What is it like Working in a Maine Industry?

Summary:  In this lesson, you will look at primary sources that explore what it is like to be an industrial worker in Maine.

Share whatever information from this introduction you feel will help provide context for your students before they investigate the primary sources.

What is Industry?

The Industrial Revolution began in America in the late 19th century. In a short period of time, industries grew as a result of rapid innovation. But what is industry, and why is it important to Maine?

Industry is defined as “an economic activity concerned with the processing of raw materials and manufacture of goods in factories.” But what does this mean? Let’s use the example of one of Maine’s most famous industries: fishing. The Maine coastline provides access to the ocean and its resources, like fish. Fishermen and women work to catch fish. They sell the fish to people and businesses such as restaurants and sardine canning companies. In this example, fishermen catch the raw materials (the sardines) and sell them to a canning company. The factory processes the sardines into canned fish, a product that can be sold worldwide.

This is just one example of an industry in Maine. Other industries include logging, agriculture and farming, quarrying stone, producing textiles, building ships, ice harvesting, and more. All of these involve using raw materials to make a product. Industry creates thousands of jobs for Mainers. It is also important to consider some of the downsides of industry. Many workers have been unnecessarily injured or mistreated, and there are environmental impacts.

Investigating primary sources (artifacts, images, and documents from Maine’s past) will help reveal the complicated history of Maine industry!

Working in Maine

Summary: In this lesson, you will look at primary sources to investigate the lives of industrial workers from different time periods and working environments.

What is it like to work in Maine industries? Who works in Maine’s factories, mills, farms, and forests? Thousands of people have a job in one of the many industries in Maine. The jobs they do, where they work, and the skills and tools they use vary greatly. It is easy to lump all industry workers into one group, but people of all backgrounds, education, age, and gender work in industry.

Sometimes, people’s lives, families, and communities overlap with their job. Some people grow up working in a family business with skills passed down from parent to child. Other people take jobs based on the natural resources found in their area – potato farming in northern Maine, shipbuilding and fish processing on the coast, logging deep in Maine forests.

Workplaces can be dangerous with fast-moving machinery or uncomfortable when working in cold winter weather. Workplaces can also be very clean spaces, like manufacturing small computer parts. Each industry and skilled worker uses specific tools. Industry workers must have the correct equipment to keep them safe, such as spiked boots for river drivers moving lumber down roaring rivers or a full welding suit for someone who works with hot metals.

In this primary source set, you will see the contributions of people and groups that often go unrecognized, such as women and Indigenous peoples. These objects and photographs give you a glimpse into their work lives.

Additional Industry Information:

Bath Iron Works – Modern Ship Building in Maine

Shipbuilding was and still is a major industry in Maine, especially in Bath, the home of Bath Iron Works. Small fishing and sailing boats had been built in Bath for years, but it was not until 1762 when the first commercial vessel was built and launched, that large-scale shipbuilding took off. Bath once ranked third in the nation in shipbuilding behind Boston and New York. In 1854, there were 21 shipyards in Bath along the Kennebec River. Today, Bath Iron Works is Bath’s only shipyard and employs approximately 6,800 people. 

Bath Iron Works started in 1826 as a foundry (a workplace where metal is melted under high heat and formed into parts and tools). They made brass and iron parts for local shipyards, still constructing ships made from wood and powered by sails and wind. In the early 19^th century, commercial sailing ships built to transport goods and passengers were replaced by iron and steel vessels; this is when Bath Iron Works started to build entire ships. 

In 1884, the foundry was purchased by Thomas W. Hyde, who focused the company on the new and growing business of iron shipbuilding. In 1890, the first vessel built by Bath Iron Works was a passenger ship named Cottage City, built for the Maine Steamship Co., quickly followed by two iron gunboats for the US Navy. 

Since 1890, Bath Iron Works has completed more than 425 ships, including 245 military vessels. At peak production during World War II (1943–1944), the shipyard launched a destroyer every 17 days. At this time, women began working at the shipyards. Some, who came to be known as “Wendy the Welders,” were taught to weld. Others were painters, burners, crane operators, or riveters. 

In 1995, BIW became a branch of General Dynamics, a large company focused on aerospace and military products. With Bath Iron Works’ shipyard in almost continuous operation since 1890, the company has been a source of jobs for generations of Maine people. It is not unusual for families to have several family members working there at once, and many have grandparents who also worked there. The shipyard’s motto is “Bath Built Is Best Built,” reflecting the pride the men and women working at Bath Iron Works have in their work and the long history of shipbuilding in Maine. 

Blueberry Harvesting

What are wild blueberries? Have you ever eaten a wild blueberry? They are usually smaller than the kind you buy at the grocery store. Wild blueberries aren’t just tasty – they have a very special history! They only grow in Maine, Quebec, and the Maritime provinces. They were first grown and harvested (picked or gathered) by Wabanaki people. There are now around 480 wild blueberry farms in Maine, mostly in Washington and Hancock counties.

The best time to harvest blueberries is late July through mid-September. At first, wild blueberries were hand-picked. Then, the blueberry rake was invented to speed things up. Today, most berries are harvested with machines.

Who harvests berries? Every year, people travel to Maine for seasonal work in the blueberry harvest. For the First People of the Canadian Wabanaki, the Mi’kmaq and Maliseet tribes, crossing into Maine every August is an important part of their traditional work and culture.  

Indigenous peoples are not the only ones who travel to Maine to pick blueberries. Every year, many families travel to Maine for a few weeks. They live in camps while they work. They speak many languages and have different backgrounds. Migrant families travel to Maine from other countries. They also come from states like Florida and Mississippi. Some people travel from other parts of Maine, such as the Latino community and the Passamaquoddy communities in Washington County.

