Maine

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MAINE

A look at any map of Maine will confirm that the settlement of the state occurred on the coast and the rivers, with large areas in the center and the north still largely wilderness. Independent and sometimes wary of outsiders, Maine "down-easters" first developed their fishing resources and later moved into paper and textile manufacturing. Never among the most prosperous states in the nation, Maine remains a major producer of paper and wood products, an important location for ocean commerce and fisheries, and a popular destination for tourists.

In the early 1600s English expeditions first came to exploit the rich Maine coastal waters. By 1630 about a dozen English settlements existed along the coast and on several islands. An English joint stock company received the first grant of territory between the Merrimack and the Kennebec rivers in 1622. In the late 1640s the Massachusetts Bay Colony began to absorb settlements in the territory, gaining control of the whole area in 1691. The economy of Maine was based almost entirely on fishing, trading, and use of its forests. One major early industry was the preparation of the white pine masts used by the Royal Navy. Maine remained a part of Massachusetts until 1820, when by terms of the Missouri Compromise, it came into the United States as a free, not a slave, state.

Like the rest of New England, Maine began industrialization between 1830 and 1860, as shoe factories and textile mills sprang up on the state's rivers. Many young farm women came to the mill towns to earn additional income for their deprived families during the heyday of the textile mills. Papermaking also grew in importance; by 1900 Maine was one of the nation's leading papermaking states. The first railroad, the Atlantic & St. Lawrence, was completed in 1853 and connected Portland with Montreal, Canada. By 1900 several more railways, among them the Bangor and Aroostook, the Boston and Maine, the Canadian Pacific, and the Maine Central, crisscrossed the state.

Shipbuilding was another Maine industry which grew rapidly in the mid-nineteenth century. Maine builders provided many of the stately clipper ships, which carried prospectors and settlers around Cape Horn to California. Lumbering was centered on the Penobscot River at Bangor, which was a freewheeling boomtown from the 1830s through the 1850s. Land speculators rushed into the young state during this time, hoping to turn big profits on cheap land and the promise of wealth.

According to historian Charles E. Clark, the economic history of Maine between the 1860s and the 1890s mirrored economic trends in the nation as a whole, with a particular Maine slant. Entrepreneurs, like the "robber barons" who were building industries and railroads after the American Civil War (1861–1865), came to Maine and made the paper industry their domain. Immigrants came down from Quebec, Canada, looking for work and added their own ethnic flavor to the culture. The entrepreneurs soon began to exploit Maine's abundant water and lumber resources. After the discovery that wood pulp could be substituted for rags in paper manufacture, the paper industry grew rapidly. Smaller companies were absorbed into larger ones, notably the International Paper Company and the Great Northern Paper Company. Often owned largely by interests outside the state, these large concerns controlled river traffic, generated their own power, and owned their own tracts of lumber.

Slowly, pioneer farmers began to settle the more northern regions of Maine, following patterns like those in the settlement of the American West. The Maine potato became a staple crop in the state, and by 1880 several starch mills were built to make even more use of this abundant crop.

In spite of its many natural resources, Maine has suffered economically because of its limited access to a national transportation network. In addition, a curious law passed in 1929 forbid Maine from selling its easily accessible waterpower outside the state, and in 1935 Maine refused to cooperate with a proposed federal water reclamation project similar to the one created by the Tennessee Valley Authority. Today Maine ranks only thirty-seventh in personal income among all states, ranking last in New England. In comparison to those in other states, Maine has no truly large cities; Portland, the largest, had a population just over 65,000 in the 1990s.

While Maine at the end of the twentieth century was not highly industrialized or urbanized, it would be difficult to find a state that benefited more from tourism, which yearly generated about 40,000 jobs, added almost $3 million to the economy, and was the state's largest employer. In fact, around 50 percent of Maine's economy in the late 1990s, including the tourist industry, was service-oriented. Some of the first tourists who trekked to Maine established wealthy summer colonies in coastal villages like Ogunquit, York Harbor, Boothbay, and Bar Harbor. In the 1990s Maine offered beaches, sailing, craggy coastlines, fishing, hunting, winter sports, and abundant public lands for all kinds of recreation. Its foremost attraction was Acadia National Park, off its central coast, which attracted nearly three million visitors yearly in the mid- and late 1990s.

A relatively small part of the state's economy is devoted to agriculture. Agriculture and food processing industries, however, contribute over $1 billion annually to the state, and Maine produces more food crops than any other New England state. In addition to ranking first in New England in potato production, Maine leads the world in the production of blueberries, with 25 percent of the total blueberry crop. Milk, apples, and maple syrup are also important Maine products.

Industry occupies less than one-third of Maine's economy but is still a significant sector. In the 1990s, papermaking remained the top industry in the state, followed by transportation equipment manufacture and lumber and wood production. Ninety-five percent of all of Maine's forests are privately owned, primarily by the paper industry. Maine lobster remains the most important fishing product; some of the larger fishing ports are in Portland, Boothbay Harbor, and Rockland. To encourage industrial and recreational projects, the state works through the Finance Authority of Maine to offer such incentives as tax-exempt bonds and loan guarantees for small business. A State Development Office provides assistance for existing and prospective businesses.

See also: Paper Industry