JIT Stock

A pictoral history and moving tribute to the people of Portland's spirit, drive and ability to overcome adversity from the last 130 years.

Portland is often associated with the mythological phoenix, the animal that rises out of the ashes of its apparent death. Life here has often been a struggle: to overcome the disastrous fires of 1775 and 1866, to rebuild after the change in Canadian policy in 1920 that devastated the waterfront and to outlast the Depression and the other economic crises that have affected the area. The people of Portland have always faced these problems head on, survived, and rebuilt the city stronger then it was before.
Portland features more than 200 images that together document life in Maine's largest city over the last 130 years. We see immigrants arrive from all corners of the world and watch as they build lives and businesses in their new home. We witness the waterfront and Congress Street rise, fall, and rise again. We observe how the political scene has changed and been changed by everyday people. Perhaps the most interesting photographs, however, are those of everyday life: people working, playing sports, relaxing, falling in love and living life to its fullest.

Photo by photo, discover the stories that have been made along Maine's stretch of Appalachian wildneress.

Maine native Myron H. Avery recruited friends from Washington, DC; Maine forest and warden service personnel; guides and sporting camp operators; and the Civilian Conservation Corps to extend the Appalachian Trail through Maine, despite questions of whether it would be possible to carve a trail through the state's wildlands. Volunteers of Maine's Appalachian Trail Club, created by Avery in 1935, have since maintained the trail, built shelters, relocated more than half of the original hastily constructed route, and taken on the task of managing the trail's protection corridor. Along Maine's Appalachian Trail illustrates the rich history of the trail's rugged mountains and vast forests, which have provided a livelihood for generations of workers and communities.

Down East Maine is well known for its breathtaking scenery and art museums. However, much of the history in the traditional mining and fishing area of Rockland and St. George remains untold.

Hanson Gregory from Clam Cove invented the donut. Mary Brown Patten sailed a clipper around Cape Horn. Captain Albert Keller was shipwrecked on Easter Island and Effie Canning of Rockland composed the lullaby "Rock a Bye Baby.'? Captain Charles Holbrook of Tenants Harbor and his ship, the Hattie Dunn, fell victim to a German U-boat in the Atlantic.

Local author Jane Merrill uncovers the forgotten stories and personalities that bring this unique area's history into focus.

Nearly one-third of Maine residents have French blood and are known as Franco-Americans.

Many trace their heritage to French Canadian families who came south from Quebec in the late 19th and early 20th centuries to work in the mills of growing communities such as Auburn, Augusta, Biddeford, Brunswick, Lewiston, Saco, Sanford, Westbrook, Winslow, and Waterville. Other Franco-Americans, known as Acadians, have rural roots in the St. John Valley in northernmost Maine. Those of French heritage have added a unique and vibrant accent to every community in which they have lived, and they are known as a cohesive ethnic group with a strong belief in family, church, work, education, the arts, their language, and their community. Today they hold posts in every facet of Maine life, from hourly worker to the U.S. Congress. These hardworking people have a notable history and have been a major force in Maine's development.

Journey to picturesque York County's past in this photographic history.

Rural York County, with its charming historic towns and villages, has long been one of the most delightful areas of Maine. While tourists from the nineteenth century onward sought out the high life that made Maine's coastal areas so famous, the residents of the more peaceful, pristine countryside kept the serenity of their backyard a secret. The fascinating selection of images that make up this visual history have been carefully selected as a journey into the past, a journey from Kittery up the coast to Saco; through the Berwicks and Lebanon; to Alfred and Springvale, and Sanford close by; around Acton, Shapleigh, Newfield, and Waterboro; then on to Parsonsfield, Porter, Kezar Falls, and Cornish.

Discover four hundred years of Maine's history through the tales of its unique residents.

Maine history would be bare but for the contributions of hardy and impassioned individuals whose lives make up the story of Maine's "hidden history." Author Harry Gratwick creates intimate and 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 have ever won a Major League batting championship.

In the summer of 1643, John Sanders was granted land bordering the Mousam River in Kennebunk.

From this early grant to the present, many generations have called Kennebunk home.Through nearly two hundred vintage photographs, Kennebunk portrays life in this charming village from 1850 to 1940.From the architecture of its downtown neighborhoods to scenes of the rural countryside, the images in this book provide a window on Kennebunk’s past.They also capture the people who made up the fabric of this community, from early sea captains to hardworking farmers.Among them are immigrant Sam Tvedt, an eccentric preacher who sported shoulder-length hair and a long flowing coat while shouting sermons from beside the town pump, and Colby Jack Coombs, the famous World Series pitcher, shown spending time with his family on their Alewive farm.

This collection of over two hundred photographs brings life to South Portland and Cape Elizabeth in the century of change from the 1850s on.

Most of the photographs in this fascinating visual history are rare and many have never before been published. They are taken from family albums which provide an intimate chronicle of the history of the area, ranging from the Spurwink River to the boatyards at Ferry Village, the estates at Delano Park, and the many neighborhoods that make up South Portland. The photographs introduce us to the people, places, and events which defined South Portland and Cape Elizabeth between 1850 and 1950, including the descendants of some of the first settlers--the Jordans, Dyers, Murrays, and Cleeves, whose families still live in the area. This treasury of images and information will be a source of fascination and enjoyment for resident and visitor, young and old alike.

