Events at Member Institutions

John H. Twomey will speak about his recent book, Retiring To, Not From -- From Massachusetts Professor to Maine Farmer.  The discussion will encompass many aspects of life on his farm and his comments will be accompanied by a slide presentation.  John and his partner Leigh Norcott live off grid in a 19^th century Maine farmhouse.  They raise vegetables, fruits, chickens and brook trout, and enjoy hiking and cross-country skiing on the many trails on the farm.  Indeed, their lives include many aspects of life from the 19^th, 20^th, and 21^st centuries.  John and Leigh live quietly and very much in touch with the natural world that surrounds them.  Since 1978 John has worked on maintaining and improving wildlife habitat on the farm’s 125 acres.  He will discuss these efforts, focusing attention on his work in the fields, brushy areas, and woodlands.  

After 37 years as a professor at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, John retired in 2009 and moved, with his partner Leigh Norcott, to Montville, Maine. There they live simply and deliberately on the farm that John has owned since 1978.  The farm operates on solar power, completely off grid, and John and Leigh work together as they produce almost all of their own food, and all of their own firewood.  An avid naturalist, John has for years worked to maintain and improve the wildlife habitat on the farm.  He does so by carefully scheduling the mowing of his fields and brushy areas, by planting, transplanting, grafting, and pruning hundreds of apple trees, and by planting thousands of white and chestnut oaks.  Having seen farms sold and developed in his hometowns in Connecticut and Massachusetts, John long ago set his sights on owning and nurturing an old New England farm, a traditional home place. He has accomplished that and intends to permanently protect his Montville farm.

The Kennebec Historical Society September Presentation is co-sponsored by the Maine State Library and free to the public (donations gladly accepted).  The presentation will take place on Wednesday, September 20, 2017, at 6:30 p.m. at the Maine State Library, located at 230 State Street in Augusta. ​ The program will be preceded at 4:30pm by a potluck supper and at 6pm by the society’s annual meeting and election of officers and directors.

The Union Meeting House is on the National Register of Historic Places primarily because of the famous well preserved trompe l’oeil murals by Charles Schumacher of Portland, done in 1866-68.  The building was built in 1827-28 and is said to be one of the oldest brick churches in Maine.  The presentation will focus on the murals and discuss steps being taken to preserve this historic, artistic and cultural landmark.

Our speaker, Marius B. Peladeau, is the President of the Union Meeting House, director emeritus of the Farnsworth Art Museum, former executive director of the Theater at Monmouth, former exhibition curator at the L.C. Bates Museum, former director of the Maine League of Historical Societies and Museums.  He was an accredited White House correspondent and press secretary to a U.S. Congressman.  Marius also holds B.A., M.S., and M.A. degrees and is the author of six books on art, history and culture.

The Kennebec Historical Society August Presentation is co-sponsored by the Lithgow Public Library and free to the public (donations gladly accepted).  The presentation will take place on Wednesday, August 16, 2017, at 6:30 p.m. at the Lithgow Public Library, located at 45 Winthrop Street in Augusta. ​  

This visual slideshow explores the “herstories” of Penobscot Bay women and daughters who went to sea in the nineteenth and early twentieth century. Despite the old sailors' superstition that women at sea were unlucky, the women accompanied their fathers and husbands on cargo voyages around the world. Some were literally born into the profession and others joined their love ones with initial trepidation. Using letters, manuscripts and newspaper articles from the Penobscot Marine Museum archives and objects from the collection, we will learn about their experiences at sea.

Cipperly Good, Collections Manager and Curator at Penobscot Marine Museum in Searsport, spent her early museum career just upriver at the L.C. Bates Museum and returned to Maine full-time in 2010 to take her current job at Penobscot Marine Museum. She holds a Masters of Arts in Museum Studies from The George Washington University and is a graduate of Colby College. She regularly presents to senior colleges, public libraries, historical societies, and other historical groups.

