Keywords: initiation
Item 59816
Home Economics initiation, Farmington, ca. 1950
Contributed by: Mantor Library at UMF Date: circa 1950 Location: Farmington Media: Photographic print
Item 35332
First Communion Souvenir, St. John's Church, Bangor, 1859
Contributed by: John Bapst Memorial High School Date: 1859-03-06 Location: Bangor Media: Ink on paper
Item 86005
Wood property, S. Side Ledgewood Street, Peaks Island, Portland, 1924
Owner in 1924: Albert E. Wood Use: Summer Dwelling
Item 151479
Barzilai/Lindsey residence, New York, New York, 1995-2015
Contributed by: Maine Historical Society Date: 1995–2015 Location: New York Clients: Yosi Barzilai; Grant Lindsey Architect: Carol A. Wilson; Carol A. Wilson Architect
Item 151408
Isaacson residence, Lewiston, 1960
Contributed by: Maine Historical Society Date: 1960 Location: Lewiston Client: Philip Isaacson Architect: F. Frederick Bruck; F. Frederick Bruck, Architect
Exhibit
In 1954, November 11 became known as Veterans Day, a time to honor American veterans of all wars. The holiday originated, however, as a way to memorialize the end of World War I, November 11, 1918, and to "perpetuate peace through good will and mutual understanding between nations." Mainers were involved in World War I as soldiers, nurses, and workers on the homefront aiding the military effort.
Exhibit
Maine Yankee Nuclear Power Plant in Wiscasset generated electricity from 1972 until 1996. Activists concerned about the plant's safety led three unsuccessful referendum campaigns in the 1980s to shut it down.
Site Page
Historic Hallowell - Initiative and Self-Improvement
"Initiative and Self-Improvement Henry Knox Baker, Hallowell, ca. 1900Hubbard Free Library A desire to improve one’s lot and see the world…"
Site Page
Lubec, Maine - Building the Roosevelt Bridge to Campobello - Page 2 of 3
"The righthand photograph shows initial trestlework extending from the Lubec shore at low tide, the water reflecting the calm before tide reversal."
Story
Debbie Jamieson - Initial research re: MLTI impact
by MLTI Stories of Impact Project
Debbie Jamieson recounts how an education researcher impacted her and her classroom.
Story
Vincent Vanier - Technology Coordinator in Madawaska, ME
by MLTI Stories of Impact Project
Vincent Vanier describes what worked well in the initial MLTI laptop training model.
Lesson Plan
Grade Level: 9-12
Content Area: Social Studies, Visual & Performing Arts
When European settlers began coming to the wilderness of North America, they did not have a vision that included changing their lifestyle. The plan was to set up self-contained communities where their version of European life could be lived. In the introduction to The Crucible, Arthur Miller even goes as far as saying that the Puritans believed the American forest to be the last stronghold of Satan on this Earth. When Roger Chillingworth shows up in The Scarlet Letter's second chapter, he is welcomed away from life with "the heathen folk" and into "a land where iniquity is searched out, and punished in the sight of rulers and people." In fact, as history's proven, they believed that the continent could be changed to accommodate their interests. Whether their plans were enacted in the name of God, the King, or commerce and economics, the changes always included and still do to this day - the taming of the geographic, human, and animal environments that were here beforehand.
It seems that this has always been an issue that polarizes people. Some believe that the landscape should be left intact as much as possible while others believe that the world will inevitably move on in the name of progress for the benefit of mankind. In F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby a book which many feel is one of the best portrayals of our American reality - the narrator, Nick Carraway, looks upon this progress with cynicism when he ends his narrative by pondering the transformation of "the fresh green breast of a new world" that the initial settlers found on the shores of the continent into a modern society that unsettlingly reminds him of something out of a "night scene by El Greco."
Philosophically, the notions of progress, civilization, and scientific advancement are not only entirely subjective, but also rest upon the belief that things are not acceptable as they are. Europeans came here hoping for a better life, and it doesn't seem like we've stopped looking. Again, to quote Fitzgerald, it's the elusive green light and the "orgiastic future" that we've always hoped to find. Our problem has always been our stoic belief system. We cannot seem to find peace in the world either as we've found it or as someone else may have envisioned it. As an example, in Miller's The Crucible, his Judge Danforth says that: "You're either for this court or against this court." He will not allow for alternative perspectives. George W. Bush, in 2002, said that: "You're either for us or against us. There is no middle ground in the war on terror." The frontier -- be it a wilderness of physical, religious, or political nature -- has always frightened Americans.
As it's portrayed in the following bits of literature and artwork, the frontier is a doomed place waiting for white, cultured, Europeans to "fix" it. Anything outside of their society is not just different, but unacceptable. The lesson plan included will introduce a few examples of 19th century portrayal of the American forest as a wilderness that people feel needs to be hesitantly looked upon. Fortunately, though, the forest seems to turn no one away. Nature likes all of its creatures, whether or not the favor is returned.
While I am not providing actual activities and daily plans, the following information can serve as a rather detailed explanation of things which can combine in any fashion you'd like as a group of lessons.