1.
William Smallwood
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William Smallwood was an American planter, soldier and politician from Charles County, Maryland. He served in the American Revolutionary War, rising to the rank of major general and he was serving as the fourth Governor of Maryland when the state adopted the United States Constitution. Smallwood was born in 1732 to planter Bayne Smallwood and Priscilla Heaberd Smallwood and he had six siblings, Lucy Heabard Smallwood, Elizabeth F. Smallwood, Margaret F. Stoddert, Heabard Smallwood, Priscilla Courts, and Eleanor Smallwood. His sister Eleanor and brother Hebard served with him later in the Revolutionary War and his parents sent the boys to England, for their education at Eton. His great-grandfather was James Smallwood, who immigrated in 1664 and became a member of the Maryland Assembly in 1692, James son Bayne followed him later in the Assembly. A first cousin of James and Milledge Bonham was Senator Matthew Butler Smallwood served as an officer during the French and he was elected to the Maryland provincial assembly. When the American Revolutionary War began, he was appointed a colonel of the 1st Maryland Regiment in 1776 and he led the regiment in the New York and New Jersey campaign, where the regiment served with distinction. For his role at the Battle of White Plains, in which he was twice wounded and he continued to serve under George Washington in the Philadelphia campaign, where his regiment again distinguished itself at Germantown. Thereafter, he quartered at the Foulke house, also occupied by the family of Sally Wister, Smallwoods accounts of the battle and criticisms of Gates behavior before and during the battle may have contributed to the Congressional inquiries into the debacle. Opposed to the hiring and promotion of foreigners, Smallwood objected to working under Baron von Steuben and he spent the remainder of the war in Maryland. He served as the first President-General of the Maryland Society of the Cincinnati in 1783, Smallwood was elected to Congress in 1785. He was elected Governor of Maryland before he could take up the Congressional seat, in 1787 he convened the states convention that in 1788 adopted the United States Constitution. The 1790 census shows that he held 56 slaves and a tobacco crop of 3000 pounds. When he died in 1792 his estate, known as Mattawoman, including his home the Retreat, William Trueman Stoddard was orphaned at age 9 and raised by his maternal grandfather, Bayne Smallwood). His burial site is now the Smallwood State Park in Marbury, during his occupation of the building in 1778, Gen. Smallwood used the building as a hospital. Some of the soldiers who died in the building were buried in the graveyard directly outside, Smallwood frequented the Cross Keys Inn, at the time a several-room inn and bar. This building stands as a residence at the intersection of Calvert Road. His restored plantation home, Smallwoods Retreat, is located at Smallwood State Park, Smallwood Church Road leads from the State Park toward Old Durham Church, where he was a vestryman
2.
Province of Maryland
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Its first settlement and capital was St. Marys City, in the southern end of St. Marys County, which is a peninsula in the Chesapeake Bay and is also bordered by four tidal rivers. The province began as a colony of the English Lord Baltimore. In 1689, the following the Glorious Revolution, John Coode led a rebellion that removed Lord Baltimore from power in Maryland. Power in the colony was restored to the Baltimore family in 1715 when Charles Calvert, 5th Baron Baltimore, insisted in public that he was a Protestant. Despite early competition with the colony of Virginia to its south, and the Dutch colony of New Netherland to its north, Maryland received a larger felon quota than any other province. By 1776 the old order had been overthrown, as Maryland citizens signed the Declaration of Independence, the Catholic George Calvert, 1st Baron Baltimore, former Secretary of State to His Majesty, King Charles I, wished to create a haven for English Catholics in the New World. Upon Baltimores death in 1632 the grant was transferred to his eldest son Cecil, on June 20,1632 Charles I of England granted the original charter for Maryland, a proprietary colony of about twelve million acres, to Cecil Calvert, 2nd Baron Baltimore. Some historians view this grant as a form of compensation for Calverts fathers having been stripped of his title of Secretary of State upon announcing his Roman Catholicism in 1625. The charter offered no guidelines on religion, although it was assumed that Catholics would not be molested in the new colony. The charter had originally granted to Calverts father, George Calvert, 1st Baron Baltimore. Whatever the reason for granting the colony specifically to Baltimore, however, the