The Kennebec Historical Society July Presentation is free to the public (donations gladly accepted) and will take place on Wednesday, July 19, 2017, at 6:30 p.m. at the Hope Baptist Church, located at 726 Western Avenue in Manchester. ​

Reckoning with Nature: Andrew Winter at Monhegan Island

Monhegan, ME.  June 24 – September 30, 2017

Museum hours:

July and August: 11:30-3:30 daily

June and September: 1:30-3:30 daily

Admission: $10.00

Catalogue of exhibition: available on-line and at the museum: $20

Opening reception: Sunday, July 2^nd from 4:00 to 6:00 pm.

Website: www.monheganmuseum.org

Andrew Winter was an acclaimed mid-twentieth century artist, born in Estonia, who sailed around the world before immigrating to the United States, establishing himself as a New York artist, and ultimately making Monhegan Island his year round home. Winter’s decision to live on Monhegan shaped his art in ways that distinguish him from the many artists of the island's summer art colony.  He painted snow-covered vistas, rough winter seas, and fishermen at work hauling lobster traps. This summer’s art exhibition is a retrospective of Andrew Winter’s Monhegan paintings.

Winter’s love of the sea began during his childhood spent near the northern reaches of the Baltic Sea.  Unable to pursue art lessons at an early age, Winter shipped out as a merchant seaman at the age of 20 and traveled the world.    In 1920 he settled in New York and became a U.S. citizen.  He was then able to enroll in the School of the National Academy of Design, and establish himself as an artist, living in New York’s Tenth Street Studio building.  After visiting the island in the 1930s Winter and his wife, Mary gave up their New York apartment and bought a home on Monhegan.  Andrew Winter lived and painted there until his death in 1958.

Winter’s early experience as a merchant seaman drew him to paint the island and community as it related to the surrounding sea.  He rowed his boat out into heavy seas to gather material for his paintings of working lobstermen and painted many shipwrecks along Monhegan’s shoreline, including the famous wreck of the D.T. Sheridan tugboat of 1948. 

Winter’s attraction to this remote island off the Maine coast was not a rejection of the art world.  He continued to exhibit his work, including at the international Venice Biennial in 1938, with other noted painters such as Winslow Homer and Albert Pinkham Ryder.

The Monhegan Museum of Art & History is located in the historic Monhegan Island Light Station, 12 nautical miles off the coast of Maine and exists to steward and showcase the art and artifacts that represent the collective values of its community and to educate and communicate its meaning. The Monhegan Light Keeper’s House contain exhibits of Monhegan’s history. The Assistant Keeper’s House holds an art gallery that displays annual art exhibitions featuring the museum's art collection which spans more than 150 years.  Additionally, the Rockwell Kent/James Fitzgerald Historic Artists’ Home and Studio display a collection of works by Fitzgerald.  The museum is open daily from June 24 through September 30 and the Kent/Fitzgerald Home and Studio are open two days a week and by appointment throughout the summer.

 

 

The short-lived Popham Colony, established in 1607 in what is now the coastal town of Phippsburg, was the first English settlement in New England.  Englishmen set up the colony at the mouth of the Kennebec River.  The colony lasted a year, after which they sailed back for England.  One of their accomplishments while in Maine was the construction of a “pretty pinnace,” a boat they named Virginia.  The small sailing vessel took them back to England in 1608.  The Virginia also made an Atlantic crossing in 1609 as part of a fleet.

In this presentation, Rob Stevens and Allison Hepler discuss the history of the colony, and present-day efforts to reconstruct the Virginia in Bath.  Rob Stevens is a wooden boatbuilder of 35 years, and is overseeing the reconstruction of Virginia.  Allison Hepler is a history professor at the University of Maine at Farmington, and a local historian. Both are active members of Maine’s First Ship, the organization devoted to reconstructing the vessel.

The Kennebec Historical Society June Presentation is free to the public (donations gladly accepted) and will take place on Wednesday, June 21, 2017, at 6:30 p.m. at the South Parish Congregational Church, located at 9 Church Street in Augusta. ​  

Oxford County is world-famous for its pegmatites and the spectacular minerals they produce. Granite pegmatites are coarse-grained, igneous rocks that contain exceptionally large crystals of feldspar, mica, quartz, and sometimes a suite of rare earth elements and gem-quality minerals. The most spectacular crystals are found in “pockets”, or open cavities in the rock that allow minerals to grow unimpeded.  Minerals here tend to have few flaws.

