Dictionary:
Mar·y·land (mĕr'ə-lənd)  (Abbr. MD
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A state of the east-central United States. It was admitted as one of the original Thirteen Colonies in 1788. The colony was founded by Lord Baltimore in 1634 as a refuge for English Roman Catholics. Annapolis is the capital and Baltimore the largest city. Population: 5,620,000.
Marylander Mar'y·land·er n.
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| Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: Maryland |
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| US History Encyclopedia: Maryland |
A small state on the Atlantic coast, midway between the northern and southern boundaries of the United States, Maryland embraces the Chesapeake Bay and extends narrowly westward into the Appalachian Mountains. When the first European settlers arrived in the area, there were a dozen or more Native American tribes, each with 200 or more members crisscrossing the land, living mostly on the seafood from the Chesapeake. For sixty years after European settlement, relations between the Indians and the settlers were tense but short of war, and during the 1690s most of the Indians of the area moved south or west.
Seventeenth-Century Settlement
Explorers arrived in the 1580s, and in 1607 the London Company, with a British title to the land that is now Maryland, settled at Jamestown. The Virginians mapped the Chesapeake, traded with the Indians, and in 1631 William Claibourne from Jamestown established a furtrading settlement at Kent Island. Maryland's existence as a separate colony, however, emerged from the Calvert family. George Calvert was a personal friend of King James I, liked by the king for his Roman Catholic faith and his devotion to conservative feudal ideals. King James elevated him to the peerage as Lord Baltimore and gave him title to lands in Newfoundland. From 1620 to 1629, Calvert invested in the colony that he called Avalon, but the climate was too severe and the colony failed. In 1632, Calvert persuaded King Charles I to reclaim from the London Company the Potomac River and the Virginia lands to the north, and to transfer this land to him. Calvert diplomatically named the grant for the king's wife.
George Calvert died before settlement could proceed, but his sons ably took up the project. The oldest son Cecil became the second Lord Baltimore and managed colonization from London. The second son Leonard led the expedition of the Arc and Dove that landed at St. Clement's Island in the Potomac on 25 March 1634 and proceeded a few days later to settle permanently at St. Mary's. The first settlers included about seventeen gentlemen-investors who were mostly Catholic, about thirty freemen, and about eighty indentured servants who were mostly Protestant. The expedition also included two Africans who boarded the ship in the Caribbean, presumably as indentures. The Calverts gave at least 2,000 acres to investors who paid the way of five or more servants, and they gave 100 acres to freemen who paid their own way. The Calverts sold additional land, and they collected quitrents on the lands they gave away or sold.
Within a few years the settlers were widely scattered, cultivating corn for subsistence and tobacco for sale to England. At least until the end of the century, life was extremely rude. The ratio of men to women was three to one, and life expectancy was far below that in England. Still, there was easy upward mobility for those who survived, and for those who bought servants and collected the land bounty for them, and newcomers kept arriving. In 1649 the Calverts made the most of their settlers' religious diversity, accepting an Act of Religious Toleration to encourage more settlers. It was one of the first such acts in the history of Christianity.
Life was harsh enough on this outer edge of civilization, and eight decades of intermittent warfare made it harsher. From 1645 to 1660 Maryland repulsed at least three expeditions of attacking Virginians who proclaimed fear of their Catholic-led neighbors and who sought booty for themselves in the wilderness. Then, periodically, especially from 1689 to 1715, the colony was torn by civil war as younger planters revolted against the Calvert proprietors and their appointed governors. The rebellions expanded the power of the General Assembly over the governor, moved the capital from Catholic-leaning St. Mary's to Puritan-leaning Annapolis (1694), and repealed the Toleration Act in order to establish the Anglican Church (1702). The chastened Calverts—there were six generations from George Calvert to the American Revolution—joined the Anglican Church and regained most of their authority over the governor.
The Eighteenth Century and the American Revolution
The transition from rudeness to prosperity—from a population of 30,000 in 1700 to 340,000 in 1800—came largely with slavery. The Calvert proprietors and the settlers increasingly saw permanent bondage as an avenue toward stability and prosperity, and tolerance of slavery grew into active promotion. When slavery became fully legal in 1664, Africans numbered no more than 2 percent of the population, but their numbers surged to 20 percent in 1710, and 30 percent in 1750. The result was an economic takeoff—a surge in tobacco exports, and the rise of a money economy. A rich and stable planter class emerged, and fine Georgian country houses appeared. Scotch-Irish and Germans poured in, moving into the backcountry to establish new towns like Frederick and Hagerstown. Wheat came to supplement tobacco as an export crop, and Baltimore grew as a trade center. Artisan industry emerged and iron manufacturing began.
The new prosperity gave way to new tensions, less between settlers and proprietor than among classes, sections, ideas, and especially between America and the British Empire. New ideas found expression in a newspaper, the Maryland Gazette, and in able local leaders like Daniel Dulaney, Dr. Alexander Hamilton, Charles Carroll of Carrollton, Samuel Chase, and William Paca. Maryland planters and merchants howled against the British Stamp Act of 1765, and in June 1774, the anti-British faction in the General Assembly picked a fight with the proprietary governor who was enforcing the British laws. The patriot-secessionists formed a Provisional Convention that assumed control of the government. They drew up a conservative constitution that they adopted in 1776 without a referendum. It reestablished toleration for all Christians, and shifted taxes from a per capita base to land assessment, but it retained property qualifications for voting, limited voting to the election of delegates to the General Assembly, and actually increased property qualifications for holding office.
The General Assembly hesitated in calling out the state militia for its loyalty was doubtful, but numerous volunteers, encouraged by a state bounty, joined the Continental Army and gained renown as the "Maryland Line." Slave masters sometimes collected the bounty for enlistment, sent off their slaves to serve, and usually freed the slaves when the war ended. Maryland shipbuilders built warships for the Continental Navy, and Maryland shippers, with a subsidy from the General Assembly, armed their vessels to prey on British commerce.
Tobacco production declined after the Revolution, but otherwise the economy flourished and new institutions burgeoned—state banks, state-supported turnpikes and canals, organized medical and legal professions, and a multitude of colleges. In 1784 the Methodist Church was born in Maryland, the first formal separation from its Anglican parent. Marylanders were leaders in the establishment of American branches of the Catholic, Episcopal, Presbyterian, and African Methodist Churches. Maryland was a leader in calls for a stronger central government, a United States Constitution, and in the formation of political parties. Maryland happily ceded land for the new District of Columbia.
The Nineteenth Century and the City
The nineteenth century brought urbanization, democracy, industry, and the end of slavery. State population grew from 340,000 in 1800 to 1,200,000 in 1900, and Baltimore City grew from 8 percent of the total to 43 percent. The size and wealth of the city overwhelmed Annapolis and the state's long-established plantation culture.
The city—with its merchant, professional, artisan, and proletarian classes—led the statewide movement toward democracy and party politics. Property qualifications for voting ended in 1802; property qualifications for holding office ended in 1809; a public school system began, at least in theory, in 1825; Jews were allowed to vote in 1826; popular election of the governor came in 1837, election of city and county officials in 1851; African Americans were enfranchised in 1870; the secret ballot came in 1901; and women gained the vote in 1920. Actually, Maryland tended to lag behind other states in most of these reforms.
The city won its first notable struggle with the planters in the War of 1812. Federalist planters, eager to maintain their profitable trade with Great Britain, opposed the war, but Baltimore relished the alliance with France and another chance to loose its privateers on British commerce. When the British landed at Bladensburg in 1814, the planter-led militia let them pass; but three weeks later when the British attacked Baltimore, the city militia held firm. Francis Scott Key, watching the British bombardment, wrote a poem celebrating the victory over the British that became the words to the National Anthem. The planter-led Federalist party of Maryland never recovered.
Especially from the 1820s to the 1850s, Maryland's General Assembly, dominated by Whigs, promoted a frenzy of capital formation and construction projects. First came the turnpikes. The assembly gave rights-of-way to private companies to improve the roads, establish stagecoaches, and charge tolls. Most famous was the National Pike that, with its extensions, stretched from Baltimore to Ohio. Then came a craze for canals, the most famous of which was the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, designed to reach from Washington to Cincinnati. It nearly bankrupted the state and never got beyond Cumberland. The grandest and most successful of the projects were the railroads. The line from Baltimore to Ohio was one of the first and busiest in the country, and by 1840 other lines extended to Washington, Philadelphia, and central Pennsylvania.
Eventually urbanization, democracy, and capitalism came up against the continued existence of slavery. After the collapse of tobacco, slavery was barely profitable in Maryland, and by midcentury there were almost as many free blacks as slaves. African Americans like Richard Allen, Harriet Tubman, and Frederick Douglass were leaders of their people. Still, battered Maryland planters clung desperately to the institution. Roger B. Taney of Mary-land, Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, was a powerful spokesman for slavery's expansion.
