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Publication Date

6-1-2008

Document Type

Article

First Page

383

Last Page

410

Abstract

The arrival of the automobile challenged Maine to rethink a road system that dated back to colonial times. But as auto advocates soon discovered, this was an immensely controversial issue, bringing years of political turmoil as contending groups questioned matters of road location, financing, and administration at every juncture. As key players in this drama, farmers fought for a road system that linked them to local markets or rail depots; tourist advocates, on the other hand, envisioned a system of “trunk lines” — well-constructed thoroughfares that would carry travelers from one end of the state to the other. Isolation, parochial living, and traditionalism, some historians suggest, biased farmers against the modern political agencies that took control over roads previously built and maintained by individual towns. In fact, they had solid economic reasons to oppose these modern administrative forms, and until their needs were met, Maine road policy remained at an impasse. Richard W. Judd received a doctoral degree in American history from the University of California at Irvine in 1979, and from 1981 to 1984 he edited the Journal of Forest History. In 1984 he joined the History Department at the University of Maine and became editor of Maine History. His publications include Natural States: The Environmental Imagination in Maine, Oregon, and the Nation; Common Lands, Common People: The Origins of Conservation in Northern New England; Maine: The Pine Tree State from Prehistory to the Present; and Aroostook: A Century of Logging in Northern Maine.

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