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The Maryland History and Culture Bibliography

Arnold, Joseph L. "Suburban Growth and Municipal Annexation in Baltimore, 1745-1918." Maryland Historical Magazine 73 (June 1978): 109-28.
Notes: The battles between Baltimore City and Baltimore County over the suburban territory spanning a century and a half. This fight was for a larger tax base and the promise of better services providing an important historical perspective on current city-suburban problems.

Hollifield, William. "Sparrows Point Police Department." History Trails 21 (Summer 1987): 16.

McGrain, John W. "The Presidents in Baltimore County." History Trails 21 (Summer 1987): 13-15.
Notes: First of three-part article.

McGrain, John W. "The Presidents in Baltimore County." History Trails 22 (Autumn 1987). 1-3.
Notes: Part 2 of three-part article.

Agle, Anna Bradford, and Sidney Hovey Wanzer, eds. "Dearest Braddie: Love and War in Maryland, 1860-61, Part I." Maryland Historical Magazine 88 (Spring 1993): 73-88.
Notes: Letters from Edward Spencer to Anne Catherine Bradford Harrison, written during their courtship in late 1860 and 1861, provide evidence of tensions related to Unionist vs. Secessionist sentiment in Maryland in the critical months leading up to the Civil War. Edward initially hopes that the Union can be preserved, but increasingly expresses alarm at actions by the new Republican administration to assure Maryland's loyalty, by coercion if necessary. Tender expressions of affection alternate with extended passages of intense political commentary. The letters and other Spencer papers are from the collection of the Milton Eisenhower Library of Johns Hopkins University.

Anson, Melanie. Olmsted's Sudbrook: The Making of a Community. Baltimore, MD: Sudbrook Park, Inc., 1997.
Notes: Anson chronicles the history of Baltimore County's Sudbrook Park, a significant example of a residential community planned by noted landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted. Olmsted's "General Plan for Sudbrook" in 1889 epitomized the suburban ideal which he championed, with its separation from the city, yet link for commuting via the nearby Western Maryland Railway line; spacious lots and set backs for cottage-style houses; shared common spaces and amenities; and romantic, naturalistic setting. Anson traces the evolution of the development of Sudbrook, as well as the nature of community social life from the 1890s to the present.

Bangs, Herbert P., Jr., and Stuart Mahler. "Users of Local Parks." Journal of the American Institute of Planners 36 (1970): 330-334.
Notes: The authors seek to evaluate the effectiveness of a 1963 Baltimore County law requiring developers to set aside space in new residential sections for small local parks. The study examines parks created in three sample rowhouse developments, based upon interviews conducted with users of the three spaces. The article concludes that the program has been successful in terms of usage, though more by children than teens and young adults, and that proximity to residence determines frequency of use.

Brooks, Neale A., and Eric G. Rockel. A History of Baltimore County. Towson, MD: Friends of the Towson Library, 1979.
Notes: A history of Baltimore County inspired by the United States bicentennial, this comprehensive volume traces the evolution of the county which once represented the sole political jurisdiction in the region. Early settlement led to subdivision to establish other counties, and the growth of Baltimore City produced eventual separation of legal and governmental functions between county and city in the 1850s. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries growth and expansion of the city further eroded the county's space in the annexations of 1888 and 1918. The book concludes with consideration of the suburban boom of the post-World War II period and its impact on the county's politics. Extensive source notes make this a valuable resource for students of Baltimore County social history.

Care of the Indigent of Baltimore County, Maryland, 1776-1958. [Maryland?]: N.p., 1986.

Carr, Lois Green, and Lorena S. Walsh. "The Standard of Living in the Colonial Chesapeake." William and Mary Quarterly 45 (January 1988): 135-59.
Notes: Carr and Walsh make detailed use of probate records from seventeenth and eighteenth century Maryland to argue that the period in Chesapeake area history represented a shift from an early emphasis upon material necessities to an improved standard of living marked by "gentility." The authors contend that this change reached across class lines and helped to fuel, rather than check, the productive economy of the colony. The article includes extensive tables and graphs of evidence regarding consumer items for several Maryland and Virginia counties.

Dalleo, Peter T., and J. Vincent Watchorn, III. "Baltimore, the 'Babe,' and the Bethlehem Steel League, 1918." Maryland Historical Magazine 93 (Spring 1998): 88-106.
Notes: During World War I industrial baseball leagues sought to recruit major league players who faced the prospect that they must either "work or fight." A Steel League team was created at Sparrows Point by Bethlehem Steel. The industrial leagues, sometimes derisively called "shelter leagues," managed to compete with established major and minor league teams, leading the latter to initiate innovations like twilight and Sunday afternoon baseball games, both introduced by Baltimore Orioles management. At a point in 1918 it appeared that Baltimore hero and Boston Red Sox star Babe Ruth might jump to the industrial leagues. At war's end, the leagues lost their luster, but the authors assert that for a brief period the Sparrow's Point team had "caught the town's fancy."

