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Sailing on the Chesapeake Bay's myriad inlets in summer, it is hard to imagine that come January icebreakers might be plowing the waters you cruised in July.

When portions of the Great Shellfish Bay are iced up the flow of commerce is impeded. At the turn of the 19th century, with the center of the new nation's government established in its arms, a frozen Bay meant that the United States' emergence to a status on par with the foremost nations of the world might be painfully slow. Throughout the 20th century years of extreme cold continued to halt navigation and fishing.

James Foster chronicles the disasters, large and small, which come with the coldest of winters.

Over the course of several centuries, Baltimore evolved from a Colonial-era port city to a thriving and dynamic city of nearly a million people at the conclusion of World War II

As the city grew, a wide variety of industries were established. Railroads, ports, manufacturing sites, and public infrastructure, such as power plants, fundamentally transformed large swaths of Baltimore's landscape. However, the second half of the 20th century saw a dramatic and often traumatic restructuring of the city's economy; individual businesses and entire industrial sectors downsized, relocated, or completely collapsed. Today many such areas of Baltimore have changed radically as abandoned manufacturing sites have been demolished or converted to new uses. Images of America: Industrial Baltimore documents a vital component of the city's working past through historic photographs of the people and sites that made the city an essential economic engine of the Industrial Revolution.

A haunting collection of the ghostly lore and stories of Maryland's Mid-Shore, from full-bodied apparitions to spectral shadows.

There is an otherworldly quality to the Mid-Shore—ghosts seem to rise up from the Chesapeake, and quaint towns hold the spirits of their historic pasts. Oxford's Robert Morris Inn is still home to its colonial namesake, while the Kemp House in St. Michael's is host to the restless specter of Robert E. Lee. Murdered actress Marguerite rides the elevator of the Avalon Theater, and Wish Sheppard stalks the halls of the Denton Jail. Near the witching hour, the eerie sound of the swinging body of Bloody Henny Insley can be heard on the grounds of the Dorchester Courthouse. Author and ghost tour guide Mindie Burgoyne takes a chilling journey into the supernatural lore of Maryland's Mid-Shore.

Read the story of the Battle of Antietam from the African American perspective.

The African American community around Sharpsburg, Maryland witnessed John Brown’s raid, wartime skirmishes, the Battle of South Mountain, and the aftermath of the bloodiest day in American history. Read stories of encounters with Abraham Lincoln and Union and Confederate generals, and of Black civilian suffering and sacrifice in the cause of freedom. Their experiences during four years of Civil War come to life in vivid detail, often in their own words.

Award-winning historian Emilie Amt recounts the personal stories of African Americans, both enslaved and free, who lived on the battlefield and who worked in the armies who clashed there.

Approximately 110,000 soldiers of the Union and Confederate armies fought along the banks of Antietam Creek in the bloodiest single-day battle in American history.

In 12 hours of fighting, approximately 23,000 men fell, either killed, wounded, or missing, forever scarring the landscape around the town of Sharpsburg. Established as the Antietam Battlefield Site in 1890, Antietam National Battlefield became a National Park Service landmark in 1933. The park grew from 33 acres in the 1890s to encompassing over 3,000 acres today. Some of the Civil War's most recognizable landmarks now sit within its boundaries, including Dunker Church, Bloody Lane, and Burnside Bridge. The events that occurred across the fields and woodlots around Sharpsburg and along Antietam Creek bring hundreds of thousands of visitors to Antietam National Battlefield every year.

The story of the bridge that transformed Maryland's Eastern Shore from a sleepy backwater to a major tourism destination and caused an economic boom in Baltimore in the west.

When it opened to traffic in 1952, the William Preston Lane Jr. Memorial Bridge - simply called the Chesapeake Bay Bridge - was the third-longest bridge in the world. The four-mile long span was constructed over the Chesapeake Bay in a dramatic 2.5-year period of progress that became known to the workers as "Operation Link," because it would be the first physical connection between the two widely separated parts of Maryland. Today, the two spans - the original Bay Bridge from 1952 and the parallel span built alongside it in 1973 - are towering architectural landmarks along the East Coast of the United States.

Join author David Healey as he keeps an eye to the red horizon and chronicles the most remarkable storms to churn the waters of the Chesapeake Bay.

