The Maryland History and Culture Bibliography
Handwerker, Tom. "Something is Fishy Down on the Farm." Heartland of Del-Mar-Va 13 (Harvest 1991): 18-19.
Categories: Agriculture, Economic, Business, and Labor History, Caroline County, Cecil County, Dorchester County, Kent County, Queen Anne's County, Somerset County, Wicomico County, Worcester County, Eastern Shore
Johnson, Robert C., ed. "Virginia in 1632." Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 65 (1957): 458-466.
Categories: African American, Agriculture, Economic, Business, and Labor History, Intellectual Life, Literature, and Publishing, Native American, Politics and Law, Society, Social Change, Folklife, and Popular Culture, Seventeenth Century
Adler, Georgia. "How Distinctly I Now Recollect What Then Passed: The Journals of William E. Bartlett." Maryland Humanities (March/April 1994): 2-3.
Blakey, Arch Frederick. General John H. Winder, C.S.A. Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1990.
Categories: Biography, Autobiography, and Reminiscences, Military, Nineteenth Century, Somerset County, Civil War, Eastern Shore
Carroll, Kenneth L. "The Berry Brothers of Talbot County, Maryland: Early Antislavery Leaders." Maryland Historical Magazine 84 (1989): 1-9.
Categories: African American, Biography, Autobiography, and Reminiscences, Seventeenth Century, Talbot County, Eastern Shore
Kester, John G. "Charles Polke: Indian Trader of the Potomac." Maryland Historical Magazine 90 (Winter 1995): 446-65.
Krech, Shepard, III. Praise the Bridge That Carries You Over: The Life of Joseph L. Sutton. Boston: G. K. Hall and Co. (cloth); Cambridge, MD: Chenkman Publishing Co. (paper), 1981.
Notes: Biography of a black resident of Miles River Neck in Talbot County. Based on extensive oral history interviews, this personal narrative by a long-time Talbot County resident offers a unique look at the life of African Americans on the Eastern Shore. Joseph Sutton (1885-1980) led a long and eventful life, and his reminiscences are rich in personal detail. In addition to his own experiences, Sutton's words are a valuable source for understanding the personal impact of racism on African Americans.
Categories: African American, Biography, Autobiography, and Reminiscences, Twentieth Century, Talbot County
"Meet Talbot's Delegates." Historical Society of Talbot County Newsletter (Fall 1987): 1-2.
Categories: Biography, Autobiography, and Reminiscences, Politics and Law, Twentieth Century, Talbot County, Eastern Shore
Preston, Dickson J. Young Frederick Douglass: The Maryland Years. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1980.
Notes: There are a number of excellent biographies of Frederick Douglass including works by Eric Foner, William McFeeley and Benjamin Quarles. For the student of Maryland history, Preston's short but well-researched book focuses on the first twenty years of Douglass' life spent in Talbot County and Baltimore City. His experiences as a slave in Maryland shaped his subsequent career and thus are critical to understanding one of the greatest spokesmen for human rights.
Categories: African American, Biography, Autobiography, and Reminiscences, Nineteenth Century, Baltimore City, Talbot County
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.
Categories: African American, Maritime, Native American, Politics and Law, Society, Social Change, Folklife, and Popular Culture, Nineteenth Century
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.
Categories: African American, Native American, Politics and Law, Seventeenth Century
Berlin, Ira. Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998.
Categories: African American, Economic, Business, and Labor History, Native American, Politics and Law, Society, Social Change, Folklife, and Popular Culture, Before 1600 AD, Seventeenth Century
Clemens, Paul G.E. The Atlantic Economy and Colonial Maryland's Eastern Shore: From Tobacco to Grain. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1980.
Categories: African American, Agriculture, Economic, Business, and Labor History, Kent County, Queen Anne's County, Talbot County, Eastern Shore, Eighteenth Century
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.
Categories: African American, Ethnic History, Native American, Seventeenth Century
Davidson, Thomas E. "Free Blacks in Old Somerset County, 1745-1755." Maryland Historical Magazine 80 (Summer 1985): 151-156.
