The recent publication by the British Museum of the book A History of the World in 100 Objects (available at the MHS store) has drawn much attention to how objects--items in museum collections in particular--can be used to tell stories and craft history. This past weekend the New York Times ran the article "A History of New York in 50 Objects" asking notable citizens and readers which objects they would use to tell the history of New York City.  

Our 2004 exhibit Amazing Maine Stories featured this approach, and, in fact, historical objects and documents are the foundation for virtually all of our work here.

In the coming school year, our current museum exhibit Wired! will help students explore their own relationships to historical objects. Continue reading Steve's remarks on our blog. 

Maine Designed Landscapes Featured in National Database

Page Terrace, Fairfield, ca. 1930, one of the images in the MMN exhibit "Good-Will Hinckley: Building a Landscape," much of which was designed by Carl Rust Parker

MHS is pleased to announce that 150 landscapes from Maine have been entered into a national database of America's designed landscapes created by the Cultural Landscape Foundation. What's Out There is a free, illustrated, searchable database that provides access to more than 1,300 designed landscapes nationwide. The addition of the Maine entries was the focus of a two-year collaboration between MHS and the CLF, and made possible by the support of the National Endowment for the Arts and Charlton and Noni Ames. It is the first systematic effort to represent an entire state in the database. The Maine entries were prepared by Theresa Mattor who led a comprehensive survey of Maine landscapes sponsored by the Olmsted Alliance (now part of MHS) and co-edited the book Designing the Maine Landscape, also based on that survey. To learn more, read our recent blog post.