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Articles 1 - 20 of 20
Full-Text Articles in History
From Wanted To Weeds: A Natural History Of Some Of New England’S Introduced Plants, Jessamy R. Luthin
From Wanted To Weeds: A Natural History Of Some Of New England’S Introduced Plants, Jessamy R. Luthin
Maine History
When the Europeans first colonized New England they initiated the process of transforming the landscape into something more familiar. In order to ensure access to food and medicine and recreate the pastoral landscape of the Old World they brought with them a variety of known plant species for cultivation. With time, shifts in medical practice, agriculture, food preservation, and dietary preferences, reliance on these plants declined. As knowledge of these plant species disappeared from popular consciousness, so too did they disappear into the wilds of America, exploiting new found ecological niches, and becoming New England’s naturalized flora. Human labor was …
‘The Farmer’S Family Must Find Compensation In Something Less Tangible, Less Material’: Culture And Agriculture In Maine And New England, 1870-1905”, Cody P. Miller
Maine History
Following the Civil War, American agriculture changed dramatically, and New England was no exception. With new railroad systems, specialized crop markets, and chemical fertilizers, Maine and other New England farmers found themselves as part of an increasingly commercialized agricultural system. Farmers, urban pundits, and agricultural reformers all stressed the need to abandon small, mixed husbandry farming and instead they urged farmers to start treating agriculture like a business. In order to “progress,” one needed to increase acreage and adopt specialized cropping. While many farmers accepted this mantra, others resisted it and argued that there was a moral quality to agriculture …
Old Roots And New Shoots: How Locals And Back-To-The-Landers Remade Maine's Local Food Economy, Eileen Hagerman
Old Roots And New Shoots: How Locals And Back-To-The-Landers Remade Maine's Local Food Economy, Eileen Hagerman
Maine History
Back-to-the-landers who relocated to Maine in large numbers during the 1970s often lacked traditional rural skills and encountered a variety of agricultural challenges related to the state’s harsh climate and poor soils. Many who remained on the land often did so, at least initially, because they received support from elderly neighbors who still practiced low-input, small-scale farming. These neighbors tended to freely share their knowledge and skills and, in return, often benefited from the young newcomers’ assistance with laborious on-farm tasks. The newcomers worked with their local allies to form organizations, share knowledge, and coordinate marketing efforts tailored to meet …
Very Noble Suppers: Agriculture And Foodways In Late Colonial Falmouth, Charles P.M. Outwin
Very Noble Suppers: Agriculture And Foodways In Late Colonial Falmouth, Charles P.M. Outwin
Maine History
During the American colonial period, Falmouth Neck (now Portland), Maine began its progression from a small fishing village to a vibrant hub of the region’s agriculture and trade. In this article, the author explains various aspects of this progression, particularly through a description of the ways food in the region made its way from farm (or ocean) to table. The author earned an MA in liberal studies from Wesleyan University in 1991 and a PhD in history from the University of Maine in 2009, writing a dissertation on the history of Falmouth from 1760-1775. He has published numerous works, including …
Maine’S Contested Waterfront: The Project To Remake Sebago Lake’S Lower Bay, 1906-1930, David B. Cohen
Maine’S Contested Waterfront: The Project To Remake Sebago Lake’S Lower Bay, 1906-1930, David B. Cohen
Maine History
Throughout the nation’s history, few resources have been considered as ubiquitous as water. The issue of who controls the use of water, however, has seldom been straight forward. This was no less true in the Progressive Era, when many growing urban areas significantly altered their water infrastructure to meet increased demands. When debate arose over water use, these municipalities often relied on the relatively new authority of scientific knowledge, particularly in the area of public health and safety. In this article, the author describes how the Portland Water District was able to conserve Sebago Lake’s Lower Bay as a clean, …
Penobscot Men, Michael Prokosch
Penobscot Men, Michael Prokosch
Maine History
The Fowlers of Millinocket lie near the heart of Maine’s north woods story. Henry David Thoreau and Fannie Hardy Eckstorm saw the family’s wilderness existence as antithetical to the commercialization and industrialization of their times, but the Fowlers themselves adapted easily when water power, coal, and oil upended the woods economy around them. Their family history traces the energy revolutions that shaped the northern forest and our country. Mike Prokosch is an organizer, popular economics educator, and hiker who lives in Boston.
The Improved Acre: The Besse Farm As A Case Study In Landclearing, Abandonment, And Reforestation, Theresa Kerchner
The Improved Acre: The Besse Farm As A Case Study In Landclearing, Abandonment, And Reforestation, Theresa Kerchner
Maine History
From the vantage of the twenty-first century, it seems remarkable that farmers, working with only hand tools and farm animals, converted over half of New England’s “primeval” forests to tillage and pasture in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This period was marked by transitions as farmers responded to new markets, changing family values, and declining natural resources. These forces brought an end to agrarian expansion and caused New England’s iconic pastoral landscape to begin to revert to forestland. A case study based on the former Jabez Besse, Jr. farm in central upland Maine provides a link to New England’s agricultural …
Burnt Harvest: Penobscot People And Fire, James Eric Francis Sr.
Burnt Harvest: Penobscot People And Fire, James Eric Francis Sr.
Maine History
The scientific and ethnographic record confirms the fact that in southern New England, Indians used fire as a forest management tool, to facilitate travel and hunting, encourage useful grasses and berries, and to clear land for agriculture. Scholars have long suggested that agricultural practices, and hence these uses of fire, ended at the Saco or Kennebec, with Native people east of this divide less likely to systematically burn their forests. This article argues that Native people on the Penobscot River used fire, albeit in more limited ways, to transform the forest and create a natural environment more conducive to their …
Farms To Forests In Blue Hill Bay: Long Island, Maine, Kristen Hoffman
Farms To Forests In Blue Hill Bay: Long Island, Maine, Kristen Hoffman
Maine History
Disturbance histories are important factors in determining the composition and structure of today’s forests, and not least among these disturbances is the human use of the land. Land clearing in Maine peaked in 1880 at six and a half million acres, beginning on the coast and lower river valleys and spreading northward and eastward. The forests of Maine’s coastal islands have endured a longer period of clearing than any other in the state. Long Island, located in Blue Hill Bay, was first settled in 1779, primarily by farmers. Sheep-herding, lumbering, fishing, and granite quarrying provided supplemental livelihoods. By 1920 all …
From Agriculture To Industry: Silk Production And Manufacture In Maine 1800-1930, Jacqueline Field
From Agriculture To Industry: Silk Production And Manufacture In Maine 1800-1930, Jacqueline Field
Maine History
Sericulture or silk production is an agricultural activity that involves mulberry cultivation, raising silkworms, and reeling (unwinding) filament (raw silk) from cocoons. Silk manufacture involves a mechanical means of throwing (spinning) raw silk into usable threads and making textiles. This article examines Maine’s role in the American silk industry from early sericulture, mulberry growing, and small-scale hand production to twentieth-century industrialized manufacturing and the production of hitherto unimaginable quantities of silk fabrics. Most specifically, the objective is to show that although Maine’s participation in this effort may not have been as dominant or as well-documented as that of other New …
Jock Darling: The Notorious “Outlaw” Of The Maine Woods, James B. Vickery Iii
Jock Darling: The Notorious “Outlaw” Of The Maine Woods, James B. Vickery Iii
Maine History
Jim Vickery began work on this article shortly before he died in 1997. He had been researching Jock Darling for several years, and at my urging he set down his thoughts on the “old outlaw” under an arrangement by which he would compose the article on one of his infamous "yellow pads,” and I would transcribe the results on my computer and return a clean copy to him for editing and proofreading. He would also fill in the blanks where I could not decipher his handwriting. Before we could complete this project, Jim was hospitalized with the condition that finally …
170 Years Of Caring: The Animal Welfare Movement In Bangor, Maine, John D. Blaisdell
170 Years Of Caring: The Animal Welfare Movement In Bangor, Maine, John D. Blaisdell
Maine History
The history of the animal welfare movement in Bangor, Maine dates to the first decades of the nineteenth century: Over the course of its long history, the movement's emphasis shifted from a focus on livestock and urban workhorses in the nineteenth century to children and animals at the turn of the century and finally to companion animals, primarily cats and dogs. These shifts, the author argues, reflect economic and technological changes as well as a transformation in society's perception of animals. A Maine native, John Blaisdell, is currently working on a book exploring the history of Maine's animal welfare movement. …
Maine Lumber Production, 1839-1997: A Statistical Overview, Lloyd C. Irland
Maine Lumber Production, 1839-1997: A Statistical Overview, Lloyd C. Irland
Maine History
Complementing the qualitative account of forestry's impact provided by Geoffrey Carpenter, Lloyd Irland gives us a broad statistical overview of the industry, its changing economic fortunes, and its impact on the environment of the north woods. The data, while not always precise, reveal the terms upon which the state's decision-makers historically viewed the forest and its future. Mr. Irland is private forestry consultant in Winthrop, Maine, who has written widely on New England forestry topics, including Wildlands and Woodlots: The Story Of New England's Forests (1982).
