Books in print from CCBC Libraries
Baltimore by Call Number: F189.B157 C48 2000
John Smith's Chesapeake Voyages, 1607-1609 by
Captain John Smith's voyages throughout the new world did not end--or, for that matter, begin--with the trip on which he was captured and brought to the great chief Powhatan. Partly in an effort to map the region, Smith covered countless leagues of the Chesapeake Bay and its many tributary rivers, and documented his experiences. In this ambitious and extensively illustrated book, scholars from multiple disciplines take the reader on Smith's exploratory voyages and reconstruct the Chesapeake environment and its people as Smith encountered them. Beginning with a description of the land and waterways as they were then, the book also provides a portrait of the native peoples who lived and worked on them--as well as the motives, and the means, the recently arrived English had at their disposal for learning about a world only they thought of as "new." Readers are then taken along on John Smith's two expeditions to map the bay, an account drawn largely from Smith's own journals and told by the coauthor, an avid sailor, with a complete reconstruction of the winds, tides, and local currents Smith would have faced. The authors then examine the region in more detail: the major river valleys, the various parts of the Eastern Shore, and the head of the Bay. Each area is mapped and described, with added sections on how the Native Americans used the specific natural resources available, how English settlements spread, and what has happened to the native people since the English arrived. The book concludes with a discussion on the changes in the region's waters and its plant and animal life since John Smith's time--some of which reflect the natural shifts over time in this dynamic ecosystem, others the result of the increased human population and the demands that come with it. Published by the University of Virginia Press in association with Chesapeake Bay Gateways Network, and the U.S. National Park Service, Virginia Department of Historic Resources, and Maryland Historical Trust.
Call Number: F187.C5 R675 2008
Maryland by
From Antietam to Assateague, from Charles County's Tobacco Road to the mountainous Green Ridge Forest, the natural and historic sites of Maryland are among the nation's richest and most diverse. Now, the newly revised and updated edition of this widely acclaimed guidebook provides a complete, compact, and reliable companion for travel anywhere in the state. First published as a project of the Works Progress Administration in 1940 and last revised for the 1976 bicentennial, Maryland: A New Guide to the Old Line State has been reorganized, rewritten, and completely updated. Personally traveling nearly all of the 5,000 miles covered, the authors combine first-hand experience with the latest scholarly research. The result is a unique new guidebook that tells the stories of Maryland's familiar people and places and of those often overlooked. Travelers can follow Piscataway Indian trails as well as John Wilkes Booth's escape route; visit the homes of Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman as well as the mansions in Annapolis and Hampton; explore the sites of the Crisfield oyster boom and Georges Creek coal rush as well as those of John Brown's raid and the Battle of Antietam. The updated Guide also provides information on the many museums and visitor attractions in Baltimore, Frederick, and other Maryland cities. Supplementing the more than 120 archival photographs are contemporary ones by photographer Edwin Remsberg which show the immensity of changes the state has undergone. Some photos literally look down the same street or road fifty or sixty years later, revealing dramatic urban development or subtle shifts in mood. Fifty new maps by cartographer Bill Nelson offer an accurate guide to every tour. Previous editions of this book have been hailed as definitive touring guides to Maryland. Now once more revised and updated--and this time fully reorganized--Maryland: A New Guide to the Old Line State emerges as a freshly appealing guidebook for native, newcomer, and visitor alike.
Call Number: F179.3.A66 1999
Roots of Steel by
When Deborah Rudacille was a child growing up in the working-class town of Dundalk, Maryland, a worker at the local Sparrows Point steel mill made more than enough to comfortably support a family. But in the decades since, the decline of American manufacturing has put tens of thousands out of work and left the people of Dundalk pondering the broken promise of the American dream. In Roots of Steel, Rudacille combines personal narrative, interviews with workers, and extensive research to capture the character and history of this once-prosperous community. She takes us from Sparrows Point's nineteenth-century origins to its height in the twentieth century as one of the largest producers of steel in the world, providing the material that built America's bridges, skyscrapers, and battleships. Throughout, Rudacille dissects the complicated racial, class, and gender politics that played out in the mill and its neighboring towns, and details both the arduous and dangerous work at the plant and the environmental cost of industrial progress to the air and waterways of the Maryland shore. Powerful, candid, and eye-opening, Roots of Steel is a timely reminder, as the American economy seeks to restructure itself, of the people who inevitably have been left behind.
