When the Saturday Evening Post visited Bangor, Maine
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When the Saturday Evening Post visited Bangor, Maine
On March 10, 1951, the Saturday Evening Post, which was then a preeminent national magazine with a broad circulation and significant cultural influence, published an article as part of its ongoing “Cities of America” series. The city in focus for this particular edition was Bangor, Maine. It was the 98th feature in the series.
With uncanny insight, dry wit, and detached thoughtfulness, the observations of magazine writer George Sessions Perry evoke in the modern reader both a nostalgia for the past and the timeless recognition that sometimes the more things change the more they stay the same. (Author’s note: the photos below are from the Saturday Evening Post article itself with their original captions).
Bangor in the early 1950s was a city in transition. The days of Bangor being known as the Lumber Capital of the World had already fallen by the wayside, and the City was converting itself to a service center with an industrial base. George Sessions Perry, who was previously a renowned World War II correspondent and the author of Hold Autumn in Your Hand, a book that was turned into the movie, The Southerner, was a visitor to Bangor and the author of the Saturday Evening Post feature story. In the article, he noted:
Bangor’s harbor has naturally seen the last of those times when it was packed with 700 ships at once and when youngsters might gallop from Bangor to Brewer over the decks of wedge-in sailing vessels. The time now has come when Bangor must look to other and calmer means of gaining her brown bread and yellow-eyed beans.
Sessions observed the transition and specifically noted the growth in one of the then-more recently developed areas of the city:
Slowly and surely, Bangor is having what it likes to think of as a moderate industrial renaissance. Its new plants, mostly concerned with handling the simple necessaries of life, such as food and shoes, are growing up in a section not very succinctly named ‘the outer Hammond Street development’...[the buildings’] trim, functional beauty is just the opposite of the dingy old stores and hotels along lower Exchange and Hancock Streets near the river front.
Even today in the 21st century, the topic of Urban Renewal, which flattened entire blocks of those “dingy old stores and hotels” remains a perennial source of debate several decades after the last Urban Renewal project was actually completed. The loss of Union Station remains a particular sore spot for many locals, which is the train station you can see in the aerial shot above center-right, just above center. It was only several years ago that the Bangor City Council formally dissolved the Urban Renewal Committee, a formality as the committee had not been active in many years. As George Sessions Perry noted, however, the area around Union Station in 1951 was hardly the most attractive or welcoming spot.
Downtown Bangor does get its accolades in the article, though, as George Sessions Perry observed the charmingly authentic character of the town, noting, “Bangor has an almost completely untourist-battered look. Rather than having fallen into this or that posture in order to make itself inviting to tourists, it is almost completely its own authentic self.” This is a validating conclusion that would also ring true today.
Then, as now, Bangor is a community that has assets and amenities greater than you would expect to find in a city of just over 30,000 people. The reason for this, as Perry noted, is that Bangor is a service center for a wide geographic area and people are used to traveling long distances to Bangor for purchases, healthcare, entertainment, cultural stimulation and more. Perry wrote glowingly:
You have to but look at Bangor’s splendid stores to see that they were built not merely to serve the 30,000 people who live in the city, but the more than 200,000 who dwell in her territory. Bangor also supplies her outlying neighbors with banks, electricity and the very necessary somewhere-to-go. In that sense, she is the bastion of urban civilization on which this whole region does spiritually depend, the Paris of the north, where the arts have flowered and been preserved.
The bulk of Perry’s article about Bangor, however, and the charm of the whole thing, is in his discussion about its people. He observed:
Contemporary Bangor is a rare and haunting city, drenched, at least during its balmy summers, with a mellow vintage beauty and supported by a stiff, stiff spine. Among its people one encounters a striking civility, wholly free of sham, infused with a shy kindness and a full, albeit prickly, respect of man for man. For some reason, its old people have remarkably beautiful, lived-in faces.
The writer speaks to a Mr. Harold W. Coffin, who he calls “the quintessence of every Maine Yankee that ever lived,” summarizing the conversation as such:
While we talked, Mr. Coffin tried to give me some insight into the Maine character. He pooh-poohed the notion that Maine people are distant towards strangers. ‘Here in Bangor,’ he said, ‘we look you over fairly sharply, and if we figure you’re a right guy, and don’t think you’re a wise guy or a city slicker, you’re in.’
From the vantage point of 2021, no truer encapsulation of Maine’s sometimes touchy relationship with so-called people “from away” has been uttered.
The Bangor Public Library gets a fair amount of positive ink in this vignette:
The people of Bangor, being out of the orbit of television projection, entertain themselves with radio and movies, but more especially with books. The Bangor Public Library is one of the finest in the nation, when thought of in terms of so small a city…according to library records, the book borrowing of the population of Bangor stands at about ten tomes per annum for every man, woman, and child.
As does the Bangor Fire Department:
Those old heart stealers, the firemen, not only put out fires and save people’s lives but, as Christmastime approaches, go to work under the benevolent eye of Chief Nelligan patching used toys, in order to lend Santa a hand.
To this day the men and women of the Bangor Fire Department still buy toys each Christmas for area youngsters in need.
Perry also wryly observed Bangor’s ubiquitous love for its past, noting, “In Davenport Park stands Bangor’s ‘Remember the Maine’ memorial - only one of a hundred signs of how much old Bangor treasures her keepsakes.”
