A crowd gathers for the dedication of the Squirrel Island Library on August 8, 1904.
The library and a pilot collection of 4,000 volumes were the gift of philanthropist Albert H. Davenport (1845-1906) of Malden, Massachusetts.
Davenport was the owner and director of one of the country's leading furniture manufacturers, the Albert H. Davenport Co. of Boston, and had been a summer resident and benefactor of Squirrel Island since 1887.
Davenport and his daughter Alice were present at the library's dedication ceremony, which featured literary presentations, poetry readings and lectures by many of the island's scholars in residence, and recitals by singers Miles Bracewell and Bessie May Bowman.
Inscribed "Long Live the King," this Sheffield-plate button most likely celebrated King George III’s recovery from a long illness in 1789. It was recovered during an excavation of the Tate House in Portland in 1951.
Captain George Tate served as mast agent from 1751 until the Revolutionary War. He remained loyal to the Crown while living in the North American seaport.
Charles Quincy Goodhue (1835-1910), a Portland amateur artist, spent the last 20 years of his life sketching Portland as it looked before the fire of 1866.
This drawing depicts "Alice Greele's Tavern in 1775." Widow Greele's (or Grele) Tavern served as a popular meeting place during the American Revolution.
The building was small for a tavern, one story and long, and located on the east corner of Congress and Hampshire Streets in Portland.
On April 1, 1794 the proprietors of Lovell voted to build a meeting house.
The first Town Meeting was held there in 1801.
The original building was two and one-half stories high, but it was later lowered to one story.
In 1828 pews were sold at auction. The building was not used as a church after 1852.
Warren Hall, known locally as the Brick School House, is located at the intersection of Shore Road and Gleason Road in Perry. Built by John Gleason in 1827 as a school, it was named in memory of General Joseph Warren, who died in the Battle of Bunker Hill.
The Masons bought the building, which continued to be used as a school, and owned it until 1870, when the Town of Perry purchased it.
It was used for town meetings, political and social gatherings, a polling place and as a school with grades 1-4 on the first floor and grades 5-8 upstairs until the new Clark School opened in 1952.
It has been privately owned since 1953, used primarily for storing commercial fisheries equipment.
The Harrington Town Hall is shown in a photo taken about a year before it burned in a large fire in 1911.
On April 28, 1911, the Grange Hall caught fire. Dry conditions caused the fire to spread very rapidly. The Grange Hall, Baptist Church, school, and Town Hall all went up in flames. House and barns owned by Howard Small, Charles Leighton, Azro Nash, Louis Nash, and Moses Nash all burned.
The fire lasted only two hours.
This two-page report from the committee that supervised the construction of Bath's first town hall shows the depth of citizen involvement in the community, as well as the varied contractors and workmen involved in the construction. On land purchased from former governor William King, the town hall rose at a cost of $7448.16. The structure was designed with the thought of containing rentable space, in order to pay some of the building's maintenance expenses. Initially the upstairs contained most of the town offices and meeting space while the first floor held rented store space and a schoolroom. When not in official use, the town hall hosted theatrical performances and even the drill exercise of the Bath Light Infantry.
Transcription
This photo, taken in 1933, is of a town meeting held at Islesboro's Town Hall. At the meeting, the islanders were debating the current ban of automobiles on the island. Islesboro was one of the last places in the country that actively prohibited automobiles. Summer residents believed that the horse and buggy was a much more rustic and traditional form of transportation. However, the islanders believed that it was an inadequate and out-dated form of transportation. After twenty years of debate, Islesboro residents voted March 17, 1933 to repeal the ban on automobiles.
First Congregational Church and City Hall in Brewer in about 1910.
The Abyssinian Church at the corner of Mountfort and Newbury streets, established in 1828, served as the spiritual, geographic and social center for Portland's African-American community.
In 1900 antiquarian Charles Q. Goodhue put memory to paper in this sketch of the Abyssinian Church as it appeared before the Civil War. The church was in use until 1916.
Green Memorial A.M.E. Zion Church on Sheridan Street carried forward the 19th century legacy of service and community.
Creation of the Abyssinian Congregational Church, Portland, 1835
Item Contributed by
Maine Historical Society
The Abyssinian Religious Society was formed after African American parishioners of the Second Congregational Church in Portland refused to be segregated on balcony seating, and experienced animosity by White members who discouraged their attendance.
