Maine Memory Network

Ransford W. Shaw’s law office, Houlton, 1908

Contributed by: Aroostook County Historical and Art Museum Date: 1908-12-29 Location: Houlton Media: Photographic print

Post Office and Revenue Offices, Augusta, ca. 1920

Contributed by: Maine Historical Society Date: circa 1920 Location: Augusta Media: Postcard

U.S. Post Office, Portland, 1932

Contributed by: Maine Historical Society Date: 1932 Location: Portland; Portland Client: United States Post Office Architect: John Calvin Stevens John Howard Stevens Architects

Addition to the Branch Post Office for the Free Street Corporation, Portland, 1943-1949

Contributed by: Maine Historical Society Date: 1943–1949 Location: Portland Client: United States Post Office Architect: John Howard Stevens John Calvin Stevens II Architects

Patriotism Shared

Post office clerks began collecting strong red, white, and blue string, rolling it onto a ball and passing it on to the next post office to express their support for the Union effort in the Civil War. Accompanying the ball was this paper scroll on which the clerks wrote messages and sometimes drew images.

The Sanitary Commission: Meeting Needs of Soldiers, Families

The Sanitary Commission, formed soon after the Civil War began in the spring of 1861, dealt with the health, relief needs, and morale of soldiers and their families. The Maine Agency helped families and soldiers with everything from furloughs to getting new socks.

Freedom & Captivity Portal

The Freedom & Captivity digital collection in the Maine Memory Network, and the complete digital archive housed at Colby Special Collections, is a repository of personal testimonies, ephemera, memorabilia, artifacts, and visual materials that capture multiple dimensions of the experiences of incarceration for individuals, families, and communities, as well as for survivors of harm.

Beyond Borders - Mapping Maine and the Northeast Boundary - Pejepscot Proprietors Biographies - Page 1 of 2

"John Ruck John Ruck was the brother in law of Thomas Hutchinson and the father in law of Benning Wentworth."

Mike Remillard shares his in-depth knowledge of our community
by Biddeford Cultural & Heritage Center

You will learn a lot from Mike's fascination with many topics from church organs to submarines.

Stripped Of More Than Clothing
by Dan Adams

Juvenile strip searches while incarcerated.

Maine Governors

Grade Level: Postsecondary Content Area: Social Studies
Students will learn about the people who have occupied the office of Governor and how the Office of Governor operates. The students will understand the different hats and relationships that the Governor has.

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?