Maine Humanities Council | Grants, 2006-2007

Past Grants

Grants Made By Maine Humanities Council : 2006–2007 (arranged by town)

BF = Grants made in conjunction with the Betterment Fund
INF = Grants made through the Humanities Infrastructure Program.

Augusta - Maine Archives & Museums
$5,000 - INF
Heritage Tourism Photography Project
Funding to support photography documentation of selected Maine museums and historic sites in order to develop long-term promotion and awareness of key cultural sites throughout Maine.
Augusta - Maine State Museum
$3,000
Maine History Project
This grant covers planning and pre-production for the pilot of an accurate and entertaining television series documenting the rich history of the State of Maine. Thirteen half-hour programs are planned, with each episode divided into shorter segments which can be adapted to classroom and web use.
Augusta - Old Fort Western
$500
Teaching about Maine’s Indians Planning Grant
Old Fort Western will lead a group of educators and historians in planning a statewide conference about Maine’s Native Americans. The conference will focus on strategies for complying with LD 291, which requires Maine public schools to teach about Maine Indians.
Bangor - Bangor Public Library
$1,000
Bangor Book Festival
The first of an annual festival in downtown Bangor designed to bring together authors with a Maine connection and their readers for panel discussions, readings, and book signings.
Belfast - New Strategies for Youth
$500
America Awakening
This five-week role-playing program provides interactive American history and literatue experiences for youth, adults, and seniors. Each participant is given a character from a different region and culture in the U.S. Participants use background readings and research to follow their characters from 1870 through 1945.
Belfast - Belfast Free Library
$300
Reading Out: The Rancor, Hope, Passion and Brilliance of the Liberation Poets
This project in Belfast involved four evenings of poetry reading and discussion held in conjunction with National Poetry Month (April). The series, designed by Belfast’s poet laureate Karin Spitfire, featured liberation poets from the 1960s up to the present.
Bethel - Bethel Historical Society
$500
2007 Lecture Series: Maine Character and Characters
These six lectures on a wide variety of topics were meant to provide insight into the historic character of Maine and some of its unique individuals.
Blue Hill - Primary Source
$1,000
Stories Told In Many Ways: Teaching African Culture Through the Arts
The Blue Hill Consolidated School and the Downeast Educational Partnership joined forces with Primary Source to offer “Stories Told in Many Ways: Teaching African Culture Through the Arts.” This five-part seminar for K-12 educators explored African culture through literature, art, and music.
Brunswick - Bowdoin College
$5,000
New Kazakh Film Implicated in Nation Building: Third Stage of Silk Road Comes to Maine
This project brought film critics and a film maker from Kazakhstan for a continuing dialogue with residents of Mid-Coast Maine regarding the complex nature of Central Asia and the nearby Middle East. There was a week of discussions and film screenings in late July plus another series of events in early November.
Brunswick - Town of Brunswick
$2,000 - INF
Brunswick Literary Art Walk
The Walk commemorates Brunswick’s illustrious literary tradition with a series of bronze plaques installed in the sidewalks of the downtown area. The plaques, each with a thought-provoking quotation, will honor authors connected to Brunswick such as Robert P. Tristram Coffin, Nataniel Hawthorne, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and Harriet Beecher Stowe.
Bucksport - Northeast Historic Film
$500
Access in Community Context: Planning Public Access to 18 Years of Moving Image Review
A planning grant for a digital access project to enhance public accessibility to Northeast Historic Film’s collection of historic moving images. The public access point, 36 issues of the magazine Moving Image Review, will be digitized, professionally indexed, and cross-referenced with existing online resources.
Bucksport - Northeast Historic Film
$5,000 - INF
Northeast Historic Film’s Moving Image Review
This digital access project will put the complete library of the magazine Moving Image Review online in searchable and readable form, cross-indexing it with existing online resources. The result will enhance public accessibility to Northeast Historic Film’s collection of historic moving images.
Camden -Camden Philosophical Society
$2,000
Philosophy at the Edge, a one-day conference
This was the first in an expected annual series of one-day conferences featuring top-quality presentations on diverse mainstream topics in contemporary philosophy by leading academic philosophers, comprehensible to a non-academic audience.
