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.
Categories: Agriculture, County and Local History, Eighteenth Century, Chesapeake Region
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
Middleton, Authur Pierce. Tobacco Coast: A Maritime History of the Chesapeake Bay in the Colonial Era. Newport News, VA: Mariners Museum, 1953.
Categories: Agriculture, County and Local History, Economic, Business, and Labor History, Maritime, Seventeenth Century, Eighteenth Century, Nineteenth Century, Chesapeake Region
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.
Categories: Agriculture, County and Local History, Eighteenth Century, Chesapeake Region
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.
Categories: African American, Agriculture, County and Local History, Economic, Business, and Labor History, Society, Social Change, Folklife, and Popular Culture, Charles County, Calvert County, St. Mary's County, Chesapeake Region
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.
Categories: Biography, Autobiography, and Reminiscences, County and Local History, Chesapeake Region
Charbeneau, Jim. Shouts and Whispers: Stories from the Southern Chesapeake Bay. White Stone, VA: Brandylane Publishers, 1997.
Categories: Biography, Autobiography, and Reminiscences, County and Local History, Intellectual Life, Literature, and Publishing, Society, Social Change, Folklife, and Popular Culture, Nineteenth Century, Twentieth Century, Chesapeake Region
Kester, John G. "Charles Polke: Indian Trader of the Potomac." Maryland Historical Magazine 90 (Winter 1995): 446-65.
Parker, Willie J. Game Warden: Chesapeake Assignment. Centreville, MD: Tidewater Publishers, 1983.
Categories: Biography, Autobiography, and Reminiscences, County and Local History, Environment, Society, Social Change, Folklife, and Popular Culture, Twentieth Century, Chesapeake Region
Turner, William H. Chesapeake Boyhood: Memoirs of a Farm Boy. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997.
Categories: Biography, Autobiography, and Reminiscences, County and Local History, Twentieth Century, Chesapeake Region
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
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
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.
Categories: African American, County and Local History, Economic, Business, and Labor History, Politics and Law, Society, Social Change, Folklife, and Popular Culture, Nineteenth Century, Chesapeake Region
Heinegg, Paul. Free African Americans of Maryland and Delaware: From the Colonial Period to 1810. Baltimore: Clearfield, 2000.
Categories: African American, Family History and Genealogy, Seventeenth Century, Eighteenth Century, Nineteenth Century, Chesapeake Region
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.
Categories: African American, County and Local History, Education, Society, Social Change, Folklife, and Popular Culture, Women, Nineteenth Century, Chesapeake Region
Nelson, Jack E. "Black Pearl of the Chesapeake." Chesapeake Bay Magazine 23 (November 1993): 24-27.
Categories: African American, County and Local History, Chesapeake Region
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.
Categories: General, African American, Seventeenth Century, Chesapeake Region
Yentsch, Anne. "Hot, Nourishing, and Culturally Potent: The Transfer of West African Cooking Traditions to the Chesapeake." Sage 9 (Summer 1995): 15-29.
Categories: African American, County and Local History, Ethnic History, Society, Social Change, Folklife, and Popular Culture, Chesapeake Region
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.
Categories: Architecture, Historic Preservation, and Town Planning, Science and Technology, Chesapeake Region
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.
Categories: Architecture, Historic Preservation, and Town Planning, Environment, Eighteenth Century, Chesapeake Region
Aiken, Zora. "Taylors Island." Chesapeake Bay Magazine 22 (December 1992): 28-33.
Categories: County and Local History, Chesapeake Region
Althoff, Susanne. "Tangier Island." Chesapeake Bay Magazine 25 (August 1995): 44-49.
Categories: County and Local History, Chesapeake Region
Baden, Jacqueline Heppes. Maryland's Eastern Shore: A Place Apart. 2 vols. Rockville, MD: Travel on Tape, Book Division, 1990.
Categories: County and Local History, Environment, Geography and Cartography, Society, Social Change, Folklife, and Popular Culture, Caroline County, Dorchester County, Kent County, Queen Anne's County, Somerset County, Talbot County, Wicomico County, Worcester County, Chesapeake Region, Eastern Shore