The Maryland History and Culture Bibliography
Marks, Lillian Bayly. Reister's Desire: The Origin of Reisterstown, Maryland, Founded 1758, With a Genealogical History of the Reister Family and Sketches of Allied Families. N.p.: Published by the author, 1975.
Notes: A history of the early development of today's Reisterstown as documented primarily through land records. The largest portion of this work is dedicated to the genealogy of the Reister, and allied, families.
Categories: County and Local History, Family History and Genealogy, Before 1600 AD, Seventeenth Century, Eighteenth Century, Baltimore County, Baltimore City, Carroll County
Praising the Bridge that Brought them Over: One Hundred Years at Indian Head. Indian Head, MD: Naval Ordnance Station, 1990.
Notes: The history of the military base, and its surrounding community, as told through photographs and excerpts with interviews from twenty-six individuals. A ten page time line charts events of importance among the Navy at Indian Head, in the town of Indian Head, and national and internationally.
Categories: African American, Biography, Autobiography, and Reminiscences, County and Local History, Military, Science and Technology, Women, Nineteenth Century, Twentieth Century, Charles County
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.
Categories: Architecture, Historic Preservation, and Town Planning, County and Local History, Geography and Cartography, Politics and Law, Seventeenth Century, Nineteenth Century, Anne Arundel County, Baltimore City, Caroline County, Cecil County, Charles County, Calvert County, Dorchester County, Harford County, Kent County, Prince George's County, Queen Anne's County, St. Mary's County, Somerset County, Talbot County, Wicomico County, Worcester County, Chesapeake Region, Southern Maryland, Eastern Shore
Richardson, Hester Dorsey. "Colors of the Counties." Calvert Historian 8 (Fall 1993): 50-52.
Categories: County and Local History, Military, Seventeenth Century, Anne Arundel County, Baltimore City, Cecil County, Charles County, Calvert County, Dorchester County, Kent County, St. Mary's County, Somerset County, Talbot County, Southern Maryland, Eastern Shore
Tidwell, William A. "Charles County: Confederate Cauldron." Maryland Historical Magazine 91 (Spring 1996): 16-27.
Notes: Although largely rural and poorly populated, Charles County played an important role during the Civil War. A very large number of its citizens were actively involved in Confederate activities to the point where Charles County could be seen as a Confederate underground. The most well known related event was John Wilkes Booth's escape attempt through the County.
Categories: County and Local History, Military, Nineteenth Century, Charles County
Wearmouth, John M. Charles County Helps Shape the Nation. LaPlata, MD: Charles County Board of Education, 1986.
Categories: County and Local History, Charles County
Wearmouth, John M. LaPlata, Maryland, 1888-1988: One Hundred Years the Heart of Charles County. LaPlata, MD: Town of LaPlata, 1988.
Categories: County and Local History, Charles County
Williams, T .J. C. The History of Washington County, Maryland, From the Earliest Settlements of the Present Time, Including A History of Hagerstown. Baltimore: Regional Publishing Co., 1968.
Categories: County and Local History, Family History and Genealogy, Before 1600 AD, Seventeenth Century, Eighteenth Century, Nineteenth Century, Washington County
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.
Categories: Architecture, Historic Preservation, and Town Planning, County and Local History, Environment, Society, Social Change, Folklife, and Popular Culture, Anne Arundel County, Baltimore City, Caroline County, Cecil County, Charles County, Calvert County, Dorchester County, Harford County, Kent County, Prince George's County, Queen Anne's County, St. Mary's County, Somerset County, Talbot County, Wicomico County, Worcester County, Chesapeake Region, Southern Maryland, Eastern Shore
Wood, Gregory A. Early French Presence in Maryland 1524-1800. Baltimore: Gateway Press, 1977.
Categories: County and Local History, Ethnic History, Before 1600 AD, Seventeenth Century
Ashby, Wallace L. Fossils of Calvert Cliffs. Solomons, MD: Calvert Marine Museum Press, 1979.
Categories: Archaeology, Environment, Science and Technology, Before 1600 AD, Twentieth Century, Calvert County
Bernstein, L. R. Minerals of the Washington, D.C. area. Baltimore: Maryland Geological Survey, 1980.
Categories: Environment, Science and Technology, Before 1600 AD, Twentieth Century
Fales, John H. "Occurrence in Southern Maryland of the Carolina Satyr (Satyridae: Satyrinae)." Maryland Naturalist 39 (January-June 1995): 5-7.
Categories: Environment, Charles County, Calvert County, St. Mary's County
Force, Peter. Tracts and Other Papers Relating Principally to the Origin, Settlement, and Progress of the Colonies in North America: From the Discovery of the Country to the Year 1776. Washington, DC: Peter Force, 1836.
