Maine Memory Network

Portland street map, 1826

Contributed by: Maine Historical Society Date: 1826 Location: Portland Media: Watercolor and pen and ink, mounted on fabric

Hotel Strong from a different perspective, Strong, ca. 1900

Contributed by: Strong Historical Society Date: circa 1900 Location: Strong Media: Photographic print

York Institute, Saco, 1926

Contributed by: Maine Historical Society Date: 1925–1926 Location: Saco Client: York Institute Architect: John Calvin Stevens and John Howard Stevens Architects

A Field Guide to Trolley Cars

Many different types of trolley cars -- for different weather, different uses, and different locations -- were in use in Maine between 1895-1940. The "field guide" explains what each type looked like and how it was used.

Atherton Furniture

LeBaron Atherton's furniture empire consisted of ten stores, four of which were in Maine. The photos are reminiscent of a different era in retailing.

New Portland: Bridging the Past to the Future - Welcome to New Portland!

"… Portland! Here at our site, you can explore many different historical artifacts. You will find a historical narrative, an exhibit on the history of…"

Portland Press Herald Glass Negative Collection - Sports

"Coverage of different types of sports was all encompassing, and includes photos of boxing, baseball, football, golf, horseshoes, swimming, basketball."

Quinton "Skip" Wilson: different aspects of "standing out"
by Biddeford Cultural & Heritage Center

Recollections of life as Biddeford's only student of color during the 1960-70s

Laura Richter - Educator
by MLTI Stories of Impact Project

Laura Richter was a Middle School Educator in Skowhegan, Maine as the MLTI began in 2002.

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.

Maine in the News: World War I Newspaper Project

Grade Level: 9-12 Content Area: Social Studies
This lesson plan is designed to introduce students to the important role that Maine played in World War I. Students will act as investigators in order to learn about the time period as well as the active role that Maine took on.