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Articles 1 - 30 of 79
Full-Text Articles in History
John Holmes And The Shifting Partisan Politics Of Slavery In Early Maine, Matthew Mason
John Holmes And The Shifting Partisan Politics Of Slavery In Early Maine, Matthew Mason
Maine History
The longevity and shifting partisan allegiances of the political career of John Holmes illuminate many of the issues animating Maine politics in the broad statehood era. None of these issues dogged Holmes or revealed the intersection of Maine and national politics better than that of slavery. His seemingly endless political flexibility makes Holmes an unusually good barometer of the mainstream position in Maine on slavery and related issues across this broad period. Matthew Mason is a professor of history at Brigham Young University. He is the author of books including Slavery and Politics in the Early American Republic(2006) and …
Two Narratives About A Nineteenth-Century African American Settlement In Rural Maine, Christopher Marshall
Two Narratives About A Nineteenth-Century African American Settlement In Rural Maine, Christopher Marshall
Maine History
African Americans lived in the central Maine townships of Troy and Burnham in the nineteenth century, and a region there is said to contain their abandoned settlement. This is a study of two local narratives about the settlement. Older residents maintain an oral tradition largely based on field evidence, while in-migrants tell a very different story linked to national meanings and events. Using oral histories, documentary research, and archaeological survey work, our research has uncovered much of the story of the African American presence in these towns. While bearers of each narrative tradition feel theirs is an accurate historical account …
With A Little Help From My Friends: Jewish Mutual Assistance In Nineteenth-Century Maine, David M. Freidenreich, Kristin Esdale
With A Little Help From My Friends: Jewish Mutual Assistance In Nineteenth-Century Maine, David M. Freidenreich, Kristin Esdale
Maine History
Jews in 19th-century Maine relied on familial, ethnic, and, to a lesser degree, institutional networks of mutual assistance to survive and thrive. These Jews, who commonly worked as merchants of clothing and other dry goods, counted on family members to get them through hard times and hired fellow Jews to peddle their wares in the countryside. Jewish peddlers and merchants regularly borrowed or loaned cash and goods on credit within a small, tightly knit community that extended across Maine and as far as Boston and New York. Commercial networks also reinforced familial ties as children and in-laws entered the family …
Photo Essay: State Of Mind: Becoming Maine, Maine Historical Society
Photo Essay: State Of Mind: Becoming Maine, Maine Historical Society
Maine History
The separation from Massachusetts in 1820 had different meanings and implications for residents grounded in geography, culture, race, and economic standing. Understanding that the history of how Maine became a state is rooted in the stories of people, State of Mind: Becoming Maine focuses on four distinct communities—Wabanaki, Acadien French, Black, and English-speaking people all who have deep ties to the land now known as Maine. While multitudes of distinct cultural communities have, and continue to call Maine home, the Wabanaki have cared for this land for millennia. The French, Black, and English-speaking people have resided here since the early …
Book Reviews, William David Berry, H. H. Price
Book Reviews, William David Berry, H. H. Price
Maine History
Reviews of the following books: Maine Labor in the Age of Decentralization and Global Markets 1955-2005 by Charles A. Scontras; Still Mill: Stories and Songs of Making Paper in Bucksport, Maine 1930-2014 edited by Patricia Smith Ranzoni.
