Maine Historical Society - Programs Podcast

Speaker: Allan M. Levinsky; Recorded September 2, 2014 - Retired Maine Historical Society Visitor Service Coordinator Allan Levinsky is also an accomplished historian with several books under his belt. In this book talk, he shares the first-person stories and dramatic events surrounding the infamous Portland fire of 1866.

Speaker: Morgan Rielly; Recorded August 19, 2014 - Westbrook High School graduate Morgan Rielly's lifelong passion for history and stories motivated him to interview and record the personal histories of local World War II veterans. Throughout his four years in high school, Morgan researched, tracked down, and talked at length to numerous men and women, many of whose experiences and memories are collected in Neighborhood Heroes , published by Down East Books. The author shares some of these compelling stories, and how he was inspired to begin the project in the first place.

Speaker: Kate McCarty; Recorded July 24, 2014 - Portland's vibrant food scene boasts more than 300 restaurants, as well as specialty food businesses, farmers' markets, pop-up dinners, and food trucks. How did it evolve over the past several decades into the city that regularly makes national "best of" lists today for its foodie culture? Dig into Portland's bounty, and its historical rise to food prominence, in this talk by local food writer Kate McCarty, author of the new book, Portland Food .

Speaker: Wallace Scot McFarlane; Recorded July 22, 2014 - Based on original research from an honors project completed at Bowdoin College in 2009 and a subsequent article published in Environmental History , Scot McFarlane explores the birth of the environmental movement in Maine by focusing on the heavily polluted Androscoggin River. Scot McFarlane’s honors thesis was a co-winner of the 2009 Bowdoin History Department's Class of 1875 Prize in American History; he conducted some of his research in the MHS Library. In 2011, he received a master of arts degree in teaching from Tufts University while simultaneously teaching humanities at Codman Academy Charter School in Boston.

Speaker: Chandra Manning, Associate Professor of History, Georgetown University; Recorded May 8, 2014 - How did the relationship between former slaves and the United States government change during and after the Civil War? Georgetown University Associate Professor of History Chandra Manning shares her research on this complex and evolving relationship, and how it affected the relationship between the federal government and all individuals in the United States. Manning is the author of What This Cruel War Was Over: Soldiers, Slavery, and the Civil War (Knopf, 2007), which won the won the Avery Craven Prize awarded by the Organization of American Historians and earned Honorable Mention for the Lincoln Prize, the Jefferson Davis Prize.

Speaker: Jane Schultz, Professor of English and the Medical Humanities, and Director of Literature, at Indiana University-Purdue University-Indianapolis; Recorded April 24, 2014 - Maine state relief workers like Harriet Eaton and Isabella Fogg were less certain than Frederick Law Olmsted—who, thanks to his administrative skill overseeing the creation of Central Park, was asked to head the U.S. Sanitary Commission during the Civil War—that federal benevolence was the best way to care for Maine's boys in blue. For the 2014 Olmsted Lecture, Professor Jane Schultz shows how and why Mainers resisted the sweep of a national relief structure, preferring instead to put the interests of the state ahead of federal bureaucracy. Schultz is the author of Women at the Front (University of North Carolina, 2004), a study of gender and relief work in American Civil War military hospitals; it was a finalist for the 2005 Lincoln Prize. In 2010 Professor Schultz published This Birth Place of Souls (Oxford), an annotated edit

Speaker: Penelope Niven; Recorded April 10, 2014 - Although Our Town , which turned 75 in 2013, was set in a small New Hampshire village and written in 1938, its universality has made it a favorite of theater companies and schools for decades. Wilder biographer Penelope Niven shares the story of his life (and his Maine ancestry), how Wilder came to write the play, and the special appeal of its themes of the passage of time and small-town life. Penelope Niven's 2012 biography of Wilder ( Thornton Wilder: A Life , Harper), was deemed “the best kind of literary biography” by the Washington Post. Niven, who passed away in 2014, was also the acclaimed author of Carl Sandburg: A Biography and Steichen: A Biography . She was the recipient of the North Carolina Award in Literature.

Speaker: Gary Libby; Recorded March 4, 2014 - Attorney, amateur historian, author, and former MHS trustee, Gary Libby, talks about his long history of researching and publishing on Maine's Chinese community, as part of special programming relating to Maine Restaurant Week . Gary shares history and collection highlights from the variety of Chinese restaurants that have existed in Portland over the years. Gary is the author of "Historical Notes on Chinese Restaurants in Portland, Maine" (2006), published in the journal Chinese America: History and Perspectives , as well as the book They Changed their Sky , about Maine's Irish Community. This program was made possible by funding from Rabelais: Fine Books on Food & Drink, in Biddeford and online.

Speaker: Matthew Jude Barker; Recorded February 11, 2014 - The Irish have influenced the city of Portland since it was first established in the 17th century. Today's vibrant Catholic community owes its origins to Irish immigrants in Portland's earliest days, when beloved leaders like Father French provided solace to souls far from home. Portland resident Matthew Jude Barker, genealogist and historian at the Maine Irish Heritage Center in Portland, talks about his new book, which explores the triumphs and challenges of Portland's Irish community prior to the twentieth century.

Speaker: David Sanderson; Recorded January 14, 2014 - As a complement to the MHS Shettleworth Lecture Hall exhibit "Dear Old Maine I'm Coming Back:" Home & 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. Mellie Dunham was among the most famous figures in America during 1925 and 1926. A local farmer, snowshoe maker, and dance fiddler, Dunham was propelled to notoriety when he was invited to visit and play for Henry Ford; he then spent six months performing on the Keith Vaudeville circuit. This talk includes original 78 rpm recordings played on Sanderson's 1914 Victrola.