Grievances were published in an 1826 letter to the Eastern Argus by six cosigners: Christopher Christian Manuel, Reuben Ruby, Caleb Jonson, Clement Thomson, Job L. Wentworth, and John Siggs. In 1828 they joined 22 Black residents who petitioned the state Legislature for authority to incorporate the Abyssinian Religious Society.
The articles of creation were recorded in the Meeting House records on July 27, 1835 "for the purpose of organizing a Church among the people of Coulour of this City."
Transcription
This advertisement for hack service was found in the 1834 Portland Directory, printed by Arthur Shirley.
Meeting House, Dwelling House, Sabbathday Lake Shaker Village, ca. 1915
Item Contributed by
United Society of Shakers
The two buildings symbolize the blending of the old and the new at the Sabbathday Lake Shaker community. In contrast to the traditional 1794 Meeting House designed by Brother Moses Johnson (1752-1842) of Enfield, N.H., the 1883 Dwelling House was designed by the Portland architectural firm of Fassett and Stevens and built under the supervision of George Brock also of Portland.
Groundbreaking took place on April 24, 1883 and the community ate its first meal in the 40 foot by 80 foot, five-story building on Thanksgiving Day 1884.
The windmill in the background pumped water from a well to a water tower. In the foreground is the community vegetable garden.
Sisters and girls, Sabbathday Lake Shaker Village, ca. 1902
Item Contributed by
United Society of Shakers
Pictured from left are, back row, Sisters Clara Stewart, Amanda Stickney, Mamie Curtis, Katherine McTigue, Lizzie Bailey, Laura Bailey, Sarah Fletcher, Jennie Mathers, Ada Cummngs and Claire Chace.
In the front row, from left, are Rosamond Drake, Ethel Corcoran, Grace Freeman, unidentified girl, Irene Corcoran, Iona Sedgley, unidentified girl, Emma Soule and Emma Freeman.
Although organized as celibate religious communities, Shakers still made provisions for the raising of children. By this time, most of the children who entered the community were orphans. They were placed in either the Girls' Shop or Boys' Shop, apart from the adults in the Dwelling House.
Caretakers looked after the children, supervising their education, work and play.
The group is on the front porch of the Girls' Shop, Sabbathday Lake Shaker Village.
From left are the Kapitoleum or Town Hall, the New Sweden Historical Society Museum (the original Town Hall/Kapitoleum), and Capitol Hill School. After the Town Hall was built it provided a meeting place with a recreation center for the town.
In 1970, a fire started in the Kapitoleum and spread to the Museum resulting in the loss of both buildings. An exact replica of the Museum was constructed from plans drawn by Henry Anderson of New Sweden.
Andrew Wiren was the first pastor of the Lutheran Church in the Swedish Colony in New Sweden. He also started the first school in the town.
The North Star, a newspaper published in Caribou, in the February 26, 1873 issue gave the following report about Rev. Andrew Wiren.:
"Pastor Wiren is now teaching school four days a week in that part of New Sweden known as New Jemtland, about six miles from the Capitol Building. Teams are so scarce in the (Swedish) Colony, and the traveling by horse so little, that it is impossible to keep the roads broken (clear of snow) between the Capitol and New Jemtland, so that all going to and fro between the two parts of the settlement is done on Swedish 'snow shoes.'
"Pastor Wiren takes a ride on these long and narrow runners every Monday morning to New Jemtland where he instructs the children four days, then returning Thursday evening, he teaches the children that assemble at the Capitol on Friday to keep them from forgetting what they have previously learned."
In 1924, Sarah Unobskey funded the building of a synagogue in Calais, and hired a rabbi. In an unconventional move, she named it, The Congregation of Chaim Yosef, in honor of her dead husband. It was the first and only synagogue in Washington County, active until 1974.
Most Jews who came to the United States from Europe settled in large cities such as New York and Boston, where they found a vibrant religious community. Being Jewish in Maine was challenging—the Unobskey family experienced anti-Semitism in Eastport, had difficulties finding kosher foods, and found limited opportunities to worship since the closest synagogue was in Bangor.
Certain Jewish prayers require the presence of 10 people, a minyan or prayer quorum. Demonstrating the difficulties of Jewish worship in remote areas of Maine, Sidney Unobskey said that his businessman father, Arthur, “would never sign contracts in New York or Boston. He would tell the salesmen they had to come back to Calais to sign; that way he was able to have minyan.”
