Keywords: New Years
Item 20342
Swedish Baptist Church of New Sweden, ca. 1938
Contributed by: New Sweden Historical Society Date: circa 1938 Location: New Sweden Media: Photographic print
Item 20347
New Sweden Gustaf Adolph Lutheran Church, ca. 1938
Contributed by: New Sweden Historical Society Date: circa 1938 Location: New Sweden Media: Photographic print
Item 111315
Poland Springs House, Poland, 1891
Contributed by: Maine Historical Society Date: 1891 Location: Poland Client: unknown Architect: John Calvin Stevens
Item 116275
Church of the New Jerusalem, Portland, 1908-1945
Contributed by: Maine Historical Society Date: 1908–1945 Location: Portland; Portland Client: unknown Architect: John Calvin Stevens and John Howard Stevens Architects
Exhibit
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.
Exhibit
Immigration is one of the most debated topics in Maine. Controversy aside, immigration is also America's oldest tradition, and along with religious tolerance, what our nation was built upon. Since the first people--the Wabanaki--permitted Europeans to settle in the land now known as Maine, we have been a state of immigrants.
Site Page
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…"
Site Page
New Portland: Bridging the Past to the Future - West New Portland Village Schools
"… Historical Society Great Works School in West New Portland X West New Portland was only known to have two different schools."
Story
Working as a telephone operator in the 1940s
by Doris Tardy
Working as a telephone operator in 1946 was new and exciting, and challenging.
Story
30 years of business in Maine
by Raj & Bina Sharma
30 years of business, raising a family, & showcasing our culture in Maine
Lesson Plan
Becoming Maine: The District of Maine's Coastal Economy
Grade Level: 3-5
Content Area: Social Studies
This lesson plan will introduce students to the maritime economy of Maine prior to statehood and to the Coasting Law that impacted the separation debate. Students will examine primary documents, take part in an activity that will put the Coasting Law in the context of late 18th century – early 19th century New England, and learn about how the Embargo Act of 1807 affected Maine in the decades leading to statehood.
Lesson Plan
Longfellow Studies: "The Jewish Cemetery at Newport"
Grade Level: 6-8, 9-12
Content Area: English Language Arts, Social Studies
Longfellow's poem "The Jewish Cemetery at Newport" opens up the issue of the earliest history of the Jews in America, and the significant roles they played as businessmen and later benefactors to the greater community. The history of the building itself is notable in terms of early American architecture, its having been designed, apparently gratis, by the most noted architect of the day. Furthermore, the poem traces the history of Newport as kind of a microcosm of New England commercial cities before the industrialization boom. For almost any age student the poem could be used to open up interest in local cemeteries, which are almost always a wealth of curiousities and history. Longfellow and his friends enjoyed exploring cemeteries, and today our little local cemeteries can be used to teach little local histories and parts of the big picture as well.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow visited the Jewish cemetery in Newport, RI on July 9, 1852. His popular poem about the site, published two years later, was certainly a sympathetic portrayal of the place and its people. In addition to Victorian romantic musings about the "Hebrews in their graves," Longfellow includes in this poem references to the historic persecution of the Jews, as well as very specific references to their religious practices.
Since the cemetery and the nearby synagogue were restored and protected with an infusion of funding just a couple years after Longfellow's visit, and later a congregation again assembled, his gloomy predictions about the place proved false (never mind the conclusion of the poem, "And the dead nations never rise again!"). Nevertheless, it is a fascinating poem, and an interesting window into the history of the nation's oldest extant synagogue.