Permanent settlers began arriving at the village of Flagstaff around the 1820s, drawn by its advantageous location along the Dead River floodplain and the availability of waterpower at the outlet to Flagstaff Pond.

In 1923, the Maine legislature passed a bill condemning a 25-mile section of the upper Dead River Valley to inundation, causing the eventual permanent flooding of the villages of Flagstaff, Dead River, and Bigelow. The bill authorized the construction of a dam at the river narrows at Long Falls and the subsequent creation of Flagstaff Lake. The properties in these towns were obtained by the process of eminent domain, and residents were forced to relocate. In the spring of 1950, Flagstaff Lake was officially created when the gates in Long Falls Dam were closed. It remains a controversial project today.

Author Margaret Shiels Konitzky reveals the stories of local heroes and the relentless spirit of midcoast Maine.

While World War II raged overseas, the people of midcoast Maine responded with remarkable achievements on the homefront. The shipyard at Bath Iron Works launched a new destroyer every seventeen days. Bowdoin College had more military than civilian students and held three commencements per year. Boothbay Harbor, Bailey Island and Damariscotta all had military bases, and anyone who owned or sailed a boat was recruited for coastal defense. Women worked at machine shops, registered their neighbors for rationing and volunteered for the Civil Defense and Red Cross. Author Margaret Shiels Konitzky reveals the stories of local heroes and the relentless spirit of midcoast Maine.

Since the development of photography in the mid-nineteenth century, the camera has been used as a tool of both discovery and preservation.

Photographs bring alive our image of the past and can open a floodgate of memories and nostalgia or inspire curiosity and a sense of history. The Damariscotta River has always been an important resource to those who have lived and traveled along its shores. From Jefferson at the head of Damariscotta Lake to the bridge at Damariscotta and eventually on to the sea at Christmas Cove, this small but adaptable body of water has fostered a wide range of human activities. The fishing, shipbuilding, and brick-making industries were the first to harvest and harness the river. As these industries eventually declined and word of the scenic beauty and simple charm of the region spread, summer cottages, and camps began to appear along the river's banks. Today, the Damariscotta River region is an evocation of Maine life past and present, and it remains one of the most captivating and extraordinary regions in the Northeast.

J.H. Hall has been fishing most of his life and fly-fishing Maine rivers and ponds for over thirty years.

In his book, he has brought together some of his favorite fly-fishing experiences that go beyond morning excursions on a river's banks. He uses his fishing trips as the platform to introduce the reader to the people and the rivers that color his life and Maine, bringing all of us engaging life lessons and new experiences.

The typical farm life of a Mainer pre-1910 is told through the photographs of Nettie Cummings Maxim.

Before her death in 1910, Nettie Cummings Maxim chronicled the people, landscapes, and animals of a typical Maine farm at Bird Hill in Bethel at the turn of the century. In a time before mass media, her world consisted almost entirely of her family and farm. This intimate familiarity with her immediate world and a degree of cultural isolation allowed Nettie to explore and capture on film the details of farm life through the seasons and the innocence and wisdom in the eyes of the children whose lives were so closely entwined with life on a rural Maine hill farm. After one look at her photographs, her innate artistic talent becomes immediately apparent: her use of natural light, the composition of her images, and her eye for detail lend a tremendously beautiful, evocative quality to her images. She turned the long exposures mandated by film at the turn of the century to her advantage, and somehow manages to create the illusion of motion in her photographs. Through her cameras, Nettie recorded the world that was so endearing to her, a world that has gone largely undocumented by photography. In doing so, she has given immortality to the people, buildings, and even the animals that were part of her life and her microcosm of society nearly a century ago, as well as giving us a rare insight into the intricacies of daily life in the nearby communities of Locke's Mills and Greenwood. Allow her to lead you back into life in rural Maine at the turn of the century: it is a journey worth making, and one that you will never forget.

Seal Harbor and Acadia National Park are areas rich with history and natural beauty.

Several hundred photographs, taken by Seal Harbor's original residents, inspired this pictorial history of the well-known resort and surrounding Acadia National Park. A perusal through Revisiting Seal Harbor and Acadia National Park will reveal to the reader the natural beauty of the area, through views that attracted early rusticators and created such dedication from the island’s summer and winter residents that Acadia National Park was born. The pages within trace the community’s history, from its humble beginnings as a small fishing hamlet through its metamorphosis into a Victorian-era summer resort, and on through the park’s development, an economic boon for the island’s residents. From images of a time filled with sweeping Victorian dresses, grand yachts, and wildwood hikes, to accounts of the area’s prosperity in the 1910s and 1920s when the area had become synonymous with the Rockefeller and Ford names, Revisiting Seal Harbor and Acadia National Park invites the reader to take a lingering look into the lives of early islanders and summer visitors.

In this illuminating pictorial history, readers enjoy unique views of Skowhegan, with its historic buildings and riverfront, where Senator Smith spent her first forty years.

Called "". . . the most influential woman in the history of American politics,"" Senator Margaret Chase Smith always carried with her a strong connection to her roots in Skowhegan, Maine. How did her years and experiences in this community influence her strength of character and lifetime commitment to public service? Author Frank H. Sleeper has searched local archives to bring us rare photographs and new connections between Skowhegan and its famous senator. Her strong convictions and tolerance for dissent, especially apparent in her famous ""Declaration of Conscience"" speech against Senator Joe McCarthy, may well have come from her background in Skowhegan.