Camden - Camden Conference
$3,000
Camden Conference -- Europe: Old Continent in a New World
This three-day conference is held yearly to foster informed discourse on world issues in a non-partisan atmosphere for approximately 800 participants. This year’s global focus was on issues related to Europe and their impact on the rest of the world.
Chebeague Island - Chebeague Island Historical Society
$1,000
Schooling on Chebeague:The Relationship of Community and Island Schools
The Society’s 2007 summer exhibit was entitled “Island Schools: Sustaining our Community from the 1750s into the Future.” Through a variety of historical artifacts, including books, photographs, town records, newspaper articles, and oral histories, the exhibit revealed how town schools have contributed to Chebeague Island’s vitality and most recently its independence.
Cornish - MSAD #55
$1,000
Snapshots of Change: The Cornish Historical Mural Project
Fourth, fifth, and sixth graders at Cornish Elementary School used their research of local history, primarily through field trips and interviews with older residents, to design and create a permanent mural for the school’s multipurpose room.
Dover-Foxcroft- Piscataquis County Economic Development Council
$5,000 - INF
The Villages of Piscataquis County Audio Driving Tour
A driving tour that winds through 15 communities in Piscataquis County and takes four hours to cover at one time. Related interpretive signs will be placed at many cultural heritage and historical sites along the route. Drivers can follow maps and print materials but can also purchase or download an audio recording of stories, music, and narrative that tie sites together.
Farmington - University of Maine at Farmington
$3,834 - BF
Girls Talk & Teen Voices Mentor Partnership Program with MSAD #58 and University of Maine at Farmington
Literature-based discussion programs for teens which are designed to raise aspirations, enhance self-esteem, emphasize personal growth, and foster a commitment to community.
Farmington - University of Maine at Farmington
$500
Bobby Seale Campus Visit and Lecture
The project involved a visit to the UMF campus by former Black Panther Bobby Seale, who discussed the history and politics of the Black Panthers and his current work with youth.
Hinckley - L.C. Bates Museum (Good Will Home Association)
$1,000 - BF
Central Maine Works -- Implementation Phase
This project included an exhibition, public presentations, and children’s programs about Gerd Heinrich and his relationship to the L.C. Bates Museum’s history, as well as the broader story of collecting artifacts for natural history museums.
Hinckley - L.C. Bates Museum (Good Will Home Association)
$2,160 - INF
Safe Exhibit Cases and for Living the Good Will Idea: Childhood at Good Will Farm
This project consists of contracting with a Maine object conservator and other workers to prepare historic safe exhibit cases to display Good Will Farm documents and related humanities object for at least 10 years to come.
Indian Island - Penobscot Nation Cultural and Historic Preservation Department
$5,000 - BF
Teach the Teachers Professional Development Project: Teaching Native Culture and History in Maine
A series of educator workshops geared toward preparing Maine teachers K-12 to present Native American culture and history in their classrooms.
Jefferson - Jefferson Historical Society
$1,000
Educational Outreach Projects: Jefferson’s Bicentennial Project
The year-long bicentennial celebration includes several public education projects which will focus on discovering, experiencing, and valuing the town’s local history. There will be an 18th and 19th century living history reenactment, a self-guided tour map and brochure, museum exhibits, and open houses.
Lewiston - Bates College
$1,000
Bates Dance Festival
Dr. Suzanne Carbonneau will conduct a 3-week residency this summer to enhance the understanding of festival artists and the context of their work. Activities include presenting lectures for public dance performances, writing program notes, and designing and moderating a Global Exchange panel discussion with choreographers from Africa, Asia, and Latin America.
Lewiston - Bates College
$1,000
Franco-American Heritage Center and Bates College French Film & Lecture Series
A French film & lecture series which will include bilingual lectures and, hopefully, involve college students and other participants in community revitalization.
Lewiston - Franco-American Heritage Center
$1,000
FrancoFun
The FrancoFun Festival in Lewiston (August 3-5, 2007) was largely about entertainment, but visitors could explore the historical and cultural context of performances they saw at the Androscoggin Bank Colisée, where French films were screened alongside a multimedia exhibit, using books, news clips, and other archival materials.
Litchfield -Odamogan Living History Project
$500
Living History Project
A project to provide local Boy Scout troops in the area with information about Maine Native Americans.
