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Winter Hours
Museum & Store
Monday - Saturday, 10am - 5pm
Brown Library
Tuesday - Saturday, 10am - 4pm
The Wadsworth-Longfellow House reopens for the 2014 season in May.
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Spotlight On
Dani Fazio, MHS Creative Manager
Dani Fazio joined MHS in the fall of 2008 as the Image Services Coordinator, a position she held until this past September when she became the Creative Manager. In her new position in the Office of Institutional Advancement, Dani oversees the visual brand of the organization, produces our graphic material, manages social media marketing, and produces the weekly e-connections (an endeavor she has taken on since its inception more than three years ago). Dani has curated a few exhibits for our lecture hall gallery over the years, and brought the First Friday Art Walk to MHS in 2010. Her biggest passion at MHS is Vintage Maine Images; she helped redesign and rebrand the website and continues to support it through marketing. A native of Portland, Dani earned a BFA in photography from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design in Boston. She is currently a graduate student at the University of Southern Maine. Dani lives in Portland with her wife and their Chinese Crested dog, Daxter, who looks like a muppet.
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A New Year's Resolution:
Become a MHS Member!
Make your New Year's resolution to discover your history! Become a member and get unlimited access to our research library and its databases, and start on the path of tracking your family's or town's history.
Learn more about our membership options--and perks and privileges--online.
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MHS Annual Trip
September 19 - October 2, 2014
The Black Sea aboard Oceania RivieraŽ
HIGHLIGHTS: Istanbul, Turkey; Nessebur, Bulgaria; Constanta, Romania; Odessa, Ukraine; Yalta, Ukraine; Sevastopol, Ukraine; Sochi, Russia; Sinop, Turkey; Ephesus, Turkey; Athens, Greece
This MHS trip is proving very popular and space is limited. Book your reservation now to insure you have a spot on this exciting trip.
Call Eric Baxter, Maine Historical Society Trustee at 207-780-6998 or
Dana Widen, AAA Group Travel Coordinator at 207-780-6957 for more
information and reservations. From $6,750 per person double occupancy.
Download the program flyer here.
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Traveling Exhibit Opportunity
The National Endowment for the Humanities has a traveling exhibition program called NEH On the Road. Currently, they are touring the exhibit Spirited: Prohibition in America which explores the history of Prohibition, from the early temperance movement through the passage and repeal of the 18th Amendment. It is being offered on loan to small and mid-sized museums and historical societies across the country. The traveling exhibits are typically no larger than 2,000 square feet and include low-security objects. Each museum receives the exhibit for 7 weeks, and NEH provides a grant of $1,000 to support public programs around the exhibition themes. Click to learn more now!
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Historical Image and Audio Clip: Notre Dame de la Sagesse Convent chapel bell, St. Agatha, ca. 1910
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Happy 2014! Ring in the new year--literally--with this Maine Memory Network item. The record includes an audio clip of the bell being rung.
The chapel bell had a variety of uses. It alerted convent residents to gatherings or services held in the chapel, and, by combining rings into specific sequences, indicated that the Reverend Mother wanted to see a certain individual.
Click here to view this image online and play the bell.
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1924 Portland Tax Records Digitization project complete; in the news!
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735 Congress Street, 1924 MMN #47786
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We are pleased to announce that the 1924 Portland Tax Record Digitization project is now complete after four and a half years of work--organizing, scanning, and cataloging the records and images for all the taxable properties in Portland (and the Casco Bay islands) in 1924. We now have 18,800 records online, which are searchable and images are available for purchase. On December 30, 2013, the Portland Press Herald wrote this article about the success of the project through the collaborative efforts between MHS, the City of Portland, and the Portland Public Library.
Bill Barry, our research historian, is quoted in the article, saying, "It's like looking through a telescope at Portland at that time...I love it, because it's a time machine. You really can go back and see how it is."
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From the Collections
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Detail of Broadside 158
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We're in the dark season of early winter, when the leaves on the trees are mostly gone, a cold wind is whipping through the city, and the sky is dark when we get out of work. It's a perfect time to catalog some mournful poetry, in the form of broadsides. These six pieces were printed between the late 1700s and 1865. Many relate the tales of actual people who died in various ways, including drowning (I'm not sure what's up with that trend)...
Continue reading this blog post by MHS Archivist/Cataloger Nancy Noble.
