Ann Powers; Recorded October 7, 2024 - Did you know that Joni Mitchell’s eighth studio record, Hejira, was inspired by a cross-country road trip Mitchell made to and from the midcoast village of Damariscotta? For decades, Mitchell’s life and music have enraptured listeners, and yet, while Mitchell has always been a force beckoning us still closer w…

Arlene Palmer Schwind; Recorded July 9, 2024 - It is perhaps unusual that a small state like Maine can claim connections with several opera divas who enjoyed international acclaim between the 1870s and the 1920s. In her illustrated presentation, Arlene Palmer Schwind explored the fascinating lives and careers of Annie Louise Cary, Lillian Nordica, …

Nathan D. Gibson; Recorded July 16, 2024 - In the late 1950s, Maine was home to one of the most dynamic and exciting recording studios and record labels in the country—Event Records. Co-founded by Al Hawkes and Richard Greeley in 1956, the label recorded bluegrass pioneers (The Lilly Brothers and Don Stover), rockabilly icons (Ricky Coyne and Curti…

Nadine Hubbs; Recorded May 29, 2024 - America ushered in twentieth-century modernity with new technologies, aesthetics, and national status as a global power. With the rise in economic and political standing came new cultural pressures: American concert music was deemed far behind its European counterparts and in urgent need of catching up. Years o…

York Lo; Recorded February 1, 2024 - York Lo retraced the footsteps of Chinese in the New England area over the past two centuries —from the first known Chinese immigrant to the recent election of Michelle Wu as the first Asian and female mayor of Boston. Highlights of this talk included the story of the first known Chinese immigrant in the area an…

Seth Goldstein; Recorded February 22, 2024 - Historian Seth Goldstein discussed the economic ties between Maine and the luxury-producing plantations of the West Indies and explored the various commodities, such as lumber, draft animals, and salt cod, that Maine supplied to West Indian plantations. Concurrently, enslaved Africans in the Caribbean la…

Recorded March 27, 2024 - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was the most popular and successful poet of his day. Living in Cambridge, Massachusetts he was a member of the literati that made Boston the literary hub of the country; Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, James Russell Lowell, and John Greenleaf Whittier were all Longfellow friends or associates. But 20 …

Recorded May 2, 2024 - What's the big deal about rock and roll concerts in Maine? Back when there were just a handful of AM radio stations and only three TV channels, this small and remote state got way more than its share of live performances by big-name rock and roll musicians. When the rock and roll stars of the day were planning tours, southern…

Michael Hillard, Cynthia Isenhour, Stefano Tijerina; Recorded July 15, 2023 - A major story in United States history over the past 50 years has been the decline of industrial jobs. The accompanying rise of a "post-industrial" economy has looked different for various communities and regions. The 2023 Historian's Forum featured an interdisciplinary l…

Michael Hillard, Cynthia Isenhour, Stefano Tijerina; Recorded July 15, 2023 - A major story in United States history over the past 50 years has been the decline of industrial jobs. The accompanying rise of a "post-industrial" economy has looked different for various communities and regions. The 2023 Historian’s Forum featured an interdisciplinary l…

Michael Hillard, Cynthia Isenhour, Stefano Tijerina; Recorded July 15, 2023 - A major story in United States history over the past 50 years has been the decline of industrial jobs. The accompanying rise of a "post-industrial" economy has looked different for various communities and regions. The 2023 Historian's Forum featured an interdisciplinary l…

Recorded October 11, 2023 - Rising seas and coastal flooding present a threat to cultural resources in historic coastal communities. Greater Portland is at considerable risk according to sea level rise projections and local communities are already experiencing recurrent flooding, erosion and increasingly intense storms—threats that are projected to…

Genevieve LeMoine; Recorded November 16, 2023 - Robert Edwin Peary Sr. was an American explorer and officer in the United States Navy who made several expeditions to the Arctic in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He is perhaps best known for, in April 1909, leading an expedition that claimed to be the first to have reached the geographic Nor…

Michael Blaakman; Recorded October 4, 2023 - During the quarter-century after 1776, the new United States was swept by a wave of land speculation so unprecedented in intensity and scale that contemporaries and historians alike have dubbed it a "mania." From Maine to the Mississippi and Georgia to the Great Lakes, wily merchants, lawyers, planters, …

Lisa Massie; Recorded September 14, 2023 - Bees and other pollinators are essential parts of all ecosystems on earth and are fundamental for the long-term survival of flowering plants; the role they play in Maine's environment is one of the many topics explored in CODE RED: Climate, Justice, and Natural History Collections. This talk with the Xerce…

Bill McKibben and Steve Bromage; Recorded November 30, 2023 - As we approached the last month of CODE RED, our landmark exhibition examining topics around the climate and biodiversity crisis, it seemed only fitting to take the time to reflect on what we’ve learned, and to look forward and envision "What comes next?" In this informative dialogue wit…

