Cultural History Commons^™

Bound By Print: The Baptist Borderlands Of Maine And The Canadian Maritimes, 1770-1840, Brittany P. Goetting

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Asynchronous communication was essential for the development of the cross-border and global identities of Baptists in Maine and the Canadian Maritimes between 1770 and 1840. Religious print, especially published association meeting notes and periodicals, extended the reach of itinerant preaching and molded a cross-border community in the Northeast Borderlands between 1790 and 1810. It allowed Baptists to discuss theology, share news about local churches, and expand their community. American Baptists formed international institutions focused on the spread of Protestantism after the War of 1812, and Maine Baptists actively engaged this more global community through financial donations to the new institutions …

Reverend Jonathan Fisher: One Thread In The Web Of Early American Education, 1780-1830, Brittany P. Cathey

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Jonathan Fisher was a remarkably gifted man with a passionate interest in the education of the future generations of Maine citizens. No historian, however, has yet to examine Jonathan Fisher’s connection to American educational trends. Primary and secondary schools had existed in colonial America since the 1630s. Fisher witnessed and participated in the transformation of American schooling through his involvement in the local schools, libraries and education within his home, his establishment and maintenance of the Blue Hill Academy and the Bangor Theological Seminary and the publication of his juvenile works The Youth’s Primer and Scripture Animals.

The first …

Rosaries, Disease, And Storehouse Keys: Jesuit Conversion Efforts In Seventeenth-Century Acadia, Heather Sanford

Maine History

Throughout the seventeenth century, contests over medicinal orthodoxy between American Indians and Jesuit missionaries revealed the limits of compromise and communicated the values that determined the extent of their cooperation. When French Jesuits arrived in Acadia in 1611, they became witnesses to an epidemic that eventually eliminated an overwhelming majority of the Native population. Publicly proclaiming their desire to save souls, the priests converted disease into an evangelical tool. They began to use healing to persuade Wabanakis of the grace, power, and superiority of the Christian god. This article focuses on the convergence of spirituality and healing in Wabanaki and …

“A Jornal Of A Fue Days At York”: The Great Awakening On The Northern New England Frontier, Douglas L. Winiarski

Maine History

During the early 1740s, New England communities along the northern frontier witnessed a series of religious revivals that were part of a transatlantic movement known as the Great Awakening. Promoted by touring evangelists such as George Whitefield and lesser known local clergyman, the revivals dominated the daily activities of ordinary men and women. Published here for the first time, “A Jornal of afue Days at York, 1741,” presents a vivid portrayal of the local dynamics of the Awakening in Maine and New Hampshire. The author of the “Jornal,” an anonymous Boston merchant, chronicled nightly prayer meetings, conversations with pious local …

Sufficient Unto Themselves: Life And Economy Among The Shakers In Nineteenth-Century Rural Maine, Mark B. Lapping

Maine History

Community self-sufficiency was an ideal that both defined and informed the Shaker experience in America. During the nineteenth century the Shakers at Sabbathday Lake Colony in New Gloucester, Maine—today the last remaining Shaker Colony in the nation— developed a sophisticated economic system that combined agricultural innovation, a far-reaching market-based trade in seeds, herbs, and medicinals, mill-based and home manufacturers, and “fancy goods” to supply the developing tourist sector. They practiced both selective cloture and a profound degree of market savvy as they confronted the maturing market economy. Mark B. Lapping is Professor of Public Policy at the Muskie School of …