By the 1850s change was coming too fast and tensions were too great, and Maryland drifted toward chaos. Party structure collapsed, rioting turned Baltimore into mobtown, and for a while the Know-Nothings ruled the state with a platform that made a scapegoat of immigrants.
When the Civil War came, Maryland was overwhelmingly pro-slave; in the presidential election of 1860 only 2 percent of the votes went to Abraham Lincoln. But the state was also mostly opposed to secession. After his inauguration, Lincoln intervened forcibly, arresting some 3,000 community leaders who were Southern sympathizers and allowing many more to be disfranchised. Southern sympathy waned. About 50,000 Marylanders eventually enlisted in the Union army, including 9,000 African Americans. About 20,000 Maryland whites fled to join the army and navy of the Confederacy.
From 1864 to 1867, with pro-Southern Marylanders disfranchised, the state launched its own radical reconstruction, foreshadowing what was to come in the South. The radicals abolished slavery, threatened to seize slave-holders' property to pay for the war, and established an authoritarian and far-reaching school system for whites and former slaves. As the war ended, however, and as Southern sympathizers returned home, radicalism collapsed and conservative leadership reasserted itself.
After the war people were concerned mainly with things economic. The railroads, led by the aggressive John W. Garrett, spread into every county. Coal mining expanded in the western counties, oystering expanded on the Eastern Shore, and in Baltimore came vast steel mills, copper and tin smelting, a ready-to-wear clothing industry, canning, and meat packing. Immigrants poured into the city and state—Germans, Irish, Italians, Poles, Jews, and others—often into crowded tenements. Industry and labor sometimes fought; scores died in the Great Railroad Strike of 1877. Many people still lived on farms, although the farms were usually small and poor. The very rich provided grand philanthropies—the Garrett State Forests, the Enoch Pratt libraries, the Walters Art Gallery, and the great Johns Hopkins University. The two political parties—Democrats and Republicans—were nearly balanced after the war, both run by bosses who were closely allied with business, both offering generous patronage to faithful followers.
Twentieth-Century Suburbanization
Twentieth-century change was measurable in a demographic shift—the rise of the suburbs and the corresponding decline of the city and farm. Maryland population grew from 1,200,000 in 1900 to 5,200,000 in 2000, and the suburbs grew from 2 percent to about 80 percent of that total. People moved from factory and farm into middle-class, white-collar, and service occupations.
As the century began, the rising middle classes—doctors, lawyers, managers, engineers, accountants, bureaucrats—were asserting themselves as a Progressive movement, less concerned with creating new wealth than with its management, by people like themselves, for the benefit of all society. Working through both political parties, the Progressives forced through a mass of new laws in the 1900s and 1910s establishing nonpartisan citizen boards to replace politicians in control of the schools, parks, hospitals, and libraries. Other citizen boards gained control over rates charged by electric, water, telephone, railroad, and shipping companies. In 1904, in the midst of these reforms, much of Baltimore burned in what was until then the greatest conflagration in American history, but this only stimulated city planning and new housing codes. Progressivism, however, also had its dark side. The middle class was eager to disfranchise illiterate voters, especially African Americans. Disfranchisement failed in Maryland as blacks and immigrants joined to protect their right to vote, but the reforms succeeded in legalizing racial segregation in most public and commercial facilities. World War I provided a culmination of Progressivism as citizen commissions promoted war production and patriotism with equal fervor.
By the 1920s people were tired of reform and eager to enjoy themselves. Local police refused to enforce the national prohibition laws that lasted from 1919 to 1933, and illegal booze may have flowed more freely in Maryland than in any other state. Eubie Blake and Cab Calloway played in the local jazz clubs. Marylanders like H. L. Mencken, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Ogden Nash caught the mood of the times. Baseball was the rage, and its greatest hero was Baltimore's Babe Ruth, even if he played for New York. Maryland became famous for its horse racing and slot machines. Albert Ritchie was the state's all-time most popular governor, serving from 1919 to 1934. Aristocratic and autocratic, he believed in state rights and unfettered capitalism. Three times he tried to gain the Democratic nomination for president, arguing that Presidents Coolidge and Hoover were spendthrift radicals.
The Great Depression descended relentlessly, first to the farms, then to the city and suburbs. From 1929 to 1933, Maryland's per capita income dropped 45 percent, industrial production dropped 60 percent. Maryland received less from the New Deal than most states because of its unwillingness to provide matching funds. The New Deal built the model town of Greenbelt in Maryland, with cooperative housing and stores. The town was a success but opponents scuttled its experiment in socialism.
In World War II, Maryland, because of its location, became a center of military training, arms and aircraft production, and shipments abroad. African Americans and women made major inroads into the labor market, where they would remain. After the war, prosperity continued but politics grew shrill. A liberal governor, William P. Lane, enacted a sales tax and built airports and a spectacular bridge across the Chesapeake Bay; but a conservative General Assembly enacted the Ober Law, the country's most far-reaching loyalty oath and a forerunner of McCarthyism.
Meanwhile, burgeoning suburbanization was transforming the state's economic and political landscape. The movement began with the trolley lines of the 1890s and the automobile of the 1920s, mostly into affluent enclaves out from Washington and Baltimore. Then the suburban population doubled in the late 1940s, this time mostly into inexpensive housing tracts, bringing shopping strips and drive-in movies; it doubled again in the 1950s and 1960s with planned bedroom cities like Bowie and Columbia; it doubled again in the 1970s and 1980s, bringing beltways and malls; and it continued after that, bringing office towers, mass transit, and ethnic diversity.
The other side of suburban growth was urban and rural decline. Baltimore reached its peak about 1920 with half the state's population and by far its highest per capita income; but in 2000 it had fallen to 12 percent of the state population and by far the lowest per capita income. Urban renewal programs lurched forward by trial and error. In the 1970s, Mayor Donald Schaefer built a sparkling Harborplace development that attracted tourists into the city for spending and recreation.
Suburbanization provided a liberal tilt to Maryland politics, and Maryland kept pace and occasionally offered leadership to the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. African American leaders like Lillie Mae Jackson and Thurgood Marshall worked comfortably with Governors Theodore McKeldin and Millard Tawes. Baltimore was the first major segregated city to integrate its schools, a year before court requirements, and state laws were ahead of federal laws in promoting civil rights. The state suffered from race riots in the late 1960s, but the civil rights movement did not go backward for state agencies promoted school busing and affirmative action, and an ever larger portion of the African Americans entered the middle class.
Idealism slumped into malaise in the 1970s. Two successive governors, Spiro Agnew and Marvin Mandel, plus many other local officials, pled guilty to accepting bribes. They were caught between the old politics of favors and the newer middle-class ethic that was tinged with hostility to politics of all sorts.
The last decades of the century, however, were happy as personal income soared, especially for those already prosperous. Government and business bureaucracies expanded and clean high-tech industries grew. Government in the 1980s and 1990s was mostly corruption-free and progressive, with abundant funding for education and for the environment. Women increasingly entered politics. Universities, claiming to be the engines of the new economy, especially flourished. As the century ended, optimism prevailed.
Bibliography
Argersinger, Jo Ann E. Toward a New Deal in Baltimore: People and Government in the Great Depression. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1988.
Baker, Jean H. The Politics of Continuity: Maryland Political Parties from 1858 to 1870. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973. Brugger, Robert J. Maryland, A Middle Temperament, 1634–1980.
Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1988. A full and excellent history. Callcott, George H. Maryland and America, 1940 to 1980. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985.
Carr, Lois Green, Russell R. Menard, and Louis Peddicord. Maryland—At the Beginning. Annapolis, Md.: Department of Economic Development, 1978.
Evitts, William J. A Matter of Allegiances: Maryland from 1850 to1861. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1974.
Fields, Barbara Jeanne, Slavery and Freedom on the Middle Ground:Maryland During the Nineteenth Century. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1985.
Hoffman, Ronald. Spirit of Dissension: Economics, Politics, and theRevolution in Maryland. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973.
Kulikoff, Alan. Tobacco and Slaves: The Development of SouthernCultures in the Chesapeake. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1986.
Land, Aubrey C. Colonial Maryland: A History. Millwood, N.Y.: KTO Press, 1981.
Main, Gloria L. Tobacco Colony: Life in Early Maryland, 1650–1720. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1982.
| Columbia Encyclopedia: Maryland |
Facts and Figures
Area, 10,577 sq mi (27,394 sq km). Pop. (2000) 5,296,468, a 10.8% increase since the 1990 census. Capital, Annapolis. Largest city, Baltimore. Statehood, Apr. 28, 1788 (7th of the original 13 states to ratify the Constitution). Highest pt., Backbone Mt., 3,360 ft (1,025 m); lowest pt., sea level. Nickname, Old Line State. Motto, Fatti Maschii, Parole Femine [Manly Deeds, Womanly Words]. State bird, Baltimore oriole. State flower, black-eyed Susan. State tree, white oak. Abbr., Md.; MD
Geography
A seaboard state, E Maryland is divided by Chesapeake Bay, which runs almost to the northern border; thus the region of Maryland called the Eastern Shore is separated from the main part of the state and is dominated by the bay. For the most part, the erratic course of the Potomac River separates the main part of Maryland from Virginia (to the south) and the long, narrow western handle from West Virginia (to the south and west). The District of Columbia cuts a rectangular indentation into the state just below the falls of the Potomac.
