Collection features women of Maine

Editor’s Note: Maine Bound is a column featuring new books which are written by authors with Maine ties or set in the Pine Tree State.

MORE THAN PETTICOATS: REMARKABLE MAINE WOMEN, by Kate Kennedy, Falcon, San Ramon, Calif., 2005, 160 pages, $10.95.

“More than Petticoats: Remarkable Maine Women” is a collection of abbreviated biographies that illuminate the achievements of 13 women from Madawaska to South Berwick.

Tante Blanche Thibodeau Cyr, known as the Mother of Madawaska, was born in 1738 and is credited with saving the Acadian community from starvation during one long winter.

Abbie Burgess Grant, born in 1839, was Maine’s first female lighthouse keeper at Matinicus Rock.

Lillian Stevens, a native of Dover born in 1844, championed the temperance movement in Maine.

And Florence Nicolar Shay, a Penobscot Indian basket maker born in 1884, was an advocate for her tribe.

Their stories, along with those of botanic artist Kate Furbish, writer Sarah Orne Jewett, outdoorswoman Cornelia “Fly Rod” Crosby, opera singer Lillian “La Nordica” Norton, Arctic explorer and writer Josephine Peary, painter Marguerite Thompson Zorach, black clairvoyant Florence Eastman Williams, Shaker Sister R. Mildred Barker and U.S. Sen. Margaret Chase Smith, illustrate the power of women to break through political, cultural and political boundaries.

Kennedy’s book takes up where Lee Agger’s book “Women of Maine,” published in 1982, left off. It makes interesting and satisfying reading.

Kennedy, of Cape Elizabeth, was a writing teacher at Portland High School for 20 years before embarking on a freelance writing career.

BY WAYNE E. REILLY

SPECIAL TO THE NEWS

CREATING PORTLAND: HISTORY AND PLACE IN NORTHERN NEW ENGLAND, edited by Joseph A. Conforti, University of New Hampshire Press and University Press of New England, 2005, hardcover, 348 pages, $29.95.

This collection of essays on the history of Portland is part of a series that aims to present “fresh discussions of the distinctiveness of New England culture.” The 12 essays by 12 different historians range in subject matter from the Indian wars of the 17th century to efforts to create a “Gay Mecca” in Maine’s largest city in the late 20th century.

Of particular interest to me was Joel W. Eastman’s look at the decline of Portland during the Depression and its meteoric rise during World War II thanks to shipbuilding. It wasn’t the New Deal that saved Portland. It was the presence of the Navy and of contracts to build hundreds of cargo vessels to expand the American merchant marine.

This boomtown environment created all sorts of problems, however, from housing shortages to a “girl problem.” Of course, with the end of the war, the city’s economy went into decline again and many of the old problems returned. They were still there in the late ’60s when I lived there briefly.

Earle G. Shettleworth Jr.’s essay on “Creating and Preserving Portland’s Urban Landscape, 1885-1925” offers a detailed look at how the city transformed itself after the great fire of 1866 with parks, monuments and public buildings. The plans that worked and those that never came to fruition are discussed.

Eileen Eagan’s essay on Irish women and their role in the work force traces the kinds of work they did from rag-picking to needlework and more as they strove to better their economic condition. Kent C. Ryden in his essay on the output of Portland writers fails to find “The Great Portland Novel,” while Maureen Elgersman Lee, whose book “Black Bangor” has provided an important addition to the Queen City’s history library, describes Portland’s black population between 1870 and 1990.

As can be seen the themes of these essays are diverse. There’s even an essay on Latin American influences in the 19th and 20th centuries by David Carey Jr. A reader of history is bound to find several of interest.

ENJOYING MAINE’S ISLANDS: THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO 15 DESTINATIONS YOU CAN REACH BY FERRY, by John Gibson, Down East Books, Camden, Maine, 2005, 192 pages, $12.95.

BY RICHARD DUDMAN

SPECIAL TO THE NEWS

You can learn about such folks as Peletiah Barter, who led the first settlers on Isle au Haut in 1792; John Josselyn, who first came to Matinicus in 1638; Sir Christopher Leavitt, who found Smuttynose and the rest of the Isles of Shoals in 1623; the Norseman Thorwald Erikson, who may have landed on Monhegan in the spring of 1004, and lots of other characters, as well as how to reach, what you’ll see, and what to do on the best of Maine’s many islands. Plus, this fine handbook, with pictures and maps, will fit in your pocket.