Speaking on Maine's past, present and future at Maine Historical Society, Mar. 11

The pandemic messed with Maine's 200th anniversary celebrations last year, but the Maine Historical Society has rebooted their Bicentennial speaker series this winter and made it virtual. I'm pleased to be able to be their final speaker, offering my take on what the two centuries before and since statehood have meant for Maine and its people.

The event -- a conversation between MeHS executive director Steve Bromage and myself -- kicks off at 6pm on March 11. It's free to members -- though there's a limit of 500 attendees -- but you do need to register ahead of time. You can also become a member, of course, and enjoy the various other perks of doing so. (I've been one since I returned to Maine in 2003 while finishing work on my book on our state's history, The Lobster Coast: Rebels, Rusticators and the Struggle for a Forgotten Frontier.

For more on Maine's deep backstory, consider the book or my 2020 Press Herald series "Colony." I also wrote a bit about what his all means for the Boston Globe Opinion section.

Coronavirus in Maine: a remarkably successful summer imperiled by defiant pastor's wedding

Maine managed to host a summer tourist season without epidemiological incidents, something of a miracle in and of itself and testimony to the commitment of Mainers and visitors alike to keeping Covid-19 in check. 

But a non-compliant wedding presided over by a defiant independent Baptist pastor is threatening to undo that progress, especially in York County, where it has spared outbreaks and where, perhaps not coincidentally, there's an oubtreak at said pastor's church and bible school. Public health experts I spoke to for this story in this week's Maine Sunday Telegram worry they may not be able to get the coronavirus genie back in the bottle.

Also in Saturday's Portland Press Herald I had this update on Covid hospitalization trends here in Maine.

Speaking on Maine's past and Lobster Coast via the Schoodic Institute, Sept.8

On September 8 at 7pm Eastern, I'll be talking about the backstory of Maine on the occasion of its Bicentennial: a harrowing and little understood saga of war and betrayal, of clashing empires and ethnic cleansing, of civil war and colonial occupation by Massachusetts of what had been a separate province. These events shaped Mainers as a people and explain some of the culture’s most impressive virtues and most frustrating faults, as well as the still fraught relationship between this land’s real natives and the rest of us whose families came “from away” at some point in the past four hundred years.

These are issues discussed in my history of coastal Maine, The Lobster Coast: Rebels, Rusticators and the Struggle for a Forgotten Frontier, as well as my Maine Sunday Telegram series this spring, "Colony."

The talk, via Zoom, is hosted by the Schoodic Institute at Acadia National Park in Winter Harbor, Maine. It's free and open to the public, but you do need to register.

Speaking on Maine's formative history (virtually), August 20 via Biddeford Pool Summer Speaker Series

This Thursday, August 20, I'll be speaking on, well, why Maine and Mainers are they way they are and how events centuries ago shaped our fundamental, postcolonial character.It's the subject of my second book, The Lobster Coast: Rebels, Rusticators and the Struggle for a Forgotten Frontier, as well as this spring's special series "Colony" in the Maine Sunday Telegram. 

The event is the final installment of the 2020 Summer Speaker Series hosted each year by the Biddeford Pool Union Church here in Maine. Unfortunately the pandemic has made this and so many other events impossible to hold in person, but it's going digital, which means anyone, anywhere can join. Kicks off at 7pm, but you do need to register. 

Details can be found on this poster at the Union Church's website. Here's the key bit: 

"To register for the Series, contact Elaine Robinson, 283-1398, or erobinson4@maine.rr.com. You will receive an email with Zoom call information. Donations gratefully accepted. 100% of proceeds benefit charities such as Seeds of Hope, Stone Soup Food Pantry, Ever After Mustang Rescue, and Saco Meals. Send check made out to “Union Church” with “Speaker Series” in subject line to UC Treasurer, PO Box 344, Biddeford Pool ME 04006." 

Other upcoming virtual events include: 

 

September 1, German Marshall Fund of the United States (on my new book, Union: The Struggle to Forge the Story of United States Nationhood) 

September 7, Jesup Library of Bar Harbor, Maine (ditto.) 

September 8, Schoodic Institute, Winter Harbor, Maine (on Maine's past, present, and future) 

September 23, Boston Athenaeum (on Union)

Traveling via book? Lonely Planet recommends Lobster Coast for Maine

The pandemic has us all grounded, with transportation cut back, unnecessary travel dangerous, and most international borders sealed off. But the folks at Lonely Planet, the travel guide company whose guides got me around the Communist bloc in 1989, have compiled a list of books to let you travel the United States without leaving your home.

I'm honored that for Maine they chose my 2004 cultural and environmental history, The Lobster Coast: Rebels, Rusticators, and the Struggle for a Forgotten Frontier. Readers of the recent Press Herald series "Colony" will recognize many of the themes within, but there's much more about what makes our people tick. It's a story Lonely Planet says is "essentially the colonial, East Coast version of The Deadliest Catch."

Especially honored to be included alongside their choices for other states like Maryland -- A Beautiful Struggle by Ta-Nehisi Coates -- Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace (for Massachusetts); and John McPhee's Pine Barrens (for New Jersey.)

So stay safe out there.... and happy armchair travels.

Colony Chapter 4: the squatters rise up against Boston's Land Barons

Maine is celebrating the bicentennial of its statehood this year, but the story of our beginnings lies in the millennia and centuries that preceded March 15th, 1820, the day we regained our independence from Massachusetts. 

Colony, an ongoing six-part series in the Maine Sunday Telegram, tells that story, and the fourth installment appeared last Sunday, describing the nearly century-long armed insurrection in the Maine backcountry that foiled the plans of Boston's great land barons and set the captured colony on the path to statehood.

The series continues this coming Sunday in the Telegram, which is in fact the very day of Maine's Bicentennial.

