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Historical Items

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Item 109079

Auditorium at the Wesleyan Grove Camp Meeting, Northport, ca. 1910

Contributed by: Penobscot Marine Museum Date: circa 1910 Location: Northport Media: Film Negative

Item 6735

Birds'-eye view of Alfred Shaker community, 1880

Contributed by: United Society of Shakers Date: 1880-01-29 Location: Alfred Media: Slide from an illustration- camera obscura/lucida

Item 98886

Jotham Sewall to Samuel Sewall on religious work, 1805

Contributed by: Maine Historical Society Date: 1805 Location: Edgecomb Media: Ink on paper

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Online Exhibits

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Exhibit

400 years of New Mainers

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.

Exhibit

Shaarey Tphiloh synagogue, Portland, ca. 1911

Shaarey Tphiloh, Portland's Orthodox Synagogue

Shaarey Tphiloh was founded in 1904 by immigrants from Eastern Europe. While accommodating to American society, the Orthodox synagogue also has retained many of its traditions.

Exhibit

Captain Gordon poses with the 'Flying Torah,' Bangor, 1945

Fallen Heroes: Maine's Jewish Sailors and Soldiers

Thirty-four young Jewish men from Maine died in the service of their country in the two World Wars. This project, including a Maine Memory Network exhibit, is meant to say a little something about some of them. More than just names on a public memorial marker or grave stone, these men were getting started in adult life. They had newly acquired high school and college diplomas, they had friends, families and communities who loved and valued them, and felt the losses of their deaths.

Site Pages

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Site Page

Mercy Hospital - Mercy & the Community

"Mercy & the Community Frances Tryon, Portland, 1946Northern Light Mercy Hospital Mercy Hospital has a long history of community involvement…"

Site Page

Congregation Shaarey Tphiloh

View collections, facts, and contact information for this Contributing Partner.

Site Page

First Parish in Portland

View collections, facts, and contact information for this Contributing Partner.

My Maine Stories

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Story

Paul Gagne: Living a life fully engaged in his community
by Biddeford Cultural & Heritage Center

A man with a wide range of skills and talents shares them for the benefit of his community

Story

Somali Bantu farmers put down roots in Maine
by Muhidin D. Libah

Running the Somali Bantu Community Association and finding food security 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 Plans

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Lesson Plan

Hermon Independent Order of Odd Fellows Hall, 1914

Building Community/Community Buildings

Grade Level: 6-8 Content Area: Social Studies
Where do people gather? What defines a community? What buildings allow people to congregate to celebrate, learn, debate, vote, and take part in all manner of community activities? Students will evaluate images and primary documents from throughout Maine’s history, and look at some of Maine’s earliest gathering spaces and organizations, and how many communities established themselves around certain types of buildings. Students will make connections between the community buildings of the past and the ways we express identity and create communities today.

Lesson Plan

Engraving of Evangeline, by James Faed, ca. 1854

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

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.