Category: Arts & Entertainment, Sculpture & Monuments, Monuments
Item 1013
Monument Square, Portland, 1902
Contributed by: Maine Historical Society Date: 1902 Location: Portland Media: Photographic print
Item 8795
Erecting monument in Monument Square, Portland, 1891
Contributed by: Portland Public Library Date: 1891 Location: Portland Media: Card photograph
Exhibit
Most societies have had rituals or times set aside to honor ancestors, those who have died and have paved the way for the living. Memorial Day, the last Monday in May, is the day Americans have set aside for such remembrances.
Exhibit
Maine's natural resources -- granite, limestone and slate in particular -- along with its excellent ports made it a leader in mining and production of the valuable building materials. Stone work also attracted numerous skilled immigrants.
Story
The Wall
by Michael Uhl
What it means to have beaten the odds
Lesson Plan
What Remains: Learning about Maine Populations through Burial Customs
Grade Level: 6-8
Content Area: English Language Arts, Social Studies, Visual & Performing Arts
This lesson plan will give students an overview of how burial sites and gravestone material culture can assist historians and archaeologists in discovering information about people and migration over time. Students will learn how new scholarship can help to dispel harmful archaeological myths, look into the roles of religion and ethnicity in early Maine and New England immigrant and colonial settlements, and discover how to track changes in population and social values from the 1600s to early 1900s based on gravestone iconography and epitaphs.