The Newsletter of the Maine Humanities Council | Fall 2008
HUMANITIES INFRASTRUCTURE GRANTS
The state of Maine is home to hundreds of museums, archives, and small cultural organizations. Many are run entirely by volunteers. Even in the best of times, their budgets are so lean that they are forced to concentrate fundraising efforts on immediate needs. If a museum wants to host an important traveling exhibit, it might need to postpone improvements to its permanent collection. If an historic building is damaged by an ice storm, the historical society that manages it may not be able to afford new signage at the site. And if an archive can still reproduce its ancient finding aid on the office copier, it is unlikely to explore new technology that might increase access to the resource.
The Maine Humanities Council’s humanities infrastructure grant program is intended to address the crucial long-term needs that are so frequently compromised when an organization has to stretch its dollars to keep the lights on. Funded through the New Century Community Program’s bond funds, the humanities infrastructure grants are restricted to projects with a life span of at least ten years. Some are long-awaited upgrades to obsolete equipment; others are entirely new. Applicants are required to provide a one-to-one cash match and encouraged to use Maine labor (contractors, suppliers, consultants) wherever possible.
The L.C.Bates Museum in Hinckley received funding to install new LED lighting, solid case roofs, safe glass, and tight molding. These improvements allowed the museum to install its new exhibition, “Living the Good Will Idea,” with confidence. The museum’s director, Deborah Staber, notes that “we are able to include light-sensitive objects that we have not exhibited in the past because of the new LED lighting. We could not have completed this necessary collections care and case glass safety project without a humanities infrastructure grant.”
Please see below for a sampling of humanities infrastructure projects. The next deadline for this grant program is April 10. Application forms are available on the Maine Humanities Council website.
HINCKLEY
Safe Exhibit Cases for “Living the Good Will Idea”
$2,160: The L.C.Bates Museum plans to open a new long-term exhibition, “Living the Good Will Idea: Childhood at Good Will Farm,” in conjunction with Good Will-Hinckley’s 120th anniversary in May 2009. The historic objects and documents that tell the story of Good Will and its place in the history of child care must be displayed in safe cases under proper conditions. However, the original display cases at L.C.Bates reflected museum practices from the early 20th century. While these cases were prime examples of early rural museum presentation, they were no longer suitable for exhibit materials. L.C.Bates staff and consultants have replaced the cases’ interior, roof, lighting, and safety glass while retaining their historic exterior, enabling the museum to display its new major exhibition—and those to follow—in the best possible environment.
AUGUSTA
Heritage Tourism Photography Project
$5,000: Maine Archives and Museums (MAM) has identified access to high quality professional digital photography as a major need for infra-structure development among the state’s cultural and historical institutions. Through MAM’s Heritage Tourism Photo Project, Maine-based photographer Dennis Welsh held photo sessions with nine member institutions: the Seashore Trolley Museum, the Sabbathday Lake Shaker Museum, the Ogunquit Museum of American Art, the Penobscot Marine Museum, the Abbe Museum, the Children’s Discovery Museum, the Patten Lumberman’s Museum, the Tides Institute, and the Willowbrook Museum. Welsh’s images will help the participating museums with marketing, audience development, and education; and extend to other museums—and Maine tourism in general—by increasing awareness of the state’s cultural and educational resources.
BAR HARBOR
Textile Display Cases
$1,900: The first test of the new textile display cases at the Abbe Museum in Bar Harbor, purchased with support from a Humanities Infrastructure grant, comes with the exhibit Twisted Path: Contemporary Native American Artists Walking in Two Worlds (December 4, 2008 through June 14, 2009), for which the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and American Art in Indianapolis has loaned a coat made by Mi’kmaq artist Teresa Marshall. This exhibit, along with future exhibits that take advantage of the new textile display cases, will particularly enhance the Abbe’s contribution to Native American studies in Maine schools. To learn more, please call (207) 388-3519 or visit www.abbemuseum.org.
