This Week
Tuesday, October 16, 7:00 - 9:00pmIn partnership with the Longfellow ChorusModerated by: Charles Kaufmann, Director, Longfellow Chorus
Some say that Samuel Coleridge-Taylor's single claim to fame rests on his opera-like setting of Longfellow's epic poem, Song of Hiawatha, which was performed frequently during the composer's lifetime. One hundred years after his death on September 1, 1912, Afro-English composer Coleridge-Taylor's larger impact and influence on American culture remains underappreciated. The list of his musical works includes more than 100 compositions written in the classical style of the late-Victorian and Edwardian periods. Nearly two dozen are settings of Longfellow's poetry.
Join us as seven noted historians and scholars gather in a roundtable discussion to answer this question: "Who was Samuel Coleridge-Taylor?" The event will be filmed for Samuel Coleridge-Taylor and His Music in America, 1900-1912, a documentary produced by the Longfellow Chorus for premiere in Portland during the Longfellow Choral Festival in March 2013. Read more about this event here.
Next Week
Tuesday, October 23, 12:00pmBook Event: 1812: The Navy's War
Speaker: George Daughan
In 1812: The Navy's War, winner of a 2012 Independent Publisher book award, historian George C. Daughan tells the story of how a handful of heroic captains and their stalwart crews overcame spectacular odds to lead the country to victory against the world's greatest imperial power. 1812: The Navy's War is the first complete account in more than a century of how the U.S. Navy rescued our fledgling nation, and secured America's future. A book sale and signing will follow the talk.
Thursday, October 25, 7:00pm
Power to the People: The Story of Rural Electrification in America
Speaker: Jane Brox
Join us for a special return engagement by author and Maine resident, Jane Brox, whose presentation last year on her critically-acclaimed book,
Brilliant: The Evolution of Artificial Light, was a crowd pleaser. As part of an ongoing series of talks related to our current museum exhibit
Wired: How Electricity Came to Maine, Brox will focus specifically on the topic of rural electrification, the process that brought electricity to America's countrysides and farm families in the early part of the 20th century. In addition to her extensive research on the topic that she did for
Brilliant, Brox brings a personal angle to the subject, based on her memoirs about her family's farm in Massachusetts, and the evolution of the American farm in general.
Ongoing Programs
Daily Tours of the Wadsworth-Longfellow House
Visit us
online, or call 207-774-1822 for times, ticket information, and details.
Public programs at MHS are sponsored, in part, by the Margaret E. Burnham Charitable Trust.
Readers may remember that a local fair plays an important role in the book. This is the still-going-strong Blue Hill Fair, which takes place over Labor Day weekend. The online exhibit 
