The Maryland History and Culture Bibliography
Sweig, Donald. "A Capital on the Potomac: A 1789 Broadside and Alexandria's Attempts to Capture the Cherished Prize." Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 87 (January 1979): 74-104.
Categories: Maritime, Politics and Law, Eighteenth Century
Towers, Frank, ed. "Military Waif: A Sidelight on the Baltimore Riot of 19 April 1861." Maryland Historical Magazine 89 (Winter 1994): 427-46.
Categories: Politics and Law, Nineteenth Century, Baltimore City, Civil War
Garitee, Jerome R. The Republic's Private Navy: The American Privateering Business as Practiced Baltimore during the War of 1812. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, Published for Mystic Seaport, Inc., 1977.
Notes: The British attack on Baltimore during the War of 1812 was motivated by a desire to punish the city for being a nest of republicans and privateers. This book traces in admirable detail the history of privateering - from the ships, outfitting, captains and crews, investors, their successes and failures, through the distribution of the prize money. While the pirates on the Spanish main may have been the dregs of the sea, Baltimore's privateers were underwritten by some of its leading mercantile and political leaders. The book includes useful appendices identifying the privateers, investors and proceeds.
Categories: Maritime, Politics and Law, Nineteenth Century, Baltimore City, War of 1812
Henig, Gerald S. Henry Winter Davis: Antebellum and Civil War Congressman from Maryland. New York: Twayne Press, 1973.
Notes: A sympathetic biography of a leading Maryland politician who died in 1866 at the early age of forty-eight. A gifted orator and political writer, and a passionate opponent of the Democratic Party, Davis initially associated with the Whig Party, which was popular in the north but less so in the south, just as it was in the throes of disintegration. He then aligned with the newly formed Know Nothing Party, whose primary appeal was nativism and anti-Catholicism, and was elected to Congress in 1855. He was a leading opponent of the Buchanan administration and an early supporter of Abraham Lincoln. Active in trying to stem the tide of secession and to keep Maryland in the Union, he hoped for a Cabinet position, but Montgomery Blair won the appointment. At odds with his constituents, he was defeated for re-election and his political career appeared to be ended. He became gradually disenchanted with Lincoln's leadership, and, after re-election to Congress as a Unconditional Unionist, he led the effort to reassert Congressional leadership over reconstruction policies. When the President pocket-vetoed the Wade-Davis bill, he issued a highly publicized protest manifesto and actively opposed Lincoln's renomination. During the 1864 campaign, however, he decided that the Democratic candidate, McClellan, was a greater threat, so he campaigned for the Republican ticket. Davis also played a decisive role in the writing and ratification of the Maryland constitution of 1864. Once again his radical position eroded his constituent base and he was not renominated for his Congressional seat.
Categories: Biography, Autobiography, and Reminiscences, Politics and Law, Nineteenth Century, Baltimore City, Civil War
Abribat, Beverly. "The Jefferson Island Club." Weather Gauge 24 (Fall 1988): 10-21; 25 (Fall 1989): 8-14.
Ellis, Carolyn. Fisher Folk: Two Communities on the Chesapeake Bay. Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 1986.
Notes: A sociological case study of two traditional water-economy Chesapeake Bay communities, one in tidewater Virginia and the other on the islands of Maryland, both assigned pseudonyms in social science convention. Ellis contends that these isolated settlements retain distinctive elements of traditional culture, even as they increasingly are drawn into contact with and impacted by outside forces. Based on extensive field research conducted in the 1970s and early 1980s, this study examines family and kin, work, social organization, the role of religion, and mechanisms of social control. Ellis concludes with consideration of the prospects for the future in terms of preservation or change for traditional Chesapeake area communities.
Categories: County and Local History, Maritime, Society, Social Change, Folklife, and Popular Culture, Twentieth Century, Chesapeake Region
Horton, Tom. An Island Out of Time: A Memoir of Smith Island in the Chesapeake. New York, W. W. Norton and Company, 1996.
Notes: Horton's title suggests his principal themes in examining Smith Island life: that the islands represent a distinctive way of life rooted in another time whose preservation into the future may literally be running out of time. An environmental columnist for the Baltimore <em>Sun</em> who lived on Smith Island in the late 1980s as an environmental educator with the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, Horton examines the water-related economy, traditionally based on oystering and crabbing, and the unique way of life that evolved in the relative isolation of the island communities. His book profiles the personalities of Smith Island, the work of men and women, the pervasive role of religion in island life, and social, economic, and environmental changes threatening the island's future.
Categories: County and Local History, Environment, Maritime, Society, Social Change, Folklife, and Popular Culture, Nineteenth Century, Twentieth Century, Somerset County, Chesapeake Region, Eastern Shore
Lesher, Pete. "Eastern Shore Summers: Waterfront Guest Houses and Hotels in the Age of Steam." Weather Gauge 35 (Fall 1999): 18-23.
