Maine Memory Network

Samuel L. Carleton daguerreotype, Portland, ca. 1852

Contributed by: Maine Historical Society Date: circa 1852 Location: Portland Media: Daguerreotype

Teenage boy and model airplane, ca. 1935

Contributed by: Maine Historical Society Date: circa 1935 Media: glass negative

People, Pets & Portraits

Informal family photos often include family pets -- but formal, studio portraits and paintings also often feature one person and one pet, in formal attire and pose.

Lincoln County through the Eastern Eye

The Penobscot Marine Museum’s photography collections include nearly 50,000 glass plate negatives of images for "real photo" postcards produced by the Eastern Illustrating and Publishing Company of Belfast. This exhibit features postcards from Lincoln County.

Early Maine Photography - Studio Portraits

"… sought to make the connection between portrait photography and the larger scale, and more costly tradition of portrait painting. Samuel L."

Early Maine Photography - Occupational Photography

"Reflecting Maine’s seagoing heritage are four portrait photographs of captains whose stern faces reflect the responsibilities of commanding a ship at…"

21st and 19th century technology and freelance photography
by Brendan Bullock

My work is a mash-up of cutting edge technology and 19th century chemistry techniques.

Longfellow Studies: Celebrity's Picture - Using Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's Portraits to Observe Historic Changes

Grade Level: 3-5, 6-8, 9-12 Content Area: Social Studies, Visual & Performing Arts
"In the four quarters of the globe, who reads an American book?" Englishman Sydney Smith's 1820 sneer irked Americans, especially writers such as Irving, Cooper, Hawthorne, and Maine's John Neal, until Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's resounding popularity successfully rebuffed the question. The Bowdoin educated Portland native became the America's first superstar poet, paradoxically loved especially in Britain, even memorialized at Westminster Abbey. He achieved international celebrity with about forty books or translations to his credit between 1830 and 1884, and, like superstars today, his public craved pictures of him. His publishers consequently commissioned Longfellow's portrait more often than his family, and he sat for dozens of original paintings, drawings, and photos during his lifetime, as well as sculptures. Engravers and lithographers printed replicas of the originals as book frontispiece, as illustrations for magazine or newspaper articles, and as post cards or "cabinet" cards handed out to admirers, often autographed. After the poet's death, illustrators continued commercial production of his image for new editions of his writings and coloring books or games such as "Authors," and sculptors commemorated him with busts in Longfellow Schools or full-length figures in town squares. On the simple basis of quantity, the number of reproductions of the Maine native's image arguably marks him as the country's best-known nineteenth century writer. TEACHERS can use this presentation to discuss these themes in art, history, English, or humanities classes, or to lead into the following LESSON PLANS. The plans aim for any 9-12 high school studio art class, but they can also be used in any humanities course, such as literature or history. They can be adapted readily for grades 3-8 as well by modifying instructional language, evaluation rubrics, and targeted Maine Learning Results and by selecting materials for appropriate age level.