Maine Memory Network

Ballad, More Lynching, 1835

Contributed by: Maine Historical Society Date: 1835 Location: Bangor Media: Ink on paper

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Indenture contract for Samuel Perkins of Arundel, 1805

Contributed by: McArthur Public Library Date: 1805 Location: Arundel Media: Ink on paper

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Assessor's Record, 153 Stevens Avenue, Portland, 1924

Owner in 1924: Michele Mores Use: Garage

153 Stevens Avenue, Portland, 1924

Owner in 1924: Michele Mores Use: Dwelling - Single family

J. B. Brown town houses on Neal St., Portland, 1906

Contributed by: Maine Historical Society Date: 1906 Location: Portland Client: J. B. Brown Architect: John Calvin Stevens and John Howard Stevens Architects

J. B. Brown town houses on West St., Portland, 1910

Contributed by: Maine Historical Society Date: 1910 Location: Portland Client: J. B. Brown & Sons Architect: John Calvin Stevens and John Howard Stevens Architects

John Y. Merrill: Leeds Farmer, Entrepreneur, & More

John Y. Merrill of Leeds (1823-1898) made terse entries in diaries he kept for 11 years. His few words still provide a glimpse into the life of a mid 18th century farmer, who also made shoes, quarried stone, moved barns, made healing salves -- and was active in civic affairs.

Civil War Soldiers Impact Pittsfield

Although not everyone in town supported the war effort, more than 200 Pittsfield men served in Civil War regiments. Several reminders of their service remain in the town.

Mount Desert Island: Shaped by Nature - Learn More

"Learn More If you would like to learn more about the Wabanaki on and around Mount Desert Island, here are several resources."

Mount Desert Island: Shaped by Nature - Postscript: More Moving Buildings

"Postscript: More Moving Buildings The Old House, Harbor Cottage, The Big Barn and the Old Ell were not the only structures in Asticou to move…"

63 year Presque Isle High School Class Reunion
by Kathryn E Joy

What happens when there are no more reunions planned.

The Village Cafe - A Place We Called Home
by Michael Fixaris

The Village Cafe was more than a restaurant. It was an extension of our homes and our families.

Longfellow Studies: "Christmas Bells"

Grade Level: 6-8, 9-12 Content Area: English Language Arts, Social Studies
The words of this poem are more commonly known as the lyrics to a popular Christmas Carol of the same title. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote "Christmas Bells" in December of 1863 as the Civil War raged. It expresses his perpetual optimism and hope for the future of mankind. The poem's lively rhythm, simple rhyme and upbeat refrain have assured its popularity through the years.

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.