Christoph Irmscher; Recorded August 8, 2023 - Christoph Irmscher, author of Louis Agassiz: Creator of American Science, reflected on Agassiz's legacy, his friendships with Emerson, Henry Wadsworth and Fanny Longfellow and others, and how his own thinking about Agassiz has (and hasn't) changed since he published his biography 10 years ago. The talk …

Recorded July 11, 2023 - How has the notion of a Maine “fishing community” changed with time? How has the relationship the people of Maine have with natural world changed over thousands of years? When the Island had Fish is the story of a tiny island, Vinalhaven Maine, that offers a close look at the significant history of Maine fishing particularl…

Recorded June 27, 2023 - Ever since the early 1600s, when the first Europeans set foot on the peninsula that was to later become the City of Portland, the city's social and economic history has been shaped by national and international events. Some of these events are very well-known while others have been mostly forgotten, but all of them have inf…

Recorded June 20, 2023 - Wit and Wisdom begins with the story of an odd discovery in a Maine attic—a discovery that led Joan Radner to uncover a long-lost rural tradition of joyful wintertime gatherings. We might imagine that the long, dark winter evenings and deep snows of northern New England would have isolated nineteenth-century families in the…

Recorded May 3, 2023 - Commercial fishermen have a front-row seat to the impacts of climate change and are in a unique and valuable position to help craft the response to the climate change crisis. Sarah Schumann is the coordinator for Fishery Friendly Climate Action, a grassroots initiative that provides fishermen, fisheries associations, and seaf…

Timothy H. Scherman; Recorded June 13, 2023 - Timothy H. Scherman re-introduces modern readers to Elizabeth Oakes Smith, a nineteenth-century Maine writer and political activist whose disappearance from literary history would seem impossible in light of the volume of her published writing and the visceral responses she elicited from readers in her …

Kermit Roosevelt III; Recorded March 9, 2023 - In his book, The Nation That Never Was, Kermit Roosevelt III argues that we are not the heirs of the Founders, but we can be the heirs of Reconstruction and its vision for equality; America today is not the Founder's America, but it can be Lincoln's America. We face a dilemma these days. We want to be …

Recorded February 22, 2023 - When Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie, he helped to shine a light on and memorialize an all but forgotten event of historic significance, Le Grand Dérangement—the forced expulsion of Acadians from Nova Scotia. The poem brought recognition for a unique ethnic group and gave the world an enigm…

Recorded April 12, 2023 - CODE RED examines topics around climate change by reuniting collections from one of the nation's earliest natural history museums, the Portland Society of Natural History (PSNH) and reflects on how museums collect, and the role of humans in creating changes in society, climate, and biodiversity. Exhibit co-curators Tilly L…

In person program; Recorded January 24, 2023 - On a frigid winter afternoon at the height of the Cold War, a Strategic Air Command B-52 Stratofortress departed Westover Air Force Base in Chicopee, Massachusetts for a routine training mission. Hours later, the aircraft's smoking wreckage lay scattered across a snow-encased mountainside in Maine's de…

In person program; Recorded January 26, 2023 - Built between 1858-1860, Victoria Mansion is a National Historic Landmark in Portland, ME, known widely for its architecture and stunning intact interiors. The question of who "built" Victoria Mansion tends to surface the same few names: Henry Austin, the architect, Gustave Herter and Giuseppe Guidicin…

In partnership with Victoria Mansion; Recorded September 8, 2022 - Built and furnished between 1858 and 1860, Victoria Mansion was remarkable from the day it was created. It stands today as the final unaltered and fully intact example of the work of three of 19th-century America's towering creative talents, architect Henry Austin, interior designer…

Recorded June 1, 2022 - During the 18th century, patterned silks were some of the costliest fabrics available. Hand-woven on complex drawlooms, patterned silks worn for dress could be highly decorative, featuring designs that changed not just yearly, but seasonally. With no large-scale weaving in the colonies, a select group of New Englanders imita…

Recorded June 21, 2022 - Fashion choices can tell us a lot about a person and the world they lived in, but did you know that historic textiles can also reveal hidden stories of ordinary people and how they made use of their material goods' economic and legal values? Historian Laura F. Edwards discusses her book Only the Clothes on Her Back: Clothin…

Recorded May 17, 2022 - Whether you're a sailor, a singer, or just a lover of New England lore, you'll love the ballads and broadsides featured in Bygone Ballads from Maine Vol.1--Songs of Ships & Sailors. Julia Lane & Fred Gosbee of Castlebay spent over a decade researching and found a wealth of songs, stories and folkways from the Celtic traditio…

Recorded April 26, 2022 - Between 1783 – 1850, the newly constituted United States emerged as a fragile, internally divided union of states contending with European empires and other independent republics on the North American continent. Native peoples sought to defend their homelands from the flood of American settlers; the system of American slav…

Recorded April 13, 2022 - Dress codes are as old as clothing itself. For centuries, clothing has been a wearable status symbol; fashion, a weapon in struggles for social change; and dress codes, a way to maintain political control. Even in today’s more informal world, dress codes still determine what we wear, when we wear it, and what our clothing …

