Camden Conference: Maine's Merchant Marine in 19th Century World Trade

Globalization Is Not New: Maine's Merchant Marine in 19th Century World Trade

The Camden Conference presents curator Cipperly Good at the Hutchinson Center on February 2, 2018 at 5:30 pm. She will give a talk titled "Globalization is not new: The role of Midcoast Maine in early World-trade." This event is free and open to all.

Maine's location in the far northeast of the United States, serves 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. The location, coupled with our 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. It is said that a Maine merchant marine family was as likely to see their neighbors in far off Canton, China, as back home in Searsport, Maine. This presentation uses primary source material, artifacts and images from the Penobscot Marine Museum to track the Maine merchant marine in the global market, when Downeasters were the global shippers.

Cipperly Good, curator and collections manager at the Penobscot Marine Museum in Searsport, Maine, oversees the object, archive and library collections.  She presented a modified version of her 2017 Camden Conference talk on "Maine in the Coolie Trade" at the North American Society for Oceanic History conference last spring.  Ms. Good holds a Bachelor’s degree from Colby College in Waterville, Maine, where she double majored in History and American Studies.  She spent her junior year “abroad” at the Williams College-Mystic Seaport Maritime Studies Program, which sparked her career in maritime history and maritime museums.  She holds a Masters of Arts in Museum Studies, with a concentration in American History, from The George Washington University in Washington, D.C.  Previous to working at Penobscot Marine Museum, Ms. Good taught maritime history for the Ocean Classroom-Proctor Academy semester, and worked as a curator at the Los Angeles Maritime Museum and Falmouth (Massachusetts) Historical Society.

This presentation is hosted by the Hutchinson Center and offered as a free community event in in anticipation of the 31st Annual Camden Conference –New World Disorder and America’s Future, February 16-18, 2018.

The mission of the Camden Conference is to foster informed discourse on world issues. For more information, please visit www.camdenconference.org or call 207-236-1034.

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