The Maryland History and Culture Bibliography

Memories of Choptank 1679-1930. [Choptank Bicentennial Commission, 1976].

Moore, Dick. "Our Little Town of Bethlehem." Maryland 21 (Winter 1988): 35.

Categories: County and Local History, Society, Social Change, Folklife, and Popular Culture, Caroline County, Eastern Shore

Reps, John. Tidewater Towns: City Planning in Colonial Virginia and Maryland. Williamsburg, VA: Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, 1972.

Notes: Early towns did not generally spring out of nowhere. Town planning was common and an important part of Chesapeake Maryland's colonial history. The government played an active role in the founding and formation of towns. Annapolis and the District of Columbia were unique in that their plans did not resemble those common amongst other English colonies.

Sheads, Scott. Fort McHenry: A History. Baltimore: Nautical & Aviation Publishing Co., 1995.

Categories: County and Local History, Military, Baltimore City, War of 1812

Wennersten, John R. Maryland's Eastern Shore: A Journey in Time and Place. Centreville, MD: Tidewater Publishers, 1992.

Notes: Wennersten's goal is to make the reader understand the distinct society that is the eastern shore through discussion of the area's agricultural life, its race relations, and maritime society. Brief histories are given of some communities and mention made of some influential people.

Categories: African American, Agriculture, County and Local History, Economic, Business, and Labor History, Maritime, Caroline County, Cecil County, Dorchester County, Kent County, Queen Anne's County, Somerset County, Talbot County, Wicomico County, Worcester County, Chesapeake Region, Eastern Shore

Wilstach, Paul. Tidewater Maryland. Indianapolis, IN: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1931.

Notes: A narrative history of those Maryland counties, all but seven of the twenty-three, touched by saltwater, arranged by theme and locale. There is a great deal of emphasis on the founding of towns and important personages, a wide variety of subjects are covered.

Davis, Lynn. "Garden Roots." Heartland of Del-Mar-Va 11 (Sunshine 1988): 154-67.

Categories: County and Local History, Environment, Caroline County, Cecil County, Dorchester County, Kent County, Queen Anne's County, Somerset County, Wicomico County, Worcester County, Eastern Shore

DeGast, Robert. Western Wind, Eastern Shore: A Sailing Cruise Around the Eastern Shore of Maryland, Delaware, and Virginia. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1975.

Notes: De Gast sails a small boat around the entire DelMarVa Peninsula, an interesting voyage with useful observations.

Categories: Environment, Maritime, Society, Social Change, Folklife, and Popular Culture, Twentieth Century, Caroline County, Cecil County, Dorchester County, Kent County, Queen Anne's County, Somerset County, Wicomico County, Worcester County, Chesapeake Region, Eastern Shore

Footner, Hulbert. Rivers of the Eastern Shore. Seventeen Maryland Rivers. New York: Holt Reinhart and Winston, 1944.

Notes: Footner writes mostly stories about history, but he does view Chesapeake river environments from a mid-1940s perspective.

Categories: County and Local History, Environment, Society, Social Change, Folklife, and Popular Culture, Caroline County, Cecil County, Dorchester County, Kent County, Queen Anne's County, Somerset County, Wicomico County, Worcester County, Eastern Shore

Heckscher, Christopher M. "Distribution and Habitat Associations of the Eastern Mud Salamander, Pseudotriton montanus, on the Delmarva Peninsula." Maryland Naturalist 39 (January-June 1995): 11-14.

Categories: Environment, Science and Technology, Caroline County, Cecil County, Dorchester County, Kent County, Queen Anne's County, Somerset County, Wicomico County, Worcester County, Eastern Shore

Scott, Jane. Between Ocean and Bay: A Natural History of Delmarva. Centreville, MD: Tidewater Publishers, 1991.

Woodbury, Elton N. Butterflies of Delmarva. Centreville, MD: Tidewater Publishers, 1994.

Categories: County and Local History, Environment, Science and Technology, Caroline County, Cecil County, Dorchester County, Kent County, Queen Anne's County, Somerset County, Wicomico County, Worcester County, Chesapeake Region, Eastern Shore

Preston, Dickson J. Newspapers of Maryland's Eastern Shore. Queenstown, MD: Queen Anne Press, 1986.

Categories: County and Local History, Intellectual Life, Literature, and Publishing, Society, Social Change, Folklife, and Popular Culture, Nineteenth Century, Twentieth Century, Caroline County, Cecil County, Dorchester County, Queen Anne's County, Somerset County, Talbot County, Wicomico County, Worcester County, Eastern Shore

Wycherly, H. Alan. "H. L. Mencken vs. The Eastern Shore: December, 1931." Bulletin of the New York Public Library 74 (1970): 381-390.

