The best cultural histories take phenomena that, without context, might seem confusing, arbitrary, or even silly, and use them to open doors into the surrounding history. By the end, such work explains not only the history of the thing itself—how did there come to be a costumed sea monster representing conservation efforts, for instance?—but also uses an unexpected subject to introduce readers to historical depth. Famed National Park Service interpreter Freeman Tilden once wrote that “interpretation should capitalize mere curiosity for the enrichment of the human mind and spirit.” Cheezum’s book is an excellent example of Tilden’s belief. Chessie serves as a stealth vehicle for Chesapeake Bay environmental, labor, and economic history. A reader who would never pick up a book titled An Environmental and Labor History of the Chesapeake Bay might reach for one that promises sea monsters.
Chessie is about more than a mysterious serpent, but Chessie is still the star of the story. The first, and largest, part of the book focuses on the emergence and development of the Chessie mythology, the publicity it provoked, and debates over what might actually be swimming in the bay. Beginning in 1978 and continuing into the 1980s, observers began to see a creature they could not identify in the waters of the Chesapeake Bay. Sometimes described as moving side to side, other times undulating up and down, the details of the phenomenon, eventually dubbed Chessie, were not always agreed upon by those who claimed to have seen it. They insisted, though, that it was not a line of otters, a log, or any of the other suggested explanations. And, at least according to later sightings, it seemed “friendly.” This was an interesting assertion, “backed by virtually no proof whatsoever,” Cheezum writes, that developed with the aid of an enthusiastic newspaper reporter and allowed Chessie to be embraced as a potential asset by a growing tourism industry, rather than a threat.