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Maryland: A Bicentennial History
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
March 26, 2016
Maryland is a small state with an impressive history, as Carl Bode makes clear in Maryland: A History. This book, part of the “States and the Nation” series published by W.W. Norton in the late 1970’s, takes an impressionistic, snapshot-style approach to the history of the Old Line State, and conveys that history concisely and effectively.
Bode, a professor of English at the University of Maryland, had to make the book concise; entries in the “States and the Nation” series were expected to clock in at less than 200 pages of published text. Accordingly, Bode elected “to write a book of episodes, roughly chronological”, and to make strategic omissions: “You won’t find the Ark and the Dove [the two ships that sailed into the Potomac River in 1634 and officially claimed Maryland for Lord Baltimore] or Thomas Stone the Signer [one of four Marylanders to sign the Declaration of Independence]” (xv). Rather, Bode focuses on eminent individuals from the history of Maryland as British colony and American state, and lets their histories, taken together, tell the story of Maryland.
The Marylanders that Bode focuses upon include Daniel Dulany the Elder, an 18th-century attorney and land speculator who “rose to eminence by tying his own growth to the colony’s” (p. 6). While Dulany died in 1753, decades before the American Revolution, his career does provide an early example of an American colonist appealing for British recognition of American rights. Dulany's 1728 pamphlet The Right of the Inhabitants of Maryland to the Benefit of the English Laws, “supported…not only with Grotius, Locke, and Coke but with citations from Saint Paul, from Cato and Caesar, from the Magna Carta, and from parliamentary debates”, set forth Dulany’s “thesis…that Marylanders were indeed Englishmen and so entitled to the protection of both English statute law and common law” (p. 25).
Outside the scope of Bode’s book, but still of interest, is the story of Dulany’s son, Daniel Dulany the Younger, who opposed taxation without representation but remained loyal to the British Crown and lost most of his property as a result. Such are the intricacies of Maryland history, and of America’s Revolutionary history.
The 19th century is represented by Severn Teackle Wallis, a politically active lawyer and prolific author who lent his pen to the political causes in which he believed. Courageously, and at considerable risk to his own safety, Wallis spoke out against the anti-immigrant, nativist forces of the Know-Nothing movement that gained political ascendancy in mid-19th-century Baltimore and used violent mobs to hold onto their power; as Bode puts it, Wallis “emerged as the most caustic public critic of the nativists” (p. 101).
Later, during the Civil War, Wallis opposed on principle the measures that the Lincoln Administration was taking to hold Maryland in the Union. Even though Wallis was not a supporter of the Confederacy, he was arrested, jailed, and eventually released without ever having been charged with any crime. He was offered early release if he signed a loyalty oath promising not to engage in hostile activity against the United States, but refused, stubbornly maintaining “that he hadn’t done anything hostile to begin with” (p. 125). (If your life journeys take you through downtown Baltimore, you may have seen the statue of Wallis in Mount Vernon Place. Characteristically, Wallis is standing tall and straight, and looks ready for a fight.)
And the 20th century is represented by newspaper editor and writer H.L. Mencken, “the Sage of Baltimore,” who is still looked to as an emblem of all things Baltimore, particularly because he “was born in the Baltimore bourgeoisie and, despite his rise to international fame, stayed in it throughout his life” (p. 174). Bode states well the reasons for Mencken's enduring fame: "Through his writing he became the national spokesman for the intellectuals of the 1920's because he formulated their feelings more tellingly than anyone else. These feelings were a paradoxical compound of disenchantment, defiance, and zest for living" (p. 175).
Other Marylanders that Bode chooses to represent the wide range of life experiences within the state’s history include Thomas Cresap, a Western Maryland frontiersman who championed the Maryland colony’s cause in its frequent border disputes with Pennsylvania; John Thompson, an African American who experienced the horrors of slavery in Maryland before his successful escape from bondage; and William and Margaret Preston, a couple whose voluminous records reveal much about the life of an upwardly mobile family in mid-19th-century Maryland.
