The Maryland History and Culture Bibliography
Thomas, Joseph B., Jr., and Anthony D. Lindauer. "Seeking Herrington: Settlement in a Very Early Maryland Town." Maryland Archeology 34 (September 1998): 11-17.
Notes: Herrington, in southern Anne Arundel, was one of many very small towns in Maryland during the Colonial period. These towns generally had no municipal government. To research such communities scholars must rely on governmental records documenting landowners and residents. After Herrington's demise, shortly after 1700, the area remained predominantly agricultural. This resulted in its location remaining largely intact. Thus, it is a promising archeological site for research.
Categories: Archaeology, County and Local History, Society, Social Change, Folklife, and Popular Culture, Seventeenth Century, Anne Arundel County
Thomas, Joseph Brown, Jr. Settlement, Community, and Economy: The Development of Towns in Maryland's Lower Eastern Shore, 1660-1775. Ph.D. diss., University of Maryland, 1994.
Notes: Thomas argues that the seventeen clustered settlements that dotted the lower Eastern Shore actually functioned as towns. Although legislatively established they have been largely ignored in the history of the Chesapeake region. Most historians argue that the area was rural, when in fact its character was between urban and rural.
Categories: Architecture, Historic Preservation, and Town Planning, County and Local History, Economic, Business, and Labor History, Geography and Cartography, Politics and Law, Seventeenth Century, Eighteenth Century, Dorchester County, Talbot County, Worcester County, Chesapeake Region, Eastern Shore
Towers, Frank. "Secession in an Urban Context: The Class and Political Background of Baltimore's Southern Sympathizers." Maryland Humanities (Winter 1998): 3.
Categories: County and Local History, Military, Seventeenth Century, Baltimore City
Towers, Frank Harold. Ruffians on the Urban Border: Labor, Politics, and Race in Baltimore, 1850-1861. Ph.D. diss., University of California, Irvine, 1993.
Categories: African American, County and Local History, Economic, Business, and Labor History, Ethnic History, Politics and Law, Seventeenth Century, Baltimore City
"The Volunteer Tradition." History Trails 9 (Autumn 1974): 1-8.
Notes: A history of Baltimore County's various volunteer fire companies, arranged by location and order of development.
Categories: County and Local History, Medicine, Society, Social Change, Folklife, and Popular Culture, Nineteenth Century, Twentieth Century, Baltimore County
Walton, John M., Jr. "Prince George's Genesis." News and Notes from the Prince George's County Historical Society, 20 (August 1992): 3-4.
Categories: County and Local History, Native American, Politics and Law, Seventeenth Century, Eighteenth Century, Prince George's County
Williams, T .J. C. The History of Washington County, Maryland, From the Earliest Settlements of the Present Time, Including A History of Hagerstown. Baltimore: Regional Publishing Co., 1968.
Categories: County and Local History, Family History and Genealogy, Before 1600 AD, Seventeenth Century, Eighteenth Century, Nineteenth Century, Washington County
Wood, Gregory A. Early French Presence in Maryland 1524-1800. Baltimore: Gateway Press, 1977.
Categories: County and Local History, Ethnic History, Before 1600 AD, Seventeenth Century
Abbott, Collaner M. "Colonial Copper Mines." William and Mary Quarterly 27 (1970): 295-309.
Categories: Economic, Business, and Labor History, Environment, Seventeenth Century, Eighteenth Century
Barnes, Brooks Miles, and Barry R. Truitt. Seashore Chronicles: Three centuries of the Virginia Barrier Islands. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1997.
Notes: Much of this book captures a mood equally applicable to Maryland's sea islands. I suspect Norwood, in 1650, landed on a Maryland Island anyhow!
Categories: County and Local History, Environment, Seventeenth Century, Eighteenth Century, Nineteenth Century, Twentieth Century, Chesapeake Region
Brewington, M. V. Chesapeake Bay: A Pictorial Maritime History. 1953; 2d edition, New York: Bonanza Books, 1956.
Notes: While primarily about boats on the Bay, Brewington's book has many contemporary environmental insights.
Categories: County and Local History, Environment, Society, Social Change, Folklife, and Popular Culture, Seventeenth Century, Eighteenth Century, Nineteenth Century, Twentieth Century, Chesapeake Region
Capper, John, Garrett Power, and Frank Shivers. Chesapeake Waters: Pollution, Public Health and Public Opinion, 1602-1972. Centreville, MD: Tidewater Publishers, 1983.
Categories: African American, County and Local History, Environment, Ethnic History, Medicine, Politics and Law, Society, Social Change, Folklife, and Popular Culture, Transportation and Communication, Seventeenth Century, Eighteenth Century, Nineteenth Century, Twentieth Century, Chesapeake Region
Clayton, John Edmund, and Dorothy Berkeley, eds. "Another Account of Virginia." The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 76 (1687): 415-436.
Notes: This is a convenient abstract of Clayton's Virginia descriptions, equally applicable to Maryland, discussing a wide variety of animals and plants, their uses and special characters. The Reverend Clayton wrote considerably more.
Categories: County and Local History, Environment, Science and Technology, Society, Social Change, Folklife, and Popular Culture, Seventeenth Century
Davidson, Steven G., Jay. G. Merwin, Jr., John Capper, Garrett Power, and Frank Shivers, Jr. Chesapeake Waters: Four Centuries of Controversy, Concern and Legislation. 1983; reprint, Centreville, MD: Tidewater Publishers, 1997.
Notes: Primarily on the political process paralleling environmental change but containing many references to contemporary conditions and problems.