Diggs, Louis S. Holding On To Their Heritage. Catonsville, MD: privately printed, 1996.
Notes: Baltimore County African-American communities: Bond Avenue, Reisterstown; Piney Grove, Boring.

Diggs, Louis S. In Our Own Voices: A Folk History in Legacy. Catonsville, MD: Uptown Press, 1998.
Notes: Baltimore County African-American communities: Chattolanee, Cowdensville, Oblate Sisters of Providence.

Diggs, Louis S. It All Started on Winters Lane: A History of the Black Community in Catonsville, Maryland. Baltimore: Uptown Press, 1995.
Notes: A compilation on the history of the historic African American community of Winters Lane in Catonsville, this volume includes a rich collection of family history and documents related to the history of black churches, civic organizations, businesses, and social groups. It also provides several extensive oral histories with elders in the community. Like many African American communities in Baltimore County, Winters Lane had its roots in the pre-Civil War era as a settlement of free blacks who worked on area farms and in the growing village, and it has persisted into the modern period of suburbanization. Louis Diggs in this and other volumes on the county's historic African American communities includes an extensive set of photos and other documents previously unpublished on local black family and community life.

Goodwin, Louise Bland. "Chattolanee Hotel and Springs." History Trails 8 (no. 1, 1974): 4.

Grimes, Michael A. "Developing 'Frederick Terrace'." History Trails 26 (Spring-Summer 1992): 9-16.

Hastings, Lynne Dakin. "A Sure Bet: Thoroughbreds at Hampton." Maryland Historical Magazine 89 (Spring 1994): 22-37.

Jonnes, Jill. "Everybody Must Get Stoned: The Origins of Modern Drug Culture in Baltimore." Maryland Historical Magazine 91 (Summer 1996): 132-55.
Notes: In this excerpt from her 1996 book (<em>Hep-Cats, Narcs, and Pipe Dreams: A History of America's Romance with Illegal Drugs</em>), Jonnes chronicles the proliferation of drug use and drug culture in post-World War II Baltimore. Drawing upon first-person interviews and reports by criminologists, she traces the shift from relatively small-scale associations with hipster culture concentrated on Pennsylvania Avenue in the early period to its dramatic expansion in the 1960s, characterized by the introduction of harder drugs, heightened criminal activity, and greatly extended usage-not only in larger sections of the African American community in the city, but in the predominantly white suburbs as well.

Keir, Lisa S. "Scott's Tavern." History Trails 21 (Autumn 1986): 1-4.

Lancaster, R. Kent. "Almost Chattel: The Lives of Indentured Servants at Hampton-Northampton, Baltimore County." Maryland Historical Magazine 94 (Fall 1999): 340-62.

Orser, W. Edward. "Neither Separate Nor Equal: Foreshadowing Brown in Baltimore County, 1935-1937." Maryland Historical Magazine 92 (Spring 1997), 5-35.
Notes: Orser investigates a legal challenge to school segregation in Baltimore County in the 1930s. Argued by Thurgood Marshall, just after he joined the NAACP legal staff, the case tested the adequacy of the county's educational system for African Americans, which provided only for elementary schools in the county and for a limited number of tuition grants to attend high school in Baltimore City. Maryland courts ruled against Marshall and the NAACP at the time, but Orser contends that the court decisions laid the basis for the legal strategy which eventually succeeded before the U. S. Supreme Court in 1954.

Orser, Edward, and Joseph Arnold. Catonsville, 1880-1940: From Village to Suburb. Norfolk, VA: Donning Pubishing Co., 1989.
Notes: This photographic history traces the history of Catonsville, on Baltimore County's west side, from the 1880s, when the village center served the needs of travelers on Frederick Road and the surrounding agricultural area, as well as afforded sites for summer homes for some of Baltimore's elite, to 1940, when growth, development, and transportation links heightened its suburban character within the Baltimore metropolitan region. The volume includes research evidence on the social make-up of the community, such as the impact of German and Irish immigrants and the role of its historic African American community.

Parsons, Richard. "A 19th Century Social Service." History Trails 19 (Spring 1985): 9-12.

Parsons, Richard. "Almshouse Revisited." History Trails 21 (Winter 1986-1987): 5-8; (Spring 1987): 9-10.

Reutter, Mark. Sparrows Point: Making Steel-the Rise and Ruin of America's Industrial Might. New York: Summit Books, 1988.

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