Maine Memory Network

English Sailors, Cumberland, ca. 1941

Contributed by: Phil Chase through Prince Memorial Library Date: circa 1941 Location: Cumberland Media: Photographic print

Actress Marla English, Presque Isle Air Force Base, 1952

Contributed by: Presque Isle Air Museum Date: 1952 Location: Presque Isle Media: Photographic print

Father Rasles, the Indians and the English

Father Sebastien Rasle, a French Jesuit, ran a mission for Indians at Norridgewock and, many English settlers believed, encouraged Indian resistance to English settlement. He was killed in a raid on the mission in 1724 that resulted in the remaining Indians fleeing for Canada.

"Twenty Nationalities, But All Americans"

Concern about immigrants and their loyalty in the post World War I era led to programs to "Americanize" them -- an effort to help them learn English and otherwise adjust to life in the United States. Clara Soule ran one such program for the Portland Public Schools, hoping it would help the immigrants be accepted.

Historic Clothing Collection - Eighteenth Century - Page 3 of 3

"… suited to an active country life, fine quality English dark wool broadcloth, and skilled tailoring led to the rise of superior English tailored…"

Beyond Borders - Mapping Maine and the Northeast Boundary - Women in Colonial Economies - Page 1 of 4

"… with her mother and brother, had sold land to English colonists eight years prior, and Jane insisted that the English honor their prior…"

Aurore Morin & Huguette Paquette: immigrating to Biddeford
by Biddeford Cultural & Heritage Center

The experience of a young mother and her teenage sister making the transition from Quebec to Maine.

Sister Madeleine D’Anjou: Many detours lead to a rewarding life
by Biddeford Cultural & Heritage Center

What a journey! Sister Maddie says that "God writes straight on crooked lines."

Longfellow Studies: Longfellow Amongst His Contemporaries - The Ship of State DBQ

Grade Level: 9-12 Content Area: English Language Arts, Social Studies
Preparation Required/Preliminary Discussion: Lesson plans should be done in the context of a course of study on American literature and/or history from the Revolution to the Civil War. The ship of state is an ancient metaphor in the western world, especially among seafaring people, but this figure of speech assumed a more widespread and literal significance in the English colonies of the New World. From the middle of the 17th century, after all, until revolution broke out in 1775, the dominant system of governance in the colonies was the Navigation Acts. The primary responsibility of colonial governors, according to both Parliament and the Crown, was the enforcement of the laws of trade, and the governors themselves appointed naval officers to ensure that the various provisions and regulations of the Navigation Acts were executed. England, in other words, governed her American colonies as if they were merchant ships. This metaphorical conception of the colonies as a naval enterprise not only survived the Revolution but also took on a deeper relevance following the construction of the Union. The United States of America had now become the ship of state, launched on July 4th 1776 and dedicated to the radical proposition that all men are created equal and endowed with certain unalienable rights. This proposition is examined and tested in any number of ways during the decades between the Revolution and the Civil War. Novelists and poets, as well as politicians and statesmen, questioned its viability: Whither goes the ship of state? Is there a safe harbor somewhere up ahead or is the vessel doomed to ruin and wreckage? Is she well built and sturdy or is there some essential flaw in her structural frame?

Longfellow Studies: "The Poet's Tale - The Birds of Killingworth"

Grade Level: 6-8, 9-12 Content Area: English Language Arts, Science & Engineering, Social Studies
This poem is one of the numerous tales in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's Tales of the Wayside Inn. The collection was published in three parts between 1863 and 1873. This series of long narrative poems were written by Longfellow during the most difficult personal time of his life. While mourning the tragic death of his second wife (Fanny Appleton Longfellow) he produced this ambitious undertaking. During this same period he translated Dante's Inferno from Italian to English. "The Poet's Tale" is a humorous poem with a strong environmental message which reflects Longfellow's Unitarian outlook on life.