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Introduction

Maryland (US: /ˈmɛrɪlənd/ ⓘ MERR-il-ənd) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It borders Virginia to its south, West Virginia to its west, Pennsylvania to its north, Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean to its east, and the national capital of Washington, D.C. to the southwest. With a total area of 12,407 square miles (32,130 km2), Maryland is the ninth-smallest state by land area, and its population of 6,177,224 ranks it the 19th-most populous state and the fifth-most densely populated. Maryland's capital is Annapolis, and the most populous city is Baltimore.

Maryland's coastline was first explored by Europeans in the 16th century. Prior to that, it was inhabited by several Native American tribes, mostly the Algonquian peoples. As one of the original Thirteen Colonies, Maryland was founded by George Calvert, 1st Baron Baltimore, a Catholic convert who sought to provide a religious haven for Catholics persecuted in England. In 1632, Charles I of England granted Lord Baltimore a colonial charter, naming the colony after his wife, Henrietta Maria. In 1649, the Maryland General Assembly passed an Act Concerning Religion, which enshrined the principle of toleration. Religious strife was common in Maryland's early years, and Catholics remained a minority, albeit in greater numbers than in any other English colony. Maryland's early settlements and population centers clustered around waterways that empty into the Chesapeake Bay. Its economy was heavily plantation-based and centered mostly on the cultivation of tobacco. Demand for cheap labor from Maryland colonists led to the importation of numerous indentured servants and enslaved Africans. In 1760, Maryland's current boundaries took form following the settlement of a long-running border dispute with Pennsylvania. Many of its citizens played key political and military roles in the American Revolutionary War. Although it was a slave state, Maryland remained in the Union during the American Civil War, and its proximity to Washington D.C. and Virginia made it a significant strategic location. After the Civil War ended, Maryland took part in the Industrial Revolution, driven by its seaports, railroad networks, and mass immigration from Europe.

Since the 1940s, the state's population has grown rapidly, to approximately six million residents, and it is among the most densely populated U.S. states. As of 2015, Maryland had the highest median household income of any state, owing in large part to its proximity to Washington, D.C., and a highly diversified economy spanning manufacturing, retail services, public administration, real estate, higher education, information technology, defense contracting, health care, and biotechnology. Maryland is one of the most multicultural states in the country; it is one of the six states where non-Whites compose a majority of the population, with the fifth-highest percentage of African Americans, and high numbers of residents born in Africa, Asia, Central America, and the Caribbean. The state's central role in U.S. history is reflected by its hosting of some of the highest numbers of historic landmarks per capita. (Full article...)

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William McSherry SJ (July 19, 1799 – December 18, 1839) was an American Catholic priest and Jesuit who became the president of Georgetown College and a Jesuit provincial superior. The son of Irish immigrants, McSherry was educated at Georgetown College, where he entered the Society of Jesus. As one of the first Americans to complete the traditional Jesuit course of training, he was sent to Rome to be educated for the priesthood. There, he made several discoveries of significant, forgotten holdings in the Jesuit archives, which improved historians' knowledge of the early European settling of Maryland and of the language of Indian tribes there.

McSherry became the first provincial superior of the Jesuits' Maryland Province from 1833 to 1837, and laid the groundwork for the sale of the province's slaves in 1838. He then briefly became the president of Georgetown College in 1837, and was simultaneously made provincial superior for a second time in 1839, despite suffering illness to which he would succumb several months later. (Full article...)

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Mary Pickersgill

Mary Pickersgill (born Mary Young; February 12, 1776 – October 4, 1857) was the maker of the Star-Spangled Banner hoisted over Fort McHenry during the Battle of Baltimore in the War of 1812. The daughter of another noted flag maker, Rebecca Young, Pickersgill learned her craft from her mother, and in 1813 she was commissioned by Major George Armistead to make a flag for Baltimore's Fort McHenry that was so large that the British would have no difficulty seeing it from a great distance. The flag was installed in August 1813 and, during the Battle of Baltimore a year later, Francis Scott Key could see the flag while negotiating a prisoner exchange aboard a British vessel and was inspired to pen the words that became the United States National Anthem in 1931.

Pickersgill, widowed at age 29, became successful enough in her flag-making business that in 1820 she was able to buy the house that she had been renting in Baltimore, and later she became active in addressing social issues, such as housing and employment for disadvantaged women. From 1828 to 1851, she was president of the Impartial Female Humane Society which had been founded in 1802 and incorporated in 1811, and helped impoverished families with school vouchers for children and employment for women. Under Pickersgill's leadership, this organization built a home for aged women and later added an Aged Men's Home which was built adjacent to it. These, more than a century later, evolved into the Pickersgill Retirement Community of Towson, Maryland which opened in 1959. (Full article...)

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Mount St. Mary's University is a private Catholic university in Emmitsburg, Maryland. It has the largest Catholic seminary in the United States. Undergraduate programs are divided between the College of Liberal Arts, the Richard J. Bolte School of Business, and the School of Natural Science and Mathematics. "The Mount" has over 40 undergraduate majors, minors, concentrations, and special programs, as well as bachelor's/master's combinations in partnership with other universities, 8 master's programs, and 6 postgraduate certificate programs. (Full article...)

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