Maine Historical Society - Programs Podcast

Tilly Laskey; Recorded May 16, 2019 - Listen to Tilly Laskey for a fascinating talk of her book PRECIOUS AND ADORED: The Love Letters of Rose Cleveland and Evangeline Simpson Whipple, 1890–1918. Co-edited with Lizzie Ehrenhalt, with a Foreword by Lillian Faderman, the book presents captivating letters, published in their entirety, that document nearly 30 years of love between two women of the Gild...

Carol Gardner; Recorded May 23, 2019 - Author Carol Gardner will discussed the lives of some of Maine's earliest European settlers: prisoners of war who were sent to Maine, New Hampshire and Massachusetts against their wills, in 1650 to 1651. As forced laborers and later, as free men, these soldiers left their marks on early New England society, and evidence of their existence is with us today. Dr...

with Maine Farmland Trust; Recorded November 15, 2018 - No matter how many seasons they have been with their soil, farmers develop a strong connection with their land. For each farmer, this relationship is unique and therefore, manifests differently into the food we eat and the communities we live in. Maine Farmland Trust hosted three farmers for a live storytelling night at the Maine Historical S...

Recorded September 13, 2018 - In conjunction with MHS's yearlong Maine Eats exhibition and in recognition of National Hunger Awareness month, we are pleased to partner with Full Plates Full Potential to present a forum exploring pathways out of Maine's unsavory history of childhood food insecurity. The discussion was moderated by MHS's Executive Director, Steve Bromage and panelists included Jean...

Tom Huntington; Recorded July 12, 2018 - The story of Colonel Joshua Chamberlain and the 20th Maine Volunteer Infantry on Little Round Top during the Battle of Gettysburg has entered into legend. But there's much more to Maine at Gettysburg than that one regiment. The state's soldiers made their presence felt all over the Pennsylvania battlefield during three days of fighting in July 1863—and duri...

Lisa Brooks; Recorded March 22, 2018 - In Our Beloved Kin , Lisa Brooks recovers a complex picture of war, captivity, and Native resistance during the "First Indian War" (later named King Philip's War) by relaying the stories of Weetamoo, a female Wampanoag leader, and James Printer, a Nipmuc scholar, whose stories converge in the captivity of Mary Rowlandson. Through both a narrow focus on Weetam...

Patricia Q. Wall; Recorded February 10, 2018 - Through her new book, Lives of Consequence: Blacks in Early Kittery & Berwick in the Massachusetts Province of Maine , author Patricia Q. Wall reveals new startling information about the era of slavery in Maine's earliest settled region. Based on six years of intense research, Mrs. Wall’s wealth of findings not only banish the old myth of slavery's sc...

Richard Rubin, author; Recorded April 20, 2017 - In The Last of the Doughboys , Richard Rubin introduced readers to a forgotten generation of Americans: the men and women who fought and won the First World War. But he soon came to realize that to get the whole story, he had to go Over There , too. So he did, and discovered that while most Americans regard that war as dead and gone, to the French,...

Jacqueline Field, adjunct curator; Recorded February 23, 2017 - Costume historian and adjunct curator of MHS, Jacqueline Field, discusses the economic implications of world war. Prior to World War I, Germany provided the world’s supply of textiles dyes. As the war began, embargoes were imposed and trade routes disrupted. The lack of dyes forced American industries to scramble and figure out to cre...

Recorded January 12, 2017 - Listen to a conversation between Lucas St. Clair, the man behind the newly named North Woods national monument, and Steve Bromage, MHS Executive Director. The Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument in Maine’s northern woods region came by the determination and grit of St. Clair. This federally protected land promises to revolutionize the region’s economy, but it di...

Dr. Ronald Epp, author and historian; Recorded October 26, 2016 - Author and historian Dr. Ronald Epp speaks about his important book, documenting Dorr's pivotal role in the creation of Acadia National Park. The first biography of George B. Dorr ever written, Creating Acadia National Park: the Biography of George Bucknam Dorr is based on painstaking research both in the US and abroad, including fe...

Mount Desert Historical Society Executive Director Tim Garrity; Recorded September 22, 2016 - George Dorr intended for Acadia National Park's "noble granite masses" to "become true historic documents that will record forever to succeeding generations the human background of the Park." However, no history lasts forever. The French historian Fernand Braudel taught that "History is the child of its t...

