Maine Memory Network

Fourth of July Parade, Houlton, 1914

Contributed by: Aroostook County Historical and Art Museum Date: 1914-07-04 Location: Houlton Media: Photo negative

July 4 Parade, Brunswick, ca. 1910

Contributed by: Pejepscot History Center Date: circa 1910 Location: Brunswick Media: Photographic print

80-83 Edgewood Avenue, Portland, 1924

Owner in 1924: Rufus W Parker Use: Dwelling - Single family

Poland Springs House, Poland, 1891

Contributed by: Maine Historical Society Date: 1891 Location: Poland Client: unknown Architect: John Calvin Stevens

Margaret Payson Waterman monument, Gorham, 1928

Contributed by: Maine Historical Society Date: 1928 Location: Gorham Client: John A. Waterman Architect: John Calvin Stevens and John Howard Stevens Architects

Power of Potential

The National Federation of Business and Professional Women's Clubs (NFBPWC) held their seventh annual convention in Portland during July 12 to July 18, 1925. Over 2,000 working women from around the country visited the city.

Maine and the Civil War - Letter from Daniel Lord to his wife, July 21, 1861

"… Letter from Daniel Lord to his wife, July 21, 1861 Contributed by Maine Historical Society Description Daniel Lord wrote to his second…"

Maine's Swedish Colony, July 23, 1870 - Olof Nylander, 1864-1943

"He directed this museum until he died on July 29, 1943 in Caribou. Nylander Model X In years past, museums such as the Smithsonian Museum and…"

Maine's Swedish Colony, July 23, 1870 - Eureka Hall, Stockholm

"Eureka Hall, July 2006New Sweden Historical Society In the present day, it is open as a restaurant upstairs, and downstairs it is a bar."

Bob Hodge:A rocky road to become Biddeford school superintendent
by Biddeford Cultural & Heritage Center

The son of immigrants, Bob's hard work and determination leads to a life of community service.

Isolation!
by Leslie

Having only moved to Maine alone 8 months prior, had to freeze my life

Longfellow Studies: "The Jewish Cemetery at Newport"

Grade Level: 6-8, 9-12 Content Area: English Language Arts, Social Studies
Longfellow's poem "The Jewish Cemetery at Newport" opens up the issue of the earliest history of the Jews in America, and the significant roles they played as businessmen and later benefactors to the greater community. The history of the building itself is notable in terms of early American architecture, its having been designed, apparently gratis, by the most noted architect of the day. Furthermore, the poem traces the history of Newport as kind of a microcosm of New England commercial cities before the industrialization boom. For almost any age student the poem could be used to open up interest in local cemeteries, which are almost always a wealth of curiousities and history. Longfellow and his friends enjoyed exploring cemeteries, and today our little local cemeteries can be used to teach little local histories and parts of the big picture as well. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow visited the Jewish cemetery in Newport, RI on July 9, 1852. His popular poem about the site, published two years later, was certainly a sympathetic portrayal of the place and its people. In addition to Victorian romantic musings about the "Hebrews in their graves," Longfellow includes in this poem references to the historic persecution of the Jews, as well as very specific references to their religious practices. Since the cemetery and the nearby synagogue were restored and protected with an infusion of funding just a couple years after Longfellow's visit, and later a congregation again assembled, his gloomy predictions about the place proved false (never mind the conclusion of the poem, "And the dead nations never rise again!"). Nevertheless, it is a fascinating poem, and an interesting window into the history of the nation's oldest extant synagogue.

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?