colony of New Netherland begun by Englands great imperial rival in this era, the United Provinces specifically claimed the Delaware River valley and was vague about its border with Virginia. Charles rejected all the Dutch claims on the Atlantic seaboard, but was anxious to bolster English claims by formally occupying the territory, the new colony was named after the devoutly Catholic Henrietta Maria of France, the Queen Consort. Colonial Maryland was considerably larger than the state of Maryland. The original charter granted the Calverts an imprecisely defined territory north of Virginia and south of the 40th parallel, like other aristocratic proprietors, he also hoped to turn a profit on the new colony. The Calvert family recruited Catholic aristocrats and Protestant settlers for Maryland, luring them with land grants. To try to gain settlers, Maryland used what is known as the headright system, settlers were given 50 acres of land for each person they brought into the colony, whether as settler, indentured servant or slave. Of the 200 or so initial settlers who traveled to Maryland on the ships Ark and Dove, Clements Island, off the northern shore of the Potomac River, upstream from its confluence with the Chesapeake Bay and Point Lookout. The new settlers were led by Lord Baltimores younger brother Leonard Calvert and he knew of white men from communication with native tribes to the South and West in Virginia and he was eager to gain technology, such as guns and gunpowder, from the Maryland settlers
3.
United States Declaration of Independence
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Instead they formed a new nation—the United States of America. John Adams was a leader in pushing for independence, which was passed on July 2 with no opposing vote cast, a committee of five had already drafted the formal declaration, to be ready when Congress voted on independence. The term Declaration of Independence is not used in the document itself, John Adams persuaded the committee to select Thomas Jefferson to compose the original draft of the document, which Congress would edit to produce the final version. The next day, John Adams wrote to his wife Abigail, The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, but Independence Day is actually celebrated on July 4, the date that the Declaration of Independence was approved. After ratifying the text on July 4, Congress issued the Declaration of Independence in several forms and it was initially published as the printed Dunlap broadside that was widely distributed and read to the public. The source copy used for printing has been lost. Jeffersons original draft, complete with changes made by John Adams and Benjamin Franklin, the best known version of the Declaration, a signed copy that is popularly regarded as the official document, is displayed at the National Archives in Washington, D. C. This engrossed copy was ordered by Congress on July 19, the sources and interpretation of the Declaration have been the subject of much scholarly inquiry. Having served its purpose in announcing independence, references to the text of the Declaration were few in the following years. Abraham Lincoln made it the centerpiece of his rhetoric, and his policies and this has been called one of the best-known sentences in the English language, containing the most potent and consequential words in American history. The passage came to represent a standard to which the United States should strive. Believe me, dear Sir, there is not in the British empire a man who more cordially loves a union with Great Britain than I do. But, by the God that made me, I will cease to exist before I yield to a connection on such terms as the British Parliament propose, and in this, I think I speak the sentiments of America. By the time that the Declaration of Independence was adopted in July 1776, relations had been deteriorating between the colonies and the mother country since 1763. Parliament enacted a series of measures to increase revenue from the colonies, such as the Stamp Act of 1765, Parliament believed that these acts were a legitimate means of having the colonies pay their fair share of the costs to keep them in the British Empire. Many colonists, however, had developed a different conception of the empire, the colonies were not directly represented in Parliament, and colonists argued that Parliament had no right to levy taxes upon them. This tax dispute was part of a divergence between British and American interpretations of the British Constitution and the extent of Parliaments authority in the colonies. In the colonies, however, the idea had developed that the British Constitution recognized certain fundamental rights that no government could violate, after the Townshend Acts, some essayists even began to question whether Parliament had any legitimate jurisdiction in the colonies at all
4.
