Through the past three months, we’ve witnessed the war in Ukraine through news reports and social media feeds viewed on our living room...

Across the ages, prim and proper elders have often asked some variation of this question: “What’s the deal with today’s young people?”...

By January 1772, the nonimportation associations of 1769 and 1770, which organized and enforced colonial boycotts of taxed English goods,...

A year after actress Nancy Hallam captivated an anonymous Annapolis gentleman (most likely Rev. Jonathan Boucher—see “In Praise of...

Sometimes a 250-year-old clipping from the Maryland Gazette sends me down a research rabbit hole. The welcome mat into this week’s warren...

A little more than a year ago, I mentioned two projects that told the stories of nine freedom seekers who tried to escape from bound...

"I will leave no stone unturn’d to find out who keeps them from me..." Online shipment tracking has really spoiled us. Through the magic...

250 years ago, on July 4, 1771, the American colonies were only five years away from declaring their independence from England....

Several months ago, I wrote about actress Nancy Hallam (“In Praise of Artistic Genius,” September 10, 2020) and the rundown playhouse (“A...

The Maryland Gazette provides an invaluable window into what Annapolis was like 250 years ago. News articles and public letters tell us...

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...

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...

Some news cycles are lighter than others, and that was just as true 250 years ago as it is today. Of course, some 21st-century media work...

I’ve written before (see my November 5, 2020, November 26, 2020, and January 14, 2021 blog entries) about Governor Robert Eden’s...

It would be a wonderful world if old problems simply disappeared with the start of a new year, but that’s not the real world that we...

Two months had passed since a group of Baltimore merchants called for a meeting in Annapolis to consider whether Maryland should continue...

Maryland’s last proprietary governor, Robert Eden, was nothing if not predictable. Early in his administration, he established a pattern...

Following her husband Samuel’s death in August 1770, Anne Middleton assumed control of the family’s Annapolis tavern and ferrying...

By the autumn of 1770, serious cracks were appearing in the American colonies’ united front against unpopular British policies. More than...

Last month, I wrote about actress Nancy Hallam, who caught the eye of an Annapolis gentleman (most likely Rev. Jonathan Boucher, rector...