Shaarey Tphiloh synagogue, Portland, ca. 1911
Item Contributed by
Maine Historical Society/MaineToday Media
Shaarey Tphiloh, which means "Gates of Prayer," served as a center for the Orthodox Jewish Community in Portland early in the 20th century and opened its first synagogue in Maine at 151 Newbury Street, Portland.
The congregation first met in the fall of 1904, and later moved to 76 Noyes Street as the population shifted into the Deering area.
Shaarey Tphiloh Sisterhood tea invitation, Portland, 1947
Item Contributed by
Congregation Shaarey Tphiloh
The Shaarey Tphiloh Sisterhood held a membership tea on Nov. 18, 1947 at the Jewish Community Center in Portland.
Mrs. L. Shatz performed vocal solos.
The Sisterhood provides financial support to the synagogue as well as supporting other activities such as education, events, community projects, and general care of the synagogue.
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Chevra t'Hillim incorporation papers, Portland, 1914
Item Contributed by
Congregation Shaarey Tphiloh
Chevra t'Hillim was incorporated in 1914 to offer aid and charity for Hebrew people in distress, prayers for sick and injured Hebrew people, and to instruct Hebrew people in religious movements.
Chevra means "group" and different groups were formed for reciting prayers and reading Hebrew texts.
People sought help from Chevra t'Hillim in times of illness, sorrow, or trouble. When requested, members gathered at a person's home, synagogue or funeral chapel and chanted the Psalms of David.
Transcription
St. Mary's Catholic Church, Houlton, ca. 1895
Item Contributed by
Aroostook County Historical and Art Museum
St. Mary's Catholic Church on Military Street, Houlton.
This image is contained in the nine volume published collection of photographs titled, "Art Work of Aroostook County, Maine," v. 8, W. H. Parish Publishing Co., Chicago, 1895. A complete set of volumes is owned by the Aroostook County Historical and Art Museum, Houlton.
Girls at St Joseph's School, Auburn, ca. 1890
Item Contributed by
Franco-American Collection, University of Southern Maine Libraries
St Joseph's was the first Catholic parochial school in Lewiston-Auburn, built in 1881, and served both the established Irish Catholic community, and the new arrivals of French Canadians. Eventually, the growing number of French-Canadian parishioners would necessitate the creation of two new parishes - Saints Peter and Paul's, the "French" parish, and Saint Patrick's, the "Irish" parish. Each parish would go on to construct its own school.
While Lewiston-Auburn's two major Catholic communities would remain distinct, and sometimes hostile to one another, St Joseph's parish maintained a more mixed congregation than any other.
The first YMCA building was designed by Wilfred E. Mansur and built in 1891. The lot sat on the corners of Hammond, Clark, and Court streets. The main building was 75 feet by 90 feet and occupied three floors. A connected rear gymnasium was 40 feet by 69 feet and 38 feet tall. At the corner of Hammond and Court Streets was placed a tower that was the tallest point in the building.
Some of the buildings of the Parmachenee Club, a private hunting-fishing club at Camp Caribou on Treat's Island, Parmachenee Lake, in about 1940.
The club was founded in 1890 on the Meadows of the Magalloway River and moved to the island when a paper company dam flooded the first location.
Les Diables Rouges clubhouse, Lewiston, ca. 1935
Item Contributed by
Franco-American Collection, University of Southern Maine Libraries
The clubhouse Les Diables Rouges, raquetteurs, in Lewiston.
The snowshoe club was part of a large group of such groups in Lewiston and Auburn.
Clubhouses often had game rooms and bars. The clubs were active year-round. Many had bands and participated in sports other than snowshoeing.
This postcard shows the Masonic Temple located at 85 Exchange Street in Portland. Gatherers around the entrance are dressed in formal attire, and a few carriages are parked along the street.
On the back of the postcard, there is an invitation to the laying of the corner stone of the new temple.
Originally the Odd Fellows Hall and Town Hall in Hermon were side by side. Both burned in 1905/06 and were rebuilt in their original locations.
After a second fire in 1927, the Town Hall was not rebuilt.
This picture was taken during the town's centennial celebration.