Maryland
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The states largest city is Baltimore, and its capital is Annapolis. Among its occasional nicknames are Old Line State, the Free State, the state is named after Henrietta Maria of France, the wife of Charles I of England. George Calvert was the first Lord of Baltimore and the first English proprietor of the colonial grant. Maryland was the state to ratify the United States Constitution. Maryland is one of the smallest U. S. states in terms of area, as well as one of the most densely populated, Maryland has an area of 12,406.68 square miles and is comparable in overall area with Belgium. It is the 42nd largest and 9th smallest state and is closest in size to the state of Hawaii, the next largest state, its neighbor West Virginia, is almost twice the size of Maryland. Maryland possesses a variety of topography within its borders, contributing to its nickname America in Miniature. The mid-portion of this border is interrupted by Washington, D. C. which sits on land that was part of Montgomery and Prince Georges counties and including the town of Georgetown. This land was ceded to the United States Federal Government in 1790 to form the District of Columbia, the Chesapeake Bay nearly bisects the state and the counties east of the bay are known collectively as the Eastern Shore. Close to the town of Hancock, in western Maryland, about two-thirds of the way across the state. This geographical curiosity makes Maryland the narrowest state, bordered by the Mason–Dixon line to the north, portions of Maryland are included in various official and unofficial geographic regions. Much of the Baltimore–Washington corridor lies just south of the Piedmont in the Coastal Plain, earthquakes in Maryland are infrequent and small due to the states distance from seismic/earthquake zones. The M5.8 Virginia earthquake in 2011 was felt moderately throughout Maryland, buildings in the state are not well-designed for earthquakes and can suffer damage easily. The lack of any glacial history accounts for the scarcity of Marylands natural lakes, laurel Oxbow Lake is an over one-hundred-year-old 55-acre natural lake two miles north of Maryland City and adjacent to Russett. Chews Lake is a natural lake two miles south-southeast of Upper Marlboro. There are numerous lakes, the largest of them being the Deep Creek Lake. Maryland has shale formations containing natural gas, where fracking is theoretically possible, as is typical of states on the East Coast, Marylands plant life is abundant and healthy. Middle Atlantic coastal forests, typical of the southeastern Atlantic coastal plain, grow around Chesapeake Bay, moving west, a mixture of Northeastern coastal forests and Southeastern mixed forests cover the central part of the state
5.
University of Pennsylvania
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The University of Pennsylvania is a private Ivy League research university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Incorporated as The Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania, Penn is one of 14 founding members of the Association of American Universities, the university coat of arms features a dolphin on the red chief, adopted directly from the Franklin familys own coat of arms. Penn was one of the first academic institutions to follow a multidisciplinary model pioneered by several European universities and it was also home to many other educational innovations. The first school of medicine in North America, the first collegiate school. With an endowment of $10.72 billion, Penn had the seventh largest endowment of all colleges in the United States, all of Penns schools exhibit very high research activity. In fiscal year 2015, Penns academic research budget was $851 million, over its history, the university has also produced many distinguished alumni. S. House of Representatives,8 signers of the United States Declaration of Independence, in addition, some 30 Nobel laureates,169 Guggenheim Fellows, and 80 members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, have been affiliated with Penn. In addition, Penn has produced a significant number of Fortune 500 CEOs, in 1740, a group of Philadelphians joined together to erect a great preaching hall for the traveling evangelist George Whitefield, who toured the American colonies delivering open air sermons. The building was designed and built by Edmund Woolley and was the largest building in the city at the time and it was initially planned to serve as a charity school as well, however, a lack of funds forced plans for the chapel and school to be suspended. According to Franklins autobiography, it was in 1743 when he first had the idea to establish an academy, however, Peters declined a casual inquiry from Franklin and nothing further was done for another six years. Unlike the other Colonial colleges that existed in 1749—Harvard, William and Mary, Yale, Franklin assembled a board of trustees from among the leading citizens of Philadelphia, the first such non-sectarian board in America. At the first meeting of the 24 members of the Board of Trustees the issue of where to locate the school was a prime concern. The original sponsors of the dormant building still owed considerable construction debts and asked Franklins group to assume their debts and, accordingly, on February 1,1750 the new board took over the building and trusts of the old board. On August 13,1751, the Academy of Philadelphia, using the hall at 4th and Arch Streets. A charity school also was chartered July 13,1753 in accordance with the intentions of the original New Building donors, June 16,1755, the College of Philadelphia was chartered, paving the way for the addition of undergraduate instruction. All three schools shared the same Board of Trustees and were considered to be part of the same institution, the institution of higher learning was known as the College of Philadelphia from 1755 to 1779. In 1779, not trusting then-provost the Rev. William Smiths Loyalist tendencies, the result was a schism, with Smith continuing to operate an attenuated version of the College of Philadelphia. In 1791 the Legislature issued a new charter, merging the two institutions into a new University of Pennsylvania with twelve men from each institution on the new Board of Trustees
6.
