Brunswick is the second New England mill town that I visited, that is located on the banks of the Androscoggin river in Maine. And like Lewiston, the first one, Brunswick is also a college town, being home to Bowdoin College. During one of the road trips that I made for this project, I spent a night in Brunswick, and although it wasn’t directly on the list of places to photograph for that trip, I couldn’t stay there and not get a few photographs. This article therefore, features just a few of the opprtunistic photographs that I managed to grab while we were staying the night in Brunswick. Later on, I hope to return to Brunswick to do a more in depth exploration of the town.
I think that the main reason Brunswick was not on my initial list of places to visit, is that it has not followed the archetypal pattern of economic decline and depopulation that has been visible in many of the other mill towns in this project. From the 1800s to the early 1900s, there was a heavy manufacturing presence with textile and paper mills powered by the falling waters of the Androscoggin River, and for a while these were the pillars of the local economy for Brunswick and its neighboring town of Topsham, across the river.
And there was a decline in these industries as a result of the same kind of economic forces that drove these declines in other towns. But in Brunswick’s case, the town was able to transition from manufacturing, to a diversified set of industries in the service sector, education, and innovation. Indeed, in stark contrast to many of the other mill towns I have visited, the population of Brunswick at the time of writing, is higher than it has ever been at any point in its history - a tribute to the town’s resilience and recovery from its former dependence on manufacturing.
Although there are some signs of the kind of economic changes that are widespread in that state of Maine, Brunswick does not bear the significant scars of decline that are so visible in the other mill towns.
© Gordon Webster
Using the link below, you can browse a curated set of images from Brunswick, ME in a gallery at my website, from which you can purchase photographic artwork in multiple formats. If this work resonates with you and you haven’t already done so, please consider subscribing to get future project updates.