The main part of the state is divided by the fall line, which runs between the upper end of Chesapeake Bay and Washington, D.C.; to the north and west is the rolling Piedmont, rising to the Blue Ridge and to the Pennsylvania hills. The heavily indented shores of Chesapeake Bay fringe the land with bays and estuaries, which helped in the development of a farm economy relying on water transport. Flourishing in the mild winters and hot summers of the coastal plains are typically southern trees, such as the loblolly pine and the magnolia, while the cooler uplands have woods of black and white oak and beech. Maryland has nearly 3 million acres (l.2 million hectares) of forest land.
Annapolis, with its well-preserved Colonial architecture and 18th-century waterfront, is the capital; it is also the site of the U.S. Naval Academy. Baltimore, with a large percentage of the state's population, is the dominant metropolis. Tourists are attracted to the Antietam National Battlefield and the National Cemetery at Sharpsburg (see National Parks and Monuments, table); the Fort McHenry National Monument, near Baltimore's inner harbor; and the historic towns of Frederick and St. Marys City. Racing enthusiasts attend the annual Preakness and Pimlico Cup horse races in Baltimore. There are several military establishments, including Fort George G. Meade and Andrews Air Force Base. The National Institutes of Health in Bethesda is a government establishment. The 12,000-acre (4,856-hectare) National Agricultural Research Center is located at Beltsville.
Economy
Although the fishing industry is declining, the catch of fish and shellfish, chiefly from Chesapeake Bay, yielded an income of over $67 million in 1998, and the state's annual catch of crabs is the largest in the nation. The coastal marshes abound in wildfowl. Stone, coal, and iron, mined chiefly in the west of Maryland, are much less significant than in the 19th cent.
Leading manufactures include electrical and electronic machinery, primary metals, food products, missiles, transportation equipment, and chemicals. Shipping (Baltimore is a major U.S. port), tourism (especially along Chesapeake Bay), biotechnology and information technology, and printing and publishing are also big industries. Service industries, finance, insurance, and real estate are all important. Many Marylanders work for the federal government, either in offices in Maryland or in neighboring Washington, D.C.
Although manufacturing well exceeds agriculture as a source of income, Maryland's farms yield various greenhouse items, corn, hay, tobacco, soybeans, and other crops. Income from livestock (especially broiler chickens) and livestock products, especially dairy goods, is almost twice that from crops. Maryland is also famous for breeding horses.
Government, Politics, and Higher Education
Maryland is governed under a constitution adopted in 1867. The general assembly consists of 47 senators and 141 delegates, all elected for four-year terms. The governor, also elected for a four-year term, may succeed him- or herself once. The state elects two U.S. senators and eight representatives. It has 10 electoral votes. Democrats traditionally dominate state government; William D. Schaefer was elected governor in 1986 and 1990, Parris Glendening in 1994 and 1998. In 2002, however, a Republican, Robert Ehrlich, Jr., was elected to the office. Ehrlich was defeated (2006) for reelection by Democrat Martin O'Malley.
Maryland's medical, educational, and cultural institutions greatly benefited from philanthropic gifts in the late 19th cent. from Johns Hopkins, George Peabody, and Enoch Pratt. Institutions of higher learning in the state include Goucher College and Towson Univ., at Towson; the Johns Hopkins Univ., the Univ. of Baltimore, and the Univ. of Maryland, Baltimore, at Baltimore; St. John's College, at Annapolis; the Univ. of Maryland, at College Park; and the Univ. of Maryland, Baltimore County, at Catonsville (Baltimore County). See also Maryland, University System of.
History
Exploration and Colonization
Giovanni da Verrazano, an Italian navigator in the service of France, probably visited (1524) the Chesapeake region, which was certainly later explored (1574) by Pedro Menéndez Marqués, governor of Spanish Florida. In 1603 the region was visited by an Englishman, Bartholomew Gilbert, and it was charted (1608) by Capt. John Smith.
In 1632, Charles I granted a charter to George Calvert, 1st Baron Baltimore, yielding him feudal rights to the region between lat. 40°N and the Potomac River. Disagreement over the boundaries of the grant led to a long series of border disputes with Virginia that were not resolved until 1930. The states still dispute the use of the Potomac River. The territory was named Maryland in honor of Henrietta Maria, queen consort of Charles I. Before the great seal was affixed to the charter, George Calvert died, but his son Cecilius Calvert, 2d Baron Baltimore, undertook development of the colony as a haven for his persecuted fellow Catholics and also as a source of income. In 1634 the ships Ark and Dove brought settlers (both Catholic and Protestant) to the Western Shore, and a settlement called St. Mary's (see Saint Marys City) was set up. During the colonial period the Algonquian-speaking Native Americans withdrew from the area gradually and for the most part peacefully, sparing Maryland the conflicts other colonies experienced.
Religious Conflict and Economic Development
Religious conflict was strong in ensuing years as the Puritans, growing more numerous in the colony and supported by Puritans in England, set out to destroy the religious freedom guaranteed with the founding of the colony. A toleration act (1649) was passed in an attempt to save the Catholic settlers from persecution, but it was repealed (1654) after the Puritans seized control. A brief civil war ensued (1655), from which the Puritans emerged triumphant. Anti-Catholic activity persisted until the 19th cent., when in an unusual reversal of the prevailing pattern many Catholic immigrants came to Baltimore.
In 1694, when the capital was moved from St. Mary's to Annapolis, those were the only towns in the province, but the next century saw the emergence of commercially oriented Baltimore, which by 1800 had a population of more than 30,000 and a flourishing coastal trade. Tobacco became the basis of the economy by 1730. In 1767 the demarcation of the Mason-Dixon Line ended a long-standing boundary dispute with Pennsylvania.
The Revolution and a New Nation
Economic and religious grievances led Maryland to support the growing colonial agitation against England. At the time of the American Revolution most Marylanders were stalwart patriots and vigorous opponents of the British colonial policy. In 1776 Maryland adopted a declaration of rights and a state constitution and sent soldiers and supplies to aid the war for independence; supposedly the high quality of its regular “troops of the line” earned Maryland its nickname, the Old Line State. The U.S. Congress, meeting at Annapolis, ratified the Treaty of Paris ending the Revolutionary War in 1783. A party advocating states' rights, in which Luther Martin was prominent, was unsuccessful in opposing ratification of the Constitution, and in 1791 Maryland and Virginia contributed land and money for the new national capital in the District of Columbia.
Industry, already growing in conjunction with renewed commerce, was furthered by the skills of German immigrants. The War of 1812 was marked for Maryland by the British attack of 1814 on Baltimore and the defense of Fort McHenry, immortalized in Francis Scott Key's “Star-Spangled Banner.” After the war the state entered a period of great commercial and industrial expansion. This was accelerated by the building of the National Road, which tapped the rich resources of the West; the opening of the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal (1829); and the opening (1830) of the Baltimore & Ohio RR, the first railroad in the United States open for public traffic.
The Coming of the Civil War
Southern ways and sympathies persisted among the plantation owners of Maryland, and as the rift between North and South widened, the state was torn by conflicting interests and the intense internal struggles of the true border state. In 1860 there were 87,000 slaves in Maryland, but industrialists and businessmen had special interests in adhering to the Union, and despite the urgings of Southern sympathizers, made famous in J. R. Randall's song, “Maryland, My Maryland,” the state remained in the Union.
At the beginning of the Civil War, President Lincoln suspended habeas corpus and sent troops to Maryland who imprisoned large numbers of secessionists. Nevertheless, Marylanders fought on both sides, and families were often split. General Lee's Army of Northern Virginia invaded Maryland in 1862 and was repulsed by Union forces at Antietam (see Antietam campaign). In 1863, Lee again invaded the North and marched across Maryland on the way to and from Gettysburg. Throughout the war Maryland was the scene of many minor battles and skirmishes.
Industrialization
With the end of the Civil War, industry quickly revived and became a dominant force in Maryland, both economically and politically. Senator Arthur P. Gorman, a Democrat and the president of the Baltimore & Ohio RR, ran the controlling political machine from 1869 to 1895, when two-party government was restored. New railroad lines traversed the state, making it more than ever a crossing point between North and South. Labor troubles hit Maryland with the Panic of 1873, and four years later railroad wage disputes resulted in large-scale rioting in Cumberland and Baltimore. During the 20th cent., however, Maryland became a leader in labor and other reform legislation. The administrations of governors Austin L. Crowthers (1908–12) and Albert C. Ritchie (1920–35) were noted for reform. Ritchie, a Democrat, became nationally known for his efforts to improve the efficiency and economy of state government.