Notes: County court records of Somerset County, Maryland during the eighteenth century are particularly complete, allowing for detailed studies of the county's population during that period. The author contributes to the scholarship which, up until 1985, focused primarily on the origins of black culture on the Eastern Shore of Maryland in the seventeenth century. The author also adds to the growing scholarship on free blacks in this region, which tended to also focus on the seventeenth century. In addition to examining court records to determine the numbers of free Negroes and mulattoes, the author also attempts to determine how members of these populations obtained their free status, that is, through manumission or the as the result of being children of free mothers (free-born).
Categories: African American, County and Local History, Family History and Genealogy, Society, Social Change, Folklife, and Popular Culture, Eighteenth Century, Somerset County, Eastern Shore
Davidson, Thomas E. "Jacob Armstrong: Pioneer Black Capitalist on Maryland's Eastern Shore." Maryland Pendulum 4 (1986): 4-6.
Categories: African American, Biography, Autobiography, and Reminiscences, County and Local History, Economic, Business, and Labor History, Caroline County, Cecil County, Dorchester County, Queen Anne's County, Somerset County, Talbot County, Wicomico County, Worcester County, Eastern Shore
Harvey, Lamont W. "Black Oystermen of the Bay Country... particularly St. Michaels, Maryland." Weather Gauge 30 (Spring 1994): 4-13.
Klein, Mary O. "'We Shall Be Accountable to God:' Some Inquiries into the Position of Blacks in Somerset Parish, Maryland, 1692-1865." Maryland Historical Magazine 87 (Winter 1992): 399-406.
Notes: The author examines the conversion of free blacks and slaves in Somerset Parish. While a 1664 Maryland law stated that baptism had no effect on the status of a slave, the Anglican church worked towards conversion of the enslaved. However, Christian education and baptism varied depending on individual slaveowners. In some cases, the enslaved themselves refused to be baptized. Evidence of African religious practices remained alongside the practice of Christianity.
Categories: African American, Religion, Society, Social Change, Folklife, and Popular Culture, Seventeenth Century, Eighteenth Century, Nineteenth Century, Somerset County, Eastern Shore
"Selected Readings on Afro-Americans and Maryland's Eastern Shore." Maryland Pendulum 5 (Fall/Winter 1985): 6-7.
Categories: African American, Intellectual Life, Literature, and Publishing, Caroline County, Cecil County, Dorchester County, Queen Anne's County, Somerset County, Talbot County, Wicomico County, Worcester County, Eastern Shore
Wennersten, John R. "A Cycle of Race Relations on Maryland's Eastern Shore: Somerset County, 1850-1917." Maryland Historical Magazine 80 (Winter 1985): 377-382.
Categories: African American, Politics and Law, Society, Social Change, Folklife, and Popular Culture, Nineteenth Century, Twentieth Century, Somerset County, Eastern Shore
Wennersten, John R., and Ruth Ellen Wennersten. "Separate and Unequal: The Evolution of a Black Land Grant College in Maryland, 1890-1930." Maryland Historical Magazine 72 (Spring 1977): 110-17.
Notes: The authors examine how Princess Anne Academy on the lower Eastern Shore of Maryland developed after 1890 as a state and federally supported land grant school. Like other land grant schools, Princess Anne Academy was neglected by state and federal agencies. This academy was an example of separate education provided for blacks which demonstrated how land grant schools were indeed separate ad unequal.
Categories: African American, Education, Intellectual Life, Literature, and Publishing, Nineteenth Century, Twentieth Century, Somerset County, Eastern Shore
Wilson, Emily Wanda. The Public Education of Negroes on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. M.A. thesis, Howard University, 1948.
Categories: African American, Education, Nineteenth Century, Twentieth Century, Caroline County, Cecil County, Dorchester County, Queen Anne's County, Somerset County, Talbot County, Wicomico County, Worcester County, Eastern Shore
Bodenstein, William G. "St. Michael's, Maryland: An 18^th Century Speculative Development." Maryland Historical Magazine 80 (Fall 1985): 228-239.
Categories: Architecture, Historic Preservation, and Town Planning, Eighteenth Century, Talbot County
Hughes, Elizabeth. Historic St. Michaels: An Architectural History. St. Michaels, MD: Historic St. Michaels Bay Hundred, Inc., 1995.
Categories: Architecture, Historic Preservation, and Town Planning, County and Local History, Talbot County
Ludlow, Cynthia Beatty. Historic Easton. Edited by David Reed Freeman. Easton, MD: Historic Easton, Inc., 1979.