A weekly newspaper published in Hagerstown, the Maryland Free Press reflected the Civil War divide in the state and was suppressed by the federal government in March 1863 for its Confederate sympathies. This issue, from Feb. 27, 1863, shows its antipathy for the president and the war, with headlines like “The Cost of Freeing Negroes” and “The Abolition Clergy Trying to Make Lincoln an Absolute Monarch.”
Courtesy of UMD Archives
Advertisements in the March 24, 1852, Port Tobacco Times and Charles County Advertiser provide a glimpse into the local economy, from clothes and carriages to legal services and medical quackery (“Dr. Hoyt’s Heave Powders” for horses). More contentious history is evident as well—there are notices about rewards for runaway slaves, a public sale with “several likely Negroes” and the sheriff of Howard County noting that if a runaway slave “is not claimed within 60 days he will be liberated according to law.”
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New immigrants provided audiences for foreign language papers, such as Baltimore’s Der Deutsche Correspondent. The massive headline on the Aug. 2, 1914, issue—Germany declaring war on Russia—previewed the paper’s later struggles (and eventual merger with another outlet), as anti-German sentiment during World War I sapped the publication of advertisers.
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On the other side were Unionist papers like the Civilian & Telegraph in Cumberland. The July 9, 1863, issue proclaimed the Confederate surrender of Vicksburg, Miss., one of the war’s turning points, as “Glorious News.”
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Small towns, of course, are never completely insulated from outside events, and local newspapers tried to help their readers grasp a changing—and sometimes frightening—world. In the Oct. 4, 1918, issue of The Democratic Advocate from Westminster, the secretary of the Carroll County Board of Health tries to calm fears about the Spanish flu pandemic (“5—Keep comfortably warm bodily and very cool mentally”).
Courtesy of UMD Archives
The Catoctin Clarion, a weekly in Western Maryland, showed how the expansion of the railroad and leisure time affected smaller communities and brought in tourists. This June 25, 1891, article previews the first excursion of the season to the local Pen-Mar mountain resort, complete with a “first-rate supper” and dancing that “will undoubtedly prove thoroughly enjoyable.”
Courtesy of UMD Archives
