedral Street, Baltimore, MD 21201