The great influx of people into the state during World War I was repeated and accelerated in World War II as war workers poured into Baltimore, where vital shipbuilding and aircraft plants were in operation. In addition, military and other government employees moved into the area around Washington, D.C.
Growth since World War II
Since World War II, public-works legislation, particularly that concerning roads and other traffic arteries, has brought major changes. The opening of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge in 1952 spurred significant industrial expansion on the Eastern Shore; a parallel bridge was opened in 1973. The Patapsco River tunnel under Baltimore harbor was completed in 1957, and the Francis Scott Key Bridge (1977), crosses the Patapsco. Other construction projects have included the Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport, formerly called Friendship International Airport (1950), south of Baltimore, and the Baltimore-Washington Parkway (1954). The state gained a different kind of attention in 1968 when its governor, Spiro T. Agnew was elected vice president.
Maryland experienced tremendous suburban growth in the 1980s, especially in the metropolitan Washington, D.C., area. This growth occurred in spite of a decline in government jobs, as service sector employment rose dramatically. Suburban Baltimore grew as well although the city proper lost 6.4% of its population during the 1980s. Baltimore undertook major revitalization projects in the 1980s and the early 1990s, including the construction of Oriole Park at Camden Yards, the new home of the Baltimore Orioles baseball team.
Maryland has become increasingly popular as a vacation area—Ocean City is a popular seashore resort, and both sides of Chesapeake Bay are lined with beaches and small fishing towns. The Chesapeake Bay Bridge has brought the culture of the Eastern Shore, formerly quite distinctive, into a more homogeneous unity with that of the rest of the state; the area, however, is still noted for its unique rural beauty and architecture, strongly reminiscent of the English countryside left behind by early settlers.
Bibliography
See J. T. Scharf, History of Maryland from the Earliest Period to the Present Day (1967); F. V. W. Mason, The Maryland Colony (1969); J. E. Dilisio, Maryland: A Geography (1983); V. F. Rollo, Your Maryland (4th ed. 1985); E. L. Meyer, Maryland Lost and Found (1986).
| Geography: Maryland |
State in the eastern United States bordered by Pennsylvania to the north, Delaware to the east, and Virginia and West Virginia to the south and west. Its capital is Annapolis. Baltimore is its largest city.
| Wine Lover's Companion: Maryland |
Grape growing and winemaking in this Mid-Atlantic state appear to have started as early as the mid-1600s when both native American vines and European varieties (vitis vinifera) were grown and made into wine. The European varieties were not successful because of their susceptibility to local pests and disease-elements to which the local varieties had adapted. On the other hand, wines from local varieties didn't taste that good. Over the centuries, numerous attempts were made with hybrids, Vitis vinifera, and with grafting of Vitis vinifera to native vine rootstocks (to solve the phylloxera problems)-all with limited success. In the 1940s, Phillip Wagner made a concerted effort to obtain as many hybrid vines as possible, which he then propagated and sold to other grape growers. This boosted the viticulture industry not only in Maryland but all around the eastern seaboard. Today, Maryland has three viticultural areas-the catoctin ava thelinganore ava and the cumberland ava (which it shares with pennsylvania). As in most of the eastern and mid-western states, hybrids like chambourcin, chardonel, seyval blanc and vidal blanc play a major role. But good Vitis vinifera wines are made from cabernet sauvignon, chardonnay, merlot and riesling . Maryland has over a dozen wineries-Boordy Vineyards is one of the best-known (given that it was started in 1945 by Phillip Wagner) and is the state's second largest winery behind Berrywine Plantation-Linganore Cellars.
| Stats: Maryland |
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| Parks: Maryland |
| Wikipedia: Maryland |
| State of Maryland | |||||||||||
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| Official language(s) | None (English, de facto) | ||||||||||
| Demonym | Marylander | ||||||||||
| Capital | Annapolis | ||||||||||
| Largest city | Baltimore | ||||||||||
| Largest metro area | Baltimore-Washington Metropolitan Area | ||||||||||
| Area | Ranked 42nd in the US | ||||||||||
| - Total | 12,407 sq mi (32,133 km²) |
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| - Width | 101 miles (145 km) | ||||||||||
| - Length | 249 miles (400 km) | ||||||||||
| - % water | 21 | ||||||||||
| - Latitude | 37° 53′ N to 39° 43′ N | ||||||||||
| - Longitude | 75° 03′ W to 79° 29′ W | ||||||||||
| Population | Ranked 19th in the US | ||||||||||
| - Total | 5,633,597 (2008 est.)[3] 5,296,486 (2000) |
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| - Density | 541.9/sq mi (209.2/km²) Ranked 5th in the US |
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| - Median income | $68,080[4] (1st) | ||||||||||
| Elevation | |||||||||||
| - Highest point | Hoye Crest[5] 3,360 ft (1,024 m) |
||||||||||
| - Mean | 344 ft (105 m) | ||||||||||
| - Lowest point | Atlantic Ocean[5] 0 ft (0 m) |
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| Admission to Union | April 28, 1788 (7th) | ||||||||||
| Governor | Martin O'Malley (D) | ||||||||||
| Lieutenant Governor | Anthony G. Brown (D) | ||||||||||
| U.S. Senators | Barbara Mikulski (D) Ben Cardin (D) |
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| U.S. House delegation | 7 Democrats, 1 Republican (list) | ||||||||||
| Time zone | Eastern: UTC-5/-4 | ||||||||||
| Abbreviations | MD US-MD | ||||||||||
| Website | www.maryland.gov | ||||||||||
Maryland (
/ˈmɛrələnd/ (help·info))[6] is a state located in the Mid Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Virginia, West Virginia and the District of Columbia to the south and west, Pennsylvania to the north, and Delaware to the east. Historically it was part of the Chesapeake Colonies where planters cultivated tobacco as a cash crop dependent on slave labor.[7][8] It is comparable in size to the European country of Belgium.[9] According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Maryland has the highest median household income of any state at $68,080 in 2007, overtaking New Jersey in 2006.[4]
It was the seventh state to ratify the United States Constitution and bears two nicknames, the Old Line State and the Free State. Its history as a border state has led it to exhibit characteristics of both the Northern and Southern regions of the United States. Generally, rural Western Maryland resembles the West Virginian Panhandle[citation needed] the Southern and Eastern Shore regions of Maryland emulate a Southern culture,[10] while densely-populated Central Maryland—radiating outward from Baltimore and the Washington Beltway—exhibits characteristics of the Northeast.[11]
Maryland is a life sciences hub with over 350 biotechnology firms, making it the third-largest such cluster in the nation.[12] Institutions and agencies located throughout Maryland include the University System of Maryland, The Johns Hopkins University, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Celera Genomics, Human Genome Sciences (HGS), the J. Craig Venter Institute (JCVI), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), MedImmune (recently purchased by AstraZeneca), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).
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Maryland possesses a great variety of topography, hence its nickname, "America in Miniature."[13] It ranges from sandy dunes dotted with seagrass in the east, to low marshlands teeming with wildlife and large bald cypress near the bay, to gently rolling hills of oak forest in the Piedmont Region, and pine groves in the mountains to the west.
Maryland is bounded on the north by Pennsylvania, on the west by West Virginia, on the east by Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean, and on the south, across the Potomac River, by West Virginia and Virginia. The mid-portion of this border is interrupted on the Maryland side by Washington, DC, which sits on land that was originally part of Maryland. The Chesapeake Bay nearly bisects the state, and the counties east of the bay are known collectively as the Eastern Shore. Most of the state's waterways are part of the Chesapeake Bay watershed, with the exceptions of a portion of Garrett County (drained by the Youghiogheny River as part of the watershed of the Mississippi River), the eastern half of Worcester County (which drains into Maryland's Atlantic coastal bays), and a small portion of the state's northeast corner (which drains into the Delaware River watershed). So prominent is the Chesapeake in Maryland's geography and economic life that there has been periodic agitation to change the state's official nickname to the "Bay State," a name currently used by Massachusetts.
The highest point in Maryland is Hoye Crest on Backbone Mountain, in the southwest corner of Garrett County, near the border with West Virginia and near the headwaters of the North Branch of the Potomac River. One of Maryland's ski areas, Wisp, is located close to Backbone Mountain. Close to the small town of Hancock, in western Maryland, about two-thirds of the way across the state, there is only about 1 mile (2 km) between its borders. This geographical curiosity makes Maryland the narrowest state, bordered by the Mason-Dixon Line to the north, and the north-arching Potomac River to the south.
Portions of Maryland are included in various official and unofficial geographic regions. For example, the Delmarva Peninsula comprises the Eastern Shore counties of Maryland, the entire State of Delaware, and the two counties that make up the Eastern Shore of Virginia, while the westernmost counties of Maryland are considered part of Appalachia. Much of the Baltimore–Washington corridor lies just south of the Piedmont in the Coastal Plain,[14] though it straddles the border between the two regions.
