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1886 Maine gubernatorial election

election for the Governor of Maine

Layered newspapers, civic records and oral-history reels arranged as chronological evidence
History and societyInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJun 14, 2026
Entity authorityQ125784820 ↗
Source-derived summary

The 1886 Maine gubernatorial election was held on September 13, 1886, in order to elect the Governor of Maine. Republican nominee and former Mayor of Hallowell Joseph R. Bodwell defeated Democratic nominee Clark S. Edwards and Prohibition nominee Aaron Clark.

General election

On election day, September 13, 1886, Republican nominee Joseph R. Bodwell won the election by a margin of 13,561 votes against his foremost opponent Democratic nominee Clark S. Edwards, thereby retaining Republican control over the office of governor. Bodwell was sworn in as the 40th Governor of Maine on January 5, 1887.

Editorial summary

“1886 Maine gubernatorial election” enters the record as election for the Governor of Maine. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Maine, gubernatorial and election can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewMost valuable as an event-and-institution map that identifies actors, dates and record creators for deeper historical inquiry. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1886, 1887—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Maine, gubernatorial and election.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“1886 Maine gubernatorial election” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Maine, gubernatorial and election provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 14, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q125784820. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1886 and 1887.

Critical limits

Institutional narratives can privilege the records that survived while minimizing voices that were never formally collected. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.

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  • Event chronology
  • Institutional context
  • Locating named record creators
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  2. Expand the search: follow 1886 Maine gubernatorial election primary sources, 1886 Maine gubernatorial election archive and Maine research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “1886 Maine gubernatorial election” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.