Three generations of the Perham family have mined the pegmatites of Oxford County from a number of different quarries according to “The Perham Family Quarries,” an article by Sydney D. Eckert in the July 2014 issue of the Maine Geological Survey.  In the early 1920s, the nearest feldspar processing mill was in Auburn, Maine.  It was not economical to transport the feldspar that far.  Alfred Perham, with the help of some local investors, constructed the Oxford Mining and Milling Company plant in 1924 to process the feldspar mined in the area by the Perhams and others.  The mill operated into the late 1960’s.  Alfred’s son, Stanley, opened his store in West Paris in 1919.  It saw visitors from every state in the nation and from countries all over the world.  Stanley passed on his love of minerals and business sense to his children, Frank and Jane.  Frank, our speaker, was lucky to come from a line of Maine miners but he relied on more than just his luck to make a name for himself in the mineral community.  He trained as a geologist at Bates College like his father.  Frank has spent a lifetime in the mines and has his own mineral museum, The Mineral Pocket.  He has a vast amount of knowledge and the respect from geologists and enthusiasts alike to show for it.  Frank is presently 83 years old and still does some summer weekend mining. 

The Kennebec Historical Society May Presentation is free to the public (donations gladly accepted) and will take place on Wednesday, May 17, 2017, at 6:30 p.m. at the Maine State Library, located at 230 State Street in Augusta. ​  

Nineteenth-century Maine―famed for its lumbering, shipbuilding, and seafaring―has attracted copious attention from historians, but early twentieth-century Maine has not. Maine on Glass redresses this imbalance with 190 postcard photos and three of Maine’s foremost historians.

Postcards were the Instagrams of the early twentieth century. On one day in September 1906, 200,000 postcards were mailed from Coney Island. In 1913 some 968,000,000 postcards were sent in the U.S., more than seven per person. The majority of postcards made at the turn of the twentieth century were mass-produced lithograph or letterpress half-tones, but the Eastern Illustrating & Publishing Company produced “real photo postcards” in the form of silver gelatin prints made by exposing the negative onto photo paper card stock and developing it in a traditional wet darkroom.  Eastern was the largest U.S. manufacturer of what it called “genuine” photo postcards.  Images selected for the book were from 22,000 glass plate negatives created by the Eastern company between 1909 and World War II.  As an archive of early twentieth-century Maine architectural photography, the Eastern collection (now housed at the Penobscot Marine Museum) has no equal, and it gives us many unexpected glimpses of Maine life.  Maine residents, expatriates, and visitors will enjoy hours of pleasure in this journey through Maine’s countryside, villages, and towns, guided by three historians who can bring a vista to life with a few well-chosen comments.

Kevin Johnson received his bachelor’s degree from St. Joseph's University in 1989. He worked as a paralegal until 2003 when he decided to leave the “9 to 5” world to pursue a career in fine art photography.  He relocated from Vermont to Maine in August 2003 to attend the Maine Photographic Workshops in Rockport, where he earned a Professional Certificate in Photography.  It was at the Workshops that he first began working on the Eastern Illustrating Collection.  In 2007, he helped to rescue the collection when the pipes burst in Union Hall where it was stored which prompted its donation to the Penobscot Marine Museum.  He followed the collection to Searsport where he currently works as the Photography Archivist.  He was a founding member of Aarhus Gallery in Belfast, Maine and teaches photography courses at Maine Media College, Waterfall Arts and Unity College.  As museum Photo Archivist, Kevin has created numerous exhibits of historic photography, led student projects, and taught adult courses for the museum, as well as managing the museum’s 200,000+ piece photo archive.

A native of Portland, Maine, Earle G. Shettleworth, Jr., attended Deering High School, Colby College, and Boston University and was the recipient of honorary doctorates from Bowdoin College and the Maine College of Art.  At the age of thirteen, Shettleworth became interested in historic preservation through the destruction of Portland’s Union Station in 1961.  A year later he joined the Sills Committee which founded Greater Portland Landmarks in 1964.  In 1971 he was appointed by Governor Curtis to serve on the first board of the Maine Historic Preservation Commission, for which he became architectural historian in 1973 and director in 1976.  He retired from that position in 2015.  Mr. Shettleworth has lectured and written extensively on Maine history and architecture and served as State Historian since 2004.

