About The daily banner. (Cambridge, Md.) 1897-2008
Cambridge, Md. (1897-2008)

The Daily Banner

Cambridge, Maryland, is the seat of local government for Dorchester County and was once a thriving Chesapeake port town located at the mouth of the Choptank River, the largest waterway on the Eastern Shore. At the turn of the 20^th century, Cambridge's docks were full of maritime vessels. Most notably, a fleet of workboats, including the picturesque skipjack, delivered approximately one million oysters annually to the town's numerous packing plants for shucking, canning, and shipping. It was in this environment in 1897 that Armistead R. Michie and Lindsay C. Marshall launched the Daily Banner, the first daily newspaper on Maryland's Eastern Shore. The next year, the Banner combined with a local weekly, the Cambridge Chronicle, under the ownership of Harrington, Henry & Company. Marshall remained editor of the Daily Banner until approximately 1910, when Edward F. Webb and his brother, P. Watson Webb, assumed ownership of the paper. The Webb & Webb Publishing Company also ran the Cambridge Record.

The pages of the Daily Banner preserve the record of Cambridge's maritime economy. Local shipyards built the distinctive vessels that plied the waters of the Bay. Manufacturing plants processed and supplied products as varied as flour, animal feed, fertilizer, lumber, bricks, terra cotta, and steel cans. In addition to seafood packing, the town supported regional farmers as a center for fruit and vegetable canning with the Philips Packing Company, supplying customers locally and throughout the East Coast. By 1920, Cambridge's population of around 8,000 people included a growing number of German and Irish immigrants, as well as African Americans, drawn to the prospect of good jobs, although the seasonal work uncertainties prompted many to relocate to places such as Chester, Pennsylvania, where large shipyards offered more steady employment.

Before adequate roads made automobile transportation convenient on Maryland's Eastern Shore, steamboats were a vital link that moved both passengers and freight to larger markets. The largest and most famous of the Chesapeake steamboat fleet was the Emma Giles, whose published itinerary appeared daily in the Banner during the heyday of the steamboat era from 1880 to 1915. Another type of vessel whose arrival the newspaper noted with interest was the James Adams Floating Theater, the inspiration for John Barth's novel, The Floating Opera. The paper also reported on social, cultural, and recreational activities. For example, the prosperous citizens of Cambridge established strong social networks around an assortment of fraternal organizations, churches, and other institutions such as the Dorchester Public Library. As the century progressed, leisure activities such as waterfowl hunting became more prominent, the marshes of Dorchester County providing a rich haven for migrating birds, which in turn, attracted hunters from across the globe.

The Daily Banner remained in operation until 2008.

Provided by: University of Maryland, College Park, MD