Maine Memory Network

Bangor and Aroostook staging, ca. 1973

Contributed by: Oakfield Historical Society Date: circa 1973 Media: Photographic print

Spider staging, ca. 1973

Contributed by: Oakfield Historical Society Date: circa 1973 Media: Photographic print

Assessor's Record, 1929-2013 Forest Avenue, Portland, 1924

Owner in 1924: Riverton Realty Company Use: Stage Platform

Stage Two additions and alterations floor plan, Portland, 1983

Contributed by: Maine Historical Society Date: 1983 Location: Portland Client: Maine Medical Center Architect: Shepley Bulfinch Richardson and Abbott

Mount Pleasant House, NH, 1894

Contributed by: Maine Historical Society Date: circa 1894 Location: Carroll Client: unknown Architect: John Calvin Stevens

Chansonetta Stanley Emmons: Staging the Past

Chansonetta Stanley Emmons (1858-1937) of Kingfield, Maine, experimented with the burgeoning artform of photography. Starting in 1897, Emmons documented the lives of people, many in rural and agricultural regions in Maine and around the world. Often described as recalling a bygone era, this exhibition features glass plate negatives and painted lantern slides from the collections of the Stanley Museum in Kingfield on deposit at Maine Historical Society, that present a time of rapid change, from 1897 to 1926.

Maine Politicians, National Leaders

From the early days of Maine statehood to the present, countless Maine politicians have made names for themselves on the national stage.

Music in Maine - Opera, Orchestras and Stages

"Opera, Orchestras and Stages Click to learn more about Maine's Opera Houses Many Maine towns in the 19th and early 20th centuries had an…"

Presque Isle: The Star City - Harvesting Potatoes - Page 11 of 13

"… new, truck bodies were still in the transition stage from box over the rear wheels to a flat body."

Betty Cody, country music legend
by Maine Historical Society

Betty Cody is noted as Maine's most recognized female singer

The $ame Band
by Mike Laskey

Maine's punk rock band, 1977

Longfellow Studies: The Birth of An American Hero in "Paul Revere's Ride"

Grade Level: 9-12 Content Area: English Language Arts, Social Studies
The period of American history just prior to the Civil War required a mythology that would celebrate the strength of the individual, while fostering a sense of Nationalism. Longfellow saw Nationalism as a driving force, particularly important during this period and set out in his poem, "Paul Revere's Ride" to arm the people with the necessary ideology to face the oncoming hardships. "Paul Revere's Ride" was perfectly suited for such an age and is responsible for embedding in the American consciousness a sense of the cultural identity that was born during this defining period in American History. It is Longfellow's interpretation and not the actual event that became what Dana Gioia terms "a timeless emblem of American courage and independence." Gioia credits the poem's perseverance to the ease of the poem's presentation and subject matter. "Paul Revere's Ride" takes a complicated historical incident embedded in the politics of Revolutionary America and retells it with narrative clarity, emotional power, and masterful pacing,"(2). Although there have been several movements to debunk "Paul Revere's Ride," due to its lack of historical accuracy, the poem has remained very much alive in our national consciousness. Warren Harding, president during the fashionable reign of debunk criticism, perhaps said it best when he remarked, "An iconoclastic American said there never was a ride by Paul Revere. Somebody made the ride, and stirred the minutemen in the colonies to fight the battle of Lexington, which was the beginning of independence in the new Republic of America. I love the story of Paul Revere, whether he rode or not" (Fischer 337). Thus, "despite every well-intentioned effort to correct it historically, Revere's story is for all practical purposes the one Longfellow created for him," (Calhoun 261). It was what Paul Revere's Ride came to symbolize that was important, not the actual details of the ride itself.