Events at Member Institutions

Museum L-A is excited to invite you to a one of kind “Treasures and Trinkets” Sale to be held on November 11, 2018, from 10:00 am – 3:00 pm in the Bates Mill Atrium, Lewiston, Maine. The sale will help Museum L-A make room for its collections artifacts, benefit Museum programming, education, collections, and preservation efforts, as well as give our visitors the opportunity to do some unique Christmas gift shopping! Although the Museum will be pulling together some one of a kind items for the sale, no artifacts from the permanent museum collections will be included in the sale. 

The sale will include an array of items from exhibit and display materials, posters and prints, antique toys, furniture, textile manufacturing components from the mills, and many other hidden gems. Lucky visitors might be able to take home an antique Murray red wagon, an antique wooden crate advertising Coca-Cola and Sun Disk, framed art, Victorian furniture, or heritage Fenton Art Glass. A sure to be sought after item will be the uniquely crafted wood and iron hall coat racks that were originally located in St. Peter’s School before its demolition. The racks come with multiple hooks and brackets and are available in their original lengths or cut to size. During the event, you will be able to peruse our vast number of interesting offerings to find the perfect treasure. 

There is something for everyone at this sale! Artists will find unique and curious objects that could be included in or inspire freshly imagined creations. Someone setting up an office or workspace could pick up some distinctive decorations with a historic flair to give your space a unique conversation starter. The general public will be able to find the perfect gift for their friends and family that they wouldn’t be able to find anywhere else. 

The Special Collections Department at the University of Maine in Orono is pleased to announce we are hosting a training workshop by ArchivesSpace on using Digital Objects. 

This one-day workshop, on November 13^th, will be held at the Raymond H. Fogler Library on the Orono campus and is open to all ArchivesSpace member institutions.  The workshop will be from 9:00 to 4:30.

The instructors are Mark Custer from Yale University and Stacie Williams from the University of Chicago.  The learning objectives and agenda can be found using this link:

http://archivesspace.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Workshop-Agenda-DO.pdf

Cost

The cost of participation is $25 per person. Please contact Susan Clement (sclement@maine.edu) if you require an invoice.

Please make check payments payable to:

University of Maine

Return to:        University of Maine

Attn: Susan Clement

5729 Fogler Library

Orono, ME  04469-5729

 Please RSVP to Beth Russell to reserve your space.  Seating is limited based on room size and will be first come, first served.

Other Details

Participants are asked to bring a laptop, if feasible, although we do have some that can be borrowed.  Everyone will receive a test instance of ArchivesSpace for training purposes.

Lunch will be on your own – the Bear’s Den is right next door in the Union and offers an array of choices in a food court setting.  There is also a pub in the same location.

https://umaine.edu/dining/locations/bearsden/

Parking passes will be required to park on campus.  Let us know if you need one and we’ll send it along.  The interactive campus and parking map can be found here:

https://umaine.edu/campus-map/

Contact Us

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact Beth Russell (elizabeth.russell1@maine.edu) or Matthew Revitt (matthew.revitt@maine.edu).

 

October 20 – Back by popular demand - Trash Can Turkey Roast, 12 noon. Turkey, barbecue pork, baked beans, cole slaw, corn bread, cider, apple pie. Roasters Nathan and Michelle Bliss of West Baldwin, ME. $8.00. Served at Hiram Community Center, 14 Historical Ridge, Hiram, ME 04041. Great Ossipee Museum Open House, 20 Historical Ridge, Hiram, ME 04041. FMI 2076254762

Join Museum L-A for “Chills at the Mill” on Thursday, October 18^th and Friday, October 19^th, an unforgettable behind-the-scenes spooky tour of the Bates Mill! We'll travel into some forgotten parts of the building and share some stories of the more gruesome and creepy history about the mills that you have probably never heard.

Tours will last approximately 45 minutes and will start and end at Baxter Brewing Co, 130 Mill St. There is parking in the Lincoln Street parking garage, free after 5 pm. Tours are $10 per person and include $2 off the cost of a pint of Baxter beer (21+).

On each night, the tours leave every half hour and only have room for 20 people so make sure you reserve your time slot ahead of time by calling Museum L-A!  You can also pay when you arrive. Tours leave every half hour and have a maximum capacity of 20 people. 

Join Museum L-A for “Chills at the Mill” on Thursday, October 18^th and Friday, October 19^th, an unforgettable behind-the-scenes spooky tour of the Bates Mill! We'll travel into some forgotten parts of the building and share some stories of the more gruesome and creepy history about the mills that you have probably never heard.

Tours will last approximately 45 minutes and will start and end at Baxter Brewing Co, 130 Mill St. There is parking in the Lincoln Street parking garage, free after 5 pm. Tours are $10 per person and include $2 off the cost of a pint of Baxter beer (21+).

