Cipperly Good’s free public presentation, “Globalization is not new: Maine’s merchant marine in 19th-century world trade,” will be held from 5:30 p.m. – 7 p.m., Feb. 2 at the University of Maine Hutchinson Center.
Primary source material, artifacts, and images from the Penobscot Marine Museum were used to track the Maine merchant marine in the global market when Downeast mariners were global shippers. Maine’s location in the far northeast United States served as the perfect point of departure for sailing merchant ships pushed by the prevailing westerly winds and the flow of the Gulf Stream to trade ports in Europe and beyond. Its location, coupled with rich timber reserves for shipbuilding and a workforce adept at navigating, captaining and crewing the large cargo ships known as downeasters, made Maine ships and crew dominate in global shipping during the last half of the 19th century.