Keywords: Politics, politicians
Item 6776
Thomas Jefferson letter to William King, 1819
Contributed by: Maine Historical Society Date: 1819-11-19 Location: Monticello Media: Ink on paper
Item 102121
Frederick Dow, Portland, ca. 1890
Contributed by: Maine Historical Society Date: circa 1890 Location: Portland Media: Crayon Enhanced Photographic Print
Item 151461
House for Capt. John W. Deering, Kennebunkport, 1890
Contributed by: Maine Historical Society Date: 1890 Location: Kennebunkport Client: John W. Deering Architect: John Calvin Stevens
Exhibit
Maine Politicians, National Leaders
From the early days of Maine statehood to the present, countless Maine politicians have made names for themselves on the national stage.
Exhibit
Rum, Riot, and Reform - Politics and Enforcement
"… so clearly suggest the hypocrisy of 19th-century politicians pretending to serve the Prohibition cause while furthering their own aims."
Site Page
John Martin: Expert Observer - Illustrations: Politicians & Personalities
"… Illustrations: Politicians & Personalities"
Site Page
Maine's Road to Statehood - The Missouri Compromise: A Moral Dilemma
"[34] For further details on this debate and the opinions of Maine politicians and national figures, see Banks, Maine Becomes a State, 188-204."
Story
How the first chapter Veterans for Peace was founded in Maine
by Doug Rawlings
Veterans for Peace was founded in Maine and is now an international movement
Story
An Asian American Account
by Zabrina
An account from a Chinese American teen during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Lesson Plan
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?