Masonic Hall, Main Street, is the tax record for a commercial building and lodge located in Bridgton, and owned by the Masons at the date of this survey, around 1938.
The address given is the address at the time of the survey, and has probably changed. The card references a deed dated 1867; this is not the date of the photograph.
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Banner du Institut Jacques Cartier, ca. 1900
Item Contributed by
Franco-American Collection, University of Southern Maine Libraries
In Lewiston, huge popular parades for St-Jean-Baptiste day were held from 1875 to 1966. Organizing the event, which involved thousands of people, was a massive undertaking.
For three-quarters of a century, L-As oldest Franco group, La Institut Jacques Cartier, was responsible for the large scale annual celebration.
Patriotism and ethnic pride highlighted these public manifestations. Reverse side of banner is shown in item #18419.
A painted linen banner with images of tools of the house wrights' trade, including a block plane, a back saw, a broad ax, square and dividers and molding plane, proclaims, "Our Labour & Skill are Indispensable for the Advancement of Civilization."
The reverse features a leaf wreath surrounding the words, "Strength, Convenience, Beauty; the great desiderata in Civil Architecture."
William Capen Jr. painted the banner for the house wrights' group of the Maine Charitable Mechanic Association in Portland.
The banner and 16 others celebrated the work of skilled artisans. The banners were carried in a parade Oct. 8, 1841 in Portland.
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Group photograph. Written on back: "The Mummy Club, Brunswick, Maine, about 1879, Belles of Long-Ago."
Members of the Mummies Club were women from Brunswick who met in members' homes to study literature and art and to "enlarge the mental horizon as well as the knowledge of our members."
Postcard showing the Neal Dow house at 714 Congress Street in Portland. and an inset portrait of Dow.
Dow (1804-1897) was an influential legislator and reformer who sponsored the "Maine Law," which banned the sale of alcohol in Maine.
The Dow family bequeathed the house to the Maine Woman's Christian Temperance Union. It serves as the group's headquarters and is called the Neal Dow Memorial.
A post card image of the Temperance Hall in North Dixmont, about 1900.
A sample ballot for the September 14, 1936 Maine election that featured three items relating to the sale of alcohol in Maine. It was aimed at Portland voters.
Transcription
Lillian Stevens, Woman's Christian Temperance Union, ca. 1890
Item Contributed by
Maine Historical Society
Former National President of the Women's Christian Temperance Union. She was born Lillian Marilla Nickerson Ames in Dover in 1844. Before marrying Michael Stevens, she taught at the Spruce Street and Stroudwater Schools in Westbrook.
She was elected the president of the Maine W.C.T.U. in 1878, and the president of the National W.C.T.U. in 1898. She later became the vice president at-large of the World W.C.T.U.
An 1858 petition, signed mostly by women, asks the Maine Legislature to grant women the right to vote.
Women petitioned for suffrage at both the state and national level until the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution gave all American women voting rights in 1920.
Transcription
Maine Governor Carl E. Milliken signs a Maine legislative resolution to hold a special election on Sept. 10, 1917 on a state constitutional amendment to grant women the right to vote in Maine.
After 40 years of effort, the pro-woman suffrage forces in Maine got the resolution through the Maine Legislature.
At the signing ceremony are, from left, Mrs. Henry Cobb, Mrs. Carl E. Milliken, Governor Carl E. Milliken, Deborah Knox Livingstone, Florence Brooks Whitehouse, Charles Milliken, Mrs. Guy P. Gannett, Mrs. Arthur T. Balentine and Mrs. William R. Pattangall.
The woman suffrage amendment was defeated on Sept. 10. A national woman suffrage amendment passed on August 18, 1920.
The Amity-Cary Grange, Maine Grange #384
The first Maine Granges were established in 1873 with the Maine State Grange being organized in 1874. By 1907 the Maine Granges had a membership of over 55,000.
Issues for which the Grange strongly advocated include rural free delivery, parcel post, womens suffrage, prohibition and many other farm and rural life concerns.
Hathorn Hall and Parker Hall are on the Bates College campus in Lewiston.
The photograph of a student strike at Colby College in Waterville is from the Echo, Spring 1970, and was taken by Mike Harvey '72.
The National Student Association declared a student strike across the nation when President Nixon sent U.S. troops into Cambodia in 1970, escalating the war in Southeast Asia.
