History of Maine - Demographics

Demographics

Largely because of Irish and French-Canadian immigration, 40% of Maine's population was Catholic by 1900; the Catholic Church ran its own school system in the cities, where almost all Catholics lived. This demographic and its resulting social and political ramifications led to a backlash in the 1920s, as the Ku Klux Klan formed cells in a number of Maine towns, and contributed to the victory of Republican Gov. Owen Brewster in 1924.

The immigrant population was largely responsible for the steady growth of the Democratic Party, however, which gave Maine a true two-party system in the years after World War II. The election in 1954 of Governor Edmund Muskie, a Catholic Polish American tailor's son from the mill-town of Rumford, was a major watershed. The governor from 2003 to 2011, John Baldacci, is of Italian American and Arab American ancestry from Bangor.