Recorded February 8, 2022 - Peaks Island: Past and Present brings to light the island's rich and diverse--yet largely hidden--past as a fishing village, a bustling summer resort, and an important military base during World War II. It is the story of a unique Maine island community rooted in its past but very much part of the modern world. In this t…

In partnership with Longfellow House Washington’s Headquarters National Historic Site; Recorded February 23, 2022 - February 2022 marked the 215th birthday observance of famed 19th century poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. To mark the occasion, Maine Historical Society and Longfellow House Washington's Headquarters National Historic Site hosted a pa…

Recorded December 14, 2021 - Sarah Farmer, a visionary pioneer and transcendentalist, was the daughter of electrical genius Moses Farmer and humanitarian Hannah Shapleigh Farmer. At Green Acre – A Baháʼí Center of Learning, she had the first known Peace flag flown, and in 1905 she was the only woman to witness the signing of the Portsmouth Peace Tr…

Recorded December 7, 2021 - Phil Nadeau discusses his new book, The Unlikeliness of It All in a program with Maine Historical Society. A Lewiston native and city official of almost two decades, Nadeau's book offers unique insight into 150 years of the complex political, cultural, and socioeconomic landscape that influenced how the city was formed, …

Recorded October 21, 2021 - Long before the modern LGBTQ rights movement, individual queer and trans people challenged gender and sexual norms to express themselves and their love freely, often in defiance of laws against same-sex sex and cross-dressing. Jen Manion discusses the lives and adventures of those assigned female at birth who embraced tr…

Recorded November 8, 2021 - In the 1850s, long before movies, and just when the magic lantern's popularity was beginning, a night out at the pictures meant a moving panorama performance. The performer, or the "professor," made the giant picture story come alive. The travels of one traveling showman are documented in the MHS collection in the remark…

Recorded November 17, 2021 - On November 27, 1898, the paddlewheel steamship PS Portland was on its way from Boston, Massachusetts to Portland, Maine when it was hit by a powerful storm and sank off of Cape Ann with all hands. Often labeled "New England's Titanic" due to the long-unknown position of the wreckage and substantial loss of life, the lo…

Recorded October 14, 2021 - Voting rights have evolved from the time of Maine’s founding to the present day. Which groups were initially excluded from voting rights? Why did it matter? What did it take for these marginalized groups to win the right to vote? How do voting rights continue to evolve in Maine? Historian Anne B. Gass discusses Maine vot…

Recorded October 13, 2021 - The dark woods of Maine have been the setting for many eerie and unexplained events, none more captivating than sightings of a giant hominid known as Bigfoot. But what makes this corner of New England such a perfect place for this cryptid to live? Learn about the ecology and geography that support the legend and the peop…

Recorded September 23, 2021 - Over 1,740 documented transatlantic slaving voyages were made on vessels constructed and registered in Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut -- or having departed from their seaports -- yet New England's connection to the history of slavery remains largely untold. The Atlantic Black Box (ww…

Recorded September 16, 2021 - Historian William David Barry discusses the evolution of Pineland from its origins at the dawn of the 20th century as a home for Maine's so called "feeble minded" citizens (later termed special needs individuals) and his years fresh out of the university as a teacher's aid at Pineland. He also highlights the books, Pin…

Recorded September 9, 2021 - Writer Rhea Côté Robbins gives an informative and introspective look at telling and hearing stories within the social consciousness of equality. Côté Robbins believes that everything we know comes to us via story - we are surrounded by it – and yet not everyone has the chance to tell their own. Côté Robbins’ talk examin…

Speaker: James Horrigan; Recorded May 1, 2014 - Longtime Wadsworth-Longfellow House guide James Horrigan kicked off the 2014 house season with a lecture that looks at the poet’s lifelong interest in the supernatural. In addition to touching on reincarnation, astrology, numerology, automatic writing (featuring a poem of Longfellow's that can only be…

Recorded August 19, 2021 - Prejudice and discrimination in Maine against immigrants dates back to at least the mid-1700s, when Pope's or Pope Day (Guy Fawkes Day in Britain) was celebrated in Falmouth (Portland); effigies of the Pope and the Devil were carried around town to loud cheers and slurs. Protestants had been taught since birth to hate Rom…

Recorded August 10, 2021 - Community cookbooks: you know them and you probably have at least one in your kitchen! Collections of home cooked recipes put together by church groups, synagogues, school groups, political organizations, band boosters, and even biker gangs, these cookbooks are endlessly interesting and rich with stories. Existing at the …

Recorded July 20, 2021 - Wherever we are in Maine, we are on Wabanaki homeland. In this talk, Dr. Darren Ranco describes how issues of racial injustice have shaped State of Maine Indian History and Policy and provides a broad historical and rights context to contemporary issues related to Wabanaki Tribal Sovereignty and Treaty Rights.…

Recorded July 17, 2021 - For generations, the Ulster Scots were a people on the move. From their home in the Scottish Lowlands, these Presbyterians ventured first to Ulster, and then across the Atlantic, where they carved out lives in Britain’s North American colonies, including what became the state of Maine. By the American Revolution, 200,000 Ul…