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This thesis focuses first on the history of the
Kent County News, and second on how the paper covered the
problems and pressures that an urbanized twentieth century
brought to a rural Eastern Shore Maryland county from
1950 to 1980.
The Kent County News is a weekly newspaper -- the
only local paper for the people of Kent County, Maryland.
Its roots are in one of the nation's oldest newspapers,
the Chestertown Spy, established in 1793. The history of
the Kent County News includes long editorial tenures which
spanned both generations of families and myriad changes in
technology, content and ownership. The past thirty years
brought a particularly large number of changes in content
and administration to the Kent County News.
This study also gives special attention to how the
Kent County News covered three issues: the building of the
Chesapeake Bay Bridge and other attempts to span the Bay; the advent of zoning regulations in the county; and the
possibility of a nuclear power plant being located in the
county. Using the complete files of the Kent County News
housed in the Enoch Pratt Library in Baltimore, Maryland,
every issue of the paper from 1950 to 1980 was examined for
information on these three issues. Other material used in
this study included interviews with editors of the Kent
County News, secondary source material on country weeklies
and Maryland, and Maryland state publications.
This study has shown that over the years the Kent
County News has presented an intimate picture of life in
Kent County. In the last thirty years, as the county has
faced the pressures of increased urbanization and as the
paper experienced changes in design, content and ownership,
the paper has become a staunch publicist for the values of
small-town life. The paper has also been an educator, and
an important force in promoting community consciousness
and harmony. |
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