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- Historical Items (575)
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- Online Exhibits (68)
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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
Clean Water: Muskie and the Environment
Maine Senator Edmund S. Muskie earned the nickname "Mr. Clean" for his environment efforts during his tenure in Congress from 1959 to 1980. He helped created a political coalition that passed important clean air and clean water legislation, drawing on his roots in Maine.
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Melting snow, ice, warmer temperatures, and rain sometimes bring floods to Maine's many rivers and streams. Floods are most frequent in the spring, but can occur at any season.
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Maine Medical Center, Bramhall Campus
Maine Medical Center, founded as Maine General Hospital, has dominated Portland’s West End since its construction in 1871 on Bramhall Hill. As the medical field grew in both technological and social practice, the facility of the hospital also changed. This exhibit tracks the expansion and additions to that original building as the hospital adapted to its patients’ needs.
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Waldoboro Fire Department's 175 Years
While the town of Waldoboro was chartered in 1773, it began organized fire protection in 1838 with a volunteer fire department and a hand pump fire engine, the Water Witch.
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Many different types of trolley cars -- for different weather, different uses, and different locations -- were in use in Maine between 1895-1940. The "field guide" explains what each type looked like and how it was used.
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Home: The Longfellow House & the Emergence of Portland
The Wadsworth-Longfellow house is the oldest building on the Portland peninsula, the first historic site in Maine, a National Historic Landmark, home to three generations of Wadsworth and Longfellow family members -- including the boyhood home of the poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. The history of the house and its inhabitants provide a unique view of the growth and changes of Portland -- as well as of the immediate surroundings of the home.
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Walter Wyman's vision to capture the power of Maine's rivers to produce electricity led to the formation of Central Maine Power Co. and to a struggle within the state over what should happen to the power produced by the state's natural resources.
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Dressing Up, Standing Out, Fitting In
Adorning oneself to look one's "best" has varied over time, gender, economic class, and by event. Adornments suggest one's sense of identity and one's intent to stand out or fit in.
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Since the establishment of the area's first licensed hotel in 1681, Portland has had a dramatic, grand and boisterous hotel tradition. The Portland hotel industry has in many ways reflected the growth and development of the city itself. As Portland grew with greater numbers of people moving through the city or calling it home, the hotel business expanded to fit the increasing demand.
Exhibit
Biddeford, Saco and the Textile Industry
The largest textile factory in the country reached seven stories up on the banks of the Saco River in 1825, ushering in more than a century of making cloth in Biddeford and Saco. Along with the industry came larger populations and commercial, retail, social, and cultural growth.
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For one hundred years, Acadia National Park has captured the American imagination and stood as the most recognizable symbol of Maine’s important natural history and identity. This exhibit highlights Maine Memory content relating to Acadia and Mount Desert Island.
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At the heyday of trolleys in Maine, many of the trolley companies developed recreational facilities along or at the end of trolley lines as one further way to encourage ridership. The parks often had walking paths, dance pavilions, and various other entertainments. Cutting-edge technology came together with a thirst for adventure and forever changed social dynamics in the process.
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Student Exhibit: Somerset Railroad
The Somerset Railroad was completed in 1872. It started out as a dream to link the Maine Coast with Canadian businesses to the north. It ran from the North Woods around Moosehead Lake down to Southern Maine and back again for 56 years.
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Pigeon's Mainer Project: who decides who belongs?
Street artist Pigeon's artwork tackles the multifaceted topic of immigration. He portrays Maine residents, some who are asylum seekers, refugees, and immigrants—people who are often marginalized through state and federal policies—to ask questions about the dynamics of power in society, and who gets to call themselves a “Mainer.”
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Student Exhibit: Historic Buildings on Madison Ave in Skowhegan
Take a tour and see some of the beautiful old buildings that used to be on Madison Avenue, Skowhegan? A few still remain, but most have been torn down.
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From Sewers to Skylines: William S. Edwards's 1887 Photo Album
William S. Edwards (1830-1918) was a civil engineer who worked for the City of Portland from 1876-1906. Serving as First Assistant to Chief Engineer William A. Goodwin, then to Commissioner George N. Fernald, Edwards was a fixture in City Hall for 30 consecutive years, proving indispensable throughout the terms of 15 Mayors of Portland, including all six of those held by James Phineas Baxter. Edwards made significant contributions to Portland, was an outstanding mapmaker and planner, and his works continue to benefit historians.
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Workers in Maine have labored in factories, on farms, in the woods, on the water, among other locales. Many of Maine's occupations have been determined by the state's climate and geographical features.
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Yarmouth's "Third Falls" provided the perfect location for papermaking -- and, soon, for producing soda pulp for making paper. At the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th, Yarmouth was an international leader in soda pulp production.
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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
In Time and Eternity: Shakers in the Industrial Age
"In Time and Eternity: Maine Shakers in the Industrial Age 1872-1918" is a series of images that depict in detail the Shakers in Maine during a little explored time period of expansion and change.
Exhibit
Home: The Wadsworth-Longfellow House and Portland - The Privy
"Corey probably added a water closet and bathroom with running water. The privy was no longer needed and was filled with debris."
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Photojournalism & the 1936 Flood
Photojournalism & the 1936 Flood examines the monumental destruction caused by the historic flood of 1936 through the comprehensive and innovative photojournalism done by the Guy Gannett Publishing Company in the weeks surrounding the flood.
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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.
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A Portland newspaper wrote about an ice storm of January 28, 1886 saying, "The city of Portland was visited yesterday by the most inconvenient storm of the season."