Maine's Place in History

In 1876, Joshua Chamberlain (hero of the Civil War, governor of Maine, and President of Bowdoin College) delivered a long speech at Philadelphia’s Centennial Exposition. It is a wide-ranging history of the development of Maine before and after statehood.



Working with Pejepscot Historical Society (the go-to source of Chamberlain information) this will be an annotated publication of that speech in its entirety (32,000 words). The speech will be broken into chapters or themes, with each featuring a short introductory essay to put it in context. Annotations, explanations, and other pertinent information come in the form of short sidebars and pull outs to make reading the speech simpler.



Publishing to coincide with the Maine bicentennial, Chamberlain’s talk presents a unique view of the state and its place in the nation at the half-way mark.