Hidden History Of Maine

Discover 400 years of New England history you won’t find in guidebooks in this collection of true stories and colorful characters from The Pine Tree State. Maine wouldn’t be the magical place it is today without the contributions of little-known individuals whose inspiring and adventuresome lives make up the story of Maine's "hidden history." Journalist and Maine historian Harry Gratwick presents vividly detailed portraits of these Mainers, from the controversial missionary Sebastien Rale to Woolwich native William Phips, whose seafaring attacks against French Canada earned him the first governorship of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Gratwick also profiles inventors such as Robert Benjamin Lewis, an African American from Gardiner who patented a hair growth product in the 1830s, and Margaret Knight, a York native who defied nineteenth-century sexism to earn the nickname "the female Edison." From soprano Lillian Nordica, who left Farmington to become the most glamorous American opera singer of her day, to slugger George "Piano Legs" Gore, the only Mainer to ever win a Major League Baseball batting championship, Hidden History of Maine reveals the men and women who made history without making it into history books.

The first comprehensive history of Maine to be published in decades, Maine: The Pine Tree State surveys the region's rich history from prehistoric times to the early 1990s. Drawing on a team of twenty-six scholars with a professional interest in Maine's past, the book features fresh research and new interpretations of even familiar periods such as the Civil War. The chapter authors are respected authorities in Maine history from the fields of archaeology, anthropology, ethnic studies, and the various sub-disciplines of history: political, cultural, economic, labor, military, maritime. Certain themes recur from chapter to chapter and across historical periods. For example, larger structural changes in the nation - market trends, wars, economic fluctuations, demographic flows - strongly affected the everyday world of Maine people. Other prominent themes are the importance of geography and the environment in shaping Maine's economy and culture. Caught up at times in national events, Maine has also led the nation in important ways. Its fishing industry fed and its textile industry clothed the nation's people. Maine loggers contributed heavily to the technologies used in cutting, hauling, and driving timber. Maine excelled in the production of wooden ships and supplied the expertise to sail them. In the nineteenth century Maine's political leaders were among the most powerful in the nation, and Maine's contribution to social reform attracted national recognition.

From the first explorers, to the century of ships, to our modern fisheries and diversification, Maine's maritime story is told in engaging detail. Lincoln Paine has laid down the framework for an understanding of Maine's maritime history by relating the population and landscape of today to their historic foundations. This engaging overview of Maine’s maritime history ranges from early Native American travel and fishing to pre-Plymouth European settlements, wars, international trade, shipbuilding, boom-and-bust fisheries, immigrant quarrymen, quick-lime production, yachting, and modern port facilities, all unfolding against one of the most dramatic seascapes on the planet. Down East can be read in an evening but will be referred to again and again. When the first edition was published in 2000, Walter Cronkite—a veteran Maine coastal sailor as well as The Most Trusted Man in America—wrote that “Paine’s economy of phrase and clarity of purpose make this book a delight.” Paine went on to write his monumental opus The Sea and Civilization: A Maritime History of the World (PW starred review), but now returns to his first and most abiding love, the coast of Maine, to revise and update this gem of a book. The new edition is printed in a large, full-color format with a stunning complement of historical photos, paintings, charts, and illustrations, making this a truly visual journey along a storied coast.

When celebrity aviator Harry Atwood made the first aeroplane flight over Bangor in 1912, observers were astonished. It was a sign that the city had recovered from the great fire of 1911 that had destroyed its downtown the year before. While some events are well known, many stories from turn-of-the-century Bangor have been lost to time. In this collection, local author Wayne E. Reilly brings some of the most exciting and intriguing hidden Bangor tales to light--from a gas explosion that left a thirty-foot crater in the middle of downtown to the escape of a mayor's pet pig. Join Reilly as he reveals the hidden stories from Queen City history.

Across decades, Maine has produced nationally-recognized novelists of place-based fiction. From the late nineteenth century to the present, writers have explored the experiences of living in far-flung settings: island and coastal villages; northwoods lumbering communities; unincorporated townships; backcountry hamlets; and mill cities and towns. Taken together their body of work composes a remarkable literary map of a diverse and changing Maine. Hidden Places explores the identity of Maine through its writers and the people and places they captured at moments in time. Hidden Places traces the work of these writers to provoke readers into seeing and understanding Maine places with new awareness. These Maine writers construe place as both a territory on the ground and a country of the imagination. They help insiders see more clearly what is distinctive about their communities and encourage outsiders to better understand what might seem quaint or odd about the state. Like a well-drawn atlas, Hidden Places seeks to capture a diverse state at the granular level one representation at a time. It explores the identity of Maine through its writers and the people and places they wrote of.

From the Age of Discovery and the earliest settlement of America, Midcoast Maine has played surprising roles in America's history. Europeans might not have survived in the New World without the Kennebec beaver trade, the lessons of the Popham Colony and the friendships Maine's first settlers built. Experience the storied survival of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's military grandfather in precarious Revolutionary Maine and meet resilient, creative, noteworthy and notorious Midcoasters. Pat Higgins recounts Puritan power plays, the sea fight between the Boxer" and the "Enterprise," duels, U-boats and much more. Discover the fascinating and quirky bits of history that have remained hidden along the rocky coast from Portland to Acadia--until now.."

Maine is populated with intriguing characters who set in motion a fascinating, compelling story of railroads and the unique communities they helped to build. One of the first states to build railroads and trolleys in the United States, Maine at one point had more than ninety communities with trolleys. Standard-gauge and "two-footers" crossed the state, including the St. Lawrence & Atlantic and the Bangor & Aroostook. From an international electric trolley to the attempted World War I dynamiting of a railroad bridge between the United States and Canada, the state is home to a rich rail heritage. Join Bill Kenny as he takes you on a journey from the first tracks made of wood to today's high-speed Downeaster Amtrak train.

New York's Finger Lakes region is filled with compelling characters, tragic disasters and fascinating mysteries. Famed daredevil Sam Patch, known as the "Yankee Leaper," thrilled audiences at Niagara Falls but took his last jump into the Genesee River with his pet black bear, plummeting to his death. The first ever Memorial Day was celebrated in Waterloo in 1866 and inspired a nation to adopt the holiday. Seneca Lake claims its fair share of ships, including the Onondaga, which was blown up with dynamite as part of a spectacle to commemorate the sinking of the USS Maine. Author Patti Unvericht reveals the forgotten history of the Finger Lakes region.

As Down East Books celebrates 50 years of great book publishing, it seems appropriate to reflect upon the contributions Maine has made that have had significant cultural and historical impacts on both the United States and the World. Did you know that the caterpillar tread, common on bulldozers and tanks, originated from the design of Lombard’s steam log hauler; or that the dry plate photographic process was created by the Stanley brothers, who also invented a speed-record setting steam powered car and whose sister, Chansonetta, was a well-known photographer in her own right? Maxim’s machine gun forever changed the practice of warfare. The humble peavey is a simple tool well-known to any forester or lumberjack. The ubiquitous lobster boat, the microwave oven, earmuffs, and Monopoly—all came from the minds of Mainers. This book is a celebration of Maine’s creative ingenuity—from the very large, such as Portland Head Light and the Penobscot Narrows Bridge to the very small, such as the toothpick and the Bean boot.