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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.

Adler, Larry. It Ain't Necessarily So. New York: Grove Press, 1987.
Notes: Autobiography of a Baltimore-born musician.

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.

Delaplaine, Edward S. John Phillip Sousa and the National Anthem. Frederick, MD: Great Southern Press, 1983.

Kester, John G. "Charles Polke: Indian Trader of the Potomac." Maryland Historical Magazine 90 (Winter 1995): 446-65.

Kravetz, Sallie. Ethel Ennis, the Reluctant Jazz Star: An Illustrated Biography. Baltimore: Gateway Press/Hughes Enterprises, 1984.

Maturi, Richard J. Francis X. Bushman: A Biography and Filmography. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co., 1998.

Otter, William. History of My Own Times or, the Life and Adventures of William Otter, Sen. Comprising a Series of Events, and Musical Incidents Altogether Original. Emmitsburg, MD: n.p., 1835; reprint. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1995.
Notes: William Otter (1787-1856) has left an entertaining autobiography of his life as a plasterer and practical jokester. Originally published in Emmitsburg in 1835, Otter's <em>History</em> offers an unusual glimpse into social history from an artisan's perspective. Whether Otter's humorous adventures and anecdotes are all true is debatable. His story does, however, suggest a continuation of the irreverent Maryland personality seen in the works of Ebenezer Cooke, Dr. Alexander Hamilton and Meshack Browning.

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

Price, Walter W. "The Bashford Amphitheater's Name." Glades Star 6 (June 1990): 412-14.

Schaaf, Elizabeth. "George Peabody: His Life and Legacy, 1795-1869." Maryland Historical Magazine 90 (Fall 1995): 268-85.
Notes: George Peabody's legacy to Baltimore transcends the music conservatory and magnificent library that bear his name. His gifts influenced other wealthy friends whose philanthropy help establish some of the great educational and cultural institutions that grace the city: the Johns Hopkins University, the Enoch Pratt Free Library, and the Walters Art Gallery. This article surveys the life of a man admired and respected on both sides of the Atlantic.

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

Abingbade, Harrison Ola. "The Settler-African Conflicts: The Case of the Maryland Colonists and the Grebo 1840-1900." Journal of Negro History 66 (Summer 1981): 93-109.

Alpert, Jonathan L. "The Origin of Slavery in the United States: The Maryland Precedent." American Journal of Legal History 14 (1970): 189-222.
Notes: Maryland was the "first province in English North America to recognize slavery as a matter of law" (189). Therefore, the study of Maryland is useful for historians studying how American slavery was a product of the law. Early legislation recognized the existence of slavery, for while indentured servitude and slavery co-existed, and the terms were used interchangeably, the law still distinguished between the two. "All slaves were servants but not all servants were slaves" (193). However, it wasn't until 1664 when a statue was created which established slavery as hereditary. This statute was the first law in English North American to thus establish this type of slavery, legalizing what had been de facto since 1639. The author concludes that laws reflect the attitudes of a society and the manner in which societal problems are resolved. In the case of Maryland, servant problems could be avoided by replacing indentured servitude with perpetual slavery.

Anderson-Free, Corine F. The Baltimore Colored Orchestra and the City Colored Chorus. Ph.D. diss., University of Alabama, 1994.

Berlin, Ira. Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998.

Craven, Wesley Frank. White, Red, and Black: The Seventeenth-Century Virginian. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1971.
Notes: Remains the standard multi-cultural work for the 17th century.

David, Jonathan. "The Sermon and the Shout: A History of the Singing and Praying Bands of Maryland and Delaware." Southern Folklore Quarterly 51, no. 3 (1994): 241-63.

Dudley, David. "James Hubert 'Eubie' Blake." Baltimore 92 (March 1999): 38-39.

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.

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