History of Delaware

Cultural Studies of Delaware and the Eastern Shore

by John A. Munroe

The standard history of the state, this volume chronicles the history of Delaware from the early 1600s to the present.

Genres: History

304 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1980

About the author

An expert on the history of Delaware, John Andrew Munroe educated at the University of Delaware, where he received a BA, and at the University of Pennsylvania, where he received a PhD. In 1942 he accepted a position as an instructor in the Department of History at the University of Delaware, where he taught until his retirement as the H. Rodney Sharp Professor of History in 1982.

Reviews

[J.M. Hushour]

Project Read-a-History-of-Every-State-in-Order-of-Statehood #1

Grandpa Joe's home state and the "first state" is a tiny, elongated and self-assured wonder. Don't be fooled by all that you might hear: Delaware is a triumph. My own private Delaware is getting hammered in a succession of little bars in Rehoboth Beach, but the state is so much more than this, people, I just can't remember really what all of that might be.
Luckily, we have Munroe's outstanding history of Delaware, now in its most glorious 5th edition and it's a great read and intro to that most illustrious sliver of peninsula! Settled initially by Swedes and Dutch, the little colony that could found itself subsumed by its morbidly obese neighbor to the north, Pennsylvania, and was relegated to the status of a kind of insignificant stature within the original thirteen, going through various statuses under the proprietorships of the Penn family.
Anyway, Munroe digs deep into the colonial era, highlights Delware's role in the Revolution and then the Constitutional Convention...first to ratify, hence the name! There's lots of good tidbits here, walking you through seemingly minor details of folks like the Du Ponts and early educational endeavors and then weaving those themes in and out to highlight Delaware's transformation, by the mid 20th century into a largely Democratic bastion. For the eagle-eyed, there is a TON on local government evolution, the state constitutions, and local economics, too, not just political history.
A great start to my state history project!