Keywords: Associations
- Historical Items (1754)
- Tax Records (54)
- Architecture & Landscape (1784)
- Online Exhibits (105)
- Site Pages (166)
- My Maine Stories (21)
- Lesson Plans (25)
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
Among the Lungers: Treating TB
Tuberculosis -- or consumption as it often was called -- claimed so many lives and so threatened the health of communities that private organizations and, by 1915, the state, got involved in TB treatment. The state's first tuberculosis sanatorium was built on Greenwood Mountain in Hebron and introduced a new philosophy of treatment.
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South Portland's Wartime Shipbuilding
Two shipyards in South Portland, built quickly in 1941 to construct cargo ships for the British and Americans, produced nearly 270 ships in two and a half years. Many of those vessels bore the names of notable Mainers.
Exhibit
In Maine, like many other states, a newly formed Ku Klux Klan organization began recruiting members in the years just before the United States entered World War I. A message of patriotism and cautions about immigrants and non-Protestants drew many thousands of members into the secret organization in the early 1920s. By the end of the decade, the group was largely gone from Maine.
Exhibit
Rebecca Usher: 'To Succor the Suffering Soldiers'
Rebecca Usher of Hollis was 41 and single when she joined the Union nursing service at the U.S. General Hospital at Chester, Pennsylvania. Her time there and later at City Point, Virginia, were defining experiences of her life.
Exhibit
The novelty of organized auto racing came to Maine in 1911 with a hill-climbing event in Poland and speed racing at Old Orchard Beach. Drivers and cars came from all over New England for these events.
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Northern Threads: Outerwear, Militia & Cadet uniforms
A themed vignette within "Northern Threads Part I," featuring 19th century outerwear, bonnets, militia and cadet uniforms.
Exhibit
Capturing Arts and Artists in the 1930s
Emmie Bailey Whitney of the Lewiston Journal Saturday Magazine and her husband, noted amateur photographer G. Herbert Whitney, captured in words and photographs the richness of Maine's arts scene during the Great Depression.
Exhibit
San Life: the Western Maine Sanatorium, 1928-1929
Merle Wadleigh of Portland, who was in his mid 20s, took and saved photographs that provide a glimpse into the life of a tuberculosis patient at the Western Maine Sanatorium in Hebron in 1928-1929.
Exhibit
Lewiston, Maine's second largest city, was long looked upon by many as a mill town with grimy smoke stacks, crowded tenements, low-paying jobs, sleazy clubs and little by way of refinement, except for Bates College. Yet, a noted Québec historian, Robert Rumilly, described it as "the French Athens of New England."
Exhibit
Northern Threads: Two centuries of dress at Maine Historical
Organized by themed vignettes, Northern Threads shares stories about Maine people, while exploring how the clothing they wore reveals social, economic, and environmental histories. This re-examination of Maine Historical Society's permanent collection is an opportunity to consider the relevance of historic clothing in museums, the ebb and flow of fashion styles, and the complexities of diverse representation spanning 200 years of collecting.
Exhibit
Blueberries to Potatoes: Farming in Maine
Not part of the American "farm belt," Maine nonetheless has been known over the years for a few agricultural items, especially blueberries, sweet corn, potatoes, apples, chickens and dairy products.
Exhibit
In 1857, when Daniel Cough left Amoy Island, China, as a stowaway on a sailing ship from Mt. Desert Island he was on his way into history as the first Chinese person to make his home in Maine. He was soon followed by a cigar maker and a tea merchant who settled in Portland and then by many more Chinese men who spread all over Maine working mostly as laundrymen.
Exhibit
Otisfield's One-Room Schoolhouses
Many of the one-room schoolhouses in Otisfield, constructed from 1839 through the early twentieth century, are featured here. The photos, most of which also show teachers and children, were taken between 1898 and 1998.
Exhibit
Before the era of recorded music and radio, nearly every community had a band that played at parades and other civic events. Fire departments had bands, military units had bands, theaters had bands. Band music was everywhere.
Exhibit
Northern Threads: Civil War-era clothing
An exhibit vignette within "Northern Threads, Part 1," featuring American Civil War civilian and military clothing, 1860 to 1869.
Exhibit
History in Motion: The Era of the Electric Railways
Street railways, whether horse-drawn or electric, required the building of trestles and tracks. The new form of transportation aided industry, workers, vacationers, and other travelers.
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Irish Immigrants in Nineteenth Century Maine
With the popularity of all things Irish in modern America, many people have forgotten the difficulties faced by nineteenth century Irish immigrants.
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Christmas, a Christian holiday observed by many Mainers, has a very public, seasonal face that makes it visible to those of all beliefs.
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Maine's first governor, William King, was arguably the most influential figure in Maine's achieving statehood in 1820. Although he served just one year as the Governor of Maine, he was instrumental in establishing the new state's constitution and setting up its governmental infrastructure.
Exhibit
Westbrook Seminary: Educating Women
Westbrook Seminary, built on Stevens Plain in 1831, was founded to educate young men and young women. Seminaries traditionally were a form of advanced secondary education. Westbrook Seminary served an important function in admitting women students, for whom education was less available in the early and mid nineteenth century.
Exhibit
J.A. Poor and the Portland-Montreal Connection
John A. Poor's determination in 1845 to bring rail service to Maine and to make Portland the winter port for Montreal, along with the steel foundry he started to build locomotives and many other products, helped boost the economy of Portland the state.
Exhibit
Northern Threads: Adaptive reuse
A themed vignette within "Northern Threads Part I," featuring up-cycled and reused historic fabrics.
Exhibit
Northern Threads: The rise and fall of the gigot sleeve
A themed exhibit vignette within "Northern Threads Part I," featuring the balloon-like gigot sleeve of the 1830s.
Exhibit
Informal family photos often include family pets -- but formal, studio portraits and paintings also often feature one person and one pet, in formal attire and pose.