Maine Memory Network

Wadsworth Insect Collection, Fairfield, ca. 1955

Contributed by: L.C. Bates Museum / Good Will-Hinckley Homes Date: circa 1955 Location: Fairfield; Manchester Media: Photographic print

Josiah Willard on tax collection, 1752

Contributed by: Maine Historical Society Date: 1752 Location: Boston; Kittery Media: Ink on paper

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New York Botanical Garden ornamental conifer collections, Bronx, New York, 1946-1999

Contributed by: Maine Historical Society Date: 1946–1999 Location: Bronx Client: New York Botanical Gardens Architect: Patrick Chasse; Landscape Design Associates

McGeachey Hall Mental Health Center, Portland, 1981

Contributed by: Maine Historical Society Date: 1981 Location: Portland Client: Maine Medical Center Architect: Stevens Architects

Selections from the Collections

Maine Historical Society staff come across unique and unforgettable items in our collections every day. While it's difficult to choose favorites from a dynamic collection, this exhibit features memorable highlights as selected by members of the MHS staff.

CODE RED: Climate, Justice & Natural History Collections

Explore topics around climate change by reuniting collections from one of the nation's earliest natural history museums, the Portland Society of Natural History. The exhibition focuses on how museums collect, and the role of humans in creating changes in society, climate, and biodiversity.

Franco-American Collection

View collections, facts, and contact information for this Contributing Partner.

Colby College Special Collections

View collections, facts, and contact information for this Contributing Partner.

Lifelong Lepidopterist
by E. Christopher Livesay

Chris Livesay collects and studies butterflies.

This Girl Loves Seaweed
by Marianne

Marianne played with seaweed as a child now she collects photos of others with seaweed.

Longfellow Studies: The Writer's Hour - "Footprints on the Sands of Time"

Grade Level: 3-5 Content Area: English Language Arts, Social Studies
These lessons will introduce the world-famous American writer and a selection of his work with a compelling historical fiction theme. Students take up the quest: Who was HWL and did his poetry leave footprints on the sands of time? They will "tour" his Cambridge home through young eyes, listen, and discuss poems from a writer’s viewpoint, and create their own poems inspired by Longfellow's works. The interdisciplinary approach utilizes critical thinking skills, living history, technology integration, maps, photos, books, and peer collaboration. The mission is to get students keenly interested in what makes a great writer by using Longfellow as a historic role model. The lessons are designed for students at varying reading levels. Slow learners engage in living history with Alice’s fascinating search through the historic Craigie house, while gifted and talented students may dramatize the virtual tour as a monologue. Constant discovery and exciting presentations keep the magic in lessons. Remember that, "the youthful mind must be interested in order to be instructed." Students will build strong writing skills encouraging them to leave their own "footprints on the sands of time."

Longfellow Studies: "Haunted Houses"

Grade Level: 6-8, 9-12 Content Area: English Language Arts, Social Studies
Longfellow's collection The Courtship of Miles Standish and other Poems was published in 1858. It sold 250,000 copies in two months and over 10.000 copies in London on the first day; Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was extremely popular during his lifetime. "Haunted Houses" is a work from that collection. It is a poem that is especially appealing around Halloween. The poem welcomes the reader to a place where "The spirit-world around the world of sense floats like an atmosphere . . ."