Annapolis, Maryland
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Annapolis is the capital of the U. S. state of Maryland, as well as the county seat of Anne Arundel County. Its population was measured at 38,394 by the 2010 census, the city served as the seat of the Continental Congress in 1783–84 and was the site of the 1786 Annapolis Convention and the Annapolis Peace Conference, held in 2007. Annapolis is the home of St. Johns College as well as the United States Naval Academy, a settlement in the Province of Maryland named Providence was founded on the north shore of the Severn River in 1649 by Puritan exiles from Virginia led by Governor William Stone. The settlers later moved to a harbor on the south shore. The settlement on the shore was initially named Town at Proctors, then Town at the Severn. In 1654, after the Third English Civil War, Parliamentary forces assumed control of Maryland, per orders from Charles Calvert, fifth Lord Baltimore, Stone returned the following spring at the head of a Cavalier force. On March 25,1655, in what is known as the Battle of the Severn, Stone was defeated, taken prisoner, Fendall governed Maryland during the latter half of the Commonwealth. In 1660, he was replaced by Phillip Calvert as fifth/sixth Governor of Maryland), Annapolis was incorporated as a city in 1708. Water trades such as oyster-packing, boatbuilding and sailmaking became the chief industries. Annapolis is home to a number of recreational boats that have largely replaced the seafood industry in the city. Dr. Alexander Hamilton was a Scottish-born doctor and writer who lived and worked in Annapolis, Annapolis became the temporary capital of the United States after the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1783. For the 1783 Congress, the Governor of Maryland commissioned John Shaw, the flag is slightly different from other designs of the time. The blue field extends over the height of the hoist. Shaw created two versions of the flag, one started with a red stripe and another that started with a white one. In 1786, delegates from all states of the Union were invited to meet in Annapolis to consider measures for the regulation of commerce. Delegates from only five states—New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, New Jersey, the Philadelphia convention drafted and approved the Constitution of the United States, which is still in force. During this period, a prisoner of war camp, Camp Parole, was set up in Annapolis. As the war continued, the camp expanded to a location just west of the city
7.
Anne Arundel County, Maryland
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Anne Arundel County /ˌænəˈrʌndəl/ is a county located in the U. S. state of Maryland. As of the 2010 census, its population was 537,656 and its county seat is Annapolis, which is also the capital of the state. The County was named for Lady Ann Arundell, the daughter of Thomas Arundell, 1st Baron Arundell of Wardour, members of the ancient family of Arundells in Cornwall, England. She married Cecilius Calvert, second Lord Baltimore, and the first Lord Proprietor of the colony, Province of Maryland, in an arranged marriage contract in 1627 or 1628. Anne Arundel County was originally part of St. Marys County in the portion of the Province of Maryland which had first been settled by the arriving settlers in 1634. In 1650, the year after Lady Ann Arundells death, the County separated from St. Marys and erected into its own jurisdiction, between 1654 and 1658, the County was known as Providence by many of its early settlers. The Commonwealth forces under William Fuller were victorious, prior to the move, Annapolis was known as Providence. During the American Revolutionary War, citizens of Anne Arundel County supported the Continental Army by providing troops for three regiments, the 3rd Maryland Regiment, the 4th Maryland Regiment, and the 6th Maryland Regiment were recruited in the county. During the War of 1812, the one of the six heavy frigates of the recently reestablished United States Navy. Constitution sailed from Annapolis prior to its victorious engagement with the H. M. S, guerriere of the British Royal Navy. This was the first regular passenger service in the United States. In 1831, land west of the railroad was considered the Howard District of Anne Arundel County, in 1851, The Howard District was broken off to form Howard County, now the 21st county in Maryland. The County has a number of properties on the National Register of Historic Places, according to the U. S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 588 square miles, of which 415 square miles is land and 173 square miles is water. Anne Arundel County is located to the south of the city of Baltimore, most of the Countys borders are defined by water. The largest of these include, the Magothy River, Severn River, South River. Further south, the upper Patuxent River forms the border of Anne Arundel with Prince Georges County to the west, deep Run forms part of the northwestern border with Howard County, and Lyons Creek forms part of the southern border with Calvert County. Anne Arundel County originally included all of the land between the Patuxent River and the Patapsco River upstream to their headwaters on Parrs Ridge. The northwestern section of this long tract later became Howard County, as a result, Anne Arundel County lies almost entirely within the Atlantic Coastal Plain while Howard County is almost entirely within the Piedmont province
8.