Livermore - Norlands Living History Center
$1,000
Washburn Humanities Seminar - 2007
The title of this year’s 3-day conference in June was “Mysteries of Northern New England.” Participants explored numerous events, stories, and legends which have attracted curiosity and speculation while defying explanation. Presenters included mystery authors, established historians, young scholars, journalists, biographers, and folklorists.
Lovell - Greater Lovell Land Trust
$900 - BF
Cultural and Historic Enrichment for the Greater Lovell Area
This summer lecture series included a talk in July by Martin Engstrom, longtime forecaster at the weather station on Mt. Washington, and a talk in August by anthropologist Alvin Morris, speaking about a famous local conflict in 1725 between Lovell settlers and Pigwacket Natives.
Lovell - Western Maine Cultural Alliance
$950 - BF
Making Oral History and Folklore Accessible on the Web with Audio Downloads
With the resources of Lake Region TV, the Western Maine Cultural Alliance will convert selections from previous Oxford Hills oral history projects to digital audio files. Once converted, the files will be available for easy downloading from the Alliance’s website.
Lubec - Lubec Historical Society
$125.25 - BF
Lubec Historical Society’s Postcard Archival Project
The historical society will restore and catalogue old photos and postcards of the Lubec area for display at their museum.
Lubec - Lubec Landmarks
$940
Interpreting Life and Work at the Last Herring Smokehouse in the U.S.
As restoration continues on McCurdy’s Smokehouse Packing Sheds, new exhibits were available this summer to provide glimpses of life and work in the last operating herring smokehouse in the United States (1880-1991). Several related talks were offered, including one by Frank Van Riper who photographed activities during the smokehouse’s last year of operation.
New Gloucester - United Society of Shakers
$5,000
The Human and the Eternal: Shaker Arts in Its Many Forms
Major exhibit of Shaker art, drawing on more than 150 years of their creativity. In addition to the museum’s extensive collection of sewn and crafted objects, the exhibit shared insights into Shaker life over the centuries and provided the visitor with a better appreciation of contemporary Shaker culture.
Newfield - Willowbrook Museum Village
$5,000 - INF
Increasing Visitor Access to Cultural Opportunities at Willowbrook Museum Village
This project included the development and presentation of an orientation video, the showing of historic film footage of 19th century rural trades, revision of the museum’s visitor guide and website, and installation of 9 hands-on stations in the Museum.
Norridgewock - Norridgewock Historical Society
$500
Norridgewock Corn Festival
This 2-day festival in August 2007 featured a jewelry demonstration, corn crafts, a homemade electric car, and a poster presentation by local farmers. Speakers included Dr. Paul Frederic, author of Canning Gold, who addressing the history of the crop, and Cooperative Extension agent Kathryn Hopkins speaking about modern corn production.
North Berwick - Noble High School
$500
MSAD 60 Fall Forum - Keynote Speaker
Michael Sullivan, an author, librarian, and literacy specialist in Portsmouth, NH, will be keynote speaker for the MSAD-60 Fall Forum which will have over 600 staff members participating from the three communities in the district. His work centers on motivating children—especially boys—to become enthusiastic readers and library patrons.
Old Town - Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States
$4,995 - BF
Penobscot Indian Veteran Returns to Omaha Beach
This project will document the experience of Charles Norman Shay, a Penobscot Nation Elder who was one of 98 Penobscots who served in World War II. Shay was a combat medic who fought at Omaha Beach, was captured after the Battle of the Bulge, and survived German POW camps. At age 83, he will return to those historic places and record his oral history on video.
Old Town - River Coalition
$499
Musical Exchange
On June 26, 2007, youth drumming groups from all Maine Native American communities gathered at the Penobscot Boys & Girls Club on Indian Island for a musical exchange with Iranian drummer Shamou. Through their drumming traditions, the Middle Eastern and Native American cultures shared songs, stories, and lessons.
Portland - Center for Ethics in Action
$500
Cuba: Hearts and Minds Past and Present
A two-day educational program in July examined historic Maine connections with Cuba; the role of women, arts, and culture in Cuba; and what the future portends after Castro. The program included films and seminars featuring scholars and experts on the subject.