A few days after student protesters at Kent State were fired upon and killed, Colby students staged a nonviolent protest, marching from the campus to the Waterville Post Office and joined the nationwide student strike.
Anti-Slavery Society of Waterville College petition, 1833
Item Contributed by
Colby College Special Collections
On July 4th,1833, inspired by William Lloyd Garrison's lecture in Waterville, students petitioned to establish an Anti-Slavery Society. They wrote a preamble and a constitution with 13 articles.
This petition letter is a second attempt to get approval from the Board of Trustees. It was not until 1858 that the Colby faculty permitted the formation of the society.
The document was signed by: R. Giddings, Z. Bradford, F. Barker, I. Clarke, J.H.T. Dale, B. Osgood Pierce, L.B. Allen, R.G. Colby, James Upham, Henry P. Brown, Amoriah Joy, R.F. Potter, James S. Wiley, Z.P. Wentworth, E.L. Magoon, Jonathan Forbush, Asa Millett, Augustus Evertt, B. Wells, Ivory Quimby, Isaac M. Comings, Edward P. McKown, Erastus Everett, Ahira Jones, Samuel W. Field, E.T. Allen, C.S. Busell, Geo.S. LeRow, Wm. B. Wedgwood, Saml. L. Gould, Benjamin Williams, and William Mathews.
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Minutes, Portland Anti-Slavery Society, 1844-1846, 1850-1851
Item Contributed by
Maine Historical Society
This book contains the secretary's records of the Portland Anti-Slavery Society, including the Preamble, Constitution, and organizational information. The group, formed in 1844 (an earlier anti-slavery society had existed as well) included African-Americans from the Munjoy Hill area as well as a variety of white residents of Portland. Men and women belonged to the group. In many locations, women were not allowed to belong to male anti-slavery societies.
The group followed the ideas of William Lloyd Garrison, who believed in immediate abolition and moral suasion to end slavery. The records book includes discussions of these issues as well as indications of conflict with city officials about holding anti-slavery lectures.
Because the book is 45 pages, downloading the transcription will take time. The file is 16.3 megabites.
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This image of the L.C. Bates Museum in Hinckley is part of the Wittemann collection of images used on postcards.
The Museum holds the natural history and other collections of George Walter Hinckley, founder of the Good Will Farms for needy children.
Winslow Public Library, Winslow, ca. 1980
Item Contributed by
Winslow Historical Preservation Committee
The original Winslow library building, on the east side of Lithgow Street in Winslow, was erected in 1926-27 at a cost of $3,000 on land donated by George Bassett.
Jennie Howard was the first librarian, serving from 1905 to 1933. Her compensation at one time was $52 a year.
Although, the library building still stands and is used by a local genealogical society, the town library was moved to a different location after the devastating Flood of 1987.
In 1907 and only two years from the time Woodland was a forested, largely uninhabited wilderness, Charles Murray, an immigrant from Italy, built the Woodland Opera House to provide the then boom town a venue for entertainment.
The St. Croix Paper Mill was built by immigrant Italians, and they loved opera. Murray’s Hall, which became known as the Opera House, was dedicated on December 31, 1907. A special train from Calais took guests to the Grand Ball.
Murray made his countryman, Michael Foggia, its manager and for over half a century the Opera House was the social center of the town. Located just outside the mill gate, it featured vaudeville, plays, dancing, and even prize fights in the early years.
By the roaring 20s moving pictures were the central attraction and, in the 1930s, bowling alleys were added. It hosted high school graduations and school plays in the days Woodland’s school had no gym.
Mike Foggia, who soon bought the building, opened a store on the first floor, which became known for its fresh Italian bread.
The business closed in the late 1950s, and the building was razed. The site became a parking area for the mill.
Portrait of opera singer Lillian Nordica by Hermann Schmiechen.
Lillian, a native of Farmington, was the first singer to be heard in the new Trocadero in Paris and her assocation with the Metropolitan Opera House in New York brought her fame.
Her birth home is now a museum called the Nordica Homestead Museum and many of her belongings can be viewed including her gowns, tiaras, furniture, and paintings.
Lucy Nicolar Poolaw and Bruce Poolaw, Indian Island ca. 1940
Item Contributed by
Maine Historical Society
Lucy Nicolar (1882-1969) was a nationally-known performer and businesswoman. She was part of the Penobscot Nation, and grew up on Indian Island. Her father was Penobscot leader and author, Joseph Nicolar.
