Maine Memory Network

Stuart W. Goodwin insurance advertisement, 1942

Contributed by: Norway Historical Society Date: 1942 Location: Norway Media: Ink on paper

Order to stop selling insurance, Bangor, 1872

Contributed by: Maine Historical Society and Maine State Museum Date: 1872-11-12 Location: Bangor; Boston Media: Ink on paper

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394-402 Congress Street, Portland, 1924

Owner in 1924: Union Mutual Life Insurance Co. of Maine Use: Bank & Offices

116-124 Exchange Street, Portland, 1924

Owner in 1924: Union Mutual Life Insurance Co. of Maine Use: Offices

Orono apartment units Prudential Insurance Company of America, Orono, 1947-1951

Contributed by: Maine Historical Society Date: 1947–1951 Location: Orono Client: Prudential Insurance Company of America Architect: Eaton W. Tarbell

Richards house, Portland, 1893-1925

Contributed by: Maine Historical Society Date: 1893–1925 Location: Portland; Portland Client: F. E. Richards Architect: John Calvin Stevens

Eastern Fine Paper

The paper mill on the Penobscot River in South Brewer, which became known as Eastern Fine Paper Co., began as a sawmill in 1884 and grew over the years as an important part of the economy of the region and a large presence in the landscape. Its closing in 2005 affected more than the men and women who lost their jobs.

Toy Len Goon: Mother of the Year

Toy Len Goon of Portland, an immigrant from China, was a widow with six children when she was selected in 1952 as America's Mother of the Year.

John Martin: Expert Observer - Intro: pages 65-83

"…   Part 4, pages 65-83 John Martin seeks to insure that his children -- especially his sons -- understand the politics about which Martin is so…"

John Martin: Expert Observer - Junior Martin in cadet uniform, Bangor, ca. 1871

"… which occured in July last in the national Insurance office in which he stayed his school vacation of 8 weeks." Martin drew the illustrations of…"

Redlining and the Jewish Communities in Maine
by David Freidenreich

Federal and state policies created unfair housing practices against immigrants, like redlining.

Cantor Beth & Dr David Strassler: personal insights on life
by Biddeford Cultural & Heritage Center

The journey of a couple devoted to each other, their family, their community and their religion

Longfellow Studies: Longfellow's "The Village Blacksmith" and "Whitman's Song of Myself" - Alternative Constructions of the American Worker

Grade Level: 9-12 Content Area: English Language Arts, Social Studies
Most if not all of us have or will need to work in the American marketplace for at least six decades of our lives. There's a saying that I remember a superintendent telling a group of graduating high-school seniors: remember, when you are on your deathbed, you will not be saying that you wish you had spent more time "at the office." But Americans do spend a lot more time working each year than nearly any other people on the planet. By the end of our careers, many of us will have spent more time with our co-workers than with our families. Already in the 21st century, much has been written about the "Wal-Martization" of the American workplace, about how, despite rocketing profits, corporations such as Wal-Mart overwork and underpay their employees, how workers' wages have remained stagnant since the 1970s, while the costs of college education and health insurance have risen out of reach for many citizens. It's become a cliché to say that the gap between the "haves" and the "have nots" is widening to an alarming degree. In his book Wealth and Democracy, Kevin Phillips says we are dangerously close to becoming a plutocracy in which one dollar equals one vote. Such clashes between employers and employees, and between our rhetoric of equality of opportunity and the reality of our working lives, are not new in America. With the onset of the industrial revolution in the first half of the nineteenth century, many workers were displaced from their traditional means of employment, as the country shifted from a farm-based, agrarian economy toward an urban, manufacturing-centered one. In cities such as New York, groups of "workingmen" (early manifestations of unions) protested, sometimes violently, unsatisfactory labor conditions. Labor unions remain a controversial political presence in America today. Longfellow and Whitman both wrote with sympathy about the American worker, although their respective portraits are strikingly different, and worth juxtaposing. Longfellow's poem "The Village Blacksmith" is one of his most famous and beloved visions: in this poem, one blacksmith epitomizes characteristics and values which many of Longfellow's readers, then and now, revere as "American" traits. Whitman's canto (a section of a long poem) 15 from "Song of Myself," however, presents many different "identities" of the American worker, representing the entire social spectrum, from the crew of a fish smack to the president (I must add that Whitman's entire "Song of Myself" is actually 52 cantos in length). I do not pretend to offer these single texts as all-encompassing of the respective poets' ideas about workers, but these poems offer a starting place for comparison and contrast. We know that Longfellow was the most popular American poet of the nineteenth century, just as we know that Whitman came to be one of the most controversial. Read more widely in the work of both poets and decide for yourselves which poet speaks to you more meaningfully and why.