Portland - City of Portland
$500
Portland Freedom Trail
Portland’s Freedom Trail will link significant sites connected to the Underground Railroad and the anti-slavery movement by means of permanent granite pedestals set up in a walking route throughout the peninsula.
Portland - Literacy Volunteers of Maine
$300
Literacy Volunteers of Maine Annual “Stars in Literacy” Celebration
Acclaimed storyteller Michael Parent performed at the annual Stars in Literacy Celebration, held to acknowledge and honor those working to improve literacy in Maine. Parent’s performance served as a catalyst for a tutor/learner lesson plan distributed to attendees.
Portland - Maine College of Art
$250
Dan Graham Visiting Artist Event
A public lecture presentation at One Longfellow Square Cultural Center covering the history of video art. The project will also include a discussion with Dan Graham on his multi-disciplinary practice and an interview text for publication.
Portland - Maine Narrow Gauge Railroad Co. & Museum
$500
The Portland Co.: An Introduction
This project created an exhibit to tell the story of the Portland Company which built locomotives and created the first railroad connector line between Portland, Maine and Canada (later known as The Grand Trunk).
Portland - Maine Olmsted Alliance for Parks & Landscapes
$500
You CAN get there from here: Tourism and the Maine Landscape
Dona Brown, Associate Professor of History at the University of Vermont, led a 2-day conference that explored how Maine’s landscapes have been cultivated, promoted, and experienced by artists, writers, marketers, and tourists over the past 200 years.
Portland - Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance
$1,000
Traveling Poet Series
In celebration of National Poetry Month in April, the Traveling Poet series brought poetry readings to Portland, Orono, Ellsworth, and Houlton.
Portland - Museum of African Culture
$1,000
Africans in the Fabric of Maine and America
Playwright Victoria Mares-Hershey presented readings from her play-in-progress “How Did You Get Here?” at three locations during the summer. Facilitated discussions followed the performances, and the project focused on giving audiences a sense of the everyday lives of Africans in Maine.
Portland - PCA Great Performances
$5,000
Artists interpreting other artists’ works, inspiring collaboration in the arts
To expand the understanding and appreciation of the performing arts, this project presented 17 scholarly humanities-based lectures, 4 community residencies, and 4 study guides to explore the impact of other art forms on performing artists.
Portland - Peaks Island Children’s Workshop
$620
Island Rovers Camp
The Peaks Island Children’s Workshop offers summer camp activities with a different theme each week. This grant helped fund a week focused on Peaks Island history and a week learning about photography.
Portland - Portland Stage Company
$1,000
Longfellow: A Life in Words
The theater company will produce a new play created by Daniel Noel to celebrate the bicentennial of Longfellow’s birth. The production uses only original, primary source material, interweaving Longfellow’s memoirs and correspondence with his poetry .
Portland - Southern Maine Agency on Aging
$500
The Full Angel
The project helped fund a public premiere of Susan Poulin’s new one-woman show “The Full Angel” which served as the kick-off event to this year’s Active Aging Expo. Her show is a series of vignettes about a family dealing with the illness and death of its matriarch.
Portland - The Telling Room
$2,950
A Sense of Place: Maine Writers on Maine
The centerpiece of this project was a 3-hour forum on 5/24/07 with four Maine writers speaking about their work and how a sense of Maine contributes to it. The writers are poet Betsy Sholl, spoken word performer Sontiago, novelist Monica Wood, and creative non-fiction writer Elizabeth Peavey.
Portland - University of New England
$380
Poetry of Monhegan
“On Island,” an exhibit at the University of New England’s Gallery of Art, showcased the poetry of seven women writers who spend part of their year on Monhegan Island. The exhibit ran from July 26-September 23, 2007.
Portland - University of Southern Maine
$2,500
2007 Conference - Planning at the Edge: The Evolving Shape and Function of Waterfront Cities and Towns
A 3-day humanities conference jointly hosted by the Society of City & Regional Planning History and the Northern New England Chapter of the American Planning Association. The conference explored how history illuminates such timely issues as sustainability, smart-growth, and affordable housing.
