"Delightfully situated on a healthy hill" : the port of Portland before the Civil War -- Black fades to green on the waterfront : nineteenth-century social, racial, and ethnic change -- A mixed blessing : Portland at the turn of the twentieth century -- Lost strikes and union affiliation : early twentieth-century labor militancy alongshore -- Apex of the union and Catholic hierarchical influence -- Longshore culture and the decline of the port of Portland in the mid- to late twentieth century -- Conclusion: The port of Portland in the twenty-first century and its maritime future -- Appendix A: Portland Town -- Appendix B: Day of the Clipper -- Appendix C: PLSBS retirement list as of January 1983 -- Appendix D: Oral histories -- Appendix E: Longshore nicknames -- Appendix F: Membership levels of the Portland Longshoremen's Benevolent Society
Summary
This book deals with the history of the port of Portland, Maine, an important North Atlantic maritime community with significant ties to Canada and Europe. A central focus of the book is the primacy of the Irish labour force that served to load and unload ships in this harbor