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January Programs & Events
Click on the event date for details
 Wednesday, January 8, 12:00pm Intro to MHS: Library Tour Tour Guide: Nicholas Noyes, Curator of Library Collections
This 45-minute tour of the Brown Research Library takes participants throughout the first floor reading room and behind-the-scenes into the archive, normally closed to the public. Nick covers the history of the building, architectural details, the basics of doing research in the library, and even shares a few treasures from the collection. NOTE: This tour is now full.  Tuesday, January 14, 12:00pm Highlights of MHS's Sheet Music Collection: Maine Fiddler Mellie Dunham Speaker: David Sanderson
As a complement to our current Lecture Hall exhibit-- Dear Old Maine I'm Coming Back: Home and Hearth Reflected in the MHS Sheet Music Collection--traditional music enthusiast and fiddler David Sanderson offers an account of the life and musical career of Norway, Maine, fiddler Mellie Dunham. MHS owns two pieces of sheet music for Dunham's original songs, and he was the subject of a recent Maine Memory Network exhibit.
 Wednesday, January 15, 12:00pm Intro to MHS: Museum Collections: Recent Acquisitions and PastPerfect Online Facilitator: Holly Hurd-Forsyth, Collections Manager & Registrar
Holly provides a show-and-tell of recent or topical museum collection items, discusses how accessions are researched and processed, and trains participants how to search and use the MHS PastPerfect Online database. Free; limited space. Call to register, 207-774-1822. Featured Program Presented in partnership with Portland Ovations and Sumner McKane
As a lead-up to Portland Ovation's January 29th performance of "TIMBER!" (live-music-and-acrobatics by Cirque Alfonse), Maine Historical Society presents a day of documentary film screenings on Maine's lumber industry heritage. Both screenings are free.
12:00pm screening: Woodsmen and River Drivers: Another Day, Another Era (1989), a 30-minute film produced by Maine Folklife Center and Northeast Historic Film about lumber camps and woodsmen in the Machias River Valley in the early 20th century. The program is made possible by the generosity of Northeast Historic Film.
7:00pm screening: In the Blood (2011), a 73-minute film by musician Sumner McKane on the turn-of-the-century Maine lumber camp and the men who lived and worked in them. The film features original compositions by McKane and sheds new light on the character, history, and importance of lumbermen. The program is made possible by the generosity of Sumner McKane.
Learn more about this program here.
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Seen at MHS
Members Holiday Party, December 5, 2013
MHS members enjoyed Longfellow House tours, exhibits, discounted shopping in the store, and food and drinks at our annual holiday party. With about 170 guests in attendance, MHS buzzed with holiday cheer throughout the evening! Visit our blog for a slideshow of photos snapped by our staff.
Home for the Holidays on December 14, 2013
We welcomed guests to our 2nd annual holiday event. The Longfellow House was open and decorated for Christmas (1860s style), and traditional artists and craftspeople demonstrated their skills. David Maxwell played Christmas carols on the Chickering Piano, food historian Sandy Oliver discussed foodways with guests, and children's book authors and illustrators entertained families in the lecture hall. A fun afternoon, indeed! For more photos, visit us on Facebook.
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Museum Store
It's Cold Outside--Stay Warm and Shop Online!
This time of year there's no better way to pass the chilly days than by curling up with a good book, or two, or three... Shop our online store for all your reading needs, we have hundreds of titles to choose from. Our online store also sells a wide variety of gifts, games, DVDs, maps, and memorabilia. Featured Books
Glorious Slow Going: Maine Stories of Art, Adventure, and Friendship by Elizabeth Peavey R enowned painter Marguerite Robichaux and award-winning writer Elizabeth Peavey share adventures through the woods and towns of Maine; the state they love to call home. Glorious Slow Going consists of nine "stories" - accounts of their various adventures written in Peavey's humorous voice, and illustrated with Robichaux's oil paintings and watercolors.Buy NowHarbor Fish Market: Seafood Recipes from Maine by Nick Alfiero
 For over 30 years, Harbor Fish Market in Portland, Maine, has been providing the highest quality seafood available, and has become an iconic destination for tourists and locals alike: it is the authority on Maine seafood. The family behind the successful business offers up decades worth of recipes and expertise so that you can cook up a delicious dish. From appetizers to soups to entrees, this collection of family-tested recipes is the must-have Maine seafood cookbook.Buy Now
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