Portland - University of Southern Maine
$1,000
Globalization Ethics and Human Rights
The first event in a new public lecture series, the Douglas M. Schair Memorial Lecture on Genocide and Human Rights, took place on the USM campus April 23, 2007. The speaker, Mary Robinson, is former President of Ireland and former High Commissioner for Human Rights at the UN. Her topic was the need for a global ethic that gives consideration to human rights.
Portland - University of Southern Maine
$1,000
Off the Grid: Maine Vernacular Environments
Two simultaneous art exhibits, video and oral documentation, and related programming will conclude a seven-year period of research constituting the only survey of contemporary self-taught art in Maine. Exhibits ran from Sept. 11 through Nov. 11 at the USM art galleries on both Portland and Gorham campuses.
Portland - University of Southern Maine
$500
Parallel Lives Project: From Maine to New Delhi
This project explores the cultural and economic issues and thought processes of two different societies, the United States and India, by interviewing hundreds of residents in both countries about their aspirations, values, and world views.
Portland - University of Southern Maine
$1,000
History as Told by Native Peoples: Joseph Nicolar’s “Life and Traditions of the Red Man”
On April 9, 2008, two speakers will discuss the new edition of a 19th Century Penobscot book, Joseph Nicolar’s The Life and Traditions of the Red Man, which sheds light on Penobscot history and culture and enhances knowledge of Maine’s earliest cultural and historical foundations.
Portland - Victoria Mansion
$1,000
Holiday Happenings at Victoria Mansion
Educational events will be offered at the Victoria Mansion to celebrate Halloween and Christmas. The Halloween program will include tours under gas-level lighting and “tales of terror” from the 1800s. The Christmas festivities will showcase Father Christmas with an illustrated lecture delivered by historian Sibyl McCormac Groff.
Presque Isle - Northern Maine Fair
$500
Historical Pavilion, Northern Maine Fair
An annual 3-day exhibit combining collections from many local historical societies and family collections in Northern Maine into a great exhibition of regional history.
Rockland - Wm. A. Farnsworth Library and Art Museum
$1,000
Maine Gardens: Nature and Design
This 4-day symposium in July offered participants the opportunity to explore the history and beauty of Maine’s varied landscapes, learn about writers and artists who created the concepts, and hear from current landscape experts and designers.
Rockland - Rockland Public Library
$1,000
The Thinking Heart
A performance piece in two voices, with cello, based on the journal and letters of Etty Hillesum, a Dutch woman who lived in Amsterdam during the Nazi occupation and died in Auschwitz in 1943. The performance on Sept. 20, 2007 was an original arrangement of her journal and letters in the form of poems written by Martin Steingesser.
Rockport - Mainely Girls
$1,000
The Girls’ Point of View Book Club - 2007
A pilot program of book clubs in five middle schools will expose girls to young-adult fiction and nonfiction which has strong, resourceful female characters. The clubs are designed to help participants develop self-respect and autonomy, in sharp contrast to the girls they're used to seeing on TV and in the movies.
Saco - Literacy Volunteers of Greater Saco-Biddeford
$500
Maine Author Series: Wesley McNair Reading
Poet Wesley McNair presented a public reading at Thornton Academy in Saco on May 3rd, part of an evening program to help promote community awareness of Literacy Volunteers and their mission.
Searsport - Town of Searsport
$5,000 - INF
Searsport “Museum in the Streets”
Signage provided with this grant will define Searsport’s heritage discovery trail for residents and visitors. There will be a large introductory panel with map, plus 15 smaller panels placed at significant sites around the town. Descriptive brochures of the trail will be available free at local shops.
Skowhegan - Skowhegan Free Public Library
$1,000
Skowhegan Area Community Read Program
Skowhegan’s first community-wide reading program used the book Once Upon a Town by Bob Greene to promote reading and invite reflection on what a town can accomplish when its residents work together.
South Paris - The McLaughlin Foundation
$500
McLaughlin Garden Visitors’ Center
The grant covers production of new printed material detailing the history of the McLaughlin property and the families who lived there, part of a larger project to create a new educational exhibit for the re-designed McLaughlin Garden visitors’ center.
South Portland - Portland Harbor Museum
$5,000
Picturing Portland: A Century of Change
This exhibit employed the concept of “rephotography” - pairing old photos with current ones - to explore the many aspects of Portland Harbor which have changed or remained the same. Visitors were encouraged to think about their own definition of history and the role that photography plays in documenting our past.
