Seated by the Sea : The Maritime History of Portland, Maine, and Its Irish Longshoremen

by Michael C. Connolly

• ISBN13: 9780813037226
• ISBN10: 0813037220
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2011-04-17
• Publisher: University of Florida Press

Summary

For decades, Portland, Maine, was the closest ice-free port to Europe. As such, it was key to the transport of Canadian wheat across the Atlantic, losing its prominence only after WWII, as containerization came to dominate all shipping and Portland shifted its focus to tourism. Michael Connolly offers an in-depth study of the on-shore labor force that made the port function from the mid-nineteenth through the mid-twentieth centuries. He shows how Irish immigrants replaced and supplanted the existing West Indian workers and established benevolent societies and unions that were closed to blacks. Using this fascinating city and these hard-working longshoremen as a case study, he sheds light on a larger tale of ethnicity, class, regionalism, and globalization.

Author Biography

Michael C. Connolly, a native of Portland, is professor of history at Saint Joseph's College of Maine. He is the editor of They Change Their Sky: The Irish in Maine.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	p. xi
Foreword	p. xiii
Acknowledgments	p. xv
Chronology	p. xix
Introduction	p. 1
ôDelightfully Situated on a Healthy Hillö: The Port of Portland before the Civil War	p. 6
Black Fades to Green on the Waterfront: Nineteenth-Century Social, Racial, and Ethnic Change	p. 36
A Mixed Blessing: Portland at the Turn of the Twentieth-Century	p. 65
Lost Strikes and Union Affiliation: Early Twentieth-Century Labor Militancy Alongshore	p. 84
Apex of the Union and Catholic Hierarchical Influence	p. 113
Longshore Culture and the Decline of the Port of Portland in the Mid-to Late Twentieth Century	p. 141
Conclusion: The Port of Portland in the Twenty-First Century and Its Maritime Future	p. 181
Portland Town	p. 195
Day of the Clipper	p. 197
PLSBS Retirement List as of January 1983	p. 199
Oral Histories	p. 201
Longshore Nicknames	p. 203
Membership Levels of the Portland Longshoremen's Benevolent Society	p. 215
Notes	p. 219
Bibliography	p. 243
Index	p. 269
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.