Bill Bunting lives in Whitefield. When he came home from his first day in school his mother asked him how it had gone. Not well, he said. There was nothing about ships, nothing about olden days, and nothing about how things worked. He has been trying to fill that vacuum ever since.  W. H. “BILL” Bunting is the author of several critically acclaimed works of history including Portrait of a Port: Boston 1852-1914; Steamers, Schooners, Cutters, and Sloops: The Marine Photographs of N. L. Stebbins; and The Camera's Coast: Historic Images of Sea and Shore in New England; Live Yankees.  With Earle G. Shettleworth, Jr., he wrote An Eye for the Coast: The Monhegan and Maritime Photographs of Eric Hudson and Maine on Glass: The Early Twentieth Century in Glass Plate Photography.  Bill Bunting shipped as galley boy aboard the brigantine Yankee at age 13 and later completed a 25,000-mile world voyage as first mate of a 132-foot barkentine.

The Kennebec Historical Society April Presentation is free to the public (donations gladly accepted) and will take place on Wednesday, April 19, 2017, at 6:30 p.m. at the Maine State Library, located at 230 State Street in Augusta. ​  

AASLH Collections Management and Practices Workshop

Early Bird Registration Deadline – May 1

June 5-6 – Maine Historical Society, Portland, ME

http://learn.aaslh.org/event/collections-management-and-practices-2/

Learn about your institution’s responsibility toward its collection, necessary policies and procedures, and the best practices of collection management. Through lively group discussions and hands-on activities, you will become familiar with current issues and trends to better understand how collections fit within the context of history organizations. The workshop will also explore the role of collections in exhibition and interpretation, the basic steps of collections management from acquisition to disposal, professional standards and ethics, conservation on a shoe-string budget, and the many resources available for collections preservation. This workshop is led by Samantha Forsko of the Conservation Center for Art and Historic Artifacts and Bethany Hawkins of AASLH.

Who Should Attend:

This workshop is targeted to new professionals and dedicated volunteers with responsibility for collections.

Cost: $280 AASLH members/$405 nonmembers

*Get $40 off registration if you book by May 1, 2017!*

Early-Bird Registration Deadline is May 1! You can register today at http://learn.aaslh.org/event/collections-management-and-practices-2/ .

Please contact Amber Mitchell, Education and Service Coordinator, at Mitchell@aaslh.org or 615-320-3203 if you have any questions about this or other upcoming workshops.

In 1952 there were at least seventy-six grocery stores in Augusta (Mannings).  In addition, there were meat markets, fruit and vegetable stores, confectionaries, bakeries, fish stores and several drug stores.  Most if not all were independently owned.  Sand Hill, Augusta’s Franco-American neighborhood, had a larger concentration of neighborhood grocery stores—Magasins.  Depending on the source, from 18 to 27 stores operated on Sand Hill at various times.

This 48-minute documentary explores the history of small, family-owned grocery stores located on Sand Hill in the early to late 20^th century.  Several former Sand Hill individuals whose families owned and operated neighborhood stores were interviewed to capture a representative sense of life on The Hill.  The documentary uses historical photographs from the Kennebec Historical Society’s digital archive collection, as well as photos provided by the families themselves and St. Michael’s Parish. While the documentary focuses on Sand Hill, the broader story applies to the city as a whole, describing a close-knit community made up of shopkeepers in a time before big-box stores, malls and too many cars.   

Our speaker, Norm Rodrigue, was born in Augusta in 1949 and raised on Sand Hill, came from a family of seven children.  His father and grandfather were classic Franco-American mill workers who worked at the Bate’s/Edwards Mill.  He attended St. Augustine School and graduated from Cony High School.  He earned a BA in English and a Masters in Public Administration from the University of Maine at Orono and an MBA from Thomas College.  After a career in business, Norm retired and pursued his longstanding interest is a still photography.  His photos have been exhibited locally and have won several awards and his photo cards are sold at various local businesses.  Recently, Norm took up videography and is using it to explore local history, another longstanding interest. Norm has produced two other videos including: Streams in the Seasons, a video depicting the sights and sounds of streams on Kennebec Land Trust properties spanning an entire year; and A Simpler Time, a video about three contemporary Downtown Augusta tradesmen, showcasing early twentieth century trades, including a milliner, cobbler and vintage audio/stereo repairman.  