South Portland - The Stage
$1,000
The Stage: Pre-Show Presentations
Thirteen pre-show programs were offered during the July run of Oscar Wilde’s “The Importance of Being Earnest” as a way to introduce audiences to Wilde, the Victorian theatre, and the workings of verbal comedy through a monologue written and performed by local Equity actor Harlan Baker.
Standish - Saint Joseph’s College
$500
Serving Local Schools Through Three Author/Illustrator Days: A Service Learning Project of Saint Joseph’s College
Building on a pilot project funded by the Council in 2006, students from St. Joseph’s College increased the language arts skills of students at Otisfield Community School and Waterford Memorial School by bringing noted Maine children’s authors and illustrators into the classroom.
Stonington - Penobscot East Resource Center
$3,000
Sharing Fishermen’s Stories: Insights into a Vanishing World
A DVD of 5 to 8 short films will be produced to capture the culture, knowledge, and history of Downeast fishermen through their personal stories. The films will be shared in community forums and schools throughout the Downeast area from Mount Desert to Jonesport. Copies will also be provided to local historical societies and Northeast Historic Film, and will be available through Penobscot East Resource Center’s website.
Swan’s Island - Town of Swan’s Island
$5,000
Burnt Coat Harbor Light Station
In conjunction with the preparation of museum exhibitions about the history of the light station, this project presented oral histories, historic photographs, and explanatory text in 2007 to several groups on Swan’s Island and at the Lighthouse Museum in Rockland.
Thomaston - Coastal Senior College
$500
John Syrett Distinguished Lecture Series - 2007
Mahmud Faksh, Professor of Political Science at the University of Southern Maine, will speak at Rockland Town Hall about historical and contemporary issues related to the Middle East.
Vinalhaven - Vinalhaven Historical Society
$1,000
Bodwell Granite Company Store and Its Influence on Vinalhaven, 1858-1919
This project will build a database to make records about Vinalhaven’s Bodwell Granite Company Store accessible to the general public and to scholars on the Web. In addition, an exhibit is planned during the 2008 summer season that examines the influence of the company store on the history and economy of the island through the lives of 10 representative workers.
Waterville - Mount Merici School
$1,000
Deaf Culture Week Celebration
The Mount Merici School in Waterville and Williams Elementary School in Oakland celebrated Deaf Culture Week September 24-28, 2007 with a series of events, including the performance of a play and art activities. The Manchester Program for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing Drama Team will work with both schools.
West Paris - Oxford County Agricultural Society
$997
Barn Story: Saving the Barn on Stearns Hill Farm
The project involves the creation of a video telling the story of an 1820 barn, its original owners and history, plus recent efforts to repair and preserve it. The video will be shown, along with a timber-framing demonstration, at the Oxford County Fair.
Wilton - Wilton Free Public Library
$1,000
Peter Cook, Hands On PAH
The library has begun a new program called Hands On PAH to make the library more accessible to the local deaf community. In April 2008, nationally renowned deaf storyteller Peter Cook will present a workshop and performance for deaf people, ASL, students, and hearing members of the community.
Winter Harbor - Schoodic Arts for All
$1,000 - BF
Downeast Maine Historic Films and Discussions
A series of film screenings, each followed by a panel discussion, presented historical aspects of Downeast life of the past. Films included “Schoodic: Where Sea Meets Land,” “From Stump to Ship” about the logging industry, “Cherryfield 1938,” the 1947 documentary “Lobstertown,” and “Granite by the Sea” about the Vinalhaven quarrying industry.
Yarmouth - Merrill Memorial Library
$1,000
Teens Connecting at the Merrill Memorial Library
The library has organized a new summer Teen Read program, beginning in July. Resident teens in grades 7-12 who keep a log of their summer reading can enter to win a prize, and other special teen events will include movie nights, craft events, author visits, and a monthly book group.
York - York Adult & Community Educaton
$1,000
York Reads!
The third annual York Reads! One Book, One Community project used the book A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson as the starting point for community interaction. Related activities included a walking tour of York Beach, a program about packing for hiking trips, and an installation of wooden hiking boot sculptures.

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