Keywords: Early Schools
- Historical Items (211)
- Tax Records (0)
- Architecture & Landscape (0)
- Online Exhibits (109)
- Site Pages (331)
- My Maine Stories (28)
- Lesson Plans (5)
Online Exhibits
Your results include these online exhibits. You also can view all of the site's exhibits, view a timeline of selected events in Maine History, and learn how to create your own exhibit. See featured exhibits or create your own exhibit
Exhibit
Evergreens and a Jolly Old Elf
Santa Claus and evergreens have been common December additions to homes, schools, businesses, and other public places to America since the mid nineteenth century. They are two symbols of the Christian holiday of Christmas whose origins are unrelated to the religious meaning of the day.
Exhibit
Washington County Through Eastern's Eye
Images taken by itinerant photographers for Eastern Illustrating and Publishing Company, a real photo postcard company, provide a unique look at industry, commerce, recreation, tourism, and the communities of Washington County in the early decades of the twentieth century.
Exhibit
Remembering Mellie Dunham: Snowshoe Maker and Fiddler
Alanson Mellen "Mellie" Dunham and his wife Emma "Gram" Dunham were well-known musicians throughout Maine and the nation in the early decades of the 20th century. Mellie Dunham also received fame as a snowshoe maker.
Exhibit
The Establishment of the Troy Town Forest
Seavey Piper, a selectman, farmer, landowner, and leader of the Town of Troy in the 1920s through the early 1950s helped establish a town forest on abandoned farm land in Troy. The exhibit details his work over ten years.
Exhibit
Visitors to the Maine woods in the early twentieth century often recorded their adventures in private diaries or journals and in photographs. Their remembrances of canoeing, camping, hunting and fishing helped equate Maine with wilderness.
Exhibit
Student Exhibit: Medicine in Times Past
Inspired by Dr. Greenleaf Wilbur's medical box at the Skowhegan History House, this exhibit highlights some Mainers in the medical field of the past and the stories they had.
Exhibit
Doing Good: Medical Stories of Maine
Throughout Maine’s history, individuals have worked to improve and expand medical care, not only for the health of those living in Maine, but for many around the world who need care and help.
Exhibit
Promoting Rockland Through a Stereopticon, 1875
Frank Crockett and photographer J.P. Armbrust took stereo views of Rockland's downtown, industry, and notable homes in the 1870s as a way to promote tourism to the town.
Exhibit
Elise Fellows White: Music, Writing, and Family
From a violin prodigy in her early years to an older woman -- mother of two -- struggling financially, Skowhegan native Mary Elise Fellows White remained committed to music, writing, poetry, her extended family -- and living a life that would matter and be remembered.
Exhibit
2009 marked the bicentennials of the births of Abraham Lincoln and his first vice president, Hannibal Hamlin of Maine. To observe the anniversary, Paris Hill, where Hamlin was born and raised, honored the native statesman and recalled both his early life in the community and the mark he made on Maine and the nation.
Exhibit
Wired! How Electricity Came to Maine
As early as 1633, entrepreneurs along the Piscataqua River in southern Maine utilized the force of the river to power a sawmill, recognizing the potential of the area's natural power sources, but it was not until the 1890s that technology made widespread electricity a reality -- and even then, consumers had to be urged to use it.
Exhibit
George F. Shepley: Lawyer, Soldier, Administrator
George F. Shepley of Portland had achieved renown as a lawyer and as U.S. Attorney for Maine when, at age 42 he formed the 12th Maine Infantry and went off to war. Shepley became military governor of Louisiana early in 1862 and remained in the military for the duration of the war.
Exhibit
In Maine, like many other states, a newly formed Ku Klux Klan organization began recruiting members in the years just before the United States entered World War I. A message of patriotism and cautions about immigrants and non-Protestants drew many thousands of members into the secret organization in the early 1920s. By the end of the decade, the group was largely gone from Maine.
Exhibit
Maine is home to dozens of summer-long youth camps and untold numbers of day camps that take advantage of water, woods, and fresh air. While the children, counselors, and other staff come to Maine in the summer, the camps live on throughout the year and throughout the lives of many of the campers.
Exhibit
In 1857, when Daniel Cough left Amoy Island, China, as a stowaway on a sailing ship from Mt. Desert Island he was on his way into history as the first Chinese person to make his home in Maine. He was soon followed by a cigar maker and a tea merchant who settled in Portland and then by many more Chinese men who spread all over Maine working mostly as laundrymen.
Exhibit
Lewiston, Maine's second largest city, was long looked upon by many as a mill town with grimy smoke stacks, crowded tenements, low-paying jobs, sleazy clubs and little by way of refinement, except for Bates College. Yet, a noted Québec historian, Robert Rumilly, described it as "the French Athens of New England."
Exhibit
Cultures from the ancient Greeks and Chinese to contemporary societies have set aside time to give thanks, especially for the harvest. In 1941, the United States set a permanent date for the observance.
Exhibit
Like many cities in France, Lewiston and Auburn's skylines are dominated by a cathedral-like structure, St. Peter and Paul Church. Now designated a basilica by the Vatican, it stands as a symbol of French Catholic contributions to the State of Maine.
Exhibit
Father John Bapst: Catholicism's Defender and Promoter
Father John Bapst, a Jesuit, knew little of America or Maine when he arrived in Old Town in 1853 from Switzerland. He built churches and defended Roman Catholics against Know-Nothing activists, who tarred and feathered the priest in Ellsworth in 1854.
Exhibit
Elise Fellows White: World Traveling Violin Prodigy
Elise Fellows White was a violinist from Skowhegan who traveled all over the world to share her music.
Exhibit
Settlers' clothing had to be durable and practical to hold up against hard work and winters. From the 1700s to the mid 1800s, the women of Maine learned to sew by making samplers.
Exhibit
Student Exhibit: The Story of the Heywood Tavern
The story of the Heywood Tavern in Skowhegan.
Exhibit
Rum, Riot, and Reform - Women Leaders and Temperance
"1910-1920 Collections of Maine Historical Society; gift of Richard J. Kahn, MD S-5664 These surveys, distributed to schools around the state, asked…"
Exhibit
Music in Maine - Country Music
"A teacher in our elementary school, who played piano and taught some music in school, found out that I could sing and encouraged me."