How Maine Viewed The War, 1914–1917 (1940 Reprint), Edwin Costrell
How Maine Viewed The War, 1914–1917 (1940 Reprint), Edwin Costrell
Maine History
Originally published in 1940, as the United States once more evaluated possible involvement in global conflict, How Maine Viewed the War, 1914– 1917 looks backward to Maine on the eve of World War I. Author Edwin Stanley Costrell (1913–2010), through a study of newspaper coverage of the years 1914 to 1917, provides a thought-provoking account of a Maine people wrestling with ambivalence over US involvement in the Great War; of a citizenry seeking to reconcile ethnic diversity with national unity; and of a nation divided over pacifism, militarism, isolationism, and internationalism and increasingly moving toward war with Germany. Costrell was …
“There Are Folks Comin’ After Us That Will Need Trees”: Progressive Era Conservation, The Woods Tradition, And Maine Writer Holman Francis Day, Dale E. Potts
Maine History
Throughout his novels, Maine author Holman Francis Day maintained the importance of both the conservation of timber and the cultural conservation of Maine’s rural communities. Day wrote his novels in a Progressive Era climate permeated by a wise-use ideology. The point for Day, however, was not whether resources should be used, but by whom; his approach emphasized Maine’s resources for Maine’s people and industry. As a writer of fiction, Day balanced the needs of the people of Maine with a concern for the natural resources that made the state unique. Dale Potts is an Assistant Professor of History at South …
The Sixties: Turmoil And Transformation In The Nation, In Higher Education, And At The University Of Maine, Peter Hoff
The Sixties: Turmoil And Transformation In The Nation, In Higher Education, And At The University Of Maine, Peter Hoff
Maine History
The University of Maine entered its second century of existence in February 1965, in the midst of a period known as “the sixties,” characterized by a cultural revolution, a robust civil rights movement, and a long war in Vietnam. These elements profoundly affected the nation, its people, and the University of Maine. So did the arrival of a large wave of students, the “baby boomers,” plus many for whom higher education had heretofore been out of reach. Three University of Maine presidents, Lloyd Elliott, H. Edwin Young, and Winthrop Libby, led the university through the sixties, addressing significant challenges and …
Through The Eyes Of The Enemy: Why Henry Clay Lost The Presidential Election Of 1844 Through The Lens Of The Daily Argus Of Portland, Maine, Laura Ellyn Smith
Through The Eyes Of The Enemy: Why Henry Clay Lost The Presidential Election Of 1844 Through The Lens Of The Daily Argus Of Portland, Maine, Laura Ellyn Smith
Maine History
The presidential election of 1844 was a critical turning point in the antebellum era. At stake was the controversial issue of Texas annexation, supported by the pro-expansionist Democrat James K. Polk and questioned by Whig Henry Clay. While historians generally accept the significance of the Texas issue, there is a lack of consensus over the importance of the anti-slavery Liberty Party in determining Clay’s narrow loss. Additionally, there is an absence of detailed research on Maine as a Democratic state within traditionally Whig New England. The Daily Argus, as a Democratic newspaper that represented Portland—the most populous part of Maine—provides …
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 …
Making It In Maine: Stories Of Jewish Life In Small-Town America, David M. Freidenreich
Making It In Maine: Stories Of Jewish Life In Small-Town America, David M. Freidenreich
Maine History
A fundamental part of the experience of immigrants to the United States has been the tension between incorporating into a new country while maintaining one’s cultural roots. In this article, the author describes the experience of Jewish Americans in Maine, where climate, culture, and remoteness from larger Jewish populations contributed to a unique process of Americanization compared with Jewish populations in more urban areas of the country. After successfully “making it” over the course of two centuries, Jewish Mainers face a new set of challenges and opportunities. The author is the director of the Jewish studies program at Colby College …
Making It Work Before The Movement: African-American Community And Resistance In 1940s And 1950s Portland, Maine, Justus Hillebrand
Making It Work Before The Movement: African-American Community And Resistance In 1940s And 1950s Portland, Maine, Justus Hillebrand
Maine History