On each night, the tours leave every half hour and only have room for 20 people so make sure you reserve your time slot ahead of time by calling Museum L-A!  You can also pay when you arrive. Tours leave every half hour and have a maximum capacity of 20 people. 

Join Eleanor Phillips Brackbill as she presents an illustrated talk about An Uncommon Cape: Researching the Histories and Mysteries of a Property. When she bought her house, three mysteries precipitated an investigation into an otherwise ordinary property. Intent upon finding the facts, she peeled back layers of history, allowing the house and the land to tell their stories, while uncovering a past inextricably woven into four centuries of American history. As she unraveled the mysteries, it occurred to her that everyone’s home has a story to tell. At her small Cape there is no historic marker out front, no designation as a historic site. It’s not even very old, and George Washington certainly never slept there. But stories she did find. At the same time, she found 32 owners, across 350 years, who had just one thing in common: ownership of a particular parcel of land. Through material presented in 22 sidebars, the book offers readers insights and guidelines on how to find the stories behind their own homes.

Our speaker, Eleanor Phillips Brackbill, earned an MA in art history at Boston University and studied in the art history doctoral program at City University of New York. Following twenty-five years as a curator at the Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase College, State University of New York, she embarked on a second career writing about history. She lives in Westbrook.

The Kennebec Historical Society October Presentation is co-sponsored by the Maine State Library and free to the public (donations gladly accepted).  The presentation will take place on Wednesday, October 17, 2018, at 6:30 p.m. at the Maine State Library, located at 230 State Street in Augusta.

October 13 – Jake Morrell, author of “Dick Folsom : Bush Pilot - A Legend Reflects”. A presentation of Hiram Historical Society held at Soldiers Memorial Library, 85 Main Street, Hiram, ME 04041. FMI 20076254762

Join Museum L-A and Mainely Improv for a frightfully funny night on Friday, October 12th!  

Mainely Improv is set to perform “Story Tellers Unhinged” and a taste of improv comedy at a Museum L-A fundraiser at the historic Bates Mill.  Story Tellers Unhinged features actors, Julie Poulin, Amanda Kinsey, Brian Files, and Dan Marois acting out a variety of stories with zany comic antics included.

“We take interesting stories and act them out with improvised comedy using any idea that comes to mind in the moment," says Dan Marois. "Our stories can be light hearted, serious, spooky, and outrageous as we add our own spontaneous mix of humor.  We guarantee that our stories are nothing like the ones your parents read to you.”

After performing Story Tellers Unhinged, the troupe will perform some of their regular improv routines that have made them one of the most popular improv comedy troupes in the state.

Tickets are $15 and advance reservation is recommended. Cider and donuts will be provided. All proceeds benefit Museum L-A. 

For more information, contact kwebber@museumla.org or call 207-333-3881

Tate House Museum Presents a Living History Event

Portland ---- On Saturday, October 6, from 9AM to 4PM the Tate House Museum will host a living history day at the museum in historic Stroudwater. The event will showcase a “curated” living history display about the Indian wars here in Maine. These displays incorporate written and pictorial images including period maps, deeds and documents and museum quality reproduction items. These displays are interactive where visitors will get to learn the story of the eighty years of conflicts as told from the perspective of a soldier in the 1750’s and also from a farmer/settler on the Maine frontier in the 1670’s. These stories will be told by re-enactors in period dress and will tell tales that don’t make the textbooks.

This presentation is designed to tell the history of the Casco Bay region from both the Native and English perspective and is designed to be a see, touch, feel history for people of all ages. The event is FREE to the public and will run from 9AM until 4PM.

FMI Contact

Betty Janus

Tate House Museum

1267 Westbrook Street

Portland Maine 04102

Tel 207-774-6177

info@tatehouse.org

Museum L-A is thrilled to announce a new gallery exhibit opening this fall that explores the Franco-American experience through a new medium: cartoons.  The exhibit, "Beau-frog: The Art of Peter Archambault," will display the artwork and political cartoons of Peter Archambault, a native of Madawaska, Maine.  His artwork, featured monthly in a Franco-American publication at the University of Maine at Orono, Le F.A.R.O.G. Forum, provided rich political commentary, an investigation into immigration practices, and an exploration of the Franco-american culture in Maine and New England.

Archambault created a character called "Beau-frog" as a way to reclaim the common slur generally directed toward francophone and French heritage people during this era.  The daily exploits of the frog truly illustrate the trials and tribulations of a minority figure coming to terms with their personal and cultural identity while surrounded by the pressures of an Anglophone majority.  Despite this work being created for the Franco-American students on the Orono campus, the cultural exploration found in Archambault's cartoon drawings can speak to the experiences of the people in our community of Lewiston-Auburn, a place deeply affected by French-Canadian immigration since the 1850s.  While on display in the Museum L-A gallery, his work gives visitors the chance to explore these themes of immigration and cultural identity through the unique medium of cartoons, and allows them to come up with their own interpretations and conclusions about the meaning behind the art.