In partnership with the Maine Memory Network Maine Memory Network

Allies & Allegiance: Military comradery at the Centennial, 1920

Capt. Uyeda and Capt.Teraoka, Portland, 1920
Capt. Uyeda and Capt.Teraoka, Portland, 1920
Maine Historical Society/MaineToday Media

The “Official State Celebration,” held at Portland between June 26 and July 5, 1920, delighted in fanfare for Maine’s Centennial. The event “guaranteed an affair that will take rank with the greatest of its kind that has been held in the country.”

The centennial committee organized a series of grand activities including an exposition, several parades, a music festival, visiting dignitaries, and international ships in port. The extremely popular “Indian Village,” hosted by members by members of the Wabanaki community at Deering Oaks was a crowd and media favorite.

The state of Maine invited European and Asian allied nations to join the festivities, with an opportunity to demonstrate newly formed and established alliances. Eighteen months after the Armistice, and about a year since the Treaty of Versailles, post-World War I America reveled in the exposition of military prowess. In many ways, WWI introduced the United States as a world power, and military demonstrations solidified its new role.

Three Allied nations accepted Maine’s invitation to Casco Bay: Portugal, Japan and Great Britain. Coupled with two U.S. battleships, the USS Utah and USS Florida, naval representation spanned three continents, further demonstrating the First World War’s geographic scope.

The Portland Evening Express documented the week’s Centennial events, highlighting a plethora of activities. Alongside heavily illustrated news articles about the event’s social offerings, the Evening Express also documented residual hostilities in the Near East, peppered with commentary from visiting military dignitaries, emphasizing a reliance on the need for Allied forces.

The following are but a small selection of Centennial photographs found within the Portland Press Herald Glass Negative Collection at Maine Historical Society.