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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
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
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.
Exhibit
Of Note: Maine Sheet Music features captivating covers of original sheet music along with stories about Maine connections to the songs. Before people had easy access to popular music from records, radios, and the internet, they played songs of the day on instruments at home, using sheet music purchased at music stores. Iconic Maine subjects like lobsters, pine trees, and winter were perfect for lyrics sung by luminaries like Rudy Vallée of Westbrook, and intricate artwork of Maine’s landscape graced the sheet music covers.
Exhibit
Summer Folk: The Postcard View
Vacationers, "rusticators," or tourists began flooding into Maine in the last quarter of the 19th century. Many arrived by train or steamer. Eventually, automobiles expanded and changed the tourist trade, and some vacationers bought their own "cottages."
Exhibit
Poland Spring: Summering in Fashion
During the Gilded Age at the end of the nineteenth century, Americans sought to leave increasing urban, industrialized lives for the health and relaxation of the country. The Poland Spring resort, which offered a beautiful setting, healing waters, and many amenities, was one popular destination.
Exhibit
Home: The Wadsworth-Longfellow House and Portland - The Wadsworth Era: 1786-1807
"Letters Eliza wrote during the summer of 1800 indicate that she and Stephen Longfellow -- who was a favorite of both Eliza and Zilpah -- had an…"
Exhibit
Home: The Wadsworth-Longfellow House and Portland - The Longfellow Era: 1807-1901
"… "...on our own street we have had a whole summer of dust already...for in our town is the constant stir up by the horse cars."
Exhibit
Sugar and Spice: Our Vintage Recipes
Sugar and Spice: Our Vintage Recipes showcases historic recipes, dating from the 18th century to the 1950s, like sweet treats, traditional favorites, promotional printings, medicinal concoctions, curious libations, and recipes that have fallen out of favor.
Exhibit
Great Cranberry Island's Preble House
The Preble House, built in 1827 on a hilltop over Preble Cove on Great Cranberry Island, was the home to several generations of Hadlock, Preble, and Spurling family members -- and featured in several books.
Exhibit
An enduring element of summer camps is the songs campers sing around the campfire, at meals, and on many other occasions. Some regale the camp experience and others spur the camp's athletes on to victory.
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MY ISLAND HOME: Verlie Colby Greenleaf of Westport Island
Verlie Greenleaf (1891-1992) bore witness to over a century of Westport Island's history. Many changes occurred during Verlie's 100-year life. Verlie Greenleaf donated photographs, personal notes, and sat for an interview in 1987, all part of the Westport Island History Committee's collection. Her words frame this exhibition, providing a first-person account of her life.
Exhibit
Sagadahoc County through the Eastern Eye
The Eastern Illustrating and Publishing Company of Belfast, Maine. employed photographers who traveled by company vehicle through New England each summer, taking pictures of towns and cities, vacation spots and tourist attractions, working waterfronts and local industries, and other subjects postcard recipients might enjoy. The cards were printed by the millions in Belfast into the 1940s.
Exhibit
This collection of images portrays many buildings in Sanford and Springvale. The images were taken around the turn of the twentieth century.
Exhibit
Bookplates Honor Annie Louise Cary
A summer resident of Wayne collected more than 3,000 bookplates to honor Maine native and noted opera singer Annie Louise Cary and to support the Cary Memorial Library.
Exhibit
The mainspring of fashion is the process whereby members of one class imitate the styles of another, who in turn are driven to ever new expedients of fashionable change.
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
Gifts From Gluskabe: Maine Indian Artforms
According to legend, the Great Spirit created Gluskabe, who shaped the world of the Native People of Maine, and taught them how to use and respect the land and the resources around them. This exhibit celebrates the gifts of Gluskabe with Maine Indian art works from the early nineteenth to mid twentieth centuries.
Exhibit
George W. Hinckley and Needy Boys and Girls
George W. Hinckley wanted to help needy boys. The farm, school and home he ran for nearly sixty nears near Fairfield stressed home, religion, education, discipline, industry, and recreation.
Exhibit
Desserts have always been a special treat. For centuries, Mainers have enjoyed something sweet as a nice conclusion to a meal or celebrate a special occasion. But many things have changed over the years: how cooks learn to make desserts, what foods and tools were available, what was important to people.
Exhibit
Northern Threads: Outerwear, Militia & Cadet uniforms
A themed vignette within "Northern Threads Part I," featuring 19th century outerwear, bonnets, militia and cadet uniforms.
Exhibit
May Baskets, a Dog, and a Party for Children
Two women thinking intruders were coming into their Biddeford Pool home, let the dog out to chase them away. Later, they discovered the truth about the noise at their door.
Exhibit
Drawing Together: Art of the Longfellows
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow is best know as a poet, but he also was accomplished in drawing and music. He shared his love of drawing with most of his siblings. They all shared the frequent activity of drawing and painting with their children. The extended family included many professional as well as amateur artists, and several architects.
Exhibit
Cosmopolitan stylings of Mildred and Madeleine Burrage
Born in Portland, sisters Mildred Giddings Burrage (1890-1983) and Madeleine Burrage (1891-1976) were renowned artists and world travelers. Mildred's experiences studying painting in Paris and Italy, and the sisters' trips to Mexico and Guatemala inspired their artwork and shared passions for cosmopolitan and stylish attire. Housed at Maine Historical Society, The Burrage Papers include selections of original advertising drawings called "line sheets" from Parisian fashion houses dating from 1928 to 1936. Images of Madeleine's gemstone jewelry and Mildred's artwork accompany intimate family photographs of the sisters.
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.