A quirk of Maryland's geography is that the state contains no natural lakes.[15] During the last Ice Age, glaciers did not reach as far south as Maryland, and therefore did not carve out deep natural lakes as exist in northern states. There are numerous man-made lakes, the largest being Deep Creek Lake, a reservoir in Garrett County. The lack of glacial history also accounts for Maryland's soil, which is more sandy and muddy than the rocky soils of New England.
The majority of Maryland's population is concentrated in the cities and suburbs surrounding Washington, DC and Maryland's most populous city, Baltimore. Historically, these and many other Maryland cities developed along the fall line, the point at which rivers are no longer navigable from sea level due to the presence of rapids or waterfalls. Maryland's capital, Annapolis, is one exception to this rule, lying along the Severn River close to where it empties into the Chesapeake Bay. Other major population centers include suburban hubs Columbia in Howard County, Silver Spring, Rockville and Gaithersburg in Montgomery County, Frederick in Frederick County and Hagerstown in Washington County. The eastern, southern, and western portions of the state tend to be more rural, although they are dotted with cities of regional importance such as Salisbury and Ocean City and Chesapeake City[dubious ] on the Eastern Shore, Lexington Park and Waldorf in Southern Maryland, and Cumberland in Western Maryland.
 Annapolis |
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 Inner Harbor, Baltimore |
Maryland has wide array of climates for a state of its size. It depends on numerous variables, such as proximity to water, elevation, and protection from colder weather due to downslope winds.
The eastern half of Maryland lies on the Atlantic Coastal Plain, with very flat topography and very sandy or muddy soil. This region has a humid subtropical climate, with hot, humid summers and a short, mild to cool winter. This region includes the cities of Salisbury, Chesapeake City,[dubious ] Annapolis, Ocean City, and southern and eastern greater Baltimore.
Beyond this region lies the Piedmont which lies in the transition between the humid subtropical climate zone and the subtropical highland zone (Köppen Cfb), with hot, humid summers and cool winters where average annual snowfall exceeds 20 inches and temperatures below 10°F are annual occurrences. This region includes Frederick, Hagerstown, Westminster, Gaithersburg and northern and western greater Baltimore.
Extreme western Maryland, in the higher elevations of Allegany County and Garrett County lie completely in the subtropical highland (Köppen Cfb)[16] zone, due to elevation (more typical of the Appalachian mountain region) with milder summers and cool, often snowy winters.
Precipitation in the state is characteristic of the East Coast. Annual rainfall ranges from 35 to 45 inches (890 to 1,100 mm) with more in higher elevations.[17] Nearly every part of Maryland receives 3.5–4.5 inches (89–110 mm) per month of precipitation. Snowfall varies from 9 inches (23 cm) in the coastal areas to over 100 inches (250 cm) a winter in the western mountains of the state.[18]
Because of its location near the Atlantic Coast, Maryland is somewhat vulnerable to tropical cyclones, although the Delmarva Peninsula, and the outer banks of North Carolina to the south provide a large buffer, such that a strike from a major hurricane (category 3 or above) is not very likely. More often, Maryland might get the remnants of a tropical system which has already come ashore and released most of its wind energy. Maryland averages around 30–40 days of thunderstorms a year, and averages around six tornado strikes annually.[19]
| Monthly normal high and low temperatures for various Maryland cities | ||||||||||||
| City | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hagerstown | 38/21 | 42/23 | 52/31 | 63/41 | 74/51 | 82/60 | 86/64 | 84/62 | 77/55 | 66/43 | 54/35 | 43/27 |
| Frederick | 41/25 | 46/27 | 56/35 | 67/44 | 77/54 | 85/62 | 89/67 | 87/66 | 80/59 | 68/47 | 57/38 | 46/30 |
| Baltimore | 44/29 | 47/31 | 57/39 | 68/48 | 77/58 | 86/68 | 91/73 | 88/71 | 81/64 | 70/52 | 59/42 | 49/33 |
| Ocean City | 44/28 | 46/30 | 53/35 | 61/44 | 70/53 | 79/62 | 84/67 | 83/67 | 78/62 | 68/51 | 58/41 | 49/32 |
| [20] | ||||||||||||
As is typical of states on the East Coast, Maryland's plant life is abundant and healthy. A good dose of annual precipitation helps to support many types of plants, including seagrass and various reeds at the smaller end of the spectrum to the gigantic Wye Oak, a huge example of White oak, the state tree, which can grow in excess of 70 feet (21 m) tall. Maryland also possesses an abundance of pines and maples among its endemic tree life. Many foreign species are cultivated in the state, some as ornamentals, others as novelty species. Included among these are the Crape Myrtle, Italian Cypress, live oak in the warmer parts of the state,[21] and even hardy palm trees in the warmer central and eastern parts of the state.[22] USDA plant hardiness zones in the state range from Zone 5 in the extreme western part of the state to 6 and 7 in the central part, and Zone 8 around the southern part of the coast, the bay area, and most of metropolitan Baltimore. Large areas of Maryland have problems with kudzu, an invasive plant species that chokes out growth of endemic plant life.[23] Maryland's state flower, the Black-eyed Susan, grows in abundance in wild flower groups throughout the state where it often becomes a favorite of the state insect, the Baltimore Checkerspot Butterfly.[24] 435 species of bird have been reported from Maryland.[25]
The state harbors a great number of deer, particularly in the woody and mountainous west of the state, and overpopulation can become a problem from year-to-year. The Chesapeake Bay provides the state with its huge[citation needed] cash crop of blue crabs, rockfish,[citation needed] and numerous seabirds.[citation needed] Mammals can be found ranging from the mountains in the west to the central areas and include bears,[26]bobcats,[27] foxes, raccoons, and Otters.[26] Maryland is famous for its population of rare[26][28] wild horses found on Assateague island. Every year an event occurs during which members of the horse population are captured and waded across a shallow bay to Chincoteague, Virginia. This conservation technique ensures the tiny island is not overrun by the horses. Another purebred animal from Maryland is the Chesapeake Bay Retriever dog, which was bred specifically for water sports, hunting and search and rescue in the Chesapeake area.[29] The Chesapeake Bay Retriever was also the first breed recognized by the American Kennel Club in 1878.[29] Maryland's reptile and amphibian population is led by the Diamondback Terrapin turtle, which was adopted as the mascot of University of Maryland. The state also hosts the Baltimore Oriole, which is the official state bird and mascot of the MLB team the Baltimore Orioles.[30]
Lawns in Maryland carry a variety of species, mostly due to its location in the Transition Zone for lawngrasses. The western part of the state is cold enough to support Kentucky Bluegrass, and Fine Fescues, which are widespread from the foothills west. The area around the Chesapeake Bay is usually turfed with transition species such as Zoysia, Tall fescue, and Bermudagrass. St. Augustine grass can be grown in the parts of the state that are in Zone 8.
Maryland is one of the most environmentally friendly states in the country. In 2007, Forbes.com rated Maryland as the fifth "Greenest" state in the country behind three of the Pacific States and Vermont. Maryland ranks 40th in total energy consumption nationwide, and it managed less toxic waste per capita than all but six states in 2005.[31] In April 2007 Maryland joined the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI)—a regional initiative formed by all of the Northeastern states, Washington D.C., and three Canadian provinces to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
In 1629, George Calvert, 1st Lord Baltimore in the Irish House of Lords, fresh from his failure further north with Newfoundland's Avalon colony, applied to Charles I for a new royal charter for what was to become the Province of Maryland. Calvert's interest in creating a colony derived from his Catholicism and his desire for the creation of a haven for Catholics in the new world. In addition, he was familiar with the fortunes that had been made in tobacco in Virginia, and hoped to recoup some of the financial losses he had sustained in his earlier colonial venture in Newfoundland. George Calvert died in April 1632, but a charter for "Maryland Colony" (in Latin, "Terra Maria") was granted to his son, Cæcilius Calvert, 2nd Lord Baltimore, on June 20, 1632. The new colony was named in honor of Henrietta Maria, Queen Consort of Charles I.[32] The specific name given in the charter was phrased "Terra Mariae, anglice, Maryland". The English name was preferred over the Latin due in part to the undesired association of "Mariae" with the Spanish Jesuit Juan de Mariana.[33][34] Leonard, Cecilius' younger brother, was put in charge of the expedition because Cecilius did not want to go.
To try to gain settlers, Maryland used what is known as the headright system, which originated in Jamestown. The government awarded land to people who transported colonists to Maryland.
On March 25, 1634, Lord Baltimore sent the first settlers into this area. Although most of the settlers were Protestants, Maryland soon became one of the few regions in the British Empire where Catholics held the highest positions of political authority. Maryland was also one of the key destinations of tens of thousands of British convicts. The Maryland Toleration Act of 1649 was one of the first laws that explicitly dictated religious tolerance, though toleration was limited to Trinitarian Christians.
