The Bay Bridge Metonymy: How Maryland Newspapers Interpreted the Opening of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge

Abstract

Using metonymy as a means of analysis, this paper measures the different editorial approaches Maryland-area newspapers had to the opening of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge in 1952. The bridge opened travel routes to a historically isolated section of the state. Newspapers on both sides of the bay saw the bridge as a metonym for man's supremacy over nature. To a lesser degree, they also viewed it as triumph of capitalism. Western Shore newspapers widely saw the bridge as a metonym for statewide unity. Eastern Shore newspapers viewed it more as a metonymfor unwelcome change and the achievement of regional equality. The bridge also became a metonym of redemption for former Governor William Preston Lane, Jr., who had championed the bridge and other road improvements—as well as budget and tax increases to pay for them—at the cost of his political career.