The Maryland Board of Public Works: A History Review
Alan Wilner wonderfully tells the tale of the Maryland Board of Public Works in The Maryland Board of Public Works: A History. The book market does not publish enough histories of state government bureaucracy, so Wilner’s attempt at rectifying this dearth is welcome. He could not have chosen a better subject, as the Board of Public Works was unique in state governments as of the time of publication (a sequel is surely in order by now!). No other state concentrates as much procurement authority from every level into one group, but their loss seems to be Maryland’s, and the reader’s, gain. The book delves into the board’s steady expansion of procurement authority from having to sell state assets in its earliest incarnations to approving contracts and change orders in every field from railroads to naval forces and from schools to hospitals.
Wilner also fearlessly delves into the technical and legal detail that too many books, both fiction and nonfiction, sadly gloss over. He notes with precision how many blank pages there are in between meeting minutes to indicate how thin the staff was stretched at the time and calculates how the hundreds and thousands of items on the board’s agenda are divided betwixt meetings. Beyond the statistical detail, Wilner also analyzes the old authorizing acts clause by clause to show the board’s expanding powers at the most granular level. This combination of the micro and macro scales, the thrilling bureaucratic escapades, and the excellent writing and research make The Maryland Board of Public Works: A History a true triumph that will hopefully inspire a new wave of state and local government history books!
While Wilner’s masterpiece is nigh-uncriticizable, the book market at large could stand to look in the mirror. Many ostensible history books these days delve into the shallow end of the pool rather than going into the level of detail as The Maryland Board of Public Works: A History did. Of the many history books out there, this is one of the few that goes into stories like the Maryland Board of Public Works when it ran a state navy to prevent Virginian pirates from absconding with Maryland’s oysters from their side of the Chesapeake Bay.
This classic tale also tells of how decade after decade of government reformers brought up the issue of such a board steadily accumulating a variety of authority. They always claimed that it was inefficient for the governor, treasurer, and comptroller to spend tens of hours a month approving requests for time off, pensions, and minor adjustments to infrastructure.
An additional reason that Wilner deserves commendation is that while most books are written for mass publication, he instead wrote his as a government report. Most books require advances and whatnot, but Wilner was but a humble civil servant who took a topic that was assigned to him and went so far above and beyond that in doing so, he created a masterpiece of local government history. As newspapermen ourselves, we must applaud his dedication to the craft of writing. Truly modern civil servants could stand to take a page from his book (not literally, as that would be plagiarism, but metaphorically). Imagine the wonders if someone on the Future Planning Committee were to write a story about its bureaucratic origins and operations leading up to maneuvers across the pond. Now sadly that would have to be a work of fiction as the Future Planning Committee was a key element in the film In The Loop (another modern classic about government bureaucracy by the master satirist Iannucci). That said, plenty of actual bureaucracy could stand to get the Wilner treatment to great benefit all around.
If someone were to write the history of the Hartford, Connecticut City Planning Commission, it would be a win-win-win at least. The author would surely benefit from the many sales of such a best seller and from the reputational enhancement from publishing such a work. Similarly, the hundreds of millions of Americans who would read it would learn a great deal from understanding how the oldest city planning commission in the United States has operated throughout its history. Additionally, the government would benefit because the model of the author as a civil servant going above and beyond would inspire incredible faith in the government.
All in all, Wilner was a winner, and the rest of us are just lucky to be living in the world in which he wrote The Maryland Board of Public Works: A History. Next after his classic on the Maryland Board of Public Works, the Law Weekly looks forward to reviewing Blame It All On Nero: Code Creation and Revision in Maryland, Wilner’s 1994 classic article on the Maryland Code!
Author: Andrew Moore