Shared History
finally published their collected neighborhood history in a fully illustrated book.
The Amazing Story of Arundel-on-the-Bay: 1600s to Today began as a group of neighbors who set out to disprove a stereotype: that their community was an all-white summer enclave.
“We discovered that that really wasn’t the whole story of Arundel-on-the-Bay,” says coauthor Marc Apter. “There were actually several African Americans living in the community in those earliest years, professionals and doctors who the white residents came to depend on.”
The book chronicles the Anne Arundel County development created by seven businessmen from Washington, D.C., as a seaside community — with its own railroad. The research follows the neighborhood from the Gay Nineties, through the segregated Jim Crow era, World War II, woman’s liberation and other 20th- and 21st-century eras. What emerges in the telling is a portrait of America’s social and cultural history that shaped a community.
The book’s authors, all residents but not professional historians, collaborated on the research; each contributed chapters to the book. “We really learned the craft of being historians as we went along and how to merge our different writing styles,” says Apter.
Authors include Aris T. Allen Jr., Phillip Allen, Marc L. Apter, Wilma Coble, Edie Dolberg, Pamela Duncan, Robert Meissner, John Moses, Karen Neale, Bill Semenuk and Arend J. Thomas III.
Meet the authors and have your copy signed at the BIG book sale Dec. 8, 8am-2pm; Dec. 13 during Midnight Madness at Historic Annapolis’ museum gift store 6-7:30pm and Dec. 15 at the Annapolis Bookstore, 2-4pm: $34.95 ($39.95 online).