If you enjoy this series and want more, consider reading my cultural history of Maine, The Lobster Coast: Rebels, Rusticators and the Struggle for a Forgotten Frontier (Viking, 2004) and, on Maine-Wabanaki relations in more recent times, the Portland Press Herald series "Unsettled," also available as an ebook at the usual outlets.

Colony, Chapter 3: Massachusetts' conquest of Maine

Maine is celebrating the bicentennial of its statehood this year, but the story of our beginnings lies in the millennia and centuries that preceded March 15th, 1820, the day we regained our independence from Massachusetts. 

Colony, an ongoing six-part series in the Maine Sunday Telegram, tells that story, and the third installment appeared last Sunday, telling the story of how Massachusetts Bay annexed the formerly-independent colony of Maine in the 1650s. At one point they even send soldiers in.

The conquest made Maine a colony of a colony, and Boston ruled what eventually became known as the District of Maine -- which didn't even border on the rest of the Commonwealth -- in the interests of mainland Massachusetts, not the people living on the eastern frontier. As we'll see in the next three chapters of Colony, this experience, which lasted until 1820, fundamentally shaped Maine's culture, economy and self-conception.

If you enjoy this series and want more, consider reading my cultural history of Maine, The Lobster Coast: Rebels, Rusticators and the Struggle for a Forgotten Frontier (Viking, 2004) and, on Maine-Wabanaki relations in more recent times, the Portland Press Herald series "Unsettled," also available as an ebook at the usual outlets.

Colony, Chapter 2: Maine and Massachusetts were different from the start

Maine is celebrating the bicentennial of its statehood this year, but the story of our beginnings lies in the millennia and centuries that preceded March 15th, 1820, the day we regained our independence from Massachusetts. 

Colony, an ongoing six-part series in the Maine Sunday Telegram, tells that story, and the second installment appeared in this past edition. It explores the stark differences between early Maine (Royalist, Anglican, West Country-dominated) and Massachusetts Bay (anti-aristocratic, Puritan, East Anglia-dominated) and how they quickly came to be rivals in the early 1600s.

Also thanks to the New York Times's Sam Sifton for plugging the series in his NYT Cooking newsletter this week. "It’s behind a paywall but worth the investment: The Portland Press Herald’s history of Maine on the occasion of the state’s bicentennial year," he writes.

[Update, 3/5/2020: You can read Chapter 3 here.]

If you enjoy this series and want more, consider reading my cultural history of Maine, The Lobster Coast: Rebels, Rusticators and the Struggle for a Forgotten Frontier (Viking, 2004) and, on Maine-Wabanaki relations in more recent times, the Portland Press Herald series "Unsettled," also available as an ebook at the usual outlets.

Colony, a six-part series on Maine's long path to statehood

Maine is celebrating the bicentennial of its statehood this year, but the story of our beginnings lies in the millennia and centuries that preceded March 15th, 1820, the day we regained our independence from Massachusetts. 

Colony, a six-part series that launched in the Maine Sunday Telegram today tells that story. It's a harrowing and little understood saga of war and betrayal, of clashing empires and ethnic cleansing, of an intra-English civil war and a 170 year colonial occupation by Massachusetts of what had been a separate province. These events shaped us as a people and explain some of our culture’s most impressive virtues and most frustrating faults, as well as the still fraught relationship between this land’s real natives and the rest of us whose families came “from away” at some point in the past four hundred years.

This first chapter is on the prehistoric and immediate contact period hereabouts. The series continues each Sunday for the next month and a half.

If you enjoy this series and want more, consider reading my cultural history of Maine, The Lobster Coast: Rebels, Rusticators and the Struggle for a Forgotten Frontier (Viking, 2004) and, on Maine-Wabanaki relations in more recent times, the Portland Press Herald series "Unsettled," also available as an ebook at the usual outlets.

[Update, 3/5/2020: You can read Chapter 2 here and Chapter 3 here.]

Speaking on history of immigration in Maine, Portland, Jan. 18

Portland Ovations is convening a panel discussion on the history of immigration in Maine on January 18th at the Maine Historical Society in Portland, and I'm pleased to be taking part. It kicks off at 1pm and is free and open to the public.

Here's the description from Portland Ovations:

When we talk about immigration to Maine, we start with white settler-colonialism. What has been the impact of immigration on Maine’s land and people from the first French explorers in 1604 to the present? What are the drivers of recent immigration movements, and how does each new wave shift Maine’s economy and culture? What specific challenges do Maine’s environment and population pose for new arrivals; and how do we support Maine’s first peoples?

**PANELISTS**

- Tilly Laskey, Curator of 'Holding Up The Sky' and Native art and culture specialist at, Maine Historical Society
- Alain Nahimana, Executive Director, The Greater Portland Immigrant Welcome Center
- Maulian Dana, Tribal Ambassador, Penobscot Nation
- Colin Woodard, Journalist, Author of American Nations and The Lobster Coast
- Moderator, Linda Nelson, Deputy Director, Portland Ovations and Bowdoin College graduate in American Studies.

Speaking on Maine's colonial and post-colonial past in Rockland, Nov. 16

Maine's bicentennial is fast upon us, and I have a thing or two to say about how our state's experiences as a colony of a colony set the stage for statehood in 1820 and a variety of cultural strengths and pathologies every since.

If you live near the western shores of Penobscot Bay, I'll be giving a talk on all this in Rockland on November 16. The talk is hosted by the Rockland Historical Society, held at the Sail Power and Steam Museum, supported by the Maine Bicentennial Commission, and kicks off at 4pm. It's free and open to the public.

You can find more details via this Village Soup article.

I'll be speaking and writing about Maine's historical legacy in the coming months and will post updates here.