Maine Working-Class History

Maine Working-Class History aims to promote interest in and awareness of Maine's long tradition of working-class struggles for rights and dignity.

[Maine Working-Class History @MaineWCH]

Tge “Hamlin Guard,” a Wide Awakes chapter of Bangor, acted as an honorary guard. On the day of Lincoln's election as president, Wide Awakes had grown to 500,000 members. The organization remained active for several decades.

[Maine Working-Class History @MaineWCH]

A banner of the Belfast, ME Wide Awakes, a youth paramilitary group organized to support the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860. #mepolitics 🧵

[Maine Working-Class History @MaineWCH]

Other Mainers who marched included a Black regiment from Portland called the “Sumner Blues,” Penobscot Nation members in full native dress & a platoon of lumber drivers — “each six feet four inches high, with their driving apparatus on their shoulders.”

[Maine Working-Class History @MaineWCH]

The Belfast men & several other uniformed Wide Awakes chapters from across Maine marched in torch light parades in support of Lincoln and his running mate Hannibal Hamlin, a native of Hampden, ME.

[Andy O'Brien @aobrien2010]

This is the first part in my series on the Black abolitionist & Berwick, ME native John W. Lewis, who was a prominent abolitionist & temperance activist in the antebellum period in New England.

https://t.co/tRkgjM987X

[Andy O'Brien @aobrien2010]

June 11, 1988 - About 300 protestors confronted & blocked 5 Klansmen as they tried to march up Maine Mall Road in South Portland. Protesters snatched up signs, Klan hoods, and a Confederate flag. The march was set to be the second KKK gathering in Maine in 60 years.

[Maine Working-Class History @MaineWCH]

@ShawnMcBreairty Did you delete your FB page?

[Maine Working-Class History @MaineWCH]

Read the full issue here: https://t.co/XGmbO9zLTc

[Maine Working-Class History @MaineWCH]

"Low Income Voice" was put out by United Low Income, a group that advocated for working class Mainers. This March 12, 1971 issue features stories about the Penobscot Shoe Strike, welfare legislation, a Portland tenants union, urban renewal in Portland, the war in Vietnam & more.

[Maine Working-Class History @MaineWCH]

"“A wonderful miracle took place on the hill in the great church, yesterday! God sent a colored messenger from heaven to declare his will unto the people. He sat down in the pulpit, and without opening his mouth he cast out two devils!”

[Maine Working-Class History @MaineWCH]

When Rev. Amos Freeman, pastor of the Abyssinian Church in Portland, went to Brunswick to solicit donations in the 1840s, a couple of racist sea captains stormed out at the sight of a Black preacher. As a street preacher outside the church exclaimed:

https://t.co/lD8WexmAw5

[Maine Working-Class History @MaineWCH]

"It's oral traditions that hold tribes of our people’s together. The wisdom acquired over the ages is passed down through the stories of the past.” — Brother Kellman

[Maine AFL-CIO @MEAFLCIO]

"These stories guide us into the future. They give us our values, direction and strength. Without them we are rootless, have no direction and live only in the uniformed present.” — Brother Peter Kellman

https://t.co/N39MiWOHG3

[Maine Working-Class History @MaineWCH]

Rumford, ME & Berlin, NH paper workers were once part of the militant UMW. Berlin UMW Pres. George Lambertson said whenever management failed to address a grievance he’d walk back thru the factory floor with his hat cocked to the side & everyone would immediately stop working.

[AFL-CIO ✊ @AFLCIO]

Today marks the 134th anniversary of the United Mine Workers of America. 🎉

For more than a century, the @MineWorkers have fought tirelessly for improved safety conditions, dignity, and fairness in one of the most dangerous jobs in America.

[Maine Working-Class History @MaineWCH]

"The Impending Crisis" — a Portland, Me Democratic newspaper dated 3/22/1860, bears the tagline "White Men Must Rule America."
It complains that GOP Aldermen committed voter suppression against Democratic Irish voters while Black voters were let in to vote "without delay."

[Maine Working-Class History @MaineWCH]

“There were brothers who crossed with brothers who stayed on strike. It was unreal the amount of pain you saw in that area. It really ripped the town apart,” he said. “Then we watched the same thing happen 20 miles down the river in Jay in 1987.”

[Maine AFL-CIO @MEAFLCIO]

We had a great interview with IBEW member Dean Gilbert about his 40 year career working at the Rumford Mill & the bitter strike of 1986.

“I was always told ‘do what you can, but if you can leave it better than it was, you won.’”
https://t.co/ErJGJBxgLP

[Maine Working-Class History @MaineWCH]

“To show you the state of feeling at a glance, a little darling white [boy], four years old, comes from the Infant School, scolding about the little n—— who would sit by him. This, sir, is a fair specimen of feeling throughout the State.”

https://t.co/A6J5JYDry5

[Andy O'Brien @aobrien2010]

In this month's "Radical Mainers" I wrote about the ordination of Rev. Amos Noe Freeman and how for the first time, Black and white Mainers sat side by side in a church, forming a powerful symbol of racial equality, “united with the Spirit of God.”
https://t.co/0vYlzTeL2g

[Maine Working-Class History @MaineWCH]

Article 3 of the Somerset County (Maine) Anti-Slavery Convention, March 29, 1838. #mepolitics

[Maine Working-Class History @MaineWCH]

Tens of thousand of Maine workers joined the defense industry in WW2 including women, ppl with disabilities, Jamaicans, children and many others. Fishermen & sportsmen became the eyes & ears of the coastline & forest lands to look out for the enemy.

https://t.co/spBTdrO8CT

[Maine Working-Class History @MaineWCH]

We interviewed Annie Valliere of Bath about her great aunt Rose Schneiderman, the great labor leader & women's rights activist. https://t.co/8PckJcbVgf