Notes: At least Volumes I, and IV contain material relevant to Chesapeake Environment. Force performed a valuable service codifying and publishing these in the early nineteenth century, before some of the sources were lost. Volume IV contains Colony founder Father Andrew White's "Relation" of Maryland to Lord Baltimore, and his "Narrative of a Voyage to Virginia". In the relation of events of 1642 the text records what is plausibly, the first and only lethal shark attack in Chesapeake history. p. 37 in Force's Vol. IV.
Categories: Environment, Society, Social Change, Folklife, and Popular Culture, Before 1600 AD, Seventeenth Century, Eighteenth Century
Glaser, John D. Collecting Fossils in Maryland. Baltimore: State of Maryland, Dept. of Natural Resources, Maryland Geological Survey, 1995.
Categories: Environment, Science and Technology, Before 1600 AD, Twentieth Century
Hariot, Thomas. Narrative of the first English plantation of Virginia. 1588; reprint London: N.p., 1893).
Hulton, Paul. America, 1585: The Complete Drawings of John White. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1984.
Notes: These are the first "pictures" of this region, accurately depicting marine, terrestrial and avian species, and both Native Americans and sundry of their crafts. They are widely applicable to the nearby Chesapeake Indians and some drawings may directly depict Bay life because John White explored there during his stay.
Categories: Agriculture, Environment, Society, Social Change, Folklife, and Popular Culture, Before 1600 AD
Johnson, Paula J. Working the Water: The Commercial Fisheries of Maryland's Patuxent River. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1988.
Notes: Johnson's book covers many of the fishing techniques and inventions which have so strongly impacted Chesapeake Bay's natural resources.
Categories: County and Local History, Economic, Business, and Labor History, Environment, Science and Technology, Society, Social Change, Folklife, and Popular Culture, Nineteenth Century, Twentieth Century, Anne Arundel County, Charles County
Kent, Bretton W. Fossil Sharks of the Chesapeake Bay Region. Columbia, MD: Egan, Rees and Boyer, Inc., 1994.
Notes: An excellent manual and discussion about Maryland's most popular fossil, the shark's tooth.
Categories: Environment, Science and Technology, Before 1600 AD
Kent, Bretton W. Making Dead Oysters Talk. 1988; rev. ed. Crownsville, MD: Maryland Historical Trust, Historic St. Mary's City Commission and Jefferson Patterson Park and Museum, 1992.
Notes: Kent's analyses of oysters from archaeological sites, tell a cautionary tale of overharvest which went unheeded for three centuries.
Categories: Archaeology, Environment, Science and Technology, Society, Social Change, Folklife, and Popular Culture, Before 1600 AD, Seventeenth Century
Kiger, Robert W., Galvin D. R. Bridson, and Donna M. Connelly, eds. Huntia. Vol 7. Pittsburgh: Carnegie Institute of Technology. Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation, 1987.
Notes: In this volume contributors James Reveal, George Frick, Melvin Brown and Rose Broome lay out a remarkable history of Maryland (and the Chesapeake's) earliest botanists, their personal stories, their observations and collections, which are still preserved at the British Museum in London. This is technical material, but salted in are the remarkable human stories and insights into a Chesapeake different from today.
Categories: Environment, Science and Technology, Society, Social Change, Folklife, and Popular Culture, Before 1600 AD, Seventeenth Century
Mackiernan, Gail B., ed. Dissolved Oxygen in Chesapeake Bay: Processes and Effects. Centreville, MD: Tidewater Publishers, 1988.
Notes: The summer loss of dissolved oxygen in deep waters of the Bay is one indicator of the estuary's serious environmental problems. Any student of the Bay should understand this phenomenon.
Categories: Environment, Science and Technology, Before 1600 AD, Twentieth Century
Middleton, Arthur Pierce. Tobacco Coast. 1953; reprint, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994.
Notes: Middleton, subsequently a retired Episcopal Canon, for years directed work at Colonial Williamsburg. This defining volume on Chesapeake Maritime History contains valuable environmental references coupled to the region's colonial economy.
Categories: County and Local History, Environment, Society, Social Change, Folklife, and Popular Culture, Before 1600 AD, Seventeenth Century, Eighteenth Century, Nineteenth Century, Chesapeake Region
Poag, C. Wylie. Chesapeake Invader: Discovering America's Giant Meteorite Crater. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999.
Notes: Poag's recent book discusses the massive bolide impact which set up the geology beneath Chesapeake Bay. While the impact was centered beneath what is today the Virginia Eastern Shore, parts of the bolide struck in Maryland as well, and affected the entire drainage system.
Categories: Environment, Science and Technology, Before 1600 AD
Sharrer, G. Terry. "The Patuxent: Maryland's Heartland River." Maryland 21 (Spring 1989): 6-23.
Categories: County and Local History, Environment, Maritime, Transportation and Communication, Anne Arundel County, Charles County