Portland Observatory

Viewed on 9/8/2011.

It was a beautiful day for the Portland Observatory today. We were taken there to explore the tower itself and experience the breath taking view out towards the Atlantic and into the modern city of Portland as well. The tower was originally used to send signals to ships at sea, as well as to those who might be working the docks or other business in the community. Those who operated the tower sent out various signals to alert everyone as to who was coming into the port and who was leaving the port.

Views from above, at the top of the Portland Observatory.

Throughout the years since the tower was ordered to be built, in 1807, it has seen much action. In the days before radios could be used to communicate, the tower was essential in keeping order and an open line of communication in the port city along the sea shore. Since then the tower on Munjoy Hill in Portland, has been renovated twice, once in 1923 as a way to employ workers who couldn't find employment during the Great Depression and once to rid the building of failing support due to termites and other bugs.

The building is now in wonderful condition, with many or the original pieces still holding it up. It is maintained by Greater Portland Landmarks, with guides who give tours in the building seasonally. Each floor has a different exhibit showing one of the many historical or engineering components of the building.

Some of the engineering components were just as interesting to me as the historical. The ways in which the building was built were pretty remarkable. It was a time before machines and cranes could do all the work and heavy lifting, instead it was left up to men to handle all the manual labor. To build a structure of this size required the brute strength of many men.

After it was built, the building was put to quick use by former sea captain, Lemuel Moody. Capt. Moody retired to shore life, and decided building the observatory would be a good business to get into. For a fee, ship captains could subscribe to Moody's service, which including raising ship flags to raise awareness the ship was coming into port.

That wasn't Moody's only duty he gave himself though. He also began studying the weather and watching clouds. He recorded the weather for local newspapers and publications, as well as for sailors who might want to try and predict what exactly they would be facing when they went back out to sea.

It's a long ways down.

The tower went out of operation around the year 1923, as radios and other means of communication had developed. Since then it has been the home to a bowling alley, and dance and event halls. The building has seen and withstood many changes, since it was the lonely structure amongst farms and fields in Portland, to the bustling little eastern seaboard city it is today.

Maine Historical Society Visit

Samuel Johnson, a Civil War veteran, Pastor, and Temperance Movement Activist.

Yesterday I had the opportunity to visit and tour the Maine Historical Society on Congress Street in Portland. The current exhibit is called Dressing Up, Standing Out, Fitting In: Adornment and Identity in Maine 1750-1950. The exhibit explores a variety of fashion trends from over the time period listed, from formal wear for ceremonies and weddings to simple items like hair clips and buttons. Each item was significant in some way or another to the owner, and played a role in who they were and the time they lived in.

The museum itself was dark with little lighting for the most part. It seemed to be a very slow day for the Maine Historical Society as only one person was manning the desk in the gift shop at the entrance, and the majority of the few people to come through seemed to be other employees and researchers for the society,

The exhibit wasn't huge by any means, but did a nice job of covering the vast 200 year era it had targeted. Almost all of the clothing was formal wear, that you would see at some sort of event or function in Portland. It was hard not to picture people in the old Abyssinian Hall preaching against slavery in these outfits, or woman of the temperance movement in the gowns and dresses presented at the museum. Beside many of the clothing was a picture or portrait of the owner of the outfit.

One of the pieces in the museum that caught my eye was clothing that belonged to Samuel Pearson. Pearson was a native to Massachusetts, but moved to and settled down in Portland later in life. Pearson seemed to live a pretty historical life. Not only did he fight for the Union during the Civil War, but he was also a pastor when he came to Portland and an activist in the Temperance Movement.

Dressed with a collard shirt, bow tie, and jacket, with a top hat on his head, his choice of garb spoke to the type of life he was living at the time. As a pastor he was most likely well known within the community, and as a supporter of Temperance he would become involved with one of the nation's biggest and widespread movements. In the 1870s he became president of the state temperance organization, and as an old man in 1900, he was elected to be the sheriff of Portland. He was a well respected man within the community, and his clothing definitely suggests that he always wished to convey and represent himself in that manner.