George Washington
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George Washington was an American politician and soldier who served as the first President of the United States from 1789 to 1797 and was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. He served as Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War and he is popularly considered the driving force behind the nations establishment and came to be known as the father of the country, both during his lifetime and to this day. Washington was widely admired for his leadership qualities and was unanimously elected president by the Electoral College in the first two national elections. Washingtons incumbency established many precedents still in use today, such as the system, the inaugural address. His retirement from office two terms established a tradition that lasted until 1940 when Franklin Delano Roosevelt won an unprecedented third term. The 22nd Amendment now limits the president to two elected terms and he was born into the provincial gentry of Colonial Virginia to a family of wealthy planters who owned tobacco plantations and slaves, which he inherited. In his youth, he became an officer in the colonial militia during the first stages of the French. In 1775, the Second Continental Congress commissioned him as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army in the American Revolution, in that command, Washington forced the British out of Boston in 1776 but was defeated and nearly captured later that year when he lost New York City. After crossing the Delaware River in the middle of winter, he defeated the British in two battles, retook New Jersey, and restored momentum to the Patriot cause and his strategy enabled Continental forces to capture two major British armies at Saratoga in 1777 and Yorktown in 1781. In battle, however, Washington was repeatedly outmaneuvered by British generals with larger armies, after victory had been finalized in 1783, Washington resigned as commander-in-chief rather than seize power, proving his opposition to dictatorship and his commitment to American republicanism. Washington presided over the Constitutional Convention in 1787, which devised a new form of government for the United States. Following his election as president in 1789, he worked to unify rival factions in the fledgling nation and he supported Alexander Hamiltons programs to satisfy all debts, federal and state, established a permanent seat of government, implemented an effective tax system, and created a national bank. In avoiding war with Great Britain, he guaranteed a decade of peace and profitable trade by securing the Jay Treaty in 1795 and he remained non-partisan, never joining the Federalist Party, although he largely supported its policies. Washingtons Farewell Address was a primer on civic virtue, warning against partisanship, sectionalism. He retired from the presidency in 1797, returning to his home, upon his death, Washington was eulogized as first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen by Representative Henry Lee III of Virginia. He was revered in life and in death, scholarly and public polling consistently ranks him among the top three presidents in American history and he has been depicted and remembered in monuments, public works, currency, and other dedications to the present day. He was born on February 11,1731, according to the Julian calendar, the Gregorian calendar was adopted within the British Empire in 1752, and it renders a birth date of February 22,1732. Washington was of primarily English gentry descent, especially from Sulgrave and his great-grandfather John Washington emigrated to Virginia in 1656 and began accumulating land and slaves, as did his son Lawrence and his grandson, Georges father Augustine
9.
