History/social studies can seem very distant in time and space. In fact, it’s very much about what we are here and now.

The ongoing industrial revolution shapes our lives: energy, goods, jobs… We say we live in rural Maine, but we’re no exception to the effects of big cities, factories, mill towns… Many of us work, or have worked, or will work there. Students need to learn about industrial processes, and outcomes: machines and people, wages and profits, products and waste.

Teaching the industrial revolutions should involve several subjects and teachers: history, economics, science (the chemistry of bleaching and dying, the physics of thermodynamics), etc. Perhaps some collaboration with the technical experts of Region 9? But class time won’t do the whole job.

Fortunately, industry past and present can be found nearby. Sawmills are a good example. Scribner’s Mill on the Crooked River and Hancock’s Bethel Mill are twenty-some miles and a century apart. The former, now a museum, introduces visitors to a world of water power, horse power, and hand labor, as well as machinery. The latter, electric and automated, operates in a newer world. But machines and work, processes and products can be traced across time.

Lewiston is a wonderful exemplar of industrialization. Museum L-A addresses both the mechanical and the human aspects of the textile industry. It also maps equally important exhibits outdoors: the system of canals that delivered water and its power to all the mills; the three-deckers, shops, offices, and churches that constituted the “little Canada” where many workers and their families spent their lives.

When we think of hydro energy we think of Niagara Falls, or the great western dams. But there are local examples to study. The Berlin/Gorham hydro complex involves dams, a canal, massive turbines, mill races, etc. Well worth a visit. Not to mention the mills of Rumford and Berlin, adapted over time to new energy sources and products.

As pandemic becomes past tense, there will be great opportunities for teaching and learning. To enhance history, we should go beyond school.

David R Jones’s first book was about education in industrializing England.