Luck Of The Draw
According to recent articles in the Capital Gazette newspaper, the City of Annapolis and a group of companies called Annapolis Mobility and Resilience Partners (AMRP) will soon start work on […]
An Idea Of Equality
I’ve written before about William Eddis (see “Our Little Capital” from January 28, 2021), an Englishman who arrived in Annapolis in September 1769, three months after his patron, Governor Robert […]
The Late Dreary Tempest
We Marylanders are used to the winter storm drill. As soon as forecasters warn of an approaching snowmageddon, we rush out to stock up on all the essentials: toilet paper, […]
The Happiest Nation Under The Sun
Two hundred fifty years ago, on January 30, 1772, Annapolis publisher Anne Catharine Green reprinted a positive piece of political prognostication penned by an “old Correspondent” to a London periodical. […]
Clubbing in Annapolis
Who knew that going clubbing was all the rage in colonial Annapolis? Of course, the city’s elite gentlemen’s clubs of 250 years ago were nothing like today’s nightlife hotspots. Some […]
Good Times And Bad
The Maryland Gazette provides an invaluable window into what Annapolis was like 250 years ago. News articles and public letters tell us what people learned, thought, worried, and argued about […]
A Place In Our Paper
My last blog included a piece by John Clapham printed in the May 2, 1771 Maryland Gazette. In it, the son-in-law of Annapolis printer Anne Catharine Green explained his understanding […]
The Freedom And Impartiality Of Your Press
This past Monday was World Press Freedom Day, and the theme “Information as a Public Good” was just as relevant 250 years ago as it is today. Like her husband […]
The Propriety Of A Private Inspection
In the five months since Maryland’s official tobacco inspection system stopped functioning because of a political dispute between Governor Robert Eden and the lower house of the General Assembly, colonial […]
The Course of Human Affairs
I’ve commented before about the innate delays in 18th-century reporting. Because the latest news could travel only as fast as a horse could run or a ship could sail, it […]