Keywords: ship construction
Item 81355
Brig under construction, Somes Cove, ca. 1905
Contributed by: Mount Desert Island Historical Society Date: circa 1905 Location: Mount Desert Island Media: Photographic print
Item 51643
Memorial Bridge under construction, ca. 1922
Contributed by: Maine Historical Society/MaineToday Media Date: circa 1922 Location: Kittery; Portsmouth Media: Glass Negative
Exhibit
South Portland's Wartime Shipbuilding
Two shipyards in South Portland, built quickly in 1941 to construct cargo ships for the British and Americans, produced nearly 270 ships in two and a half years. Many of those vessels bore the names of notable Mainers.
Exhibit
George Popham and a group of fellow Englishmen arrived at the mouth of the Kennebec River, hoping to trade with Native Americans, find gold and other valuable minerals, and discover a Northwest passage. In 18 months, the fledgling colony was gone.
Site Page
Thomaston: The Town that Went to Sea - Henry Knox: Shipping
"Henry Knox: Shipping Shipping the goods that he was producing was an important part of Knox’s business dealings."
Site Page
Swan's Island: Six miles east of ordinary - III. Boom, bustle, bust: The Steamboat Years to WWII
"… who helped with the construction of Liberty Ships. After a period of busy growth, industry, and prosperity, the change shook the island."
Story
A first encounter with Bath and its wonderful history
by John Decker
Visiting the Maine Maritime Museum as part of a conference
Story
John Coyne from Waterville Enlists as a Railroad Man in WWI
by Mary D. Coyne
Description of conditions railroad men endured and family background on John Coyne.
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?