African Americans in Portland, Maine, in the 1940s and 1950s made up less than 0.5% of the population. As a consequence, discourse on race was more subtle than it was in other parts of the country. The Portland black community, as in other small northern New England cities, lacked the numbers for broad public or political action. Instead, African Americans developed individual and informal strategies of resistance aimed at broadening opportunities in education, employment, and housing. African Americans “made it work” by congregating in their own church, persevering in their own educational goals, operating their own businesses, and owning their …
A City Divided: Lewiston’S Acceptance And Resistance To The Somali Refugees In Lewiston, Maine From 2000 To 2011, Anna Chase Hogeland
A City Divided: Lewiston’S Acceptance And Resistance To The Somali Refugees In Lewiston, Maine From 2000 To 2011, Anna Chase Hogeland
Maine History
This article depicts the nature of the resettlement, acculturation, and reception of the Somali refugees in the city of Lewiston, Maine from their arrival in 2000 until 2011. As refugees from their war-torn country, Somalis faced a mixed welcome in their new home. Racial and religious tensions rose as the black, Muslim Somalis moved into the predominately white and Christian Lewiston community. In opposition to the cold reception, as this article argues, the vast majority of the Lewiston community greeted the Somalis with tolerance, adaptability, and embracement. This article chronicles the historical contexts of Lewiston and Somalis before and during …
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, …
Radical Teaching: Scott And Helen Nearing’S Impact On Maine’S Natural Food Revival, Erik Gray
Radical Teaching: Scott And Helen Nearing’S Impact On Maine’S Natural Food Revival, Erik Gray
Maine History
Though today sustainable living and locally-sourced food receive increased attention nationwide, these ideas have been important in Maine for several decades. A key part of the state’s agricultural history is a tradition of self-sustaining homesteads. While subsistence farming and self-sufficiency was often a necessity on Maine’s northeastern frontier, homesteading has remained a lifestyle chosen by many of the state’s residents to this day. In this article, the author discusses the legacy of Scott and Helen Nearing, focusing particularly on the couple’s contributions to the “back to the land” movement in Maine and beyond. The author earned a B.A. in History …
Sheridan In The Shenandoah: The Civil War Memoir Of Levi H. Winslow, Twelfth Maine Infantry Regiment Of Volunteers, David Mitros
Sheridan In The Shenandoah: The Civil War Memoir Of Levi H. Winslow, Twelfth Maine Infantry Regiment Of Volunteers, David Mitros
Maine History
David Mitros is archivist emeritus, Morris County Heritage Commission, Morristown, New Jersey. Currently living in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, he continues his writing and research as a part-time local history project consultant. He received a bachelor’s degree from Montclair State University and a master’s degree from California State University, Dominguez Hills. He received the Roger McDonough Librarianship Award from New Jersey Studies Academic Alliance in 2009. He is the author of four books, including one on the Civil War, Gone to Wear the Victor’s Crown: Morris County, New Jersey and the Civil War, A Documentary Account (1998).
Benevolent Chaos: Nurse Harriet Eaton’S Relief War For Maine, Jane E. Schultz
Benevolent Chaos: Nurse Harriet Eaton’S Relief War For Maine, Jane E. Schultz
Maine History
Harriet Eaton, Portland citizen and Civil War nurse, kept a daily journal of two tours of duty with Maine regiments in the Army of the Potomac. The journal reveals the mistrust that local aid organization workers had regarding the sweeping benevolent objectives of the U.S. Sanitary Commission. The Maine Camp Hospital Association, a local aid society established in Portland in 1862, resisted absorption by the Maine State Relief Agency early in the war, but, in time, the two groups came to cooperate effectively with one another, despite Eaton’s continuing critique of the efficacy of federal benevolence. Jane E. Schultz is …
Contested Memory: John Badger Bachelder, The Maine Gettysburg Commission, And Hallowed Ground, Crompton Burton
Contested Memory: John Badger Bachelder, The Maine Gettysburg Commission, And Hallowed Ground, Crompton Burton
Maine History
In the grim aftermath of the Battle of Gettysburg, John Badger Bachelder, a young artist from New Hampshire, arrived on the field with a master plan to become the preeminent historian of the battle. However, Bachelder quickly learned he could not monopolize the memorializing of those who gave all for the Union. For the next thirty-one years, his vision for remembrance would, by necessity, become a shared one with veterans who were emotionally invested in the preservation of the hallowed ground. The consequence of this collaboration was a uniquely American approach to commemoration in which individual states formed commissions to …