The royal charter granted Maryland the Potomac River and territory northward to the fortieth parallel. This proved a problem when Charles II granted a charter for Pennsylvania, because the grants (which were made using an inaccurate map) overlapped. Maryland's northern boundary would put Philadelphia, the major city in Pennsylvania, partially within Maryland, while Pennsylvania's southern boundary would encompass much of Maryland, resulting in conflict between the Calvert family, which controlled Maryland, and the Penn family, which controlled Pennsylvania. This led to the Cresap's War (also known as the Conojocular War), a border conflict between Pennsylvania and Maryland, fought in the 1730s. Hostilities erupted in 1730 with a series of violent incidents prompted by disputes over property rights and law enforcement, and escalated through the first half of the decade, culminating in the deployment of military forces by Maryland in 1736 and by Pennsylvania in 1737. The armed phase of the conflict ended in May 1738 with the intervention of King George II, who compelled the negotiation of a cease-fire. A final settlement was not achieved until 1767, when the Mason-Dixon Line was recognized as the permanent boundary between the two colonies.
After Virginia made the practice of Anglicanism mandatory, a large number of Puritans migrated from Virginia to Maryland, and were given land for a settlement called Providence (now Annapolis). In 1650, the Puritans revolted against the proprietary government and set up a new government that outlawed both Catholicism and Anglicanism. In March 1654, the 2nd Lord Baltimore sent an army under the command of Governor William Stone to put down the revolt. His Roman Catholic army was decisively defeated by a Puritan army near Annapolis in what was to be known as the "Battle of the Severn".[35][36]
The Puritan revolt lasted until 1658. In that year the Calvert family regained control of the colony and re-enacted the Toleration Act. However, after England's "Glorious Revolution" of 1688, when William of Orange and his wife Mary came to the throne and firmly established the Protestant faith in England, Catholicism was again outlawed in Maryland, until after the American Revolutionary War. Many wealthy plantation owners built chapels on their land so they could practice their Catholicism in relative secrecy. During the persecution of Maryland Catholics by the Puritan revolutionary government, all of the original Catholic churches of southern Maryland were burned down.
St. Mary's City was the largest site of the original Maryland colony, and was the seat of the colonial government until 1708. St Mary's is now an archaeological site, with a small tourist center. In 1708, the seat of government was moved to Providence, which had been renamed Annapolis. The city was renamed in honor of Queen Anne in 1694.
Most of the English colonists arrived in Maryland as indentured servants, hiring themselves out as laborers for a fixed period to pay for their passage. In the early years the line between indentured servants and African slaves or laborers was fluid. Some Africans were allowed to earn their freedom before slavery became a lifelong status. Most of the free colored families formed in Maryland before the Revolution were descended from relationships or marriages between servant or free white women and enslaved, servant or free African or African-American men. Many such families migrated to Delaware, where land was cheaper.[37] As the flow of indentured laborers to the colony decreased with improving economic conditions in England, more slaves were imported. The economy's growth and prosperity was based on slave labor, devoted first to the production of tobacco.
Maryland was one of the thirteen colonies that revolted against British rule in the American Revolution. On February 2, 1781, Maryland became the 13th state to approve the ratification of the Articles of Confederation which brought into being the United States as a united, sovereign and national state. It also became the seventh state admitted to the U.S. after ratifying the new Constitution. The following year, in December 1790, Maryland ceded land selected by President George Washington to the federal government for the creation of Washington, D.C.. The land was provided from Montgomery and Prince George's Counties, as well as from Fairfax County and Alexandria in Virginia (though the lands from Virginia were later returned through retrocession). The land provided to Washington, D.C. is actually "sitting" inside the state of Maryland (land that is now defunct in theory).
During the War of 1812, the British military attempted to capture the port of Baltimore, which was protected by Fort McHenry. It was during this bombardment that the Star Spangled Banner was written by Francis Scott Key.
As in Virginia and Delaware, numerous planters in Maryland had freed their slaves in the twenty years after the Revolutionary War. By 1860 Maryland's free black population comprised 49.1% of the total of African Americans in the state.[38] In addition, Governor Thomas Holliday Hicks temporarily suspended the legislature, and President Abraham Lincoln had many of its fire eaters arrested prior to its reconvening. Many historians contend that there would never have been sufficient votes for secession.
Of the 115,000 men who joined the militaries during the Civil War, 85,000, or 77%, joined the Union army. To help ensure Maryland's inclusion in the Union, President Lincoln suspended several civil liberties, including the writ of habeas corpus, an act deemed illegal by Maryland native Chief Justice Roger Taney. Lincoln ordered U.S. troops to place artillery on Federal Hill to threaten the city of Baltimore, and helped ensure the election of a new pro-union governor and legislature. Lincoln went so far as to jail certain pro-South members of the state legislature at Fort McHenry, including the Mayor of Baltimore, George William Brown. The grandson of Francis Scott Key was included in those jailed. The constitutionality of these actions is still debated.
Because Maryland remained in the Union, it was exempted from the anti-slavery provisions of the Emancipation Proclamation (The Emancipation Proclamation only applied to states in rebellion). In 1864 the state held a constitutional convention that culminated in the passage of a new state constitution. Article 24 of that document outlawed the practice of slavery. In 1867 the state extended suffrage to non-white males.
| Historical populations | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Census | Pop. | %± | |
| 1790 | 319,728 |
|
|
| 1800 | 341,548 | 6.8% | |
| 1810 | 380,546 | 11.4% | |
| 1820 | 407,350 | 7.0% | |
| 1830 | 447,040 | 9.7% | |
| 1840 | 470,019 | 5.1% | |
| 1850 | 583,034 | 24.0% | |
| 1860 | 687,049 | 17.8% | |
| 1870 | 780,894 | 13.7% | |
| 1880 | 934,943 | 19.7% | |
| 1890 | 1,042,390 | 11.5% | |
| 1900 | 1,188,044 | 14.0% | |
| 1910 | 1,295,346 | 9.0% | |
| 1920 | 1,449,661 | 11.9% | |
| 1930 | 1,631,526 | 12.5% | |
| 1940 | 1,821,244 | 11.6% | |
| 1950 | 2,343,001 | 28.6% | |
| 1960 | 3,100,689 | 32.3% | |
| 1970 | 3,922,399 | 26.5% | |
| 1980 | 4,216,975 | 7.5% | |
| 1990 | 4,781,468 | 13.4% | |
| 2000 | 5,296,486 | 10.8% | |
| Est. 2008 | 5,633,597 | [3] | 6.4% |
As of 2006, Maryland has an estimated population of 5,615,727, which is an increase of 26,128, or 0.5%, from the prior year and an increase of 319,221, or 6.0%, since the year 2000. This includes a natural increase since the last census of 189,158 people (that is 464,251 births minus 275,093 deaths) and an increase due to net migration of 116,713 people into the state. Immigration from outside the United States resulted in a net increase of 129,730 people, and migration within the country produced a net loss of 13,017 people.
In 2006, 645,744 were counted as foreign born, which represents mainly people from Latin America and Asia. About 4.0% are undocumented (illegal) immigrants.[39] Maryland also has a large Korean American population.[40] In fact, 1.7% are Korean, while as a whole, almost 6.0% are Asian.[41]
Most of the population of Maryland lives in the central region of the state, in the Baltimore Metropolitan Area and Washington Metropolitan Area, both of which are part of the Baltimore-Washington Metropolitan Area. The Eastern Shore is less populous and more rural, as are the counties of western and southern Maryland.
The two counties of Western Maryland, Allegany and Garrett, are mountainous and sparsely populated, resembling West Virginia more than they do the rest of Maryland.
The center of population of Maryland is located on the county line between Anne Arundel County and Howard County, in the unincorporated town of Jessup.[42]
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The five largest reported ancestries in Maryland are German (15.7%), Irish (11.7%), English (9%), unspecified American (5.8%), and Italian (5.1%).[43]
African-Americans are concentrated in Baltimore City, Prince George's County, and the southern Eastern Shore. Most of the Eastern Shore and Southern Maryland are populated by Marylanders of British ancestry, with the Eastern Shore traditionally Methodist and the southern counties Catholic. Western and northern Maryland have large German-American populations. Italians and Poles are centered mostly in the large city of Baltimore. Jews are numerous throughout Montgomery County and in Pikesville and Owings Mills northwest of Baltimore. Hispanics are numerous in Hyattsville/Langley Park, Wheaton and Gaithersburg.