Nicolar, a mezo-soprano, performed as “Princess Watahwaso” and recorded with Victor Records. Lucy Nicolar met and married Bruce Poolaw, from the Kiowa Tribe of Oklahoma, while traveling across the country performing as “Indians” at wild west shows and on the theater circuit.
When the stock market crashed in 1929, Nicolar returned home to the Penobscot reservation with her husband Bruce. Together, they opened Chief Poolaw's TeePee in 1947, a store that featured Penobscot artwork.
Madame Emma Eames is shown here in a publicity photo for Richard Wagner's "Die Walkure," taken by Aime Dupont. Madame Eames is dressed for the role of Sieglinde for London's opera season of 1898.
The Bath Opera House is shown as it was ready to reopen after surviving the fire of March 1925. The Opera House was built on the site of the 1883 Alameda Hall and originally opened on November 21, 1913. Frank Churchill was the architect and engineer for the project. The land had been sold by the Alameda Association to the Abrams Amusement Co. in 1912.
In the early years, the Opera House hosted traveling musical comedies and novelty acts such as "Odiva, the Samoan Diving Queen" with her school of Pacific sea lions, as well as the increasingly popular moving picture. The Opera House also hosted high school graduations and major news announcements like the bombing of Pearl Harbor.
In the fall of 1971, the building was demolished due to its poor condition and inability to compete financially with newer theaters. Bath's home of popular entertainment, first as the Alameda and then the Opera House, was gone after nearly 90 years.
Found in the late Harry Webber's scrapbook, this purple broadside advertises a Bath vs. Rockland roller polo game, played at Bath's Alameda Opera House.
Bath won its first home game 5-4. Tickets for this game were sold at Walter Webber's drugstore; Harry Webber, who was the manager of the team, was Walter Webber's son.
The fourth player from the top, Walter Murtaugh, was a resident of Bath for several years. He originally came to Bath in 1899 to play for the Alamedas, the Bath polo team at the time. Murtaugh played halfback, and was described in his obituary as "the best defenseman in the entire Maine League."
Popular from about 1880-1910, roller polo was a fast-paced game, similar to ice hockey or field hockey.
"Hartland has a public hall at last." So reads the headline of the March 3, 1892, Pittsfield Advertiser describing the completion of the Hartland Opera House. Two years previously, the town had voted to loan its credit for $2000 to assist in building suitable accommodations for a public hall with rooms above for civic organizations including the Masons and Odd Fellows. The building was proclaimed to be one of the "finest and most commodious structures of its kind" to be found in the area.
In 1897, the orginal opera house burned, but was rebuilt immediately and for approximately the same cost as the original.
The opera house was the scene for many evenings of entertainment. In 1912, the Hartland Hall Association was granted the right to have movies.
At the 1959 town meeting, voters approved having the town acquire the stock of the Hartland Hall Association so as to have the building as a town hall.
Jean-Baptiste Couture, Lewiston, ca. 1900
Item Contributed by
Franco-American Collection, University of Southern Maine Libraries
Jean-Baptiste Couture (1866-1943), a native of Québec, left school at age 13 to become a typesetter. He came to the United States in about 1883, where he worked for Lewiston's French language newspaper, Le Messager.
He owned and published the paper for more than 50 years and founded WCOU, a bilingual radio station, as well as being active in politics and theater.
L'Amour A Bord, Lewiston, ca. 1930
Item Contributed by
Franco-American Collection, University of Southern Maine Libraries
Jean-Baptiste Couture (1886-1943), a long-time leader of the Franco-American community in Lewiston-Auburn, produced and starred in this French version of Gilbert and Sullivan's H.M.S. Pinafore.
The scene is the arrest of Ralph Rackstraw.
The production likely was a world premier. Couture translated the work into French.
The actors are, first row, from left, Olivier Giguerre, unidentified, J.-B. Couture, next three unidentified, Dr. Raoul Lafond, Marie Michaud and Yvonne Reny.
Second row, from left, are Edouard Parent, Napoleon Sansoucy, unidentified, Irma Marcoux, Alfred Marcoux, Joseph Caouette, Philippe Courture, unidentified, Denis Giguere, three unidentified, and F.X. Patry.