Of course there was much clothing for women as well. Gowns, gowns, and more gowns. Wedding gowns, and just gowns you'd wear everyday, it didn't seem like there was a whole lot other than gowns for woman to wear during this period. One part of the exhibit I thought was neat, was a part showing off an early 20th century wedding in northern Maine. One of the wedding gowns used was on display, along with a few other trivial artifacts from the event.

What made the wedding unique and unusual was the fact that two couples were actually getting married at the same wedding. A black and white silent film showed the two couples walking into the church and back out as newly weds, along with an entire parade the town had put on for them. Why was it a double wedding, wasn't made quite clear. I thought that maybe because of a time of economic struggle and uneasiness, weddings had been combined to cut down costs, but a parade for the couples doesn't seem to be too cost effective. Either way, it definitely seemed to be an interesting spectacle.

It was interesting to me just how conservative dress was in these time periods, compared to what we see everyday today. It didn't come to a surprise to me, as times have changed greatly even since the 1950s, but it is very amusing to look at. Dresses and skirts that come all the way down to the ankles, snap on collars to make any shirt look formal, and the different hairstyles of the time were both interesting and fun to look at.

Not so much in the same sense as the amusement you get when you look at a 1980s high school yearbook with the puffy hair and loads of makeup, but in a more critical sense of truly being able to grasp society of these times. Like today you can get a sense of economic status and a community's respect for an individual just based on the clothing they wear and the ways they wear it. But it seemed that dress mattered even more then. There wasn't the cluster and variance of styles then that there are today, if you were wealthy and respected you wore one set of clothing, and if you weren't and were of a lower class or a different trade you wore something else. People were much more distinctive with what they wore.

Colin Woodard at The Maine Historical Society

Tonight I had the opportunity to listen to Colin Woodard, author of The Lobster Coast, talk at the Maine Historical Society on Congress Street in Portland. The emphasis of the talk was not on The Lobster Coast, but rather his new book called American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America.

Woodard gave a brief, but insightful lecture on his new book and what his research encompassed, focusing on as the title of the book says, eleven different cultural regions, not only within the United States, but Canada and Mexico as well, including even information about the indigenous population of Greenland in his presentation.

One of the most interesting concepts Woodard seemed to argue in front of a crowd of 50-60 people at the Maine Historical Society was that while the people of the United States were glued together by the common bond of the principles of liberty and freedom, the interpretation of those words by the rival cultures are much different.

Woodard talks of how the cultures of the southern United States, like the Deep South, Tide Water, and Greater Appalachia, hold greater value to individualism and individual freedom than most northerners. Instead many northerners in cultural regions he calls Yankeedom and the Middle West are bonded together as communities, and believe more in the sense of community freedom with government stepping in to provide essential services and programs to benefit citizens since the beginning of society in North America. 

What seems to be much different about the research Woodard presents in his book is that he maps out these cultural regions on a highly detailed basis, county by county, since the beginning of settlement in North America. From that starting point he is able to bring readers all the way through to the present, and apply the notion of these rival regional cultures to American society today.

The Pine Tree State falls under the region of Yankeedom in Woodard's book, not surprisingly. Maine is categorized with the rest of New England, New York, some of Pennsylvania, and even states deep into what we now know as the mid-west. Woodard argues that our cultural values as a state mirrors those of the rest of New England, and even states like North Dakota and Michigan.

After the lecture Woodard was more than happy to hang around to sign books and answer any lingering questions members of the audience may have had. He seemed excited to be speaking in Portland about the new book, even though he had a very limited amount of time to talk about it. Woodard seemed extremly knowledgeable and passionate in the topic he was presenting.

This was Woodard's fourth book, but he is well known as an experienced journalist for the publications Down East and The Christian Science Monitor as well.