Call Number: HD9518.S6 R83 2010
Maryland History Timeline
Streaming Videos
- AntietamWhen you walk the silent Antietam Battlefield in the cool of early morning with the mist undulating in the hollows of West Wood, they are there-the ghosts of the generals and the 26,000 young Americans who died on the day one of them said was so long that "the sun moved backwards." Putting the battle into historical perspective, historian William Brown brings the massive battle to life, explaining how the muskets and field cannons worked, what the men wore, and what the battle was like for the ordinary soldier.
- Lincoln and Lee at Antietam: The Cost of Freedom
It has been called the battle that McClellan could not lose and Lee could not win as union forces engaged numbered almost twice that of the confederates. Although this bloodiest day of fighting produced no decisive victor, the battle’s impact on the course of the American Civil War and the very reasons for fighting it would be changed forever.
Databases
- Arts & Humanities Database
Articles on arts including visual arts, architecture, design, music, literature, and theatre,
and humanities including history, philosophy, and cultural studies. - Biography Reference Bank This link opens in a new window
Biographical articles about people in the news, arts, literature, sports, and history.
- HathiTrust Digital Library
HathiTrust is a partnership of academic & research institutions, offering a collection of millions of titles digitized from libraries around the world.
- History Research This link opens in a new window
Primary documents as well as essays about historical topics and people.
- JSTOR This link opens in a new window
Journals, books, images, and primary sources about many subjects.
- Oxford African American Studies Center This link opens in a new window
Articles and scholarly essays, historical newspaper articles, primary sources, and timelines you can use for African American topics.
- ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The Baltimore Sun This link opens in a new window
Primary source articles covering the politics, society and events of the time period 1837 - 1992.
- Salem Press eBooks This link opens in a new window
Books on topics including literature, health and medicine, science, careers, and history to start your research. You can use an essay from a book on your topic.
- U.S. History This link opens in a new window
Articles, essays, and primary sources on the history of the United States.
Ebooks from CCBC Libraries
Papist Devils by
This is a brief highly readable history of the Catholic experience in Brit- ish America, which shaped the development of the colonies and the na- scent republic in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Historian Robert Emmett Curran begins his account with the English reforma- tion, which helps us to understand the Catholic exodus from England, Ireland, and Scotland that took place over the nearly two centuries that constitute the colonial period. The deeply rooted English understand- ing of Catholics as enemies of the political and religious values at the heart of British tradition, ironically acted as a catalyst for the emer- gence of a Catholic republican movement that was a critical factor in the decision of a strong majority of American Catholics in 1775 to sup- port the cause for independence. Papist Devils utilizes archival material, newspapers, and other con- temporary records in addition to a broad array of general histories, monographs, and dissertations dealing with the British Atlantic world. The unprecedentedly broad scope of this study, which encompasses not only the thirteen colonies that took up arms against Britain in 1775, but also those in the maritime provinces of Canada as well as the ones in the West Indies, constitutes a unique coverage of the British Cath- olic colonial experience, as does the extension of the colonial period through the American Revolution, which was its logical dénouement.
Publication Date: 2014-05-06
Musical Maryland by
In Musical Maryland, the first comprehensive survey of the music emanating from the Old Line State, David K. Hildebrand and Elizabeth M. Schaaf explore the myriad ways in which music has enriched the lives of Marylanders. From the drinking songs of colonial Annapolis, the liturgical music of the Zion Lutheran Church, and the work songs of the tobacco fields to the exuberant marches of late nineteenth-century Baltimore Orioles festivals, Chick Webb's mastery on drums, and the triumphs of the Baltimore Opera Society, this richly illustrated volume explores more than 300 years of Maryland's music history. Beginning with early compositions performed in private settings and in public concerts, this book touches on the development of music clubs like the Tuesday Club, the Florestan Society, and H. L. Mencken's Saturday Night Club, as well as lasting institutions such as the Peabody Institute and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra (BSO). Yet the soundscape also includes militia quicksteps, sea chanteys, and other work songs. The book describes the writing of "The Star-Spangled Banner"--perhaps Maryland's single greatest contribution to the nation's musical history. It chronicles the wide range of music created and performed by Maryland's African American musicians along Pennsylvania Avenue in racially segregated Baltimore, from jazz to symphonic works. It also tells the true story of a deliberately integrated concert that the BSO staged at the end of World War II. The book is full of musical examples, engravings, paintings, drawings, and historic photographs that not only portray the composers and performers but also the places around the state in which music flourished. Illuminating sidebars by William Biehl focus on late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century song of the kind evoked by the USS Baltimore or inspired by the state's history, natural beauty, and romantic steamboats. The book also offers a sampling of the tunes that Maryland's more remarkable composers and performers, including Billie Holiday, Eubie Blake, and Cab Calloway, contributed to American music before the homogenization that arrived in earnest after World War II. Bringing to life not only portraits of musicians, composers, and conductors whose stories and recollections are woven into the fabric of this book, but also musical scores and concert halls, Musical Maryland is an engaging, authoritative, and bold look at an endlessly compelling subject.
Publication Date: 2017-09-14
Fifty Years in Chains by
Fifty Years in Chains: Or, the Life of an American Slave (1859) was an abridged and unauthorized reprint of the earlier Slavery in the United States (1836). In the narratives, Ball describes his experiences as a slave, including the uncertainty of slave life and the ways in which the slaves are forced to suffer inhumane conditions. He recounts the qualities of his various masters and the ways in which his fortune depended on their temperament. As slave narrative scholar William L. Andrews has noted, Ball's oft-repeated narrative directly influenced the manner and matter of later fugitive slave narratives. A DOCSOUTH BOOK. This collaboration between UNC Press and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Library brings classic works from the digital library of Documenting the American South back into print. DocSouth Books uses the latest digital technologies to make these works available in paperback and e-book formats. Each book contains a short summary and is otherwise unaltered from the original publication. DocSouth Books provide affordable and easily accessible editions to a new generation of scholars, students, and general readers.
Publication Date: 2012-12-01
Integrating the Orioles by
The struggle to integrate the Baltimore Orioles mirrored the fight for civil rights in Baltimore. The Orioles debuted in 1954, the same year the Supreme Court struck down public school segregation. As Baltimore experienced demonstrations, white flight and a 1968 riot, team integration came slowly. Black players--mostly outfielders--made cameo appearances as black fans stayed away in droves. The breakthrough came in 1966, with the arrival of a more enlightened owner, and African American superstar Frank Robinson. As more black players filled the roster, the Orioles dominated the American League from 1969 through much of the 1970s and into the early 1980s. Attempts to integrate the team's executive suite were less successful. While black players generally did not participate in civil rights actions, several under Robinson's leadership pushed for front office jobs for former black players. Drawing on primary sources and interviews with former executives, players and sportswriters, this book tells the story of the integration of the Orioles. The author describes how tensions between community leaders and team officials aborted negotiations to both increase black attendance and put an African American in the club's executive ranks.
Publication Date: 2016-01-14
Ancestors of Worthy Life by
"A tour de force. Moyer goes beyond critique to give us a richly contextualized study, demonstrating that inclusive interpretation of plantation and other historic house museum sites can be done and that the failure to do so is a political act rooted in systemic racism."--David T. Palmer, University of Louisiana at Lafayette "An uncommonly detailed, frank, and balanced discussion of racialized practice at a historic site museum."--Kirsti Uunila, historic preservation planner, Calvert County, Maryland Enslaved African Americans helped transform the United States economy, culture, and history. Yet these individuals' identities, activities, and sometimes their very existence are often all but expunged from historically preserved plantations and house museums. Reluctant to show and interpret the homes and lives of the enslaved, many sites have never shared the stories of the African Americans who once lived and worked on their land. One such site is Mount Clare near Baltimore, Maryland, where Teresa Moyer pulls no punches in her critique of racism in historic preservation. In her balanced discussion, Moyer examines the inextricably entangled lives of the enslaved, free blacks, and white landowners. Her work draws on evidence from archaeology, history, geology, and other fields to explore the ways that white privilege continues to obscure the contributions of blacks at Mount Clare. She demonstrates that a landscape's post-emancipation history can make a powerful statement about black heritage. Ultimately she argues that the inclusion of enslaved persons in the history of these sites would honor these "ancestors of worthy life," make the social good of public history available to African Americans, and address systemic racism in America.
Publication Date: 2015-01-13