In the third row, from left, are unidentified, Amedee Talbot, two unidentified, Marjorique Hamel, Carrier, and the rest unidentified.
Theater production, Lewiston, 1896
Item Contributed by
Franco-American Collection, University of Southern Maine Libraries
Les Cloches de Corneville, was directed by and starred J.-B. Couture, shown at center right with ruffled sleeves.
The actors, singers, and musicians all were local talent. Costumes and stage sets were made locally.
Couture (1866-1943) was a leader of the Franco-American community of Lewiston-Auburn for more than 50 years.
Photograph of children enjoying a Francis "Frank" Hamabe puppet show.
Beginning in 1998 with six movies on a television screen in the basement of Congregation Bet Ha'am in South Portland, the Maine Jewish Film Festival has grown to international proportions.
The festival has screened over 250 movies and brought artists from around the world to Portland, exposing Mainers to the world of Jewish film making.
Grand Lake Grange meeting hall in Weston for Maine Grange #375.
The Patrons of Husbandry, better known as the Grange, was founded in Washington D.C. in 1867 and the first Maine Granges were established in 1873 with the Maine State Grange being organized in 1874.
The Grange served as an educational and social function and lobbied for rural free mail delivery, woman suffrage, prohibition and other many farm and rural life concerns.
The Thor Bicycle Club, composed of Danish immigrants from the Portland area, had on an outing at Sebago Lake in 1897.
Cast of La Veuve Joyeuse, Lewiston, Maine, 1941
Item Contributed by
Franco-American Collection, University of Southern Maine Libraries
This photograph shows the cast of the 1941 production of La Veuve Joyeuse, performed in Lewiston. Pictured, standing, from left, are: Dr. C. Victor Caron, Fernand Despins, Liliane Michaud Marcotte, Raoul Raymond, Romeo Bégin, and Simone Payer. Seated, from left, are Charles Morneau, Lionel Bolduc, Jeannette M. Roy, and Zépherin Gosselin.
Despite being an Austrian piece (by Franz Lehar), La Veuve Joyeuse (the Merry Widow), as the French translation was known, was popular with Franco-Americans in Lewiston. It was one of many musicals performed under the direction of Jean-Baptiste Couture and the "Club Musical Litérature."
J. P. Davis & Speer illustration from 'The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow with numerous illustrations.' Boston : Houghton, Mifflin and Company; James R. Osgood and Company, 1880. p. 86. This appears with the Longfellow poem "Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie."
The title page of "The Christians exercise by Satans temptations: or, An essay to discover the methods which this adversary useth to tempt the children of God and to direct them how to escape the mischief therof" by Samuel Willard (1640-1707), a minister in Boston.
The book contains sermons Willard delivered in Boston in 1701.
He had been a minister at Groton from 116-1676, but was driven out by Indians. He was opposed to the witchcraft trials.
The title page also includes a quotation from James 4:7, "Resist the Devil, and he shall flee from you."
Transcription
Members of the Ku Klux Klan from various Maine communities--men, women, and children--gathered in Portland for a field day on August 28, 1926. The Portland Expo building is to the right rear.
The Klan was active in Maine in the 1920s as a secret fraternal society that sought to influence politics and promote its ideas of nativism and Americanism, which included opposition to Roman Catholics, Jews, Black people, and immigrants. Over 10,000 people attended a Klan initiation ceremony in August 1923 in Portland.
In 1920 almost 4,000 immigrants arrived in Maine from European countries. French Canadians were also coming to Maine in large numbers, seeking employment in the textile and lumber mills—few of them spoke English and many were Roman Catholics.
Klan-backed candidates were elected as mayors, state legislators, and members of school committees. In 1924 and 1926, Ralph O. Brewster was elected governor, the only elected Maine politician openly associated with the Klan.
Klan supporters in Portland bought an estate in 1923 and added a 4,000-seat auditorium and a 1,600-seat dining room. The auditorium burned in December 1924 and was not rebuilt.
During the summer of 1854 anti-Catholic sentiments were running high. A mob in Bath, incited by a street preacher, ransacked and burned the Protestant church that had been rented by Catholics as a place of worship.
The Know-Nothing party was held responsible for this act.
The hate and bigotry against Irish Catholics in the mid 19th century was chronicled by Mary Agnes Tincker in "The House of Yorke" (1872).
