Exhibits

Maine Memory Network is featuring 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.

Bird and butterfly display at the Portland Society of Natural History, ca. 1965

Bird and butterfly display at the Portland Society of Natural History, ca. 1965

CODE RED: Climate, Justice & Natural History Collections

Explore topics around climate change by reuniting collections from one of the nation's earliest natural history museums, the Portland Society of Natural History. The exhibition focuses on how museums collect, and the role of humans in creating changes in society, climate, and biodiversity. Read on.

Paddling into a flooded garage, Saco, 1936

Paddling into a flooded garage, Saco, 1936

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. Read on.

Streeter garden, Kingfield, ca. 1910

Streeter garden, Kingfield, ca. 1910

Chansonetta Stanley Emmons: Staging the Past

Chansonetta Stanley Emmons (1858-1937) of Kingfield, Maine, experimented with the burgeoning artform of photography. Starting in 1897, Emmons documented the lives of people, many in rural and agricultural regions in Maine and around the world. Often described as recalling a bygone era, this exhibition features glass plate negatives and painted lantern slides from the collections of the Stanley Museum in Kingfield on deposit at Maine Historical Society, that present a time of rapid change, from 1897 to 1926. Read on.

North Atlantic Appalachian Domain map, 2007

North Atlantic Appalachian Domain map, 2007

Building the International Appalachian Trail

Wildlife biologist Richard Anderson first proposed the International Appalachian Trail (IAT) in 1993. The IAT is a long-distance hiking trail along the modern-day Appalachian, Caledonian, and Atlas Mountain ranges, geological descendants of the ancient Central Pangean Mountains. Today, the IAT stretches from the Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument in Maine, through portions of Canada, Greenland, Iceland, the Faroe Islands, and Europe, and into northern Africa. Read on.

"Chops and Tomato Sauce" as prepared for Samuel Pickwick,  ca. 1890

"Chops and Tomato Sauce" as prepared for Samuel Pickwick, ca. 1890

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. Read on.

Portland civil engineers surveying Pearl Street sewer, Portland, 1887

Portland civil engineers surveying Pearl Street sewer, Portland, 1887

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. Read on.

Focus On...

Explore our featured collections


Architecture & Landscape database

Rendering for Irving C. Bailey Esq., Winthrop, 1883

An ever-growing resource documenting Maine's built and designed environment, this database includes architecture and landscape design commissions from ca. 1850 through the present. Represented works include Maine architects and designers; commissioned projects in Maine or for Maine residents; and to a lesser extent, out-of-state commissions by Maine architects. Read on.

Beyond Borders - Mapping Maine and the Northeast Boundary

Plan of J. Robinson lot, Topsham, 1761

The Beyond Borders project, a two and half year initiative (2020-2022) supported in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities, was crafted to digitize and provide free, full-text online access to three of Maine Historical Society's oldest and most significant archival holdings: the Plymouth Company, also known as the Kennebec Proprietors (Coll. 60), the Pejepscot Proprietors (Coll. 61), and the Barclay (Coll. 26) Collections. These primary resources provide essential context for important contemporary topics such as Indigenous land and water rights; and the preservation and use of public lands. The Beyond Borders portal provides access to vital primary resources for framing scholarship, programs, exhibitions, and civic dialog about land and waterways in Maine. Read on.

Malaga Island: a story best left untold

Malaga Island residents with missionary, 1909

In 1912, a multi-racial community of about forty-five people was evicted by the state of Maine from Malaga Island, just off the coast of Phippsburg. It was an act motivated by economics, racism, eugenics, and political retribution. Photographer Kate Philbrick and radio producer Rob Rosenthal produced "Malaga Island: A Story Best Left Untold" in collaboration with WMPG-FM and the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies in Portland, Maine in 2009. This webpage archives the 2009 project at Maine Historical Society and on Maine Memory Network. The site was previously found at malagaislandmaine.org. Read on.

Rum, Riot, and Reform

Cache of liquor, Portland, 1920

Maine played a central role in the United States' gradual—and sometimes riotous—move towards drinking reform. This exhibition covers a period from 1620 to 1934, highlighting the role that drink played in Maine's social, economic and political history, and profiling the events and leaders in Maine that catalyzed other States' and eventually the Nation's prohibition of alcohol. Read on.

Music in Maine

The Lone Pine Mountaineers, Bangor, ca. 1940

Music is something we share as humans, non-verbal forms of storytelling and expressions of beauty and emotions through sound. Music reflects the diversity of cultures, influences of historical events, and vast differences in landscape that contribute to the unique soundscape of Maine. Wabanaki songs reaching back 13,000 years are distinct from Franco chansons. Lumberjack work chants and sailor shanties differ from operas sung by 19th century Maine divas. Yet they are all uniquely Maine sounds. Music from around the world flooded into Maine through maritime trading ports in the 18th and 19th centuries. When radio and television waves raced across Maine in the 20th century, instead of diluting musical traditions, these influences layered blues, country, bluegrass, and rock and roll. Today, Maine music is a bountiful intersection from around the world. Read on.

Freedom & Captivity Portal

Landscape 2 Blue, Warren, 2021

The Freedom & Captivity digital collection in the Maine Memory Network, and the complete digital archive housed at Colby Special Collections, is a repository of personal testimonies, ephemera, memorabilia, artifacts, and visual materials that capture multiple dimensions of the experiences of incarceration for individuals, families, and communities, as well as for survivors of harm. Read on.

Historic Clothing Collection

Leavitt family coat-dress, Eastport, ca. 1830

An interpretive introduction and overview of Maine Historical Society's historic dress collection from approximately 1775 to 1980. Featuring over 220 items from the collection, the site includes narratives, chronological groupings documenting trend and style, and themed image galleries highlighting special topics. The overview provides a contextualized history of fashion interpreted and illustrated through items held in the MHS Collection. Read on.

Maine's Road to Statehood

 William King, Bath,  ca. 1806

While the Missouri Compromise brought Maine into the Union as a free state in 1820, Maine's push for separation from Massachusetts did not begin in 1820, nor was it simply dictated by Congress. Since the founding of the United States, a consistent and longstanding local fight for independence had been underway and was steered by savvy leaders, mercantile pursuits, boundary fights and much more. Read on.

Maine and the Civil War

Sgt. Nelson W. Jones, 3rd Maine Infantry, ca. 1862

Maine's participation in the Civil War is legendary: heroes and heroines, a huge per capita participation rate, nurses, and homefront activities, as well as post-war remembrances. These pages pull together resources from Maine Memory Network and Maine History Online that explore and illuminate aspects of Maine and the Civil War. Read on.

Mercy Hospital

Frances Tryon, Portland, 1946

The Story of Mercy Hospital began in the fall of 1918, with one of the greatest health crisis in the city's history, the pandemic known as the Spanish Influenza. This emergency, along with limited proper hospital facilities in the Portland area, prompted Bishop Walsh to enlist the help of the Sisters of Mercy. This relationship launched Mercy Hospital's commitment to the greater Portland community, through compassionate and high-quality healthcare. Read on.

Home: The Wadsworth-Longfellow House and Portland

Wadsworth-Longfellow House and Store, 1882

When Peleg Wadsworth built his house in 1785, what is now Congress Street in Portland was on the rural outskirts of the community known as Falmouth. The house passed on to other family members and Portland changed around what remained a family home until 1901, when it became a historic house museum. Read on.

More Maine Memory Exhibits