Baltimore: A Not Too Serious History (Maryland Paperback Bookshelf)

By Letitia Stockett

Book Overview

A charming and anecdotal account of Baltimore history--as fresh today as it was when first published in 1928.

A teacher of English and English History at the Friends School in Baltimore, Letitia Stockett was inspired to write her whimsical history of the city when a friend told her that nothing much had been done in the way of a history of Baltimore since J. Thomas Scharf's The Chronicles of Baltimore (1874). Rising to the challenge, she spent all of her spare time on the book, telling curious friends and family merely that she "had work to do." Baltimore: A Not Too Serious History was the result, a charming and anecdotal account of the city's history that is as fresh today as it was when first published in 1928.

"Would you know Baltimore? Then put deliberately out of your mind the fact that the town makes more straw hats than any other city in the world. Aesthetically speaking, that is a fearsome thought. Forget, too, that Baltimore is the centre of the oyster packing industry. Worse, far worse than a straw hat is a packed oyster; Baltimoreans ought to know better. In truth they do; they export the tinned bivalve to the unsuspecting, unsophisticated Westerner. These two enterprises are worthy and profitable, but a knowledge of these facts will not help you understand this city any more truly than the study of those long lists of products once diligently conned in school gave you an inkling of Tunis, Singapore and Wilkes-Barre."--from Baltimore: A Not too Serious History

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0801856701
• ISBN13: 9780801856709
• Release Date: June 1997
• Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
• Length: 384 Pages
• Weight: 1.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.6" x 8.6"
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

Baltimore's birth

Ms. Letitia Stockett, a Baltimore teacher in 1928, was successful at giving a cultural view of how Baltimore, Maryland came into existence in her Baltimore: A Not So Serious History. The book is rich in imagery and detail. Ms. Stockett's tour of the Baltimore region began on Charles Street at Mount Vernon Place. When she was finished with an intersection or neighborhood, she went on methodically to the next while covering...