Categories: County and Local History, Environment, Politics and Law, Seventeenth Century, Eighteenth Century, Nineteenth Century, Twentieth Century, Chesapeake Region
Force, Peter. Tracts and Other Papers Relating Principally to the Origin, Settlement, and Progress of the Colonies in North America: From the Discovery of the Country to the Year 1776. Washington, DC: Peter Force, 1836.
Notes: At least Volumes I, and IV contain material relevant to Chesapeake Environment. Force performed a valuable service codifying and publishing these in the early nineteenth century, before some of the sources were lost. Volume IV contains Colony founder Father Andrew White's "Relation" of Maryland to Lord Baltimore, and his "Narrative of a Voyage to Virginia". In the relation of events of 1642 the text records what is plausibly, the first and only lethal shark attack in Chesapeake history. p. 37 in Force's Vol. IV.
Categories: Environment, Society, Social Change, Folklife, and Popular Culture, Before 1600 AD, Seventeenth Century, Eighteenth Century
Haile, Edward Wright, ed. Jamestown Narratives: Eyewitness accounts of the Virginia Colony. The first decade 1607-1617. Champlain, VA: RoundHouse, 1998.
Notes: Haile has brought together a large part of the early published accounts of Chesapeake settlement, within the texts of which are hundreds of references and vignettes about the seventeenth century environment.
Categories: County and Local History, Environment, Society, Social Change, Folklife, and Popular Culture, Seventeenth Century
Hall, Clayton Coleman, ed. Narratives of Early Maryland, 1633-84. New York: Barnes and Noble, 1910.
Notes: Contains George Alsop's "A Character of the Province of Maryland," 1666.
Images of the Chesapeake, 1612-1984. Catonsville, MD: Albin O. Kuhn Library and Gallery, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, 1985.
Categories: County and Local History, Environment, Seventeenth Century, Eighteenth Century, Nineteenth Century, Twentieth Century, Chesapeake Region
Kent, Bretton W. Making Dead Oysters Talk. 1988; rev. ed. Crownsville, MD: Maryland Historical Trust, Historic St. Mary's City Commission and Jefferson Patterson Park and Museum, 1992.
Notes: Kent's analyses of oysters from archaeological sites, tell a cautionary tale of overharvest which went unheeded for three centuries.
Categories: Archaeology, Environment, Science and Technology, Society, Social Change, Folklife, and Popular Culture, Before 1600 AD, Seventeenth Century
Kiger, Robert W., Galvin D. R. Bridson, and Donna M. Connelly, eds. Huntia. Vol 7. Pittsburgh: Carnegie Institute of Technology. Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation, 1987.
Notes: In this volume contributors James Reveal, George Frick, Melvin Brown and Rose Broome lay out a remarkable history of Maryland (and the Chesapeake's) earliest botanists, their personal stories, their observations and collections, which are still preserved at the British Museum in London. This is technical material, but salted in are the remarkable human stories and insights into a Chesapeake different from today.
Categories: Environment, Science and Technology, Society, Social Change, Folklife, and Popular Culture, Before 1600 AD, Seventeenth Century
Maryland Hall of Records Commission. A Declaration of the Lord Baltemore's Plantation in Mary-land. 1663; reprint, Annapolis, MD: Maryland Hall of Records Commission, Department of General Services, 1983.
Notes: This booklet, issued as part of Maryland's 350th year, includes a facsimile of Lord Baltimore's original description of Maryland's natural resources (plus a remarkable explanation of the Gulf Stream and coastal fisheries!) , and an announcement that the ship "Arke of Mary-land" would sail August 20th, 1633.
Categories: Biography, Autobiography, and Reminiscences, Environment, Society, Social Change, Folklife, and Popular Culture, Seventeenth Century, Baltimore City
Middleton, Arthur Pierce. Tobacco Coast. 1953; reprint, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994.
Notes: Middleton, subsequently a retired Episcopal Canon, for years directed work at Colonial Williamsburg. This defining volume on Chesapeake Maritime History contains valuable environmental references coupled to the region's colonial economy.
Categories: County and Local History, Environment, Society, Social Change, Folklife, and Popular Culture, Before 1600 AD, Seventeenth Century, Eighteenth Century, Nineteenth Century, Chesapeake Region
Miller, Henry M. "Transforming a 'Splendid and Delightsome Land:' Colonists and Ecological Change in the Chesapeake, 1670 - 1820." Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences 76 (September 1986): 173-87.
Categories: County and Local History, Economic, Business, and Labor History, Environment, Society, Social Change, Folklife, and Popular Culture, Seventeenth Century, Eighteenth Century, Chesapeake Region
Smith, John. The General Historie of Virginia, New England and the Summer Isles. 1624; reprint, Ann Arbor: University Microfilms, 1966.
Notes: Facsimile, also reissued by World Publishing, Cleveland, OH. This volume is as close to reading the original as most of us will get. John Smith was the first environmental observer of Bay and watershed, and his insights are sobering when one contemplates the changes we have wrought.
Categories: Environment, Society, Social Change, Folklife, and Popular Culture, Before 1600 AD, Seventeenth Century
Tate, Thad W., and David L. Ammerman. The Chesapeake in the Seventeenth Century : Essays on Anglo-American Society. New York: W. W. Norton, 1979.
Notes: These essays, while largely anthropological, tell a lot about how the Bay region was settled, the problems with this process, and how European practices moved across the landscape.
Categories: County and Local History, Environment, Science and Technology, Seventeenth Century, Chesapeake Region