Today, the Passamaquoddy Wild Blueberry Company is the largest Native American-owned wild blueberry farm in the world. Instead of using machines, they hand-rake blueberries. They are carrying on important traditions of gathering resources from the earth.

Why are blueberries an industry? For many years, blueberry fields were public and open to anyone. English settlers in the 1600s picked blueberries. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, the land was purchased and turned into privately owned farms. This happened as blueberry harvesting became a commercial industry – a way for people to make money.

Blueberries can be canned, frozen, or sold fresh. Canning started in the 1800s. By the 1950s, there were 21 canning factories in the state. At this time, Maine produced more blueberries than any other state. In 1929, farmers started freezing berries.

Although they grow wild, blueberries grow better with help from humans. Wabanaki people were the first to care for blueberry plants by burning the fields. This kills pests and helps the plants grow better. Commercial farmers only pick half of the plants each year and either cut or burn the plants after harvest. The second half is left alone to be harvested next year. 

Logging and Lumbering

Trees are a very important raw material because they can be used to make other products such as lumber and paper. The demand for these products has created many new job opportunities in Maine, but removing trees actively affects the environment. 

What is logging?   Logging means the cutting down of trees to turn them into other products, like paper, houses, and ships.   Maine, “The Pine Tree State,” became an important source of lumber (cut wood) in the early 1600s when European explorers settled on Monhegan Island and claimed the forests for timber harvesting.  Sawmills were quickly built along the rivers to supply pine logs for England’s Navy.  Colonists didn’t like sending all the good lumber to England, which was one of the reasons for the Revolutionary War.  After the War, Maine thrived as one of the largest sources of lumber in America.

Who works in the lumber industry?   Men worked in logging camps throughout the deep Maine woods. Logs cut down in the winter were floated down the major rivers in the spring to be loaded on ships. Many Wabanaki earned seasonal wages as river drivers.  The log drives, which were dangerous work, were usually finished by early summer.  Located on the Penobscot River, by 1832, Bangor was the biggest river port in the world.  Thousands of ships could be anchored there at one time to be loaded with timber to sail across the world.  By the 1880s, Maine had used up a lot of the good timber, and the industry moved west.   Cutting trees with machines sped up the process, leading to overharvesting in many places. 

By harvesting trees with machines, the lumber industry could move raw logs to the paper mills that had sprung up all over Maine.   By the 1930s, Maine’s pulp and paper industry was the largest employer in the state.  Facing competition from other forested states, Maine had to encourage tourism as an alternative industry.  By the 1970s, pollution in the rivers from the paper mills led to the passage of the 1972 Clean Water Act.  By the early 2000s, paper was cheaper to make in other parts of the world. Maine continues to struggle with aging mills and high energy costs.

The Lesson

1. Present as much as desired from the introductory information below to your students to give them context for the lesson. Depending on reading level, they could read the introduction as a homework assignment, or you could go over it together as a class.
2. Students choose (or the teacher assigns) one or more of the primary sources to work with.
3. The primary source can be projected/viewed on a big screen by the full class, or printed, so each student has their own copy.
4. This is a mystery-solving activity – students should not know details about the sources in advance. Without first seeing the source label information, students practice their observation and analysis skills. They only see the source and have to use their skills to pull out information about it. 
   • Option 1 – Open inquiry
     • The teacher leads a full-class discussion using the prompts “What do you see?” and “What do you wonder?” The class should be encouraged to look at tiny details and pull out clues from each source. This can also work as a whiteboard or post-it note activity, with students writing their own comments in response to the sources.
   • Option 2 – Guided worksheets
     • Students complete an Analysis Worksheet for each source. They can make educated guesses using whatever information they find in the sources. Note – This can be completed as a class, individually, or in small groups.
5. Present the source label information (the “answers”) to the students. Were you surprised by anything you learned? Have you found more connections between the different sources?
6. Repeat with as many sources as desired.
7. Discuss all the sources together. What sources did you work with? What did you learn from them? What questions do you have? How do the different sources connect to the theme or to each other?
8. Optional: use the recommended activity prompts and reflection questions for further discussion.

Optional Activity:

Work experiences can differ from person to person for many reasons – different jobs, different education or training, gender, age, or different cultural or ethnic backgrounds. Choose an industry to explore more. Research it – explore different jobs within the industry and the tools and circumstances that make each job unique. 

Next, invent two very different workers with jobs in your industry, and write a description of each of them. Include where they work, what job they do, what they look like, and the clothes they wear.  Do they like their job? Why or why not? What do their friends and family think of their jobs?

Take the time to flesh them out, then write a paragraph comparing their work lives. How are they similar? What are the differences?   Did your ideas about your workers change as you wrote about them?

Reflection Questions:

• Think about the different types of workplaces and the conditions workers experience. Each job comes with risks and benefits. Usually, the riskier a job is, the more money the worker is paid. And often, more skill is needed. How much risk would you be willing to experience as a Maine industry worker? What would you do to stay safe in your chosen high-risk job? 
• How are Maine industries linked to the natural resources they use? 
• How are specific Maine industries connected to different regions of the state?
• What types of jobs do women working in industrial jobs do? How do women break through stereotypes?
• This set of primary sources shows men, women, children, and Wabanaki people working. How might work life be experienced differently by different people?

Maine Industry Primary Source Sets developed in collaboration between the Maine State Archives, Maine State Library, and Maine State Museum.