Skip to main content

Categories

 


 

The Maryland History and Culture Bibliography

Adler, Georgia. "How Distinctly I Now Recollect What Then Passed: The Journals of William E. Bartlett." Maryland Humanities (March/April 1994): 2-3.

Carroll, Kenneth L. "The Berry Brothers of Talbot County, Maryland: Early Antislavery Leaders." Maryland Historical Magazine 84 (1989): 1-9.

Kester, John G. "Charles Polke: Indian Trader of the Potomac." Maryland Historical Magazine 90 (Winter 1995): 446-65.

Krech, Shepard, III. Praise the Bridge That Carries You Over: The Life of Joseph L. Sutton. Boston: G. K. Hall and Co. (cloth); Cambridge, MD: Chenkman Publishing Co. (paper), 1981.
Notes: Biography of a black resident of Miles River Neck in Talbot County. Based on extensive oral history interviews, this personal narrative by a long-time Talbot County resident offers a unique look at the life of African Americans on the Eastern Shore. Joseph Sutton (1885-1980) led a long and eventful life, and his reminiscences are rich in personal detail. In addition to his own experiences, Sutton's words are a valuable source for understanding the personal impact of racism on African Americans.

"Meet Talbot's Delegates." Historical Society of Talbot County Newsletter (Fall 1987): 1-2.

Preston, Dickson J. Young Frederick Douglass: The Maryland Years. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1980.
Notes: There are a number of excellent biographies of Frederick Douglass including works by Eric Foner, William McFeeley and Benjamin Quarles. For the student of Maryland history, Preston's short but well-researched book focuses on the first twenty years of Douglass' life spent in Talbot County and Baltimore City. His experiences as a slave in Maryland shaped his subsequent career and thus are critical to understanding one of the greatest spokesmen for human rights.

Reale, Robin L. "William F. Douglass, Jr.: Fossil Hunter." Maryland 26 (September/October 1994): 112.

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.

Adams, E. J. "Religion and Freedom: Artifacts Indicate that African Culture Persisted Even in Slavery." Omni 16 (November 1993): 8.

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.

Berlin, Ira. Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998.

Clemens, Paul G.E. The Atlantic Economy and Colonial Maryland's Eastern Shore: From Tobacco to Grain. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1980.

Cochran, Matthew D. "Hoodoo's Fire: Interpreting Nineteenth Century African American Material Culture at the Brice House, Annapolis, Maryland." Maryland Archeology 35 (March 1999): 25-33.

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.

Gervasi, S. "Northampton: Slave Quarters That Have Survived Centuries." American Visions 6 (April 1991): 54-56.

Harvey, Lamont W. "Black Oystermen of the Bay Country... particularly St. Michaels, Maryland." Weather Gauge 30 (Spring 1994): 4-13.

Hurry, Robert J. "An Archeological and Historical Perspective on Benjamin Banneker." Maryland Historical Magazine 84 (1989): 361-69.
Notes: The author provides a survey of the Banneker family farm in southwestern Baltimore County. While most scholarship has focused on Benjamin Banneker's career and achievements as a mathematician, surveyor and astronomer, since the 1970s, scholarship and public funding have helped to illuminate his life as a land-owning farmer. The Bannekers were one of the first African-American families to own land in the Piedmont region of Maryland; Benjamin's father, Robert purchased one hundred acres in 1737.

Klingelhofer, Eric. "Aspects of Early African-American Material Culture: Artifacts from the Slave Quarters at Garrison Plantation, Maryland." Historical Archaeology 21 (1987): 112-19.
Notes: The author examines the objects excavated from the slave quarters at Garrison Plantation near Baltimore, Maryland. Various groups of objects represented early black material culture which reveal aspects of Africanisms. Archaeology is particularly useful for the study of Africanisms found in material culture as patterns of found objects may be compared chronologically and geographically.

McDaniel, George William. Preserving the People's History: Traditional Black Material Culture in Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Southern Maryland. Ph.D. diss., Duke University, 1979.

McGuckian, Eileen. "Black Builders in Montgomery County 1865-1940." Montgomery County Story 35 (February 1992): 189-200.

Mullins, Paul R. "An Archeology of Race and Consumption: African-American Bottled Good Consumption in Annapolis, Maryland, 1850-1930." Maryland Archeology 32 (March 1996): 1-10.

Mullins, Paul R. The Contradictions of Consumption: An Archaeology of African America and Consumer Culture, 1850-1930. Ph.D. diss., University of Massachusetts, 1996.

Mullins, Paul R. "Race and the Genteel Consumer: Class and African-American Consumption, 1850-1930." Historical Archaeology 33, no. 1 (1999): 22-38.

Back to Top