SALISBURY, MD--For anyone wanting a piece of Delmarva history, just check your pockets. If you have a Washington quarter, the profile is not that of America's first president, but of a Drexel Truitt from the Pittsville/Parsonsburg area of Wicomico.
--Slave holding, the South's "peculiar" institution, wasn't a "white's only" club. At least one free African-American family living on the Eastern Shore in the 17th century had Black slaves of their own.
--Although the "mother" church of Methodism in the U.S. is located in Baltimore, the hotbed of 18th century Methodism was Maryland's Eastern Shore--in part due to Revolutionary fervor-- breaking ties not only to the Crown, but the Anglican Communion.
These aspects of Eastern Shore history and folklore paint a picture of a region at once idiosyncratic and interesting--and a people worthy of greater in-depth scholarship, according to Dr. G. Ray Thompson, chair of the History Department at Salisbury State University. This fall students will be getting just that, when SSU officially launches its new Master of Arts in history. The program will cover all world regions and time periods, but its emphasis will be on Chesapeake studies--a subject dear to not only Thompson. "Teachers and students in the region were demanding the new degree," he said.
In recent years, SSU's Edward H. Nabb Research Center for Delmarva History and Culture has been growing exponentially in size, staff, holdings and, with the Nabb endowment this spring, financing. Visitors from across the nation (and the Atlantic) are making use of its unique documents. "These resources need the symbiosis of scholarship which a research program such as a master's provides, Thompson said.
So does a community located in one of the earliest settled regions of the country. "Our Department is creating three new seminars because of demand: the use of primary documents, Chesapeake history, and early Delmarva history," he added.
Also taking off is training in oral history, particularly important for African-Americans, since so much of their history is unrecorded.
"We think this new master's will not only serve the community, but help build community as well."