Bode does engage in more traditional historical narrative, as when he describes how the War of 1812 and the Civil War affected the state of Maryland; major clashes like the 1814 Battle of Baltimore and the 1862 Battle of Antietam took place on Maryland soil and impacted Maryland families and communities.
Bode’s history, published in 1978, takes the reader as far as industrialist James Rouse’s development of the planned city of Columbia. As a former resident of the Dorsey’s Search village of Columbia, I appreciated Bode’s tribute to the way in which Rouse’s determination to develop a racially and economically diverse city was vindicated; by the mid-1970’s, “The neighborliness Rouse always hoped for had developed, in the city, in the villages, in the neighborhoods” (196).
Had the book been published later, it might have engaged more recent developments in Maryland history – for example, the savings-and-loan scandal of the 1980’s, or the fiercely contested 1994 gubernatorial election in which losing candidate Ellen Sauerbrey responded to her defeat by claiming widespread voter fraud and initiating a long (and ultimately unsuccessful) lawsuit. Some attention to the challenges and threats facing Chesapeake Bay might have helped as well.
But the Norton publishing company no doubt did well in publishing the “States and the Nation” series when they did – in the late 1970’s, when Bicentennial pride had Americans wanting to learn all they could about U.S. history. As a Marylander, I wanted to read this entry in the series; if you too are from Maryland, you may want to find a copy of Bode’s book. If you are from some other state or region of the United States of America, fear not: there are volumes in this series for every single state, along with the District of Columbia. For a U.S. reader, any of these books is likely to convey a strong sense of how the story of one's home state constitutes part of, and contributes to, the larger American story.
Bode, a professor of English at the University of Maryland, had to make the book concise; entries in the “States and the Nation” series were expected to clock in at less than 200 pages of published text. Accordingly, Bode elected “to write a book of episodes, roughly chronological”, and to make strategic omissions: “You won’t find the Ark and the Dove [the two ships that sailed into the Potomac River in 1634 and officially claimed Maryland for Lord Baltimore] or Thomas Stone the Signer [one of four Marylanders to sign the Declaration of Independence]” (xv). Rather, Bode focuses on eminent individuals from the history of Maryland as British colony and American state, and lets their histories, taken together, tell the story of Maryland.
The Marylanders that Bode focuses upon include Daniel Dulany the Elder, an 18th-century attorney and land speculator who “rose to eminence by tying his own growth to the colony’s” (p. 6). While Dulany died in 1753, decades before the American Revolution, his career does provide an early example of an American colonist appealing for British recognition of American rights. Dulany's 1728 pamphlet The Right of the Inhabitants of Maryland to the Benefit of the English Laws, “supported…not only with Grotius, Locke, and Coke but with citations from Saint Paul, from Cato and Caesar, from the Magna Carta, and from parliamentary debates”, set forth Dulany’s “thesis…that Marylanders were indeed Englishmen and so entitled to the protection of both English statute law and common law” (p. 25).
Outside the scope of Bode’s book, but still of interest, is the story of Dulany’s son, Daniel Dulany the Younger, who opposed taxation without representation but remained loyal to the British Crown and lost most of his property as a result. Such are the intricacies of Maryland history, and of America’s Revolutionary history.
The 19th century is represented by Severn Teackle Wallis, a politically active lawyer and prolific author who lent his pen to the political causes in which he believed. Courageously, and at considerable risk to his own safety, Wallis spoke out against the anti-immigrant, nativist forces of the Know-Nothing movement that gained political ascendancy in mid-19th-century Baltimore and used violent mobs to hold onto their power; as Bode puts it, Wallis “emerged as the most caustic public critic of the nativists” (p. 101).
Later, during the Civil War, Wallis opposed on principle the measures that the Lincoln Administration was taking to hold Maryland in the Union. Even though Wallis was not a supporter of the Confederacy, he was arrested, jailed, and eventually released without ever having been charged with any crime. He was offered early release if he signed a loyalty oath promising not to engage in hostile activity against the United States, but refused, stubbornly maintaining “that he hadn’t done anything hostile to begin with” (p. 125). (If your life journeys take you through downtown Baltimore, you may have seen the statue of Wallis in Mount Vernon Place. Characteristically, Wallis is standing tall and straight, and looks ready for a fight.)
