Keywords: Ethnicity
Item 148664
Swedish festival, New Sweden, ca. 1970
Contributed by: Acadian Archives Date: circa 1970 Location: New Sweden; Stockholm; Westmoreland Media: Photographic postcard
Item 105920
Redline map of Portland and South Portland, 1935
Contributed by: Maine Historical Society Date: 1935-11-15 Location: Portland; South Portland Media: Ink on paper
Exhibit
St-Jean-Baptiste Day -- June 24th -- in Lewiston-Auburn was a very public display of ethnic pride for nearly a century. Since about 1830, French Canadians had used St. John the Baptist's birthdate as a demonstration of French-Canadian nationalism.
Exhibit
Immigration is one of the most debated topics in Maine. Controversy aside, immigration is also America's oldest tradition, and along with religious tolerance, what our nation was built upon. Since the first people--the Wabanaki--permitted Europeans to settle in the land now known as Maine, we have been a state of immigrants.
Site Page
"In the urban areas of Maine, ethnic tensions and nativist hatreds rose through the 1920's, and in 1924 the Ku Klux Klan claimed 50,000 members in…"
Site Page
"Biddeford's ethnic make-up was diverse and urbane, and the city's residents included business owners, doctors, lawyers, judges, druggists, opticians…"
Story
30 years of business in Maine
by Raj & Bina Sharma
30 years of business, raising a family, & showcasing our culture in Maine
Story
Norman Sevigny: history of a neighborhood grocery store
by Biddeford Cultural & Heritage Center
Growing up in a Franco-American community and working in the family business, Sevigny’s Market
Lesson Plan
Maine's Acadian Community: "Evangeline," Le Grand Dérangement, and Cultural Survival
Grade Level: 9-12
Content Area: English Language Arts, Social Studies
This lesson plan will introduce students to the history of the forced expulsion of thousands of people from Acadia, the Romantic look back at the tragedy in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's famous epic poem Evangeline and the heroine's adoption as an Acadian cultural figure, and Maine's Acadian community today, along with their relations with Acadian New Brunswick and Nova Scotia residents and others in the Acadian Diaspora. Students will read and discuss primary documents, compare and contrast Le Grand Dérangement to other forced expulsions in Maine history and discuss the significance of cultural survival amidst hardships brought on by treaties, wars, and legislation.
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.
