On August 4 1890, an overflow crowd packed Biddeford’s Opera House for a political speech. Community leaders from several parts of the state had come to pay their respects to the speaker and hear his ideas. The speaker that night was not a Maine politician, nor a federal official from Washington, but Honoré Mercier, the […]
Rural Maine was in a bad way. Young people were leaving in droves, headed to the cities, or to other states to seek their fortune. Farms sat empty, while the farmers that remained couldn’t find enough help. It’s a story that has resonance today, when economists are warning that Maine, especially its rural areas, are […]
Maine’s public health officials scrambled to respond to the threat of an epidemic. They were contending with a misinformation over the effectiveness of vaccinations, and xenophobic sentiment which blamed immigrants for the threat. The year was 1885, and the threat was coming from Canada. In the spring of 1885, a smallpox epidemic had broken out […]
A political realignment. Promises to drain the swamp and put Americans first. Attacks, both verbal and physical, on immigrants and minorities. In 1854 and 1855, Maine, like much of the country, was shaken by the rise of the Know-Nothing movement. Its anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic rhetoric overturned state politics and spilled over into mob violence. For […]
In the 1830s, Augusta was a boom town. Designated the state capital in 1827, the settlement had grown quickly from a frontier trading post. Several large public buildings were completed in the space of a few years, including the state house (1829), the state armory (1827). The largest of these was the Kennebec Dam, which […]
In March 1942, an army company arrived in Old Town, Maine. Like countless other companies across the country, the unit was assigned to guard critical infrastructure during World War 2. In Old Town, the soldiers were tasked with protecting the railroad from possible sabotage. This would have been unremarkable, apart from one detail – the […]
When Paul LePage was elected Governor in 2010, members of the state’s Franco-American community recognized the significance of this political milestone. Long treated as second class citizens, and excluded from the halls of power, a member of their community had finally been elected to the most powerful statewide office. Several articles were written marking the […]
In 2019, I’ll be working on a new, additional, project. Every day, I’ll be sharing a story that appeared in the pages of Le Messager (the French paper published in Lewiston) 125 years ago. Day by day, the Tweets in the original French, with English translations, will build a picture of Franco-American life in the […]
There’s nothing quite like the taste of grandma’s cooking. This holiday season, tens of thousands of Mainers will be enjoying mémère’s tourtière, cretons, or perhaps even pets de soeurs. For immigrants of all backgrounds, food is an important link to home and family, as well as a way of maintaining traditions or future generations. That’s why so […]
When news of the end of the World War reached Brunswick on November 11, 1918, people poured into the streets in a spontaneous outbreak of joy. But the good mood was turned upside down when young Rose Bouchard was accidentally shot and killed during the celebration. According to the accounts in the Brunswick Record and […]