And the 20th century is represented by newspaper editor and writer H.L. Mencken, “the Sage of Baltimore,” who is still looked to as an emblem of all things Baltimore, particularly because he “was born in the Baltimore bourgeoisie and, despite his rise to international fame, stayed in it throughout his life” (p. 174). Bode states well the reasons for Mencken's enduring fame: "Through his writing he became the national spokesman for the intellectuals of the 1920's because he formulated their feelings more tellingly than anyone else. These feelings were a paradoxical compound of disenchantment, defiance, and zest for living" (p. 175).
Other Marylanders that Bode chooses to represent the wide range of life experiences within the state’s history include Thomas Cresap, a Western Maryland frontiersman who championed the Maryland colony’s cause in its frequent border disputes with Pennsylvania; John Thompson, an African American who experienced the horrors of slavery in Maryland before his successful escape from bondage; and William and Margaret Preston, a couple whose voluminous records reveal much about the life of an upwardly mobile family in mid-19th-century Maryland.
Bode does engage in more traditional historical narrative, as when he describes how the War of 1812 and the Civil War affected the state of Maryland; major clashes like the 1814 Battle of Baltimore and the 1862 Battle of Antietam took place on Maryland soil and impacted Maryland families and communities.
Bode’s history, published in 1978, takes the reader as far as industrialist James Rouse’s development of the planned city of Columbia. As a former resident of the Dorsey’s Search village of Columbia, I appreciated Bode’s tribute to the way in which Rouse’s determination to develop a racially and economically diverse city was vindicated; by the mid-1970’s, “The neighborliness Rouse always hoped for had developed, in the city, in the villages, in the neighborhoods” (196).
Had the book been published later, it might have engaged more recent developments in Maryland history – for example, the savings-and-loan scandal of the 1980’s, or the fiercely contested 1994 gubernatorial election in which losing candidate Ellen Sauerbrey responded to her defeat by claiming widespread voter fraud and initiating a long (and ultimately unsuccessful) lawsuit. Some attention to the challenges and threats facing Chesapeake Bay might have helped as well.
But the Norton publishing company no doubt did well in publishing the “States and the Nation” series when they did – in the late 1970’s, when Bicentennial pride had Americans wanting to learn all they could about U.S. history. As a Marylander, I wanted to read this entry in the series; if you too are from Maryland, you may want to find a copy of Bode’s book. If you are from some other state or region of the United States of America, fear not: there are volumes in this series for every single state, along with the District of Columbia. For a U.S. reader, any of these books is likely to convey a strong sense of how the story of one's home state constitutes part of, and contributes to, the larger American story.
January 31, 2021
A great history of Maryland that tells the story of the states history through a narrative that focuses on one prominent individual in each era. Its basically a few short biographies that give you a good perspective of the time each person lived in and a few sidetracks along the way. Main characters are Daniel Dulany the Elder to explore the colonial period, Severn Teackle Wallis to explore the period before during and after the civil war, Freeman Rasin and Arthur Gorman that explores the corrupt politics and boss rule in Baltimore in the late 1800’s and a bit of H. L. Mencken in the 1920’s-40’s. It was a quick easy read (197 pages) good for anyone interested in Maryland and American history.
January 5, 2021
I wasn’t expecting to finish when I picked it up, but it was readable enough. I learned less history than I expected, but I did find the stories of the people Bode highlights generally interesting. Bode has some fun descriptions of certain things as well, including his declaration that Key’s original title for the Star Spangled Banner, Defense of Fort McHenry, as “a title with no tingle at all.” It’s intriguing to learn that no battles (aside from some naval raids) were fought in Maryland during the Revolutionary War. The most shocking thing I learned was that Maryland’s motto essentially translates from Italian as “Men Act while Women Talk”.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews