Maine Memory Network

Cutting corn, Fairfield, 1916

Contributed by: L.C. Bates Museum / Good Will-Hinckley Homes Date: circa 1916 Location: Fairfield Media: Photographic print

Seed potato cutting bench, Littleton, ca. 1930

Contributed by: Southern Aroostook Agricultural Museum Date: circa 1930 Location: Littleton Media: Wood

Shop, Presumpscot Street (rear), Portland, 1924

Owner in 1924: Canadian National Railroad Use: Shop - Pipe Cutting

1-5 Custom House Street, Portland, 1924

Owner in 1924: W.L. Blake & Co. Use: Shop - Pipe Cutting

Aroostook County Railroads

Construction of the Bangor and Aroostook rail lines into northern Aroostook County in the early twentieth century opened the region to tourism and commerce from the south.

Ice: A Maine Commodity

Maine's frozen rivers and lakes provided an economic opportunity. The state shipped thousands of tons of ice to ports along the East Coast and to the West Indies that workers had cut and packed in sawdust for shipment or later use.

Historic Hallowell - Ice Cutting

"Ice cutting industries, specifically Gardiner ice cutting industry cut ice off of the Kennebec River, during the cold winter seasons when the ice was…"

Historic Hallowell - Ice Cutting and Ice Houses on the Bombahook

"A marker scratched a line for the next cut. The plow was run one way over an area and then over the other at right angles, plowing out a checkerboard…"

21st and 19th century technology and freelance photography
by Brendan Bullock

My work is a mash-up of cutting edge technology and 19th century chemistry techniques.

How Far is Deep Enough?
by Molly M.

Wading into Casco Bay after a hot and prickly afternoon on an island off Portland.

Longfellow Studies: Celebrity's Picture - Using Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's Portraits to Observe Historic Changes

Grade Level: 3-5, 6-8, 9-12 Content Area: Social Studies, Visual & Performing Arts
"In the four quarters of the globe, who reads an American book?" Englishman Sydney Smith's 1820 sneer irked Americans, especially writers such as Irving, Cooper, Hawthorne, and Maine's John Neal, until Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's resounding popularity successfully rebuffed the question. The Bowdoin educated Portland native became the America's first superstar poet, paradoxically loved especially in Britain, even memorialized at Westminster Abbey. He achieved international celebrity with about forty books or translations to his credit between 1830 and 1884, and, like superstars today, his public craved pictures of him. His publishers consequently commissioned Longfellow's portrait more often than his family, and he sat for dozens of original paintings, drawings, and photos during his lifetime, as well as sculptures. Engravers and lithographers printed replicas of the originals as book frontispiece, as illustrations for magazine or newspaper articles, and as post cards or "cabinet" cards handed out to admirers, often autographed. After the poet's death, illustrators continued commercial production of his image for new editions of his writings and coloring books or games such as "Authors," and sculptors commemorated him with busts in Longfellow Schools or full-length figures in town squares. On the simple basis of quantity, the number of reproductions of the Maine native's image arguably marks him as the country's best-known nineteenth century writer. TEACHERS can use this presentation to discuss these themes in art, history, English, or humanities classes, or to lead into the following LESSON PLANS. The plans aim for any 9-12 high school studio art class, but they can also be used in any humanities course, such as literature or history. They can be adapted readily for grades 3-8 as well by modifying instructional language, evaluation rubrics, and targeted Maine Learning Results and by selecting materials for appropriate age level.

Teddy Roosevelt, Millie, and the Elegant Ride Companion Curriculum

Grade Level: 3-5, 6-8 Content Area: Social Studies
These lesson plans were developed by Maine Historical Society for the Seashore Trolley Museum as a companion curriculum for the historical fiction YA novel "Teddy Roosevelt, Millie, and the Elegant Ride" by Jean. M. Flahive (2019). The novel tells the story of Millie Thayer, a young girl who dreams of leaving the family farm, working in the city, and fighting for women's suffrage. Millie's life begins to change when a "flying carpet" shows up in the form of an electric trolley that cuts across her farm and when a fortune-teller predicts that Millie's path will cross that of someone famous. Suddenly, Millie finds herself caught up in events that shake the nation, Maine, and her family. The lesson plans in this companion curriculum explore a variety of topics including the history of the trolley use in early 20th century Maine, farm and rural life at the turn of the century, the story of Theodore Roosevelt and his relationship with Maine, WWI, and the flu pandemic of 1918-1920.