“What The Women Of Maine Have Done”: Women’S Wartime Work And Postwar Activism, 1860-1875, Lisa Marie Rude
“What The Women Of Maine Have Done”: Women’S Wartime Work And Postwar Activism, 1860-1875, Lisa Marie Rude
Maine History
Maine women had been active in reform movements during the antebellum era. They joined mother’s associations, temperance groups, abolitionist societies, and woman suffrage organizations. Although the Civil War did not create activists, it did strengthen them, while opening the door for other women to become activists. The war provided an unprecedented opportunity for the women of Maine to be actors in the public sphere. Postwar women’s movements in Maine were therefore fueled by their agency on the home front during the war. The author is currently a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Maine, working under the supervision of Dr. …
“We Respect The Flag But….”: Opposition To The Civil War In Down East Maine, Timothy F. Garrity
“We Respect The Flag But….”: Opposition To The Civil War In Down East Maine, Timothy F. Garrity
Maine History
Although Maine is commonly remembered as one of the states most supportive of the Union during the Civil War, many of its citizens were implacably opposed to the conflict, and they voiced their opposition loudly and persistently from the war’s beginning until its end. Others weighed in on the topic more quietly but just as forcefully when they refused to enlist and evaded conscription by any effective means. While many studies have explored the history of Copperheadism and associated the political movement with populations that were urban, immigrant, and Catholic, there has been almost no prior investigation of Down East …
A Child Of The Atlantic: The Maine Years Of John Brown Russwurm, Carl Patrick Burrowes
A Child Of The Atlantic: The Maine Years Of John Brown Russwurm, Carl Patrick Burrowes
Maine History
Celebrated in life as co-founder of America’s first black newspaper, John Brown Russwurm was the embodiment of an Atlantic Creole. Born in Jamaica to a white American father and a black Jamaican mother, as a young man Russwurm moved to North America. Throughout his teens and twenties, his “home” was southern Maine, and he was given a good secondary education there. After finishing school, Russwurm taught in several black schools in Philadelphia, New York City, and Boston. It was in these cities that he came into contact with America’s free black leaders, some of whom supported the movement to colonize …
A Man Of Many: Mainer Frank Lowell And White-Native Marriages In Territorial Alaska, Sandy Brue
A Man Of Many: Mainer Frank Lowell And White-Native Marriages In Territorial Alaska, Sandy Brue
Maine History
Born into a well-known and influential New England family, Frank Lowell left his home in Maine and moved to Alaska soon after the territory was purchased by the United States in 1867. His upbringing in a shipbuilding and seafaring family from Maine prepared Frank well for his new life. His life in sparsely-settled Alaska was quite different, though, from his old life in coastal Maine. During his more than fifty years in Alaska, Frank married three Native women and fathered fifteen children. There were practical reasons for Frank to form such unions, but it also demonstrates that racial boundaries were …
Glimpses Into The Life Of A Maine Reformer: Elizabeth Upham Yates, Missionary And Woman Suffragist, Shannon M. Risk
Glimpses Into The Life Of A Maine Reformer: Elizabeth Upham Yates, Missionary And Woman Suffragist, Shannon M. Risk
Maine History
Raised in a religious family in Bristol, Elizabeth Upham Yates spent much of her adult life as a reformer. While in her twenties, Yates spent six years in China serving as a Methodist missionary trying to spread the gospel and Western culture. Upon returning to the United States she became involved in two domestic reform movements, temperance and women’s suffrage. She was active in the women’s suffrage movement from the 1890s until the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920 and ran for lieutenant governor of Rhode Island in the election of 1920. Yates was never a nationally renowned figure …
Ambassador To Norway, Historian Of Bethel: The Career Of Margaret Joy Tibbetts, Andy Deroche
Ambassador To Norway, Historian Of Bethel: The Career Of Margaret Joy Tibbetts, Andy Deroche
Maine History