Maryland has one of the largest proportions of racial minorities in the country, trailing only the four minority-majority states.
| Demographics of Maryland (csv) | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| By race | White | Black | AIAN* | Asian | NHPI* |
| 2000 (total population) | 66.99% | 29.02% | 0.76% | 4.53% | 0.12% |
| 2000 (Hispanic only) | 3.73% | 0.51% | 0.10% | 0.06% | 0.02% |
| 2005 (total population) | 65.29% | 30.16% | 0.76% | 5.30% | 0.13% |
| 2005 (Hispanic only) | 5.01% | 0.61% | 0.12% | 0.09% | 0.03% |
| Growth 2000–05 (total population) | 3.06% | 9.89% | 5.73% | 23.72% | 16.27% |
| Growth 2000–05 (non-Hispanic only) | 0.76% | 9.57% | 2.48% | 23.38% | 13.02% |
| Growth 2000–05 (Hispanic only) | 42.16% | 27.78% | 27.26% | 48.06% | 32.49% |
| * AIAN is American Indian or Alaskan Native; NHPI is Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander | |||||
Maryland was founded for the purpose of providing religious toleration of England's Roman Catholic minority. Nevertheless, Parliament later reversed that policy and discouraged the practice of Catholicism in Maryland. Due to immigration patterns, Catholics have not been a majority in Maryland since early Colonial times. Nonetheless, Catholicism is the largest single denomination in Maryland. The present religious composition of the state is shown below:
|
Religions in Maryland |
|||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Christian |
Other |
||||
| Protestant | 56% | Roman Catholic | 23% | Jewish | 4% |
| Baptist | 18% | Other Christian | 3% | Other Religions | 1% |
| Methodist | 11% | Non-Religious | 13% | ||
| Lutheran | 6% | ||||
| Other Protestant | 21% | ||||
Despite the Protestant majority, Maryland has been prominent in U.S. Catholic tradition, partially because it was intended by George Calvert as a haven for English Catholics. Baltimore was the seat of the first Catholic bishop in the U.S. (1789), and Emmitsburg was the home and burial place of the first American-born citizen to be canonized, St. Elizabeth Ann Seton. Georgetown University, the first Catholic University, was founded in 1789 in what was then part of Maryland.[44] The Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary in Baltimore was the first Roman Catholic cathedral built in the United States.
The Bureau of Economic Analysis estimates that Maryland's gross state product in 2006 was US$257 billion.[45] According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Maryland households are currently the wealthiest in the country, with a median household income of $68,080[4] which puts it ahead of New Jersey and Connecticut, which are second and third respectively. Two of Maryland's counties, Howard and Montgomery, are the third and seventh wealthiest counties in the nation respectively. Also, the state's poverty rate of 7.8% is the lowest in the country.[46][47][48] Per capita personal income in 2006 was US$43,500, 5th in the nation.
Maryland's economic activity is strongly concentrated in the tertiary service sector, and this sector, in turn, is strongly influenced by location. One major service activity is transportation, centered around the Port of Baltimore and its related rail and trucking access. The port ranked 10th in the U.S. by tonnage in 2002 (Source: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, "Waterborne Commerce Statistics"). Although the port handles a wide variety of products, the most typical imports are raw materials and bulk commodities, such as iron ore, petroleum, sugar, and fertilizers, often distributed to the relatively close manufacturing centers of the inland Midwest via good overland transportation. The port also receives several different brands of imported motor vehicles and is the number two auto port in the U.S.[49]
A second service activity takes advantage of the close location of the center of government in Washington, D.C. and emphasizes technical and administrative tasks for the defense/aerospace industry and bio-research laboratories, as well as staffing of satellite government headquarters in the suburban or exurban Baltimore/Washington area. In addition, many educational and medical research institutions are located in the state. In fact, the various components of Johns Hopkins University and its medical research facilities are now the largest single employer in the Baltimore area. Altogether, white collar technical and administrative workers comprise 25% of Maryland's labor force, one of the highest state percentages in the country.
Maryland has a large food-production sector. A large component of this is commercial fishing, centered in Chesapeake Bay, but also including activity off the short Atlantic seacoast. The largest catches by species are the blue crab, oysters, striped bass, and menhaden. The Bay also has uncounted millions of overwintering waterfowl in its many wildlife refuges. While not, strictly speaking, a commercial food resource, the waterfowl support a tourism sector of sportsmen.
Maryland has large areas of fertile agricultural land in its coastal and Piedmont zones, although this land use is being encroached upon by urbanization. Agriculture is oriented to dairying (especially in foothill and piedmont areas) for nearby large city milksheads plus specialty perishable horticulture crops, such as cucumbers, watermelons, sweet corn, tomatoes, muskmelons, squash, and peas (Source:USDA Crop Profiles). In addition, the southern counties of the western shoreline of Chesapeake Bay are warm enough to support a tobacco cash crop zone, which has existed since early Colonial times but declined greatly after a state government buyout in the 1990s. There is also a large automated chicken-farming sector in the state's southeastern part; Salisbury is home to Perdue Farms. Maryland's food-processing plants are the most significant type of manufacturing by value in the state.
Manufacturing, while large in dollar value, is highly diversified with no sub-sector contributing over 20% of the total. Typical forms of manufacturing include electronics, computer equipment, and chemicals. The once mighty primary metals sub-sector, which at one time included what was then the largest steel factory in the world at Sparrows Point, still exists, but is pressed with foreign competition, bankruptcies, and company mergers. During World War II the Glenn L. Martin Company (now part of Lockheed Martin) airplane factory near Essex, MD employed some 40,000 people.
Mining other than construction materials is virtually limited to coal, which is located in the mountainous western part of the state. The brownstone quarries in the east, which gave Baltimore and Washington much of their characteristic architecture in the mid-1800s, were once a predominant natural resource. Historically, there used to be small gold-mining operations in Maryland, some surprisingly near Washington, but these no longer exist.
Maryland imposes 5 income tax brackets, ranging from 2% to 6.25% of personal income.[50] The city of Baltimore and Maryland's 23 counties levy local "piggyback" income taxes at rates between 1.25% and 3.2% of Maryland taxable income. Local officials set the rates and the revenue is returned to the local governments quarterly. The top income tax bracket of 9.45% is the fifth highest combined state and local income tax rates in the country, behind only New York City's 11.35%, California’s 10.3%, Rhode Island’s 9.9%, and Vermont’s 9.5%.[51] Maryland's state sales tax is 6%. All real property in Maryland is subject to the property tax. Generally, properties that are owned and used by religious, charitable, or educational organizations or property owned by the federal, state or local governments are exempt. Property tax rates vary widely. No restrictions or limitations on property taxes are imposed by the state, meaning cities and counties can set tax rates at the level they deem necessary to fund governmental services. These rates can increase, decrease or remain the same from year to year. If the proposed tax rate increases the total property tax revenues, the governing body must advertise that fact and hold a public hearing on the new tax rate. This is called the Constant Yield Tax Rate process.
Baltimore City is the eighth largest port in the nation, and was at the center of the February 2006 controversy over the Dubai Ports World deal because it was considered to be of such strategic importance. The state as a whole is heavily industrialized, with a booming economy and influential technology centers. Its computer industries are some of the most sophisticated in the United States, and the federal government has invested heavily in the area. Maryland is home to several large military bases and scores of high level government jobs.
The Maryland Department of Transportation, headquartered in the Hanover area of unincorporated Anne Arundel County,[52] oversees transportation in the state.
Maryland's Interstate highways include I-95, which enters the northeast portion of the state, goes through Baltimore, and becomes part of the eastern section of the Capital Beltway to the Woodrow Wilson Bridge. I-68 connects the western portions of the state to I-70 at the small town of Hancock. I-70 continues east to Baltimore, connecting Hagerstown and Frederick along the way. I-83 connects Baltimore to southern central Pennsylvania (Harrisburg and York, Pennsylvania). Maryland also has a portion of I-81 that runs through the state near Hagerstown. I-97, fully contained within Anne Arundel County and the shortest one- or two-digit Interstate highway outside of Hawaii, connects the Baltimore area to the Annapolis area.
There are also several auxiliary Interstate highways in Maryland. Among them are two beltways encircling the major cities of the region: I-695, the McKeldin (Baltimore) Beltway, which encircles Baltimore; a portion of I-495, and the Capital Beltway, which encircles Washington, D.C. I-270, which connects the Frederick area with Northern Virginia and the District of Columbia through major suburbs to the northwest of Washington, is a major commuter route and is as wide as fourteen lanes at points. Both I-270 and the Capital Beltway are currently extremely congested; however, the ICC or Intercounty Connector, which began construction in November 2007, is hoped to alleviate some of the congestion over time. Construction of the ICC was a major part of the campaign platform of former Governor Robert Ehrlich, who was in office from 2003 until 2007, and of Governor Martin O'Malley, who succeeded him.
Maryland also has a state highway system that contains routes numbered from 2 through 999, however most of the higher-numbered routes are either not signed or are relatively short. Major state highways include Routes 2 (Governor Ritchie Highway/Solomons Island Road), 4 (Solomons Island Road), 5 (Branch Avenue/Leonardtown Road/Point Lookout Road), 32, 45 (York Road), 97 (Georgia Avenue), 100 (Paul T. Pitcher Memorial Highway), 210 (Indian Head Highway), 235 (Three Notch Road), 295 (Baltimore-Washington Parkway), 355, and 404.
