The Maryland History and Culture Bibliography
Breen, T. H. Tobacco Culture: The Mentality of the Great Tidewater Planters on the Eve of the Revolution. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985.
Categories: Agriculture, County and Local History, Eighteenth Century, Chesapeake Region
Gibb, James G. "The Dorsey-Bibb Tobacco Flue: Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Southern Maryland Agriculture." Calvert Historian 12 (Spring 1997): 4-20.
Categories: Agriculture, Economic, Business, and Labor History, Science and Technology, Charles County, Calvert County, St. Mary's County
Johnson, Robert C., ed. "Virginia in 1632." Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 65 (1957): 458-466.
Categories: African American, Agriculture, Economic, Business, and Labor History, Intellectual Life, Literature, and Publishing, Native American, Politics and Law, Society, Social Change, Folklife, and Popular Culture, Seventeenth Century
Middleton, Authur Pierce. Tobacco Coast: A Maritime History of the Chesapeake Bay in the Colonial Era. Newport News, VA: Mariners Museum, 1953.
Categories: Agriculture, County and Local History, Economic, Business, and Labor History, Maritime, Seventeenth Century, Eighteenth Century, Nineteenth Century, Chesapeake Region
Sarudy, Barbara Wells. "Eighteenth-Century Gardens of the Chesapeake." A special issue of the Journal of Garden History: An International Quarterly 9 (July-Sept. 1989): 103-59.
Categories: Agriculture, County and Local History, Eighteenth Century, Chesapeake Region
Walsh, Lorena S. "Land, Landlord, and Leaseholder: Estate Management and Tenant Fortunes in Southern Maryland, 1642-1820." Agricultural History 59 (July 1985): 373-396.
Notes: Based on the astonishing records of a Jesuit-owned estate in Charles County that lasted for 175 years, Walsh examined 233 tenants, and the effect of their short term vs. long term leases on resource waste or conservation. The story explains how owners used leasing as a means for plantation development and as an alternative to slave labor.
Categories: African American, Agriculture, County and Local History, Economic, Business, and Labor History, Society, Social Change, Folklife, and Popular Culture, Charles County, Calvert County, St. Mary's County, Chesapeake Region
Byron, Gilbert. Gilbert Byron's Chesapeake Seasons: A Cove Journal. Wye Mills, MD: Chesapeake College Press, 1987.
Notes: Poet and chronicler Gilbert Byron's columns were a popular feature in several Eastern Shore newspapers. This collection of observations and reminiscences culled from his newspaper writings are both biographical and lyrical in quality. Byron captures both an appreciation for a nostalgic past and an awareness of the social and economic changes occurring on his beloved shore.
Categories: Biography, Autobiography, and Reminiscences, County and Local History, Chesapeake Region
Carter, Samuel, III. The Riddle of Dr. Mudd. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1974.
Notes: Dr. Samuel Mudd (1833-1883) of Charles County is inextricably connected with the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Convicted of aiding John Wilkes Booth by tending to his broken leg during his flight from Washington, Mudd served time at Fort Jefferson in the Dry Tortugas until his heroic efforts to save victims of a yellow fever epidemic helped earn an early release. Mudd's conduct and subsequent treatment in the aftermath of Lincoln's death has sparked a cottage industry of defenders and detractors.
Charbeneau, Jim. Shouts and Whispers: Stories from the Southern Chesapeake Bay. White Stone, VA: Brandylane Publishers, 1997.
Categories: Biography, Autobiography, and Reminiscences, County and Local History, Intellectual Life, Literature, and Publishing, Society, Social Change, Folklife, and Popular Culture, Nineteenth Century, Twentieth Century, Chesapeake Region
Hoffland, Dixie. "Dr. Samuel Mudd." Maryland 20 (Spring 1988): 48-52.
Categories: Biography, Autobiography, and Reminiscences, Medicine, Nineteenth Century, Charles County
Hurley, Norma L. "Samuel Cox of Charles County." The Record 53 (October 1991): 1-6.
Kester, John G. "Charles Polke: Indian Trader of the Potomac." Maryland Historical Magazine 90 (Winter 1995): 446-65.
McHale, John E. Dr. Samuel A. Mudd and the Lincoln Assassination. Parsippany, NJ: Dillon Press, 1994.
Parker, Willie J. Game Warden: Chesapeake Assignment. Centreville, MD: Tidewater Publishers, 1983.
Categories: Biography, Autobiography, and Reminiscences, County and Local History, Environment, Society, Social Change, Folklife, and Popular Culture, Twentieth Century, Chesapeake Region
Steers, Edward. The Escape and Capture of John Wilkes Booth. Brandywine, MD: Marker Tours, 1983.
Tidwell, William A. "Booth Crosses the Potomac: An Exercise in Historical Research." Civil War History 36 (December 1990): 325-33.
Categories: Biography, Autobiography, and Reminiscences, Nineteenth Century, Charles County, Civil War
Turner, William H. Chesapeake Boyhood: Memoirs of a Farm Boy. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997.
Categories: Biography, Autobiography, and Reminiscences, County and Local History, Twentieth Century, Chesapeake Region
"Watson Mondell Perrygo." The Record 31 - 32 (May - September 1984): 5-6.
Notes: Charles County naturalist.
Categories: Biography, Autobiography, and Reminiscences, Science and Technology, Twentieth Century, Charles County
Zebrowski, Carl. "Moral Victory in the Crusade to Clear Mudd." Civil War Times Illustrated 32 (May/June 1993): 14-15.
Categories: Biography, Autobiography, and Reminiscences, Nineteenth Century, Twentieth Century, Charles County
Abingbade, Harrison Ola. "The Settler-African Conflicts: The Case of the Maryland Colonists and the Grebo 1840-1900." Journal of Negro History 66 (Summer 1981): 93-109.
Categories: African American, Maritime, Native American, Politics and Law, Society, Social Change, Folklife, and Popular Culture, Nineteenth Century
Alpert, Jonathan L. "The Origin of Slavery in the United States: The Maryland Precedent." American Journal of Legal History 14 (1970): 189-222.
Notes: Maryland was the "first province in English North America to recognize slavery as a matter of law" (189). Therefore, the study of Maryland is useful for historians studying how American slavery was a product of the law. Early legislation recognized the existence of slavery, for while indentured servitude and slavery co-existed, and the terms were used interchangeably, the law still distinguished between the two. "All slaves were servants but not all servants were slaves" (193). However, it wasn't until 1664 when a statue was created which established slavery as hereditary. This statute was the first law in English North American to thus establish this type of slavery, legalizing what had been de facto since 1639. The author concludes that laws reflect the attitudes of a society and the manner in which societal problems are resolved. In the case of Maryland, servant problems could be avoided by replacing indentured servitude with perpetual slavery.
Categories: African American, Native American, Politics and Law, Seventeenth Century
Berlin, Ira. Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998.
Categories: African American, Economic, Business, and Labor History, Native American, Politics and Law, Society, Social Change, Folklife, and Popular Culture, Before 1600 AD, Seventeenth Century
Craven, Wesley Frank. White, Red, and Black: The Seventeenth-Century Virginian. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1971.
Notes: Remains the standard multi-cultural work for the 17th century.
Categories: African American, Ethnic History, Native American, Seventeenth Century
Fields, Barbara Jeanne. Slavery and Freedom on the Middle Ground: Maryland during the Nineteenth Century. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985.
Notes: The author explores how free populations in Maryland - both black and white - challenged the notion of a slave society. The free black population, very much interconnected with the slave population in terms of kinship ties, also provided a threat to the underpinnings of the system. Once freedom arrived, social relationships also had to be redefined. The author writes that "free blacks did not occupy a unique or legitimate place within Maryland society, but instead formed an anomalous adjunct to the slave population" (3). By 1840, free blacks in Maryland composed 41% of the total black population of the state, or the largest free black population of any state in the nation.
Categories: African American, County and Local History, Economic, Business, and Labor History, Politics and Law, Society, Social Change, Folklife, and Popular Culture, Nineteenth Century, Chesapeake Region
Heinegg, Paul. Free African Americans of Maryland and Delaware: From the Colonial Period to 1810. Baltimore: Clearfield, 2000.
Categories: African American, Family History and Genealogy, Seventeenth Century, Eighteenth Century, Nineteenth Century, Chesapeake Region