Maine Memory Network

4th of July Parade, Stockholm, 1925

Contributed by: Stockholm Historical Society Date: 1925 Location: Stockholm Media: Photographic print

H. T. Weeks & Company on the 4th of July, Coopers Mills, Whitefield, ca. 1913

Contributed by: An individual through Whitefield Historical Society Date: circa 1913 Location: Whitefield Media: Postcard

The Samoset, Rockport, 1917

Contributed by: Maine Historical Society Date: 1917 Location: Rockport Client: The Samoset Architect: John Calvin Stevens and John Howard Stevens Architects

The Shape of Maine

The boundaries of Maine are the product of international conflict, economic competition, political fights, and contested development. The boundaries are expressions of human values; people determined the shape of Maine.

State of Mind: Becoming Maine

The history of the region now known as Maine did not begin at statehood in 1820. What was Maine before it was a state? How did Maine separate from Massachusetts? How has the Maine we experience today been shaped by thousands of years of history?

Mantor Library, University of Maine Farmington

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Highlighting Historical Hampden - Expansion

"The 4th of July was an especially popular time to visit the park as it offered special sporting events for children, a huge fireworks display, and…"

Peter Spanos fled the genocide in Turkey to Maine
by anonymous

Peter Spanos fled the Greek genocide in Smyrna in 1922, coming to Maine to work as a fruit peddler

My father, Earle Ahlquist, served during World War II
by Earlene Chadbourne

Earle Ahlquist used his Maine common sense during his Marine service and to survive Iwo Jima

Longfellow Studies: Longfellow Amongst His Contemporaries - The Ship of State DBQ

Grade Level: 9-12 Content Area: English Language Arts, Social Studies
Preparation Required/Preliminary Discussion: Lesson plans should be done in the context of a course of study on American literature and/or history from the Revolution to the Civil War. The ship of state is an ancient metaphor in the western world, especially among seafaring people, but this figure of speech assumed a more widespread and literal significance in the English colonies of the New World. From the middle of the 17th century, after all, until revolution broke out in 1775, the dominant system of governance in the colonies was the Navigation Acts. The primary responsibility of colonial governors, according to both Parliament and the Crown, was the enforcement of the laws of trade, and the governors themselves appointed naval officers to ensure that the various provisions and regulations of the Navigation Acts were executed. England, in other words, governed her American colonies as if they were merchant ships. This metaphorical conception of the colonies as a naval enterprise not only survived the Revolution but also took on a deeper relevance following the construction of the Union. The United States of America had now become the ship of state, launched on July 4th 1776 and dedicated to the radical proposition that all men are created equal and endowed with certain unalienable rights. This proposition is examined and tested in any number of ways during the decades between the Revolution and the Civil War. Novelists and poets, as well as politicians and statesmen, questioned its viability: Whither goes the ship of state? Is there a safe harbor somewhere up ahead or is the vessel doomed to ruin and wreckage? Is she well built and sturdy or is there some essential flaw in her structural frame?