The Kennebec Historical Society March Presentation is free to the public (donations gladly accepted) and will take place on Wednesday, March 22, 2017, at 6:30 p.m. at the Club Calumet, located at 334 West River Road in Augusta. ​  

Why are historic houses necessary to their communities? How are historic house museums unique? This workshop focuses on the unique needs, management, and interpretation of historic houses. With a focus on historic house museums, topics covered include collections care, types of research appropriate for historic house museums, exhibition development, interpretive tours, volunteers, and building and landscape maintenance.

Register

Details:

Date: April 6-7, 2017

Location: Strawbery Banke | Portsmouth, New Hampshire

Cost: $270 members/$385 nonmembers

What Participants Said:

“The ‘notebook’ of articles is a great idea and a tangible helper to take back with us. The faculty’s experiences were invaluable–they will be a great resource, too!”

“The most helpful part was seeing institutions’ actual documents.”

“The enthusiasm & varied backgrounds of the participants was helpful.”

“As a volunteer–gave me a realistic view of the job description of our curators, staff & us as volunteers.”

About the Faculty:

Max A. van Balgooy is the president of Engaging Places, LLC, a design and strategy firm that helps connect people with historic places. He is a national leader in historical interpretation and community engagement, with extensive experience in developing solutions in collaboration with diverse audiences, including volunteers, staff, trustees, residents, scholars, design professionals, business leaders, and elected officials. He has more than 35 years of experience working in museums historic preservation, heritage tourism, and historic sites, including senior positions at the National Trust for Historic Preservation and the Workman and Temple Homestead Museum. A recognized researcher, author, speaker, and blogger on the trends, challenges, and opportunities facing museums, historic sites, and cultural organizations, he is a frequently requested facilitator, trainer, and consultant on business strategy, historical interpretation, public programming, marketing, and online media.

He also teaches in the Museum Studies Program at George Washington University, sits on the editorial board of Curator journal, is a MAP Peer Reviewer with the American Alliance of Museums, and served on the AASLH Council. He received his M.A. in history from the University of Delaware as a Hagley Fellow, his B.A. in history from Pomona College, and participated in the Historic Deerfield Summer Program in Early American History and Material Culture and the Attingham Summer School for the Study of Historic Houses and Collections.

 George W. McDaniel is President of McDaniel Consulting, LLC, a company George established after serving 25 years as Executive Director of Drayton Hall, a historic site in Charleston, SC owned by the National Trust for Historic Preservation. McDaniel Consulting’s tag line, “Building Bridges through History,” is grounded in George’s personal beliefs and his experience in site management, preservation, education, board development, fundraising, and community outreach. Rather than using history to divide us, he strives to help organizations use history, especially local history, to enhance cross-cultural understanding and to support local museums, preservation, and education.  As an example, George recently led volunteer efforts with Emanuel AME Church and historical organizations in Charleston to use historic preservation to enhance racial reconciliation and healing.

A native of Atlanta, he holds a B.A. in history from Sewanee, an M.A.T. in history from Brown University, and a Ph.D. in history from Duke University.  The author of numerous publications, he has written two essays for 2017 AASLH publications:  “Commemorating Tragedy, Healing Wounds: Mother Emanuel AME Church” in Commemoration: An American Association of State and Local History Guide, and “Building Bridges through Local History” in Encyclopedia of Local History. Also due for publication in 2017by the University of Virginia Press is his essay, “Stepping Up and Saving Places: Case Studies in Whole Place Preservation,” in Stewards of Memory: The Past, Present, and Future of Historic Preservation at Mount Vernon. A frequent presenter at workshops, conferences, and public gatherings, he earned in 2015 the South Carolina Environmental Awareness Award and in 2016 the S.C. Governor’s Award for Historic Preservation, the first person in the state to have won the leadership awards in both fields.

 Register

- See more at: http://learn.aaslh.org/event/historic-house-museum-issues-and-operations-4/#sthash.go7wClCn.dpuf