Speaker: Lincoln Paine; Recorded December 12, 2013 - Portland resident Lincoln Paine takes us on a monumental tour of human history through the lens of the sea. The 2013 book reveals in depth how people first came into contact with one another by ocean and river, and how goods, languages, religions, and entire cultures spread across and along the world's waterways. Lincoln Paine is the author of four books and more than fifty articles, reviews, and lectures on various aspects of maritime history.

Speaker: Christoph Irmscher; Recorded November 7, 2013 - Indiana University-Bloomington Professor of English Christoph Irmscher speaks about his most recent book, Louis Agassiz: Creator of American Science . A Longfellow contemporary, Agassiz bridged the gap between specialist and amateur in 19th century America, changing ordinary people's relationship with science forever. But he also racist viewpoints that led Americans to expect scientists to comment on race policy. The Christian Science Monitor calls the biography "a groundbreaking book" and the New York Times Book Review praised Irmscher as a "richly descriptive writer with an eye for detail [and the] complexities and contradictions of character." Irmscher, a native of Germany, has taught at the University of Tennesse-Knoxville, Harvard University, and the University of Maryland-Baltimore County.

Speaker: Andrew Barton; Recorded October 22, 2013 - Using a diverse range of historical and ecological evidence, University of Maine at Farmington Professor of Biology Drew Barton discusses the past, present, and future of the Maine Woods. Drew reads narrative selections from his recent book, The Changing Nature of the Maine Woods , and discusses the natural and human-caused changes over the past 15,000 years. He peers into the future to assess how key ecological forces such as climate change, insects and disease, nonnative organisms, and changing land use are likely to further alter the forests of Maine.

Speaker: Joseph Conforti; Recorded October 17, 2013 - Joe Conforti, Distinguished Professor of American and New England Studies Emeritus at the University of Southern Maine, gives his first talk in Maine about his memoir, Another City Upon a Hill . The book is both a personal story and a portrait of a distinctive New England place--Fall River, Massachusetts, once the cotton cloth capital of America. Conforti, whose mother was Portuguese and father was Italian, recounts how he negotiated those identities in a city where ethnic heritage mattered. Simultaneously, he shares the multi-generational story of these immigrants groups making their way in a once mighty textile city that had fallen on hard times beginning in the 1920s. Conforti is the author of five books, including Saints and Strangers: New England in British North America and the acclaimed Imagining New England .

Speaker: Elizabeth Bischof, Associate Professor of History, University of Southern Maine; Recorded October 10, 2013 - Photography was still in its infancy during the Civil War, but it was artfully employed as a new and powerful tool to tell the story of the battlefields and beyond. University of Southern Maine history professor Libby Bischof delivers a presentation about the impact of this new technology on American perception of war and death.

Speaker: Richard Rubin; Recorded September 19, 2013 - Maine author Richard Rubin, gives a talk on his acclaimed 2013 book, The Last of the Doughboys: The Forgotten Generation and Their Forgotten World . The Boston Globe calls the book, "engaging . . . memorable . . . The book succeeds by creating degrees of connection, even as it reshapes our consciousness." Rubin shares his decade-long journey to find and interview living veterans of the "Great War"--all of whom are now gone.

Speaker: Ian Saxine, Ph.D. Candidate, Northwestern University; Recorded July 23, 2013 - In 2012, thanks to a Graduate Research Grant from Northwestern University, Ph.D. candidate Ian Saxine spent six months at the MHS library researching how different ideas about land ownership between Indians and colonists led to decades of violence in frontier Maine. In this "Student Spotlight" presentation, Ian shares the fruits of his research.

Speaker: Carter Stevens, 2013 Colby College Graduate; Recorded July 9, 2013 - Recent Colby College graduate Carter Stevens presents a talk based on his thesis about the 1863 Confederate raid on the city of Portland. While the maritime battle ended with the Confederates surrendering, a U.S. Revenue Cutter was sunk. Stevens's research covers the details of the battle, how it was reported in local and national media, the reactions of Mainers to the raid, and how this small incident fits into the larger picture of the Civil War.

Speaker: Ernest Freeberg, Distinguished Professor of Humanities, University of Tennessee-Knoxville; Recorded March 28, 2013 - Ernest Freeberg, author of Age of Edison: Electric Light and the Invention of Modern America , which Publishers Weekly calls "illuminating," delivers the keynote talk related to the 2012-13 museum exhibit, Wired! How Electricity Came to Maine . Dr. Freeberg shares his research on the inventor and the Menlo Park laboratory environment, the history of electric light generally, and how that technology shaped American culture.

Speaker: Brenda Gilchrist; Recorded November 13, 2012 - Author Brenda Gilchrist talks about her memoir, Waltzing with Bracey: A Long Reach Home , about her journey back to Maine, and to the Deer Isle cottage of her ancestors, to claim her place in the world. The cottage, coincidentally, was designed by Alexander Wadsworth Longfellow, Henry's nephew. Joining her on the adventure is Bracey, her Corgi, who helps her negotiate the rambling pile of a house, the ghosts that live there, and this unique place on the Maine coast. Gilchrist was Senior Editor in Charge of the Art Books Division at Praeger Publishers, and General Editor of The Smithsonian Illustrated Library of Antiques series.