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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.

Middleton, Authur Pierce. Tobacco Coast: A Maritime History of the Chesapeake Bay in the Colonial Era. Newport News, VA: Mariners Museum, 1953.

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.

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.

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.

Charbeneau, Jim. Shouts and Whispers: Stories from the Southern Chesapeake Bay. White Stone, VA: Brandylane Publishers, 1997.

Parker, Willie J. Game Warden: Chesapeake Assignment. Centreville, MD: Tidewater Publishers, 1983.

Turner, William H. Chesapeake Boyhood: Memoirs of a Farm Boy. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997.

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.

Heinegg, Paul. Free African Americans of Maryland and Delaware: From the Colonial Period to 1810. Baltimore: Clearfield, 2000.

Johansen, Mary Carroll. "'Intelligence, Though Overlooked:' Education for Black Women in the Upper South, 1800-1840." Maryland Historical Magazine 93 (Winter 1998): 443-65.
Notes: Black and white educators established forty-six schools for free black children in the early nineteenth century. These educators supported education for black women believing that women transmitted knowledge and morals, thus shaping a generation of virtuous citizens. In addition, educators looked to education as a means by which to form self-sufficient and industrious free black communities.

Nelson, Jack E. "Black Pearl of the Chesapeake." Chesapeake Bay Magazine 23 (November 1993): 24-27.

Tate, Thad W. "The Seventeenth-Century Chesapeake and Its Modern Historians." In The Chesapeake in the Seventeeth Century: Essays on Anglo-American Society. Thad W. Tate and David L. Ammerman eds., 3-50. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1979.

Yentsch, Anne. "Hot, Nourishing, and Culturally Potent: The Transfer of West African Cooking Traditions to the Chesapeake." Sage 9 (Summer 1995): 15-29.

Brinkley, M. Kent. "Fences in the Colonial Chesapeake: A Look Back at the Historic Types and Uses of Mid-Atlantic Fencing." Landscape Architecture 89 (May 1999): 75, 96, 98-99.

Sarudy, Barbara Wells. Gardens and Gardening in the Chesapeake, 1700-1805. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998.
Notes: Gardens are the result of a particular culture and are an outward sign of a special grace, according to Maryland architecture writer H. Chandlee Forman. Early gardens reflected the tastes and enthusiasms of their owners as much as did their mansions. The author's engaging account of the significance of the domestic landscape to its proprietors and their visitors includes color illustrations of several of the estates.

Aiken, Zora. "Taylors Island." Chesapeake Bay Magazine 22 (December 1992): 28-33.

Althoff, Susanne. "Tangier Island." Chesapeake Bay Magazine 25 (August 1995): 44-49.

Blake, Allison. The Chesapeake Bay Book: A Complete Guide. 3rd edition. Lee, MA: Berkshire House Publishers, 1997.
Notes: A well researched tour guide for the general population.

Bodine, A. Aubrey. Chesapeake Bay and Tidewater. New York: Bonanza Books, 1980.

Carr, Lois Green. "The Metropolis of Maryland': A Comment on Town Development Along the Tobacco Coast." Maryland Historical Magazine 69 (Summer 1974): 124-45.
Notes: Many towns in the Chesapeake area failed during the seventeenth century. Towns were not needed as commercial centers for the tobacco trade, the major economy of the area at that time. Carr uses St. Mary's City as an example of such a failure.

Chappell, Helen. "Elliott Island." Chesapeake Bay Magazine 23 (August 1993): 27-33.

Chappell, Helen. "Island Outpost." Chesapeake Bay Magazine 23 (April 1994): 42-47, 56.
Notes: Deal Island.

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