Maine Memory Network

These deeply personal pieces were made for the family with the intimate care and intent reserved for a friend, teacher or loved one.

They were displayed in the home and became part of the family record.

This acrostic, a playful way to use the letters of a word to organize a poem, uses "Hannah Lewis" to create its poem.

Some of these items were made as school assignments by children learning stitching, drawing, or painting.

Others were made as wedding gifts, to mark particular anniversaries, or as a gift to a friend.

Some items are memorials to a deceased family member.

Theorem paintings involved the use of stencils, which gave the images a distinctive sharp edge.

They were often school assignments intended to teach hand skills and promote a sense of design and color.

Thomas Janverin was 13 and a student in the South School in Portland when he made this colorful copy-work drawing.

The acidic inks he used have damaged the paper.

However, the youthful composition and colorful design remain.

Drawing from life and even making copies of prints published in a wide range of books and periodicals was part of the academic education of many young women during the early 19th century.

Marcia Rice, a student of the Misses Martins’ School in Portland, made this ambitious piece of schoolwork when she was 16.

Her illustrated writing documents the range of her studies including English, History, Science, and Botany.

In this portrait, young Samuel Butler Stevens holds his fishing pole.

He wears a child’s dress – a common outfit for boys in the early 1800s.

Daniel Kerr and his wife Mary were both children of Irish immigrants. Daniel worked as a sign painter in Portland.

He made this chair for his daughter Agnes Gertrude, born in 1906. Her portrait is in the seat back.

The heads, hands, and feet of this doll were carved from nuts.

This doll and its male partner descended through generations of the Libby family for over 150 years.

The carved nut dolls show the skill of the carver, and record the fashions of the era in which they were carved.

This wood and cloth doll was made as a child's toy.

It is elegantly dressed in Revolutionary War era garb.

This toy crib, complete with bedding, was made in 1835 for Mary Caroline Sweetser Quincy, when she was two years old.

Persis Sibley was 19 years old and a student in “Miss Murray’s school for young ladies in Hallowell, Maine” when she painted the fire screen.

She described the utilitarian purpose of this piece as “…to shield one’s face from the blaze of an open fire.”

Originally from Freedom, Sibley had a life-long interest in arts, education and politics. She was an avid diarist, and kept descriptive accounts of her experiences and views.

In 1842 she married Charles Andrews, a lawyer from Augusta.

Persis was 18 years old when she made this decorative piece.

On the reverse she wrote, “By Miss Sibley at Mrs. Murray’s high school for young ladies, Hallowell, Nov. 1831.”

Caroline Wardwell was from Rumford Corner, and one of only a few women itinerant artists in Maine.

Persis Sibley Andrews was very impressed by Wardwell’s skill. On January 27, 1844, she wrote in her diary, “I have been sitting the past week for my miniature. It is taken with my babe in my arms & both are s’d to be good likenesses--the baby’s perfect.

The artist [Miss Wardwell]…paints as well as any Miniature painter I ever knew tho’ she is a beginner & almost entirely self taught.”

Nancy Dearborn Thomas 10, made this sampler that lists the dates of marriage for her parents and the birth (and death) of her siblings.

The Thomas family lived in the Bath area and Captain Consider Thomas made his life at sea.

This sampler is an excellent example of schoolgirl needlework, including decorative embroidery stitches and period sayings and imagery.

The weeping willow represents the passing of her older brother, William, at the age of four.

Young women made samplers as part of their educational studies in school.

The process of designing and making a sampler built needlework skills and aesthetic sensitivity.

Sarah Dean included several types of alphabets, numerals, and even a poem on her work.

Mary Jones made this sampler when she was 14.

The unusual figures may symbolize her concerns for safety and protection of her home and town.

In 1755 the French and Indian War raged throughout the District of Maine. Indian attacks were common, and the threat of violence very real.

Joanna Poole was 12 and most likely a student at a school for girls in Portland when she made this colorful sampler.

The needlework serves as both a family register beginning with her parents, Abijah and Dorcas, and as a memorial for two brothers who died in infancy.

This album-style quilt was a wedding gift for Jane Blanchard who married Warren Porter of Cumberland in 1850.

The quilted squares include appliquéd patterns, signatures from friends and makers, and sayings of good will.

Some of the squares include copperplate printed fabric – all applied to white linen blocks.

Delphos Turner was 18 years old when she made this quilt in 1818.

She spun and dyed the wool, wove the cloth, sewed the quilt, and proudly embroidered her name in the center “Delphos Turner of Palermo.”

Victorian “crazy quilts” were filled with colorful ribbons of various sizes and shapes.

Carrie Leighton added embroidery, painted designs and her initials “C.P.L.” to the quilt.

Around this time, she married John Stover, a ship captain from Camden. They were both lost at sea when the bark Itonus sank off South America in 1890.

Their orphan son, Robert Stover, kept this quilt as a memorial of his parents.

The art of quilting is very much alive today. Some makers use new types of fabrics and machines, while others enjoy natural fibers the process of handwork.

This collection of squares was created for a political rally to bring awareness to concerns about nuclear arms.

Several hundred people made squares for the quilt based on the question, “what can I not bear to think of as lost forever in a nuclear war?”

The writing on this unsigned quilt square reads, "Peace Bot filled with justice and truths, they make people forget about war and only remember peace."

Theresa Latham of Peaks Island in Portland created a square features an image of Peaks Island and Casco Bay surrounding it.

Buildings on the island are labeled "Hope," "love," "faith" and "peace." A lifesaving ring in the water is labeled "Save life."

The quilt section is entitled "No man is an island."

Decorated family records serve as a register of births, marriages, and deaths.

This record documents the large family of Francis and Jane (Davis) Small of Raymond.

The distinctive hand of the artist who made this record is starkly contrasted by the less-finished entries made by Hicks family members.

Family records are living documents that can have additions made by many generations of the same family.

This unusual record features a complicated design but a monochrome color scheme.

The Bryant family did not make any entries after this register was made.

Perhaps made by a family member, the register has several misspelled words.

The itinerant artist James Osborne signed the record he made for the Thompson family of Scarborough or Portland.

Osborne painted each family member and included the family home in the background.

This Libby family register probably was folded into a family bible. The colors are still vivid and the overall design has not been lost.

This young woman’s portrait, though unidentified, is from a collection of family memorabilia of the Day and Sewall families of Portland and Bath.

Portrait miniatures on ivory have a beautiful luminescent quality, and give the subject a life-like appearance.

Prentiss Mellen (1764-1840) began practicing law in the front chamber of “Old Squire Hopper’s” Biddeford tavern, and went on to be appointed Maine’s first Chief Justice when Maine became a state in 1820.

This portrait, exhibiting the defining characteristics and style of the itinerant artist John Brewster Jr., most likely was commissioned during one of the artist’s trips to Portland in 1805.

Stephen Longfellow (1776-1849), future father of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, is known to have had a miniature painted around 1801.

The miniature portrait of Margaret Stetson, painted by an unidentified artist about 1830, is a watercolor on paper.

The portrait of Parker McCobb is the work of the itinerant artist Benjamin Greenleaf, known for reverse oil paintings on glass.

Greenleaf traveled and painted in communities from the south shore of Boston to portions of Down East Maine.

Parker McCobb was a prosperous shipbuilder and owner from Phippsburg.

Rebecca Hill married Parker McCobb in 1815. She was the widow of his uncle Thomas, in 1815.

The portraits they had painted in 1818 document the exuberant clothing and adornment of the merchant class of mid-coast Maine in the early 19th century.