Categories: Intellectual Life, Literature, and Publishing, Twentieth Century, Caroline County, Cecil County, Dorchester County, Queen Anne's County, Somerset County, Talbot County, Wicomico County, Worcester County, Eastern Shore

Corddry, Mary U. Museums and Monuments of the Eastern Shore. Queenstown, MD: Queen Anne Press, 1990.

Categories: Architecture, Historic Preservation, and Town Planning, County and Local History, Fine and Decorative Arts, Historical Organizations, Libraries, Reference Works, Twentieth Century, Caroline County, Dorchester County, Kent County, Queen Anne's County, Somerset County, Talbot County, Wicomico County, Worcester County, Eastern Shore

Enoch Pratt Free Library. The Eastern Shore of Maryland: An Annotated Bibliography. Queenstown, MD: Queen Anne Press, 1980.

Categories: General, Historical Organizations, Libraries, Reference Works, Intellectual Life, Literature, and Publishing, Twentieth Century, Caroline County, Dorchester County, Kent County, Queen Anne's County, Somerset County, Talbot County, Wicomico County, Worcester County, Eastern Shore

A Guide to Maryland State Archives Holdings of Caroline County Records on Microfilm. Annapolis: Maryland State Archives, 1989.

Categories: Historical Organizations, Libraries, Reference Works, Politics and Law, Twentieth Century, Anne Arundel County, Caroline County, Eastern Shore

Schofield, Clay. "An Annotated Bibliography of Folklore Material for the Eastern Shore." Free State Folklore 3 (Winter 1976-1977): 19-55.

Categories: County and Local History, Historical Organizations, Libraries, Reference Works, Maritime, Society, Social Change, Folklife, and Popular Culture, Twentieth Century, Caroline County, Dorchester County, Kent County, Queen Anne's County, Somerset County, Talbot County, Wicomico County, Worcester County, Chesapeake Region, Eastern Shore

Weiser, Frederick S., ed. "Eighteenth Century German Church Records from Maryland: A Checklist." The Report: A Journal of German-American History 38 (1982): 5-14.

Categories: County and Local History, Family History and Genealogy, Historical Organizations, Libraries, Reference Works, Eighteenth Century, Caroline County, Frederick County, Washington County, Chesapeake Region

Cassell, Frank A. Merchant Congressman in the Young Republic: Samuel Smith of Maryland. Madison: The University Press of Wisconsin, 1971.

Notes: Samuel Smith epitomizes the history of Baltimore City during the early republic. An officer during the Revolution and the commander of the forces that defended the city against the British attack in 1813, a member of an important merchant family whose economic connections helped him establish a political power base that stretched almost five decades, and sometimes brought him to the brink of economic ruin, he was a major political figure from George Washington's presidency through Andrew Jackson's. His career also reveals the elusiveness of political labels. As a Republican leader in the 1790s, he opposed the policies of the Federalists and supported those of Thomas Jefferson, but he and his brother Robert Smith had a falling out with James Madison, and by the 1830s he was courted by the more democratic Jacksonians who refused to anoint his kin as party leaders.

Categories: Biography, Autobiography, and Reminiscences, Economic, Business, and Labor History, Politics and Law, Eighteenth Century, Nineteenth Century, Baltimore City, War of 1812

Hickey, Donald R. The War of 1812: A Forgotten Conflict. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1989.

Notes: A comprehensive examination of the political background, military operations, and diplomatic closure of "Mr. Madison's War." It may have been forgotten in other areas, but for Maryland the War of 1812 was all too real. The Royal Navy roamed the Chesapeake with impunity, occupied Tangier Island, burned Frenchtown, attacked St. Michaels and Havre de Grace, sacked the nation's capitol after defeating the militia at Bladensburg, before meeting defeat after a combined sea-land attack on Baltimore City, which was immortalized in Francis Scott Key's "Star Spangled Banner." There is also a chapter on the infamous Baltimore riot of 1812.

Categories: Military, Politics and Law, Nineteenth Century, War of 1812

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

Eaton, H. B. "Bladensburg." Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research [Great Britain] 55 (1977): 8-14.

Categories: Military, Politics and Law, Nineteenth Century, Prince George's County, Other, War of 1812

George, Christopher T. Terror on the Chesapeake: The War of 1812 on the Bay. Shippensburg, PA: White Mane Books, 2000.

Categories: Maritime, Nineteenth Century, Other, Chesapeake Region, War of 1812

Williams, Glenn F. "The Bladensburg Races." MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History 12 (no. 1, 1999): 58-65.

Categories: Military, Other, War of 1812