Margaret Tibbetts grew up in Bethel, graduated from Gould Academy, and later earned a Ph.D. from Bryn Mawr. As a career Foreign Service officer, she served in Europe and Africa in a variety of positions until being named U.S. ambassador to Norway in 1964. Her work as one of the first female ambassadors set the stage for future women to play even bigger roles in U.S. foreign relations. The author grew up in Hanover, Maine, and attended Rumford High School. Majoring in history, he earned a B.A. from Princeton University, an M.A. from the University of Maine, and a Ph.D. …
“Yankees” And “Bluenosers” At The Races: Harness Racing, Group Identity, And The Creation Of A Maine-New Brunswick Sporting Region, 1870-1930, Leah Grandy
Maine History
Borders, divisions, and connections can be physical or intellectual, and the borders and regions created by the sport of harness racing were large and small, geographical and social. The eastern North American origin and focus of the sport demonstrated the character of the region; the sport had grassroots origins in the region, and expanded to the level of a major spectator sport by the last decades of the nineteenth century. Harness racing in the Maritimes and New England in the nineteenth century demonstrated the social and economic cohesion of the region and helped to solidify group and personal identities. Maine …
“Maine And Her Soil, Or Blood!”: Political Rhetoric And Spatial Identity During The Aroostook War In Maine, Michael T. Perry
“Maine And Her Soil, Or Blood!”: Political Rhetoric And Spatial Identity During The Aroostook War In Maine, Michael T. Perry
Maine History
The Aroostook War was a two-month standoff during the winter of 1839 between Maine and New Brunswick. Overlapping boundary claims had created a disputed territory rich in timber but lacking organization. Troops were mobilized, but war was averted when national leaders in Washington and London recoiled at the prospect of a third war between the two nations. The “war” has been dismissed by contemporary observers and historians alike because of the lack of shots fired. What has largely been overlooked, however, is the large body of political rhetoric churned out by Maine’s Democrats and Whigs during the dispute. In examining …
The Meeting Of Two Border Worlds: How The Maine-Canada And Texas-Mexico Borders Met In 1920, Carla Mendiola
The Meeting Of Two Border Worlds: How The Maine-Canada And Texas-Mexico Borders Met In 1920, Carla Mendiola
Maine History
This study follows two families living on the Maine and Texas borders in order to explore how seemingly different border communities shared much in common as they developed in the broader context of the late nineteenth to early twentieth centuries. A brief background history of the two border areas and families is followed by a more detailed look, beginning with a comparison of the conflicts that finalized the borderlines of each state, and ending with a description of the key factors involved in hybrid-culture formation on these borders. The family vignettes offer a window onto examples of how community members …
The Bodwell Granite Company Store And The Community Of Vinalhaven, Maine, 1859-1919, Cynthia Burns Martin
The Bodwell Granite Company Store And The Community Of Vinalhaven, Maine, 1859-1919, Cynthia Burns Martin
Maine History
From the late 1850s to the late 1910s, Bodwelll Granite Company on Vinalhaven Island operated a Company Store from which employees could purchase a wide variety of consumer goods. In the early decades of its existence, the Company Store was generally popular with the company’s employees and the island community. Because of certain competitive advantages, and because the company was guaranteed a profit through federal contracts, the company store often had lower prices than its competitors. But by the late nineteenth century, the store’s prices were often higher than its competitors and the store became part of the growing rift …
The Maine Indian Land Claim Settlement: A Personal Recollection, John M.R. Paterson
The Maine Indian Land Claim Settlement: A Personal Recollection, John M.R. Paterson
Maine History
From 1971 to 1980, the state of Maine grappled with one of the greatest legal challenges ever before it. That challenge had its origin in a suit brought by the Penobscot and Passamaquoddy tribes against the U.S. Department of the Interior seeking the seemingly simple declaration that the department owed a fiduciary duty to the tribes based on a federal law adopted in 1790. That suit was eventually to lead to a suit by the U.S. Department of Justice against the state of Maine, and potentially 350,000 residents in the eastern two-thirds of the state, seeking return of land taken …