Paul Ledman, Author; Recorded August 11, 2016 - In Walking Through History: Portland, Maine on Foot , Paul Ledman brings the city’s history to life through photos and maps, appealing to city residents as well as its visitors. Enjoy this short talk by Ledman at the book launch for Walking Through History: Portland, Maine on Foot .

Recorded June 23, 2016 - Through historical anecdotes and fascinating oral histories, Maine Nursing: Interviews and History on Caring and Competence explores the remarkable sacrifices and achievements of Maine's nurses who have served tirelessly as caregivers and partners in healing at home and abroad, from hospitals to battlefields. Authors Susan Henderson and Juliana L'Heureux talk about their b...

Recorded July 6, 2016 - In companion to Images of Destruction: Remembering the Great Portland Fire of 1866 --our exhibit examining the city's devastating fire of July 4, 1866--enjoy the fascinating look at the history behind this infamous event. On this sesquicentennial anniversary of the fire, former State Representative Herb Adams lead a discussion with Maine State Historian Earle G. Shettlewort...

Rob Sneddon, journalist and sports historian; Recorded May 25, 2016 - Journalist and sports historian Rob Sneddon discussed the infamous Muhammad Ali-Sonny Liston fight of May 25, 1965, which ended in chaos at a high school hockey rink in Lewiston, Maine. Sneddon dug deep into the fight's background and delivered new perspective on boxing promotion in the 1960s; on Ali's rapid rise and Liston's su...

Recorded March 10, 2016 - Orson Horchler, aka Pigeon, discusses the exhibition Pigeon's Mainer Project: street art meets history , his process, and inspiration behind his work. He leads a discussion about immigration, questioning and debunking the notion of who gets to call themselves a "Mainer."

Speaker: Michael Dekker; Recorded October 20, 2015 - For eight decades, an epic power struggle raged across a frontier that would become Maine. Between 1675 and 1759, British, French and Native Americans clashed in six distinct wars to stake and defend their land claims. Author Michael Dekker, a former trustee on the Lincoln County Historical Society board of directors and a member of the Boothbay...

Speaker: John Babin, MHS Visitor Services Manager; Recorded October 27, 2015 - Maine Historical Society Visitor Services Manager John Babin—who has led tours in the Wadsworth-Longfellow House for more than a decade—talks about his new book on Longfellow. You'll feel as though you've stepped back in time to the poet's early days and landed in 19th century Portland—the bustling seaport town that so...

Speaker: Libby Bischof, Associate Professor of History, USM; Recorded January 31, 2015 - In addition to wearing only black apparel for up to a year, mourners in 18th and 19th century New England abided by fashions and customs that demonstrated intense grief. Libby Bischof, Associate Professor of History at the University of Southern Maine and a board member of Spirits Alive, the friend's group of...

Speaker: Matthew Edney, Osher Professor in the History of Cartography, University of Southern Maine; Recorded January 22, 2015 - Matthew Edney, Osher Professor in the History of Cartography at the University of Southern Maine, uses the collections of the Maine Historical Society and USM’s Osher Map Library and Smith Center for Cartographic Education to analyze urban maps as cultural documents and...

Speaker: Emerson "Tad" Baker; Recorded January 8, 2015 - Author Emerson "Tad" Baker explores the catalog of explanations that have been put forward over the years to solve the mystery of what happened during the Salem Witch Trials in 1692. Behind the events in Salem and surrounding towns was a unique convergence of conditions, including a new charter and government, a grim and bloody frontier war...

Speaker: Richard Judd, Professor of History, University of Maine; Recorded December 9, 2014 - After more than a decade of extensive research, the Historical Atlas of Maine presents in cartographic form--maps, paintings, graphs, and text--the historical geography of Maine from the end of the last ice age to the year 2000. Organized in four chronological sections, the Atlas tells the principal stori...

Speaker: Matthew Jude Barker; Recorded December 2, 2014 - Did you know that the second-youngest recipient ever of the Medal of Honor was 14-year old John Anglin, son of Irish emigrants who grew up near Gorham's Corner? Or that Colonel Patrick R. Guiney, leader of Boston's Fighting Irish Ninth, also hailed from Portland? Hundreds of Irishmen and boys from Portland fought in the war, and more than 9...

Speaker: Lee Webb; Recorded November 18, 2014 - A PhD candidate in the Department of History at the University of Maine, Webb has been researching and writing extensively about Maine politics and culture during the war. He shared his research in this talk relating to the traveling exhibition, Lincoln: The Constitution & the Civil War , which was on display in the Brown Library from November 12 to...