Having recently completed nine years of service on the Bangor City Council myself, I was particularly interested and amused by the writer’s observations about the local government, including that “Parks, schools and recreation are all high-priority items on its planning board’s agenda” and “Under its city-manager form of government, [Bangor] invents and builds its own labor-saving machinery for gathering the leaves off the streets in autumn.” Bangor Public Works still today dutifully removes leaves, sticks, and brush from its residents’ curbs each fall and spring.
It’s not all positive for Bangor in the article, as George Sessions Perry noted the open sewage of the Kenduskeag Stream at the time and the poor drinking water, saying, “While this water is somewhat less vile than that which Philadelphia drinks, it has a noticeable flavor of rotten sawdust and moose tracks.” If he were alive today, the writer might be satisfied to know that Bangor’s drinking water has been recognized as being among the best in the state if not beyond.
The first salmon catch of the year is not as notable an occurrence today as it was seventy years ago, nor is Bangor still a Republican town, in fact quite the opposite, yet the writer observed:
Among the more delightful of Bangor’s traditions is its custom for local anglers to vie for the first salmon of the year…for that one, and that one only, is annually sent to the President of the United States - even if, as has so often recently been the case, the incumbent of that office happens to be a Democrat.
Yet other than the improvements to the water, cosmetic changes to the city, and shifts in the economy and society in general, it is striking how many of George Sessions Perry’s observations about Bangor carry through to today. What especially remains as true today as then is the love that Bangor’s people have for Bangor itself. I myself was once asked what the most special thing about Bangor is, and my response was that people who live in Bangor do really love Bangor. And as George Sessions Perry wrote in 1951:
The most powerfully arresting things about Bangor are the bulldog love of its own people for their town and their state and the surpassing beauty of the Penobscot River…for in Bangor, you get the clear impression that the long stream of years this old city has spent in search of its soul has by no means been wholly in vain…that, actually, it has made definite headway in that quietly exciting quest.
On that conclusion, this writer, 70 years later, cannot help but agree.
Ben Sprague lives and works in Bangor, Maine as a V.P./Commercial Lending Officer for Damariscotta-based First National Bank. He can be reached professionally at ben.sprague@thefirst.com or personally at bsprague1@gmail.com. Follow Ben on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram and subscribe to his weekly newsletter by clicking below.
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Message from Ben: I own three copies of the March 10, 1951 edition of the Saturday Evening Post that features Bangor, Maine. It is full of other fascinating articles and pictures as well. I am giving away one copy to a randomly selected current subscriber to The Sunday Morning Post newsletter and one copy to a randomly selected new subscriber from the week of May 16th. (The third copy I am keeping as a family heirloom). Please subscribe to be entered to win and you will also receive the weekly free edition of The Sunday Morning Post in your inbox each Sunday morning. Winners will be announced in next week’s newsletter.
What ever happened to The Saturday Evening Post?
Although not nearly the cultural cornerstone it once was, The Saturday Evening Post is still active today, publishing six issues per year. It is managed by a non-profit dedicated to preserving its legacy. For more information, please visit: https://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/mission/
This weekly newsletter, entitled The Sunday Morning Post, pays tribute to and takes inspiration from The Saturday Evening Post. Like many Americans even those of a younger generation, as I peruse old issues of The Saturday Evening Post I am transported back to my grandparents’ kitchens and living rooms.
Weekly Round-Up
Here are a few news stories that caught my eye this week:
This past week the price of lumber dropped five days in a row for the first time this year. That being said, it’s still up significantly in the last 30 days. Is this a market top? We’ll see. I think it could be as I am seeing more and more consumers and homebuilders pulling back from projects due to the exorbitant costs of materials; the demand side of the equation may be pausing to take a breath. You can read my earlier article on lumber prices by clicking here.
Per Financial Times, day trading in so called “meme stocks” has cooled off: https://www.ft.com/content/a7e52d87-0b0d-44ef-bed9-72e66a1f14ee
Hunt Allcott, Matthew Gentzkow, and Lena Song have a paper out about digital addiction. Admittedly I have not read all 112 pages yet as I have been too busy scrolling through meaningless social media feeds: https://www8.gsb.columbia.edu/media/sites/media/files/DigitalAddiction.pdf
According to Axios, patients being hospitalized with COVID-19 have one thing in common: 99.7% of them are not vaccinated. Get your shots, people!
Per Eric Russell and the Maine CDC, out of staters are getting vaccinated in Maine by the thousands. While there may be some people traveling across Piscataqua River Bridge just to make appointments or walk into Maine’s numerous vaccination sites, the bulk of these shots are probably for snowbirds who spend much of the year in Maine and who are geographically here now, but are actually residents of Florida, Georgia, or South Carolina, etc., for other reasons (including taxes). Hopefully there are also some summer workers from out of state getting vaccinated who are now in Maine for the upcoming season.
I spent this past Saturday afternoon volunteering at my local vaccine clinic, which is run by Northern Light Health at the Cross Insurance Center in Bangor. This was the second time I have volunteered here. What an experience! I’ll never be more popular than I was when I had the task of giving stickers to people who had just been vaccinated. Thank you to Northern Light, the City of Bangor, and the Cross Insurance Center for such a smooth operation.
This is all so enjoyable. We always had the SEP and Life in our house growing up in Hampden. Great memories you are rekindling here. Thanks for your effort.