Even before John Smith's crew weathered its first squall, the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries had been ravaged by every type of storm imaginable. A 1769 hurricane altered the course of history, demolishing the shipping channels of Charlestown and making Baltimore the dominant port. A once-in-five-hundred-years storm, Tropical Storm Agnes, left more than seventy people dead and devastated the ecology of the bay. Before the blizzards of 2009 and 2010, the snowfall record was held by the combination of the Great Eastern Blizzard of 1899, which blew the water out of the bay, and the Great White Hurricane, which stranded the oyster fleet of Baltimore in feet of ice.

Carroll's Island is one of many places along the Chesapeake Bay where vibrant stories of dogs, decoys, guns and waterfowl resonate up from the shoreline.

The stories from Carroll's Island Ducking Club, which was founded in the mid-nineteenth century, offer special insights about the Chesapeake Bay's waterfowling heritage. In this warm, informative book, C. John Sullivan Jr., one of the nation's

Located in southeastern Harford County, Edgewood was established in the mid-1800s as a small village around a train station.

It remained small until 1917, when the government took over thousands of acres to create the Edgewood Arsenal military complex. Thousands came to build the arsenal on land previously known for having fertile farms, gentlemen's waterfowl hunting clubs, and one of the earliest meeting places for Methodists in America. World War II brought an even greater increase in military personnel and civilians. Later, numerous housing developments replaced obsolete off-post government buildings. The creation of Route 40 through Edgewood in 1939 and 1940 and the Edgewood exit on Interstate I-95 in 1963 brought travelers and spurred new business.

Baltimore's unforgettable dining scene of the past is re-visited here in thirty-five now shuttered restaurants that made their mark on this city.

Haussner's artwork. Coffey salad at the Pimlico Hotel. Finger bowls at Hutzler's Colonial Tea Room. The bell outside the door at Martick's Restaurant Francais. Details like these made Baltimore's dining scene so unforgettable. Explore the stories behind thirty-five shuttered restaurants that Baltimoreans once loved and remember the meals, the crowds, the owners and the spaces that made these places hot spots. Suzanne Loudermilk and Kit Waskom Pollard share behind-the-scenes tales of what made them tick, why they closed their doors and how they helped make Baltimore a culinary destination.

Images of America: Historic Silver Spring celebrates the community's past, beginning with founder Francis Preston Blair's 1840 discovery of the mica-flecked spring and the 1873 arrival of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad.

Vintage photographs document the progressive growth of the ""Main Streets,"" Georgia Avenue and Colesville Road, and the construction of the Silver Spring Armory and National Dry Cleaning Institute in 1927 and the Silver Theatre and Silver Spring Shopping Center in 1938. The volume culminates with modern pictures of downtown Silver Spring's 21st-century revitalization, which continues to preserve the past and secure the future of the area. In a pictorial journey through the community's Central Business District and bordering residential neighborhood, East Silver Spring, Historic Silver Spring honors the people and places that have come before.

An engaging visual history of Cambridge, Maryland, with never before seen photographs and postcards.

Cambridge, Maryland, ideally located along the Choptank River, has been home port to people of every description, including Native Americans, patriots, and state governors to oyster pirates and their nemesis-the Maryland Oyster Navy. Today, Cambridge embraces the diverse cultures and rich past evident in its historic homes and buildings and exhibited in its museums. The city owes much to maritime and agricultural resources including oysters and crabs from the river and bay, and crops from the surrounding fields. The town's Colonial history, proximity to Chesapeake Bay, and dauntless spirit lend a certain charm that is distinctively Cambridge.Images and postcards culled from a variety of sources bring to life the vivid and varied past of one of Maryland's earliest settlements. This unique volume of vintage photos and memorabilia, with its well-researched captions, will engage young and old alike. Highlighted in this photo journal along with the oyster fleet, businesses, churches, and events are the ordinary and extraordinary people who make this area special.

Detailing the salacious history of Baltimore and its denizens from the city's earliest history up to and through Prohibition.

With nicknames such as ""Mob Town"" and ""Syphilis City,"" no one would deny that Baltimore has its dark side. Before shows such as ""The Wire"" and ""Homicide: Life on the Streets"" brought the city's crime rate to national attention, locals entertained themselves with rumors surrounding the mysterious death of writer Edgar Allan Poe and stories about Zelda Fitzgerald, wife of author F. Scott Fitzgerald, who spent time in a Baltimore area sanitarium in the 1930s.

Tourists make the Inner Harbor one of the most traveled areas in the country, but if they would venture a few streets north to The Block on Baltimore Street they would see an area once famous for its burlesque shows. It is only the locals who would know to continue north on St. Paul to the Owl Bar, a former speakeasy that still proudly displays some of its Prohibition era paraphernalia.

Illicit commerce was key to the survival of the mid-Atlantic colonies from the Golden Age of piracy to the battles of the American Revolution.

Out of this exciting time came beloved villains like Captain William Kidd and Black Sam Bellamy as well as inspiring locals like Captain Shelley and James Forten. Learn of the legend of Sadie the Goat and her Charlton Street Gang as piracy was ending in the region in the 19th century.

From the shores of New York to the oceans of the East Indies, from Delaware Bay to the islands of the West Indies, author Jamie L.H. Goodall illuminates the height of piratical depredations in the mid-Atlantic in the 17th and 18th centuries.

Through the lens of over 200 vintage images, uncover the history and contributions made at the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland.

Situated in southeastern Harford County and edged by the Chesapeake Bay and the Bush and Gunpowder Rivers, the U.S. Army bases known as Aberdeen Proving Ground, Edgewood Arsenal, and Fort Hoyle have been home to ordnance, chemical, technology, and artillery commands. The photographs in this volume include scenes of the fertile farmlands of Aberdeen, Edgewood, and Michaelsville, and their transformation, which began in 1917, into the military base known today as Aberdeen Proving Ground, or APG. Views of daily life on base include the ""Toonerville"" Trolley, a small-scale train that shuttled commuting personnel between the main gate and the buildings on post. The images document changes in the ways wars have been fought and changes in society as a result of war. Brave officers voluntarily tested the effects of mustard agent and other chemical weapons on protective clothing and gas masks. Local women sewed gas masks for troops and civilians. Women moved into key jobs on base during World War II, manufacturing and maintaining tanks and weapons systems as the need for great numbers of troops depleted the workforce of civilian males. APG scientists led the way into the computer age when they developed ENIAC, the first electronic digital computer.

Writer H.L. Mencken--the Sage of Baltimore--called her a "wicked seaport'? but where "the old charm, in truth, still survives.'?

Neither Southern nor Northern, Baltimore has charted her own course through the American Experience. The spires of the nation's first cathedral rose into her sky, and the first blood of the Civil War fell on her streets. Here, enslaved Frederick Douglass toiled before fleeing to freedom and Billie Holiday learned to sing. Baltimore's clippers plied the seven seas while her pioneering railroads opened the prairie West. The city that birthed "The Star-Spangled Banner'? also gave us Babe Ruth and the bottle cap. This guide navigates nearly 300 years of colorful history--from Johns Hopkins' learned philanthropy to the raucous camp of John Waters, and from modest rowhouses to the marbled mansions of the Gilded Age.

Let local authors Brennen Jensen and Tom Chalkey introduce you to Mencken's "ancient and solid'? city.

Spring in Maryland means one thing to its many residents: lacrosse.

As much a part of the state as crab cakes and the Chesapeake Bay, lacrosse is king at every level, from youth rec and club to high school, college and the pros. Since the state first fielded teams in the 1870s, Marylanders have played with a unique combination of finesse, speed and passion. The ""Maryland style"" of play built a long line of national powerhouses at all levels. With extensive research and dozens of photographs, journalist Tom Flynn traces the long history of the sport in Maryland from its Native American roots to its first arrival in the state and on to the modern highlights. Fans will rediscover their many past champions and gain a glimpse of teams that promise to elevate the sport's status as the pride of the Old Line State.

Nestled in the Allegheny Mountains in Western Maryland sits Frostburg, a community brimming with a deep sense of history and tradition.

Whether as a stop along the National Road, a booming coal-mining area, or the diverse college town of today, Frostburg has always fostered a rich ethnic heritage, a strong work ethic, and a commitment to education. The vintage photographs in Frostburg reveal the story of a town abounding with history. Carved out of Revolutionary War military lots, the town gained significance in the early 1800s as a stagecoach stop. The people who came to build the community represent a variety of cultures: Scottish, Welsh, German, and Italian residents of decades past are all included in this pictorial retrospective. The diligent efforts of early coal-mining families helped to establish what is now Frostburg State University in 1898, and the impact the institution has had on the community is evident within these pages. Photos of lively baseball games, decorated bands, public servants, early businesses, and memorable events are just some of the engaging images that are displayed in this collection.