United States Senate
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The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress which, along with the House of Representatives, the lower chamber, composes the legislature of the United States. The composition and powers of the Senate are established by Article One of the United States Constitution. S. From 1789 until 1913, Senators were appointed by the legislatures of the states represented, following the ratification of the Seventeenth Amendment in 1913. The Senate chamber is located in the wing of the Capitol, in Washington. It further has the responsibility of conducting trials of those impeached by the House, in the early 20th century, the practice of majority and minority parties electing their floor leaders began, although they are not constitutional officers. This idea of having one chamber represent people equally, while the other gives equal representation to states regardless of population, was known as the Connecticut Compromise, there was also a desire to have two Houses that could act as an internal check on each other. One was intended to be a Peoples House directly elected by the people, the other was intended to represent the states to such extent as they retained their sovereignty except for the powers expressly delegated to the national government. The Senate was thus not designed to serve the people of the United States equally, the Constitution provides that the approval of both chambers is necessary for the passage of legislation. First convened in 1789, the Senate of the United States was formed on the example of the ancient Roman Senate, the name is derived from the senatus, Latin for council of elders. James Madison made the comment about the Senate, In England, at this day, if elections were open to all classes of people. An agrarian law would take place. If these observations be just, our government ought to secure the permanent interests of the country against innovation, landholders ought to have a share in the government, to support these invaluable interests, and to balance and check the other. They ought to be so constituted as to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority, the senate, therefore, ought to be this body, and to answer these purposes, the people ought to have permanency and stability. The Constitution stipulates that no constitutional amendment may be created to deprive a state of its equal suffrage in the Senate without that states consent, the District of Columbia and all other territories are not entitled to representation in either House of the Congress. The District of Columbia elects two senators, but they are officials of the D. C. city government. The United States has had 50 states since 1959, thus the Senate has had 100 senators since 1959. In 1787, Virginia had roughly ten times the population of Rhode Island, whereas today California has roughly 70 times the population of Wyoming and this means some citizens are effectively two orders of magnitude better represented in the Senate than those in other states. Seats in the House of Representatives are approximately proportionate to the population of each state, before the adoption of the Seventeenth Amendment in 1913, Senators were elected by the individual state legislatures
10.
Towson University
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Towson University, often referred to as TU or simply Towson for short, is a public university located in Towson in Baltimore County, Maryland, United States. It is a part of the University System of Maryland, Towson is one of the largest public universities in Maryland and still produces the most teachers of any university in the state. The U. S. News & World Report ranked Towson University 8th in the Public Universities-Master’s category for its 2010 Americas Best Colleges issue, forbes included Towson University in its 2009 list of the top 100 public colleges and universities in the United States. Kiplingers Personal Finance magazine named Towson University one of the top 100 best values in public colleges for the 2008–09 academic year, located then at Red Mans Hall on North Paca Street in Baltimore, the new teachers school originally enrolled eleven students and fostered three faculty members. McFadden Alexander Newell served as the schools first principal as well as the State Superintendent of Public Instruction, as time passed, the enrollment in the school grew exponentially. The landmark mansion, which later was known as the Union Club by 1863, the following year, the General Assembly appropriated money to construct an exclusive building to house the burgeoning school. In 1876, the Normal School moved its faculty and 206 students to this new facility located in West Baltimore facing Lafayette Square on Carrollton. The demand for qualified teachers became overwhelming by the turn of the century, the Maryland Department of Education reported an annual need for 350 new teachers, but the Maryland State Normal School was graduating fewer than 100. The facilities in West Baltimore were now inadequate to meet state demands, principal Sarah Richmond, one of the original eleven graduates, began a campaign to establish a campus where the school could function more appropriately. In 1910, the General Assembly formed a committee to oversee site selection, budget, John Charles Linthicum was appointed president of the committee, alongside State Superintendent Dr. M. Bates Stephens and Sarah Richmond. The committee surveyed locations at Roland Park, Lutherville-Timonium, Mount Washington, Pimlico, Glencoe, eventually, the committee settled on an 80-acre site in Towson and the General Assembly financed the $600,000 move in 1912. Construction began in 1913 on the Administration Building, now known as Stephens Hall, in September 1915, the new campus, comprising Stephens Hall, Newell Hall, and the power plant, began classes. The following year, the changed its name to Maryland State Teachers College at Towson. As the name implied, the single purpose was to train teachers. In 1946, however, the established a junior college to offer two years of college work on a transfer basis. This expansion laid the foundation of what was later to become the art, in 1958, the college offered its first graduate program leading to a Master of Education degree. In 1960, the college expanded the art and science programs into four-year courses, due to this change in focus, the name changed once more to Towson State College. Beginning in 1964, the enrollment rates began a dramatic increase as the baby boomer generation began applying to colleges