Maryland's largest airport is Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport (formerly known as Friendship Airport and recently renamed for Baltimore-born former and first African-American Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall). The only other airports with commercial service are at Hagerstown and Salisbury. The Maryland suburbs of Washington, D.C., are also serviced by the other two airports in the region, Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport and Dulles International Airport, both in Northern Virginia.
Amtrak trains serve Baltimore's Penn Station, BWI Airport, New Carrollton, and Aberdeen along the Northeast Corridor. In addition, train service is provided to Rockville and Cumberland on the Amtrak Capitol Limited. MARC commuter trains, operated by the State's Transit Authority, connect nearby Washington, D.C., Frederick, Baltimore, and many towns between. The Washington Metro subway and bus system serve Montgomery County and Prince George's County. The Maryland Transit Administration's light rail and short subway system serve Baltimore City and adjacent suburbs.
Located on Maryland's Eastern Shore lies the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal. It was established to connect the northern Delaware Bay to the Chesapeake Bay. Construction began in Chesapeake City, Maryland
The Government of Maryland is conducted according to the state constitution. The Government of Maryland, like the other 49 state governments, has exclusive authority over matters that lie entirely within the state's borders, except as limited by the Constitution of the United States. Maryland is a republic; the United States guarantees her "republican form of government"[53] although there is considerable disagreement about the meaning of that phrase.
Power in Maryland is divided among three branches of government: executive, legislative, and judicial. The Maryland General Assembly is composed of the Maryland House of Delegates and the Maryland Senate. Maryland's governor is unique in the United States as the office is vested with significant authority in budgeting. The legislature may not increase the governor's proposed budget expenditures. Unlike most other states, significant autonomy is granted to many of Maryland's counties.
Most of the business of government is conducted in Annapolis, the state capital. Virtually all state and county elections are held in even-numbered years not divisible by four, in which the President of the United States is not elected – this, as in other states, is intended to divide state and federal politics.
The judicial branch of state government consists of one united District Court of Maryland that sits in every county and Baltimore City, as well as 24 Circuit Courts sitting in each County and Baltimore City, the latter being courts of general jurisdiction for all civil disputes over $30,000.00, all equitable jurisdiction and major criminal proceedings. The intermediate appellate court is known as the "Court of Special Appeals" and the state supreme court is the "Court of Appeals". The appearance of the judges of the Maryland Court of Appeals is unique in that Maryland is the only state whose judges wear red robes.[54]
Since before the Civil War, Maryland politics has been largely controlled by the Democrats, even as the party's platform has changed considerably in that time. State politics is dominated by Baltimore and the populous suburban counties bordering Washington, D.C.: Montgomery and Prince George's. Forty-three percent of the state's population resides in these three jurisdictions, each of which contain large, traditionally Democratic voting bloc(s): African Americans in Baltimore and Prince George's, federal employees in Prince George's and Montgomery, and postgraduates in Montgomery. The remainder of the state, particularly Western Maryland and the Eastern Shore, is more supportive of Republicans.
Maryland has supported the Democratic nominee in each of the last five presidential elections, by an average margin of 15.4%. In 1980, it was one of only six states to vote for Jimmy Carter. Maryland is often among the Democratic nominees' best states. In 1992, Bill Clinton fared better in Maryland than any other state except his home state of Arkansas. In 1996, Maryland was Clinton's sixth best, in 2000 Maryland ranked fourth for Gore and in 2004 John Kerry showed his fifth best performance in Maryland.
Barack Obama won the state's 10 electoral votes in 2008 with 61.9% of the vote to John McCain's 36.5%. Both of Maryland's U.S. Senators and seven of its eight Representatives in Congress are Democrats, and Democrats hold supermajorities in the state Senate and House of Delegates. The previous Governor, Robert Ehrlich, was the first Republican to be elected to that office in four decades, and after one term lost his seat to Baltimore Mayor Martin J. O'Malley, a Democrat.
U.S. Congressman Steny Hoyer (MD-5), a Democrat, was elected as Majority Leader for the 110th Congress of the House of Representatives, and 111th Congress, serving in that post since January, 2007. His district covers parts of Anne Arundel and Prince George's counties, in addition to all of Charles, Calvert and St. Mary's counties in southern Maryland.[55]
The 2006 election cycle brought no significant change in this pattern of Democratic dominance. After Democratic Senator Paul Sarbanes announced that he was retiring, Democratic Congressman Benjamin Cardin defeated Republican Lieutenant Governor Michael S. Steele, with 55% of the vote, against Steele's 44%. The governorship was also a point of interest, as Republican incumbent Robert Ehrlich was defeated by Democratic challenger Martin O'Malley, the Mayor of Baltimore, 53% to 46%. Montgomery County Executive Doug Duncan, another leading candidate for the Democratic slot, pulled out of the highly anticipated primary, announcing his withdrawal on June 22, 2006, citing clinical depression.
While Maryland is a Democratic Party stronghold, perhaps its best known political figure is a Republican – former Governor Spiro Agnew, who served as United States Vice President under Richard Nixon. He was Vice President from 1969 to 1973, when he resigned in the aftermath of revelations that he had taken bribes while he was Governor of Maryland. In late 1973, a court found Agnew guilty of violating tax laws.
Public primary and secondary education in Maryland is overseen by the Maryland State Department of Education, which is headquartered in Baltimore.[56] The highest educational official in the state is the State Superintendent of Schools, currently Dr. Nancy Grasmick, who is appointed by the State Board of Education to a four-year term of office. The Maryland General Assembly has given the Superintendent and State Board autonomy to make educationally related decisions, limiting its own influence on the day to day functions of public education. Each county and county-equivalent in Maryland has a local Board of Education charged with running the public schools in that particular jurisdiction.
Maryland has a broad range of private primary and secondary schools. Many of these are affiliated with various religious sects, including parochial schools of the Catholic Church, Quaker schools, Seventh-day Adventist schools, and Jewish schools. In 2003, Maryland law was changed to allow for the creation of publicly funded charter schools, although the charter schools must be approved by their local Board of Education and are not exempt from state laws on education, including collective bargaining laws.
In 2008, the state led the entire country in the percentage of students passing Advanced Placement examinations. 23.4 percent of students earned passing grades on the AP tests given in May 2008. This marks the first year that Maryland earned this honor.[57]
The oldest college in Maryland, and the third oldest college in the United States, is St. John's College, founded in 1696 as King William's School. Maryland has 18 other private colleges and universities, the most prominent of which is Johns Hopkins University, founded in 1876 with a grant from Baltimore entrepreneur Johns Hopkins.
The first and largest public university in the state is the University of Maryland, College Park, which was founded as the Maryland Agricultural College in 1856 and became a public land grant college in 1864. Towson University, founded in 1866, is the state's second largest university. Baltimore is home to the Maryland Institute College of Art. The majority of public universities in the state are affiliated with the University System of Maryland. Two state-funded institutions, Morgan State University and St. Mary's College of Maryland, as well as two federally funded institutions, the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences and the United States Naval Academy, are not affiliated with the University System of Maryland.
With two major metropolitan areas, Maryland has a number of major and minor professional sports franchises. Two National Football League teams play in Maryland, the Baltimore Ravens in Baltimore and the Washington Redskins in Prince George's County. The Baltimore Orioles are the state's Major League Baseball franchise, with the Washington Nationals located nearby in Washington D.C. The National Hockey League's Washington Capitals and the National Basketball Association's Washington Wizards formerly played in Maryland, until the construction of a Washington arena in 1997 (originally known as MCI Center, renamed Verizon Center in 2006). Maryland enjoys considerable historical repute for the talented sports players of its past, including: Cal Ripken Jr. and Babe Ruth.
Other professional sports franchises in the state include five affiliated minor league baseball teams, one independent league baseball team, the Baltimore Blast indoor soccer team, two indoor football teams, and three low-level outdoor soccer teams.
The official state sport of Maryland, since 1962, is jousting; the official team sport since 2004 is lacrosse.[58] In 2008, intending to promote physical fitness for all ages, walking became the official state exercise. Maryland is the first state with an official state exercise.[59] Maryland is home to Olympic swimming medalists Michael Phelps and Katie Hoff.
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| Preceded by Massachusetts |
List of U.S. states by date of statehood Ratified Constitution on April 28, 1788 (7th) |
Succeeded by South Carolina |
Coordinates: 39°00′N 76°42′W / 39°N 76.7°W
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| Translations: Maryland |
Français (French)
n. - Maryland
Deutsch (German)
n. - Maryland
Português (Portuguese)
n. - Maryland
Español (Spanish)
n. - Maryland
中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
马里兰州
中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 馬里蘭州
한국어 (Korean)
메릴랜드 (미국 동부 대서양 연안의 주; 주도 Annapolis; (약) Md.; 속칭 Old Line State, Free State)
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