Maine Memory Network

Five Deering High School basketball players huddling around camera, Portland, 1936

Contributed by: Maine Historical Society/MaineToday Media Date: 1936-12-17 Location: Portland Media: glass negative

David Diamon, Portland High School, Portland, 1926

Contributed by: Maine Historical Society/MaineToday Media Date: 1926 Location: Portland Media: Glass Negative

85-91 High Street (ext), Portland, 1924

Owner in 1924: St. Elizabeth Orphan Asylum Use: School

Assessor's Record, 276-304 Cumberland Avenue, Portland, 1924

Owner in 1924: City of Portland Use: School

Portland High School athletic field, Portland, 1930

Contributed by: Maine Historical Society Date: 1930 Location: Portland Client: P.H.S. Athletic Association Architect: John Calvin Stevens and John Howard Stevens Architects

Deering High School, Portland, 1921-1923

Contributed by: Maine Historical Society Date: 1921–1923 Location: Portland Client: City of Portland Architect: Poor & Thomas

John Bapst High School

John Bapst High School was dedicated in September 1928 to meet the expanding needs of Roman Catholic education in the Bangor area. The co-educational school operated until 1980, when the diocese closed it due to decreasing enrollment. Since then, it has been a private school known as John Bapst Memorial High School.

Away at School: Letters Home

Young men and women in the 19th century often went away from home -- sometimes for a few months, sometimes for longer periods -- to attend academies, seminaries, or schools run by individuals. While there, they wrote letters home, reporting on boarding arrangements and coursework undertaken, and inquired about the family at home.

Portland Press Herald Glass Negative Collection - Sports

"Sports High School Sports View a High School Sports Slideshow Sports, as in newspapers around the globe, occupied a prominent role in the…"

New Portland: Bridging the Past to the Future - East New Portland Village Schools

"East New Portland Central High School X The original Central High School was built in 1921, as the product of over a year's worth of town vote…"

Portland in the 1940s
by Carol Norton Hall

As a young woman in Portland during WWII, the presence of servicemen was life changing.

Monument Square 1967
by C. Michael Lewis

The background story and research behind a commissioned painting of Monument Square.

Portland History: "My Lost Youth" - Longfellow's Portland, Then and Now

Grade Level: 6-8, 9-12 Content Area: English Language Arts, Social Studies
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow loved his boyhood home of Portland, Maine. Born on Fore Street, the family moved to his maternal grandparents' home on Congress Street when Henry was eight months old. While he would go on to Bowdoin College and travel extensively abroad, ultimately living most of his adult years in Cambridge, Massachusetts, he never forgot his beloved Portland. Years after his childhood, in 1855, he wrote "My Lost Youth" about his undiminished love for and memories of growing up in Portland. This exhibit, using the poem as its focus, will present the Portland of Longfellow's boyhood. In many cases the old photos will be followed by contemporary images of what that site looked like 2004. Following the exhibit of 68 slides are five suggested lessons that can be adapted for any grade level, 3–12.

Longfellow Studies: Celebrity's Picture - Using Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's Portraits to Observe Historic Changes

Grade Level: 3-5, 6-8, 9-12 Content Area: Social Studies, Visual & Performing Arts
"In the four quarters of the globe, who reads an American book?" Englishman Sydney Smith's 1820 sneer irked Americans, especially writers such as Irving, Cooper, Hawthorne, and Maine's John Neal, until Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's resounding popularity successfully rebuffed the question. The Bowdoin educated Portland native became the America's first superstar poet, paradoxically loved especially in Britain, even memorialized at Westminster Abbey. He achieved international celebrity with about forty books or translations to his credit between 1830 and 1884, and, like superstars today, his public craved pictures of him. His publishers consequently commissioned Longfellow's portrait more often than his family, and he sat for dozens of original paintings, drawings, and photos during his lifetime, as well as sculptures. Engravers and lithographers printed replicas of the originals as book frontispiece, as illustrations for magazine or newspaper articles, and as post cards or "cabinet" cards handed out to admirers, often autographed. After the poet's death, illustrators continued commercial production of his image for new editions of his writings and coloring books or games such as "Authors," and sculptors commemorated him with busts in Longfellow Schools or full-length figures in town squares. On the simple basis of quantity, the number of reproductions of the Maine native's image arguably marks him as the country's best-known nineteenth century writer. TEACHERS can use this presentation to discuss these themes in art, history, English, or humanities classes, or to lead into the following LESSON PLANS. The plans aim for any 9-12 high school studio art class, but they can also be used in any humanities course, such as literature or history. They can be adapted readily for grades 3-8 as well by modifying instructional language, evaluation rubrics, and targeted Maine Learning Results and by selecting materials for appropriate age level.