Discover 400 years of New England history you won’t find in guidebooks in this collection of true stories and colorful characters from The Pine Tree State. Maine wouldn’t be the magical place it is today without the contributions of little-known individuals whose inspiring and adventuresome lives make up the story of Maine's "hidden history." Journalist and Maine historian Harry Gratwick presents vividly detailed portraits of these Mainers, from the controversial missionary Sebastien Rale to Woolwich native William Phips, whose seafaring attacks against French Canada earned him the first governorship of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Gratwick also profiles inventors such as Robert Benjamin Lewis, an African American from Gardiner who patented a hair growth product in the 1830s, and Margaret Knight, a York native who defied nineteenth-century sexism to earn the nickname "the female Edison." From soprano Lillian Nordica, who left Farmington to become the most glamorous American opera singer of her day, to slugger George "Piano Legs" Gore, the only Mainer to ever win a Major League Baseball batting championship, Hidden History of Maine reveals the men and women who made history without making it into history books.

The first comprehensive history of Maine to be published in decades, Maine: The Pine Tree State surveys the region's rich history from prehistoric times to the early 1990s. Drawing on a team of twenty-six scholars with a professional interest in Maine's past, the book features fresh research and new interpretations of even familiar periods such as the Civil War. The chapter authors are respected authorities in Maine history from the fields of archaeology, anthropology, ethnic studies, and the various sub-disciplines of history: political, cultural, economic, labor, military, maritime. Certain themes recur from chapter to chapter and across historical periods. For example, larger structural changes in the nation - market trends, wars, economic fluctuations, demographic flows - strongly affected the everyday world of Maine people. Other prominent themes are the importance of geography and the environment in shaping Maine's economy and culture. Caught up at times in national events, Maine has also led the nation in important ways. Its fishing industry fed and its textile industry clothed the nation's people. Maine loggers contributed heavily to the technologies used in cutting, hauling, and driving timber. Maine excelled in the production of wooden ships and supplied the expertise to sail them. In the nineteenth century Maine's political leaders were among the most powerful in the nation, and Maine's contribution to social reform attracted national recognition.

From the first explorers, to the century of ships, to our modern fisheries and diversification, Maine's maritime story is told in engaging detail. Lincoln Paine has laid down the framework for an understanding of Maine's maritime history by relating the population and landscape of today to their historic foundations. This engaging overview of Maine’s maritime history ranges from early Native American travel and fishing to pre-Plymouth European settlements, wars, international trade, shipbuilding, boom-and-bust fisheries, immigrant quarrymen, quick-lime production, yachting, and modern port facilities, all unfolding against one of the most dramatic seascapes on the planet. Down East can be read in an evening but will be referred to again and again. When the first edition was published in 2000, Walter Cronkite—a veteran Maine coastal sailor as well as The Most Trusted Man in America—wrote that “Paine’s economy of phrase and clarity of purpose make this book a delight.” Paine went on to write his monumental opus The Sea and Civilization: A Maritime History of the World (PW starred review), but now returns to his first and most abiding love, the coast of Maine, to revise and update this gem of a book. The new edition is printed in a large, full-color format with a stunning complement of historical photos, paintings, charts, and illustrations, making this a truly visual journey along a storied coast.

Famous for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Ashland has a deep history that goes far beyond the stage. From a 160-year-old unsolved murder to a newcomer whose "healing hands" drew people from all over the country, the town has attracted its fair share of unique characters. Vladimir Nabokov came to pursue his favorite hobby, butterfly collecting, while writing his famously controversial novel, Lolita, and an actor turned entrepreneur became one of the foremost recyclers long before it was mainstream. Discover the story behind Ashland's golf course cemetery and the gloveless baseball team of 1884. Join local historian Joe Peterson as he explores the fascinating past of this colorful town.

Stories From Maine is a collection of incredible and interesting stories, which include the lore and legends usually omitted from history all told in narrative form.

From the Age of Discovery and the earliest settlement of America, Midcoast Maine has played surprising roles in America's history. Europeans might not have survived in the New World without the Kennebec beaver trade, the lessons of the Popham Colony and the friendships Maine's first settlers built. Experience the storied survival of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's military grandfather in precarious Revolutionary Maine and meet resilient, creative, noteworthy and notorious Midcoasters. Pat Higgins recounts Puritan power plays, the sea fight between the Boxer and the Enterprise, duels, U-boats and much more. Discover the fascinating and quirky bits of history that have remained hidden along the rocky coast from Portland to Acadia--until now..

Across decades, Maine has produced nationally-recognized novelists of place-based fiction. From the late nineteenth century to the present, writers have explored the experiences of living in far-flung settings: island and coastal villages; northwoods lumbering communities; unincorporated townships; backcountry hamlets; and mill cities and towns. Taken together their body of work composes a remarkable literary map of a diverse and changing Maine. Hidden Places explores the identity of Maine through its writers and the people and places they captured at moments in time. Hidden Places traces the work of these writers to provoke readers into seeing and understanding Maine places with new awareness. These Maine writers construe place as both a territory on the ground and a country of the imagination. They help insiders see more clearly what is distinctive about their communities and encourage outsiders to better understand what might seem quaint or odd about the state. Like a well-drawn atlas, Hidden Places seeks to capture a diverse state at the granular level one representation at a time. It explores the identity of Maine through its writers and the people and places they wrote of.

Arlington County, for two centuries a center for government institutions, is a vibrant part of the Washington, D.C., community. Many notable figures made their home in the area, like Supreme Court chief justice Warren Burger, General George "Blood 'n' Guts" Patton and a beauty queen who almost married crooner Dean Martin. The drama of Virginia's first school integration unfolded in Arlington beginning in the late 1950s. In the 1960s, two motorcycle gangs clashed in public at a suburban shopping center. Local author, historian and "Our Man in Arlington" Charlie Clark uncovers the vivid, and hidden, history of a capital community.