Fodor's Expert Review Baltimore Museum of Industry

Baltimore is proud of its blue-collar roots. The fascinating and kid-friendly Baltimore Museum of Industry is housed in an 1865 oyster cannery and features interactive exhibits covering the city's rich industrial heritage. Tour a circa 1900 belt-driven machine shop, learn how oyster canning revolutionized the food industry, and see a garment loft as it would have looked in early 20th-century Baltimore. The print shop, featuring a working Linotype machine, contains drawers of tiny, touchable letters that were used to create lines of text. The Maryland Milestones gallery highlights world-changing inventions such as the gaslight, the passenger railroad, Noxzema cream, and the umbrella. Just don't call these museum pieces "relics"—on the weekends, volunteers fire up the machines and give live demonstrations. It's a sight to behold and well worth the half-mile walk south of the Inner Harbor along Key Highway.