Maine Memory Network

Indians, Furs, and Economics

When Europeans arrived in North America and disrupted traditional Native American patterns of life, they also offered other opportunities: trade goods for furs. The fur trade had mixed results for the Wabanaki.

Dressing Up, Standing Out, Fitting In

Adorning oneself to look one's "best" has varied over time, gender, economic class, and by event. Adornments suggest one's sense of identity and one's intent to stand out or fit in.

Fashionable Maine: early twentieth century clothing

Maine residents kept pace with the dramatic shift in women’s dress that occurred during the short number of years preceding and immediately following World War I. The long restrictive skirts, stiff collars, body molding corsets and formal behavior of earlier decades quickly faded away and the new straight, dropped waist easy-to-wear clothing gave mobility and freedom of movement in tune with the young independent women of the casual, post-war jazz age generation.

Northern Threads: Colonial and 19th century fur trade

A vignette in "Northern Threads: Two centuries of dress at Maine Historical Society Part 1," this fur trade mini-exhibition discusses the environmental and economic impact of the fur trade in Maine through the 19th century.

Holding up the Sky: Wabanaki people, culture, history, and art

Learn about Native diplomacy and obligation by exploring 13,000 years of Wabanaki residence in Maine through 17th century treaties, historic items, and contemporary artworks—from ash baskets to high fashion. Wabanaki voices contextualize present-day relevance and repercussions of 400 years of shared histories between Wabanakis and settlers to their region.

Amazing! Maine Stories

These stories -- that stretch from 1999 back to 1759 -- take you from an amusement park to the halls of Congress. There are inventors, artists, showmen, a railway agent, a man whose civic endeavors helped shape Portland, a man devoted to the pursuit of peace and one known for his military exploits, Maine's first novelist, a woman who recorded everyday life in detail, and an Indian who survived a British attack.

400 years of New Mainers

Immigration is one of the most debated topics in Maine. Controversy aside, immigration is also America's oldest tradition, and along with religious tolerance, what our nation was built upon. Since the first people--the Wabanaki--permitted Europeans to settle in the land now known as Maine, we have been a state of immigrants.

Northern Threads: Penobscot mocassins

A themed exhibit vignette within "Northern Threads, Part I," about telling stories through Indigenous clothing, featuring an essay by Jennifer Sapiel Neptune (Penobscot.)

Eternal Images: Photographing Childhood

From the earliest days of photography doting parents from across Maine sought to capture images of their young children. The studio photographs often reflect the families' images of themselves and their status or desired status.

Indians at the Centennial

Passamaquoddy Indians from Washington County traveled to Portland in 1920 to take part in the Maine Centennial Exposition. They set up an "Indian Village" at Deering Oaks Park.

State of Mind: Becoming Maine

The history of the region now known as Maine did not begin at statehood in 1820. What was Maine before it was a state? How did Maine separate from Massachusetts? How has the Maine we experience today been shaped by thousands of years of history?

Lillian Nordica: Farmington Diva

Lillian Norton, known as Nordica, was one of the best known sopranos in America and the world at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries. She was a native of Farmington.

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.

Begin Again: reckoning with intolerance in Maine

BEGIN AGAIN explores Maine's historic role, going back 528 years, in crisis that brought about the pandemic, social and economic inequities, and the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020.

The Schooner Bowdoin: Ninety Years of Seagoing History

After traveling to the Arctic with Robert E. Peary, Donald B. MacMillan (1874-1970), an explorer, researcher, and lecturer, helped design his own vessel for Arctic exploration, the schooner <em>Bowdoin,</em> which he named after his alma mater. The schooner remains on the seas.

Maine Through the Eyes of George W. French

George French, a native of Kezar Falls and graduate of Bates College, worked at several jobs before turning to photography as his career. He served for many years as photographer for the Maine Development Commission, taking pictures intended to promote both development and tourism.

Wiscasset's Arctic Connection

Scientist, author and explorer Donald B. MacMillan established Wiscasset as his homeport for many of the voyages he made to the Arctic region starting in the early 1920s.

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.

From French Canadians to Franco-Americans

French Canadians who emigrated to the Lewiston-Auburn area faced discrimination as children and adults -- such as living in "Little Canada" tenements and being ridiculed for speaking French -- but also adapted to their new lives and sustained many cultural traditions.

People, Pets & Portraits

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.

Giving Thanks

Cultures from the ancient Greeks and Chinese to contemporary societies have set aside time to give thanks, especially for the harvest. In 1941, the United States set a permanent date for the observance.

Umbazooksus & Beyond

Visitors to the Maine woods in the early twentieth century often recorded their adventures in private diaries or journals and in photographs. Their remembrances of canoeing, camping, hunting and fishing helped equate Maine with wilderness.

"Twenty Nationalities, But All Americans"

Concern about immigrants and their loyalty in the post World War I era led to programs to "Americanize" them -- an effort to help them learn English and otherwise adjust to life in the United States. Clara Soule ran one such program for the Portland Public Schools, hoping it would help the immigrants be accepted.

Presidents and Campaigns

Several Mainers have run for president or vice president, a number of presidents, past presidents, and future presidents have had ties to the state or visited here, and, during campaign season, many presidential candidates and their family members have brought their campaigns to Maine.