Bibliography Note: “A History of African Americans of Delaware and Maryland’s Eastern Shore” (1997)

A History of African Americans of Delaware and Maryland’s Eastern Shore (1997) Edited by Carole C. Marks.

In our review of the existing Delmarva bibliography we have noticed within the past two decades there has been a shift, of sorts, which nonetheless has not yet told the proper history of Dr. Douglass on the Shore.

With the 2009 closure of Tidewater Publishers, which produced several invaluable titles, and the seeming disappearance of the Queen Anne Press, which published titles from Dickson J. Preston, it would appear book publishing on the Eastern Shore has seen better days.

Within the past two decades Dr. Carole C. Marks, formerly director of the “Black American Studies Program” at the University of Delaware, has published and edited, Lift Every Voice: Echoes from the Black Community on Maryland’s Eastern Shore in 1999 and A History of African Americans of Delaware and Maryland’s Eastern Shore in 1997.

When we read sentences, such as the one below, we understand why and how the history of Dr. Douglass on the Shore has been lost.

A second Eastern Shore slave of significance was Frederick Augustus Bailey Douglass. Born in Tuckahoe, Maryland, in Dorchester County, he experienced forced separation from family members and the horrors of slavery at an early age.

A History of African Americans of Delaware and Maryland’s Eastern Shore, p. 57. [PDF]

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TOC: A History of African Americans of Delaware and Maryland’s Eastern Shore

initial review of Dickson Preston research note cards @ Maryland Room of Easton Branch of the Talbot County Free Library

I’ve heard chatter about the elusive and treasured research note cards of legendary Eastern Shore historian John Creighton but have seen no evidence of their existence as potential sources of research into the Lost History of Frederick Douglass on the Eastern Shore.

We recently took time to make a preliminary review of the research note cards of enigmatic historian Dickson Preston which are held within the collections of the Maryland Room of the Talbot County Free Library in Easton, Maryland.

It is evident in a cursory review of the cards that Preston had unanswered questions during his research into Young Frederick Douglass: The Maryland Years that today remain cold cases.

Historian as detective we are here to follow the trail already blazed and body forth a new trail.