Keywords: ride
Item 11621
Illustration and poem, Paul Revere's Ride, ca. 1880
Contributed by: Maine Historical Society Date: circa 1880 Media: Ink on paper
Item 104815
NFBPWC delegates ride the "Caterpillar" at Old Orchard Beach, 1925
Contributed by: Maine Historical Society/MaineToday Media Date: 1925-07-18 Location: Old Orchard Beach Media: glass negative
Item 151349
Contributed by: Maine Historical Society Date: 1895 Location: Portland Client: unknown Architect: John Calvin Stevens
Exhibit
Success at riding a bike mirrored success in life. Bicycling could bring families together. Bicycling was good for one's health. Bicycling was fun. Bicycles could go fast. Such were some of the arguments made to induce many thousands of people around Maine and the nation to take up the new pastime at the end of the nineteenth century.
Exhibit
Liberty Threatened: Maine in 1775
At Lexington and Concord, on April 19, 1775, British troops attempted to destroy munitions stored by American colonists. The battles were the opening salvos of the American Revolution. Shortly, the conflict would erupt in Maine.
Site Page
Blue Hill, Maine - Buggy Ride to South Blue Hill, 1907
"Buggy Ride to South Blue Hill, 1907 Contributed by Blue Hill Public Library Description Rusticators on a summer ride to South Blue Hill in…"
Site Page
Presque Isle: The Star City - Moving to Maine: There to Here - Page 3 of 3
"If one had money, you could buy and ride a motorcycle to the hospital. When my mother wasn’t working, she enjoyed riding the buffalos she tended."
Story
Surfing in Maine
by Emma G.
Emma, a student of documentary film making, talks about surfing at Scarborough Beach
Story
Summers on Peaks
by Anna Greenfield
Memories of being a summer visitor and visiting Peaks Island
Lesson Plan
Longfellow Studies: The Birth of An American Hero in "Paul Revere's Ride"
Grade Level: 9-12
Content Area: English Language Arts, Social Studies
The period of American history just prior to the Civil War required a mythology that would celebrate the strength of the individual, while fostering a sense of Nationalism. Longfellow saw Nationalism as a driving force, particularly important during this period and set out in his poem, "Paul Revere's Ride" to arm the people with the necessary ideology to face the oncoming hardships. "Paul Revere's Ride" was perfectly suited for such an age and is responsible for embedding in the American consciousness a sense of the cultural identity that was born during this defining period in American History.
It is Longfellow's interpretation and not the actual event that became what Dana Gioia terms "a timeless emblem of American courage and independence."
Gioia credits the poem's perseverance to the ease of the poem's presentation and subject matter. "Paul Revere's Ride" takes a complicated historical incident embedded in the politics of Revolutionary America and retells it with narrative clarity, emotional power, and masterful pacing,"(2).
Although there have been several movements to debunk "Paul Revere's Ride," due to its lack of historical accuracy, the poem has remained very much alive in our national consciousness. Warren Harding, president during the fashionable reign of debunk criticism, perhaps said it best when he remarked, "An iconoclastic American said there never was a ride by Paul Revere. Somebody made the ride, and stirred the minutemen in the colonies to fight the battle of Lexington, which was the beginning of independence in the new Republic of America. I love the story of Paul Revere, whether he rode or not" (Fischer 337). Thus, "despite every well-intentioned effort to correct it historically, Revere's story is for all practical purposes the one Longfellow created for him," (Calhoun 261). It was what Paul Revere's Ride came to symbolize that was important, not the actual details of the ride itself.
Lesson Plan
Teddy Roosevelt, Millie, and the Elegant Ride Companion Curriculum
Grade Level: 3-5, 6-8
Content Area: Social Studies
These lesson plans were developed by Maine Historical Society for the Seashore Trolley Museum as a companion curriculum for the historical fiction YA novel "Teddy Roosevelt, Millie, and the Elegant Ride" by Jean. M. Flahive (2019). The novel tells the story of Millie Thayer, a young girl who dreams of leaving the family farm, working in the city, and fighting for women's suffrage. Millie's life begins to change when a "flying carpet" shows up in the form of an electric trolley that cuts across her farm and when a fortune-teller predicts that Millie's path will cross that of someone famous. Suddenly, Millie finds herself caught up in events that shake the nation, Maine, and her family. The lesson plans in this companion curriculum explore a variety of topics including the history of the trolley use in early 20th century Maine, farm and rural life at the turn of the century, the story of Theodore Roosevelt and his relationship with Maine, WWI, and the flu pandemic of 1918-1920.