Categories: County and Local History, Maritime, Society, Social Change, Folklife, and Popular Culture
Mills, Eric. Chesapeake Rumrunners of the Roaring Twenties. Centreville, MD: Tidewater Publishers, 2000.
Categories: County and Local History, Maritime, Politics and Law, Society, Social Change, Folklife, and Popular Culture, Transportation and Communication, Twentieth Century, Chesapeake Region
Valliant, Joseph N., Jr. "Memories of Terrapin'in." Weather Gauge 35 (Spring 1999): 12-15, 25.
Categories: Biography, Autobiography, and Reminiscences, Maritime, Society, Social Change, Folklife, and Popular Culture
Warner, William W. Beautiful Swimmers: Watermen, Crabs, and the Chesapeake Bay. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 1976.
Notes: Naturalist writer Warner examines the Chesapeake Bay's blue crab-the "beautiful swimmer"--and the watermen whose distinctive economy and life-style have been based upon it. Warner uses the cycle of the seasons to trace the complex relationship between natural environment and human community, with attention both to the social patterns and economics of water-related societies. Traditional watermen communities of the Chesapeake Bay region receiving considerable attention are Deal Island, Smith Island, Kent Island, and Crisfield in Maryland, and Tangier Island in Virginia.
Categories: County and Local History, Environment, Maritime, Society, Social Change, Folklife, and Popular Culture, Twentieth Century, Chesapeake Region
Brewington, M. V. Chesapeake Bay Log Canoes and Bugeyes. Cambridge, MD: Cornell Maritime Press, 1963.
Brown, Alexander Crosby. The Old Bay Line, 1840-1940. New York: Bonanza, 1940.
Categories: Economic, Business, and Labor History, Maritime, Transportation and Communication, Nineteenth Century, Twentieth Century
Burgess, Robert H. Chesapeake Circle. Cambridge, MD: Cornell, 1965.
Categories: Maritime, Transportation and Communication
Burgess, Robert H. Chesapeake Sailing Craft. Cambridge, MD: Tidewater, 1975.
Categories: Maritime, Transportation and Communication
Burgess, Robert H. This Was Chesapeake Bay. Centreville, MD: Tidewater, 1963.
Categories: Maritime, Transportation and Communication
Burgess, Robert H., and H. Graham Wood. Steamboats Out of Baltimore. Cambridge, MD: Cornell Maritime Press, 1965.
Categories: Economic, Business, and Labor History, Maritime, Society, Social Change, Folklife, and Popular Culture, Transportation and Communication
Carmer, Carl. The Susquehanna. New York: Rinehart, 1955.
Notes: One of the prestigious "Rivers of America" series, and for Marylanders a book-end volume to Frederick Gutheim's <em>The Potomac</em>. This is popular history at its best: powerfully-written, anecdotal--and what anecdotes! The story of Thomas Cresap is alone worth checking the book out of the library. Covers the downriver ark traffic and the attempts of steamboats to conquer the rocky and unruly Susquehanna.
Categories: County and Local History, Economic, Business, and Labor History, Maritime, Science and Technology, Transportation and Communication
Catton, William H. "How Rails Saved a Seaport." American Heritage 8 (1957): 26-31, 93-95.
Categories: Economic, Business, and Labor History, Maritime, Transportation and Communication, Nineteenth Century
Catton, William H. John W. Garrett of the Baltimore and Ohio: A Study in Seaport and Railroad Competition, 1820-1874. Ph.D. diss., Northwestern University, 1959.
Categories: Biography, Autobiography, and Reminiscences, Economic, Business, and Labor History, Maritime, Transportation and Communication, Nineteenth Century
Chapelle, Howard I. The Baltimore Clipper. Hatboro, PA: Tradition Press, 1965.
Notes: First published in 1930, this is a classic treatment, with drawings and illustrations, of a famous ship developed on the Chesapeake Bay. The author, one of America's most distinguished naval historians, lived for many years on Maryland's Eastern Shore.
Cudahy, Brian J. Twilight on the Bay: The Excursion Boat Empire of B. B. Wills. Centreville, MD: Tidewater, 1998.
Categories: County and Local History, Economic, Business, and Labor History, Maritime, Transportation and Communication
Dohan, Mary Helen. Mr. Roosevelt's Steamboat; the First Steamboat to Travel the Mississippi. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1981.
Flexner, James Thomas. Steamboats Come True. Boston: Little, Brown, 1978.
Notes: Did James Rumsey <em>really</em> invent the steamboat with his famous voyage in the Potomac River off Shepherdstown, Virginia on December 3, 1787? No. This somewhat disorganized but invigorating rendition of the race to be the steamboat's inventor sets things straight.
Categories: Biography, Autobiography, and Reminiscences, Maritime, Transportation and Communication, Nineteenth Century
Footner, Geoffrey M. Tidewater Triumph: The Development and Worldwide Success of the Chesapeake Bay Pilot Schooner. Centreville, MD: Tidewater, 1998.
Categories: County and Local History, Economic, Business, and Labor History, Maritime, Transportation and Communication, Eighteenth Century, Nineteenth Century