Maine Vacation and Travel Ideas for Literary Tours
Edna St. Vincent Millay Memorial
Whitehall Inn
52 High Street
Camden, ME 04843
Website: http://www.whitehall-inn.com/Millay.html
Email: reservations@whitehall-inn.com
Phone (207) 236-3391
Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892 - 1950), poet, playwright, and the first woman to receive the Pulitzer Prize for poetry, spent much of her childhood in Camden, Maine. It was as a young girl in this inn that Millay was discovered as a poetic talent. Upon hearing Millay recite a poem here in 1912, an audience member was so moved that she paid for Millay's university studies. The inn still houses the piano that Millay played, and is set against the backdrop of Mt. Battie, where Millay wrote the poem that led to her discovery.
The town of Camden features a number of other reminders of Millay, including a statue at the harbor, which is a 10-minute walk from the inn, a book collection at Camden Public Library, and a plaque in Camden Hills State Park.
The inn offers lodging to guests, with forty guest rooms.
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Wadsworth-Longfellow Home
Maine Historical Society
489 Congress Street
Portland, ME 04101
Website: www.mainehistory.org/hous#8074E
Email: info@mainehistory.org
Phone: (207) 774-1822
Portland native Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882) grew up in this house on the Portland Peninsula. The poet became famous for such classics as Paul Revere's Ride, The Song of Hiawatha, and Evangeline. He also wrote the first English translation of Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy.
The brick home is the oldest architectural structure on the peninsula, in what is now an urban, commercial district. The house was built in 1785-86, and remained in the Wadsworth-Longfellow family for three generations, until the death of Henry's youngest sister, Anne Longfellow Pierce, in 1901. In accordance with her will, upon her death the house became the property of the Maine Historical Society. The house is almost entirely furnished with artifacts that at one time belonged to the Wadsworth and Longfellow families. A lovely Colonial Revival garden behind the home offers a quiet oasis in the middle of the city.
The Wadsworth-Longfellow Home is the first museum house in Maine open to the general public. It underwent a two and a half year renovation, yet the original artifacts from both families remain. Being the first all-brick residence in Portland, the house has somehow managed to survive years of change. A tourist can get an excellent view of the poet and his works, since three generations of the family lived here.
Longfellow left Maine after his studies at Bowdoin College. Following several trips to Europe, he settled in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he remained for 45 years, until his death. Longfellow devotees can visit his home there. For more information see Go to: www.nps.gov/long/ or call (617) 876-4491.
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Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge
321 Port Road
Wells, ME 04090
Website: http://www.fws.gov/northeast/rachelcarson/
Email: rachelcarson@fws.gov
Phone: (207) 646-9226
Biologist and zoologist Rachel Carson (1907-1964) is often credited with launching the environmental movement of the 1960s with her groundbreaking and popular books. Carson's success was hard won. She overcame a number of personal and professional obstacles before her breakthrough book, The Sea Around Us, was published in 1951 and remained on the New York Times bestseller list for 86 weeks. The Sea Around Us subsequently won the 1952 National Book Award. Carson's Silent Spring (1962), perhaps her best-known work, drew attention to the widespread affects that pesticides have on the environment as a whole, not simply on their target organism.
Early in her career, financial constraints forced Carson to abandon her doctoral studies. In 1936 she took a job as a biologist with the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries, today the Fish and Wildlife Service. She worked for the service until 1952, when the success of The Sea Around Us gave her enough financial independence to devote herself to writing full time. The Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge was established by the Fish and Wildlife Service in 1966 as a tribute to Carson, who spent summers on Maine's Southport Island. The refuge encompasses salt marshes and estuaries, and provides a sanctuary for migratory birds. The refuge is scattered over 50 miles of coastland in York and Cumberland counties.
Rachel Carson was the ultimate protector of the environment and its inhabitants. Her most well known work is Silent Spring (1962), which innovatively linked the dangerous consequences of chemical warfare to the environment.
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