Deforestation In Nineteenth-Century Maine: The Record Of Henry David Thoreau, Geoffrey Paul Carpenter
Deforestation In Nineteenth-Century Maine: The Record Of Henry David Thoreau, Geoffrey Paul Carpenter
Maine History
Thoreau’s Maine Woods, a record of three trips made between 1846 and 1857, offers a combination of literary metaphor and precise botanical and topographical observation. Comparing Thoreau’s journals with recent advances in forest ecology, author Geoffrey Paul Carpenter reveals a detailed picture of the various ways in which logging activity changed the forests, lakes, and rivers of Maine. Carpenter demonstrates that a precise understanding of forest history depends not only on traditional statistical sources, but also on the subjective personal testimony found in the literary record.
The Transformation Of Farming In Maine, 1940-1985, Richard Wescott, David Vail
The Transformation Of Farming In Maine, 1940-1985, Richard Wescott, David Vail
Maine History
Stone walls running incongruously through deep woods; fields and pastures becoming overgrown with brush; broken-backed barns tum bling in upon themselves; clusters of day lilies and lilacs guarding empty cellar holes — the remains of thousands of farms are scattered across the Maine landscape, relics of another age when farming was the lifeblood of hundreds of rural communities from the Piscataqua to the St. John.
“The Poor People Had Suddenly Become Rich” A Boom In Maine Wheat, 1793-1815, Jamie H. Eves
“The Poor People Had Suddenly Become Rich” A Boom In Maine Wheat, 1793-1815, Jamie H. Eves
Maine History
The article discusses the important role played in the surreptitious trade in wheat to the British Empire during the Napoleonic Wars. Its European supplies choked off by tariffs and embargoes, Britain turned to Ireland and to the United States for grain.
The Harpswell Laboratory 1898-1920: A Marine Biological Station, Mary Francis Williams
The Harpswell Laboratory 1898-1920: A Marine Biological Station, Mary Francis Williams
Maine History
This article reviews the founding and history of The Harpswell Laboratory, A Marine Biological Station
Salt Marsh Dykes (Dikes) As A Factor In Eastern Maine Agriculture, David C. Smith, Anne E. Bridges
Salt Marsh Dykes (Dikes) As A Factor In Eastern Maine Agriculture, David C. Smith, Anne E. Bridges
Maine History
The article discusses the prevalence of dykes found, primarily in Washington County, which had been built in the period 1790 – 1870 to reclaim salt marshes for agricultural purposes.
Percival P. Baxter: A Comment, Edward O. Schriver
Percival P. Baxter: A Comment, Edward O. Schriver
Maine History
This article analyzes Governor Baxter’s search over the years to find a rational understanding of the term “wilderness.”
Percival P. Baxter: The Wilderness Concept, John W. Hakola
Percival P. Baxter: The Wilderness Concept, John W. Hakola
Maine History
This article discusses the controversies and challenges presented to Baxter State Park owing to differing opinions of the meaning of "wilderness."