After the Civil War, Maryland prospered. The state was first an important entrepĂ´t for raw materials from, and consumer goods to, the South and Midwest and became a growing center of industry that rarely was controlled from within the state. The port of Baltimore flourished as the most inland port on the East Coast with the most-direct links by railroad to the growing Midwest. Excesses that had won Baltimore the epithet âmob townâ gradually were quieted.
Increasingly, the character of Maryland began to change because of its proximity to the seat of national government. The state became a major center for federal installations, both military and civilian, during World Wars I and II and afterward; most famously, it found itself home to the presidential weekend retreat called Camp David, in Catoctin Mountain Park. But most important was the radically different face of the Maryland suburbs of Washington, D.C., which reflected change not only in the greater numbers of people but also in their unusually high educational and economic status.
When the United States took its first census in 1790, the center of population was found to be on the eastern shore of Maryland. That site has long since moved far to the countryâs west. For many years Maryland remained, for all its lack of size, as close to a median or model for the whole 50 states as any other state can claim to be; it is sometimes called âAmerica in miniature.â H.L. Mencken spoke of these qualities of Maryland in an essay describing it as the most âaverageâ of states.
By the early 21st century, however, Maryland was anything but average. It had one of the highest median family incomes among the states and one of the lowest poverty rates. Politically, the dominating population of the Baltimore-Washington urban corridor made it a solidly Democratic state in national elections. The Baltimore-Washington metropolitan area was among the largest in the country. The Maryland economy was highly diversified, and the presence of major federal research laboratories, libraries, and agenciesâowing to the stateâs proximity to Washington, D.C.âmade the economy among the countryâs strongest. The rise of Maryland in the ânew economy,â based on information technology and knowledge, placed it among the top states in terms of its global orientation, knowledge-based jobs, and level of education of its people. In November 2012 Maryland voters approved a referendum that supported the same-sex marriage law that had been enacted earlier in the year. In 2023, Wes Moore was sworn in as Marylandâs 63rd governor. Moore is the first Black governor of Maryland and the third Black man elected as a governor in the United States.