Maine Memory Network

4th of July Parade, Stockholm, 1925

Contributed by: Stockholm Historical Society Date: 1925 Location: Stockholm Media: Photographic print

H. T. Weeks & Company on the 4th of July, Coopers Mills, Whitefield, ca. 1913

Contributed by: An individual through Whitefield Historical Society Date: circa 1913 Location: Whitefield Media: Postcard

The Samoset, Rockport, 1917

Contributed by: Maine Historical Society Date: 1917 Location: Rockport Client: The Samoset Architect: John Calvin Stevens and John Howard Stevens Architects

For the Union: Civil War Deaths

More than 9,000 Maine soldiers and sailors died during the Civil War while serving with Union forces. This exhibit tells the stories of a few of those men.

The Sanitary Commission: Meeting Needs of Soldiers, Families

The Sanitary Commission, formed soon after the Civil War began in the spring of 1861, dealt with the health, relief needs, and morale of soldiers and their families. The Maine Agency helped families and soldiers with everything from furloughs to getting new socks.

Swan's Island: Six miles east of ordinary - Holiday Events

"There would be a variety of races for the kids and in the evening there often were fire works. Fourth of July lobster bake, Swan's Island ca."

John Martin: Expert Observer - First electric railroad car in Bangor, 1889

"… year, and wrote, "when I was in Bangor July the 4th I had the pleasure of seeing the 4 cars which was run on that day I was told from day break…"

Peter Spanos fled the genocide in Turkey to Maine
by anonymous

Peter Spanos fled the Greek genocide in Smyrna in 1922, coming to Maine to work as a fruit peddler

My father, Earle Ahlquist, served during World War II
by Earlene Chadbourne

Earle Ahlquist used his Maine common sense during his Marine service and to survive Iwo Jima

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?