Maine Historical Society - Programs Podcast

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.

Speaker: Jane Brox; Recorded October 25, 2012 - As part of an ongoing series of talks related to the 2012-13 museum exhibit Wired: How Electricity Came to Maine , Jane Brox focuses 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 the extensive research on the topic that she did for her acclaimed 2010 Brilliant: The Evolution of Artificial Light , Brox brings a personal angle to the subject, based on her trilogy of memoirs about her family's farm in Massachusetts and the evolution of the American farm in general.

Speaker: James S. Leamon; Recorded October 2, 2012 - What were the reasons for--and the price of--loyalism during the American Revolution? James Leamon, Bates College professor of history emeritus, explores the complexities of the Loyalist stance in his new book, The Reverend Jacob Bailey Maine Loyalist: For God, King, Country, and for Self . Bailey, a former Congregational preacher, converted to the Church of England and became an Anglican missionary in Pownalborough (now Dresden). There he refused to renounce allegiance to King George or to publicize the Declaration of Independence from his pulpit. He and his family eventually were forced into exile in Nova Scotia for his beliefs, where Bailey wrote obsessively about the trauma of opposing the Revolution. Leamon relies on much of that writing--particularly journals and correspondence--to reveal how Bailey came to feel the way he did, and how revolutionary ideas clashed with more traditional convictions of order and hierarchy.

Speaker: Monica Wood; Recorded September 27, 2012 - Maine author Monica Wood presents her latest book, When We Were the Kennedys which the Maine Sunday Telegram calls "a marvel of storytelling." Subtitled A Memoir from Mexico, Maine , the story takes place in 1963, beginning with the April morning when Wood's father, a foreman at Oxford Paper Company, died on his way to work. From there, the book follows three deeply entwined threads: grief and renewal; the assassination of JFK; and the paper mill's first protracted labor strike. Wood's talk highlights that bygone era: the mill's founding, its impact on the region, and a moment in time when everything started to change. In addition to When We Were the Kennedys , Wood is the author of four works of fiction.