The Baltimore County Union (Towsontown, Md.)
Historic newspapers carry the language, views and graphic reporting of their time, including racist content. They are shown to teen and adult profiles.
1,370 issues from 1865 to 1909, published in Towson, Maryland, digitised for Chronicling America.
The Baltimore County Union commenced publication in Towson, the seat of government for Baltimore County, on January 7, 1865. The paper traces its origins to the merger of the Baltimore County American, a pro-Union sheet published since 1858 by W. Bouldin and The American in 1862 by John H. Longnecker, and the Baltimore County Advocate, a newspaper started in 1850 promoting African American emancipation and published by E.F. Church. Hency C. Longnecker and John B. Longnecker, sons of the American’s publisher, were the editors and proprietors of the new weekly. In its inaugural issue, the Union claimed the largest circulation of any county paper in Maryland. Its main competitor in Towson was the Maryland Journal, published by William H. Ruby.
The closing months of the Civil War and the assassination of Abraham Lincoln dominated news in the Union, which was a staunch supporter of the Republican Party and its candidates for local, state and national elections. In 1870, the paper closely followed the passage of the Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which established voting rights for African Americans. This interest in progress for black citizens reflected the presence of a significant segment of the local population located in the African American community of East Towson. East Towson was noteworthy for the high rate of home ownership, due to the efforts of the Relief Association of Baltimore County, which was founded in 1872 to provide financing for…
- Genres
- News
- Published in
- Towson, Maryland, United States
- Language
- English
- Collection
- Chronicling America
- Licence or status
- None stated by the archive
- Rights
- The Library of Congress believes that the newspapers in Chronicling America are in the public domain or have no known copyright restrictions. Newspapers published in the United States more than 95 years ago are in the public domain in their entirety.
- Credit
- Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers, Library of Congress and the National Endowment for the Humanities
- Who can read it
- Teens profiles and older (placed by Invisible Network from what the archive says; archives give no ratings)
- Archive
- Library of Congress