Englishman John Hilling, who had settled in Bath around 1840, recorded the destruction of the Old South Church, also known as the Old South Meeting House. An 1855 article in the Weekly Mirror denounced the prejudice and violence, noting the mob chanted "down with papal power" as they "tore up the pulpit and ripped out the pews." The same article noted the Meeting House burned in less than 20 minutes, and that Hilling's paintings were "perfect representations of the house and its destruction."
John Hilling was born in England in 1822 and arrived in America in the early 1840s, where he settled in Bath, Maine. He remained in Bath until he enlisted in the Civil War infantry in March 1864. He soon rose to sergeant, but received a horrible spinal injury and was honorably discharged on December 12 of the same year. His spinal injury affected him the rest of his life, in which he focused on painting. Hilling died in Wells in August 1894, and was buried in Bath.
Ismail Ahmed immigrated from war-torn Somalia to Maine. He opened S.T.T.A.R. (Support, Training, Technical Assistance and Resources) agency in 2007 to help refugees become self-sufficient.
A consultant with a master’s degree in leadership and organizational studies from the University of Southern Maine’s Lewiston-Auburn College, Ahmed provided what he remembered needing most when he arrived in the United States,—English and workplace-skills training. He made sure his students understand American cultural values so they can climb the ladder to self-sufficiency shown on his business card. “I tell them, ‘Time is money now. This is a competitive world.’”
After Lewiston’s Mayor, Laurier Raymond, wrote a letter of concern on the front page of the Lewiston Sun Journal in 2002 expressing concerns about Somalis in the community, citizens in the Lewiston/Auburn area formed the "Many and One Coalition" to show support for the cities' Somali immigrants.
Lewiston received national attention from the media, social justice organizations, and white supremacists after Mayor Raymond asked the Somali community to stop coming to Lewiston, and to, “exercise some discipline and reduce the stress on our limited finances and our generosity…We have been overwhelmed and have responded valiantly. Now we need breathing room.”
The letter prompted support and outrage. The World Church of the Creator (WCOTC) and the Many and One Coalition held competing rallies on January 11, 2003. Turnouts indicated that the majority of Lewiston’s citizens supported tolerance, with 300 people attending the WCOTC rally, and an overflow crowd of up to 5,000 people at Many and One’s event.
This T-shirt commemorates a later event hosted by Many and One—Ten days of Diversity and Justice in 2004.
Building of Arts was built in 1906, a task spearheaded by some of the summer population in Bar Harbor. It was created as a place to bring talent from major cities for the summer residents to enjoy. It is said that it was not for the local population.
In the mid-1930s attendance to events and interest in it declined. The building was sold in 1941 and again in May 1947, just five months before it was destroyed in the Fire of 1947. It was not rebuilt.
Guy Lowell designed the Building of Arts in Bar Harbor.
Some of the financial support for the building came from Mrs. Henry Dimock, Mrs. Robert Abbe, Henry Lane Eno, George Dorr and George Vanderbilt.
The builidng was dedicated on July 13, 1907 with a concert that featured Emma Eames. The Boston Symphony performed there as did several other notables of the time.
The Building of Arts stood off the Cromwell Harbor Road near the corner of Kebo Street and burned in the Fire of 1947.
Building of Arts was built for the summer population of Bar Harbor. It was meant to be a place where music lovers and professional musicians from all over the country would come to entertain the summer colony.
Members of the building committee included George Dorr, Mr. Vanderbilt and Mrs. Robert Abbe. Guy Lowell of Boston, Massachusetts, was chosen as architect for the building.
It was finished in 1907 with a final cost of approximately $100,000.
The opening concert was held on Saturday, July 13, 1907. Mme. Emma Eames and Mr. Emilio De Gogorza were soloists.
Over the next 35 years the Building of Arts held concerts and shows by Ernest Schelling, Paderewski, Walter Damrosch, dancer Ted Shawn, Josef Hofmann, and many others, including celebrated stars from Hollywood and Broadway.
By the end of this time period the building had fallen into disrepair and was sold in January 1943 to Earl D. and Charles A. Holt for $305.24. Just four years later in April 1947 the Holts sold the building to Consuello Sides of Boston and New York. The plan was to use it as a summer theater.
In October 1947 the Building of Arts was destroyed by fire.
