Hon. James G. Blaine, Speaker of the House, 1869
Maine Historical Society
Republican Ascendancy
Maine emerged from the war, however, reasonably united behind the Lincoln administration. Lingering memories of the war served the party that denounced slavery and preserved the Union, as did continuing links to the veterans' Grand Army of the Republic. The trauma of war thus accelerated a trend toward one-party Republican rule in Maine.
As the ruling party in Maine, Republicans forged strong ties to big business. This, along with a fixation on temperance, currency, and tariffs, benefited the party. Republicans were also successful in balancing the needs of Bangor lumber interests and Portland-Lewiston manufacturers, and it hosted a series of extraordinary political leaders at the national level.
The charismatic James G. Blaine was elected to the House of Representatives in 1863, served as speaker between 1869 and 1875, was appointed Secretary of State in 1881, and became a major contender for the presidency in 1876, 1880, and 1884. He was reappointed secretary of state in 1888 and helped to initiate what became America's Good Neighbor Policy toward Central and South America.
Thomas Brackett Reed, Portland, 1898
Fryeburg Historical Society
Along with Blaine, Portland's Thomas Brackett Reed, speaker of the House of Representatives between 1889 and 1891 and again after 1896, was one of the most powerful political figures in America. Republican leaders like these gave Maine a national prominence no Democrat could hope to match.
The War Economy and Beyond
The Civil War had a dramatic impact on Maine's maritime activities. By the 1850s Maine enjoyed a virtual monopoly in the cotton carrying trade, and the loss of this business due to Union blockades was a serious blow. Bath shipyards completed an average of 23 vessels yearly between 1850 and 1860, but built only nine in 1861.
Like other northern states, Maine suffered from Confederate raiders. Of the 52 vessels sunk by the Alabama, 11 were from Maine. Federal cutters captured several other Maine vessels as they attempted to run the southern blockade.
At one point the Tallahassee appeared among the fishing fleet off Matinic Rock, gathered the crews into one small craft, and set fire to the rest. Island people feared Rebels would land and burn their homes, and Maine towns that depended on ocean lanes for their connection to the outside world found times hard indeed.
Ship Lydia Skolfield, ca. 1865
Pejepscot History Center
These risks caused insurance rates to soar, and as a result, nearly 300,000 tons of capacity were sold, transferred to foreign registry, or otherwise disposed.
In some ways the war brought prosperity for Maine shippers. While foreign trade declined in other northern states during the war, it tripled in Maine due to intensified commercial links with the Canadian provinces. Portland became the fourth busiest harbor in the country. Benefiting from strong connections in Washington, Portland and Bath received contracts for federal gunboats like the Agawam, Pontoosac, Katahdin, and Iosco and even a monitor, the Wassuc.
Still, the general trend in Maine shipping and shipbuilding was downward, accelerating a long-term national trend that saw the percentage of U.S. imports carried in U.S. ships decline from 91 percent in 1800, to 78 percent in 1850, to 25 percent in 1866, to 15 percent in 1906.
The Civil War vexed the shipping industry with rising prices, tight money, and a general decline in cargo shipping, but in fact it simply hastened a long-term trend already evident by the mid 1850s.
North Anson landscape, ca. 1870
Maine Historical Society
Historians are still debating the impact of the Civil War on America's industrial development, but they seem to agree on one point: nationally, the loss of agricultural labor to the war effort, coupled with high prices for produce, encouraged farm mechanization.
Maine farms were not typical however; most were geared to regular seasonal absences as males left for lumber camps, the banks fisheries, or the coasting trade. Those left behind – wives, daughters, older men – were accustomed to taking up slack on the farm, and Army volunteers were typically young, unmarried, and transient, or they were second or third sons; thus their leaving had less impact on farm routines than one might expect.
Still, the war added to these seasonal burdens the task of farming in peak summer months, and this extra effort, coupled with the loss of non-family farm-hands, might have turned thoughts to labor-saving devices.
The shift to mechanized farming and specialized commercial crops was a daunting prospect that required large capital outlays and mortgages, closer attention to market conditions, and dealings with distant bankers, commercial agents, and suppliers, all of which went against the conservative Maine mentality, and wartime markets might provided incentive for this leap into the unknown.
Advertising card, Portland Packing Co., ca. 1870
Maine Historical Society
In 1863, for example, the Portland Packing Company pioneered the process of canning agricultural produce in hermetically sealed containers, largely to meet the wartime demand for nonperishable food.
Within a decade, "corn factories" were appearing in farm centers throughout upland Maine, helping to lever farmers out of their traditional mixed-husbandry strategies. Starch factories in northern Maine provided similar incentives for expanding potato production.