BUCKSPORT
Northeast Historic Film’s Moving Image Review Online
$5,000: Every issue of Northeast Historic Film’s Moving Image Review, published twice yearly since 1988, is now available online. A planning grant from the Council helped NHF and its partners (including the Maine Memory Network project of the Maine Historical Society, the Windows on Maine project of the University of Maine’s Fogler Library, and the Open Video Digital Library Toolkit project of the University of Texas in Austin) design this innovative web-based humanities resource that will enhance public access to NHF’s collection of historic moving images. In the implementation phase, the contents of Moving Image Review-a journal that chronicles the origins, significance, and ongoing relevance of old films-were digitized, professionally indexed, and cross-referenced with existing online resources. Organizations such as the Maine Memory Network and MaineLearns.org collaborated on the project, along with individual historians and other content providers. View the archive at www.oldfilm.org/imagereview.
DOVER-FOXCROFT
The Villages of Piscataquis County Audio Driving Tour
$5,000: The Villages of Piscataquis County is a 134-mile driving tour that winds through 15 communities from Milo to Greenville, and takes about four hours to cover all at once. The creators of the tour have already placed interpretive signs at 15 cultural heritage and historical sites along the route; they hope to place at least ten more. Drivers can use maps and print materials to find their way, but they can also purchase an audio recording of stories, music, and narrative that ties the individual sites together. Updates on the progress of the signage and recording are available online at www.villagestour.org.
LEWISTON
Lighting Our Past for the Future
$3,227: This project will bring museum-quality lighting to the 18 exhibit cases and two murals in the Franco-American Heritage Center in downtown Lewiston (www.francoamerican
heritage.org). The cases house photographs, musical instruments, household items, crafts, maps, military memorabilia, and other examples of Franco-American culture. Over 12,000 people each year pass through the Center’s 450-seat Performance Hall, but because the performances usually take place at night, special lighting is needed to make the displays more visible, attractive, and accessible to these visitors. The project will also illuminate exhibits in the Heritage Hall on the Center’s lower level, which is currently being refurbished.
The donated communion items in this case will soon be illuminated with museum-quality lighting for viewing by hundreds of people every year.
LILLE
Musée on the Web
$10,000: The Musée culturel du Mont-Carmel is a decommissioned Catholic Church in the St. John Valley, fully renovated and now serving as a museum dedicated to the preservation and development of Acadian and Québecois culture. This infrastructure project will support the development of a website for the museum that will explain the renovation process, showcase items from the collection, serve as a resource for students and educators, open lines of communication with a broader public, and support development efforts. The website will break down barriers serve as a model for other cultural institutions in the St. John Valley. It will be bilingual, and very receptive to former parishioners who wish to share their stories. It will also allow researchers to access the more rare and delicate items in the collection, which must be stored away from visitors. The website will be launched in conjunction with the building’s centennial celebration in 2010.
MOUNT DESERT
Making Mount Desert Island History Accessible by Touch Screen Exhibit
$4,300: Historical resources on Mount Desert Island are segmented by geographic area, such that residents are frequently well-versed in the history of their own community, but lack knowledge in other areas. Similarly, while visitors have access to the fine collections of institutions like the Seal Harbor Library and the Tremont Historical Society, there is currently nowhere to go for an overview of island history. That’s why the Mount Desert Island Historical Society is creating a touch screen exhibit covering social history, labor and economic factors, trends in architecture, and other broad topics for the island as a whole. Touch screen buttons leading to photographic images will draw viewers in to the stories being narrated by local experts. Since the exhibit will be fully portable, it can travel from its home base at the Old School House to schools, town meetings, tourist areas—even banks and grocery stores. To find out where the exhibit will turn up next, please call (207) 276-9323.
NEWFIELD
Increasing Visitor Access to Cultural Opportunities
$5,000: In 2008, the 19th Century Willowbrook Village in Newfield, Maine, deployed a number of strategies to increase visitor access to cultural opportunities. They developed a 13-minute orientation video, revised the museum’s visitor guide and website, and recovered historic film footage of rural trades. The museum now features 48 hands-on stations (including four with historic film footage of ice harvesting, sleighing, horse shoeing, and logging) as part of its Passport Through Time booklet program for families. The new materials help modern visitors understand how industrialization impacted 19th-century rural life. Willowbrook is open from Memorial Day through the end of October; meanwhile, explore the new website at www.willowbrookmuseum.org.
PORTLAND
Educational Enhancements at the Portland Observatory Museum
$3,050: Greater Portland Landmarks introduces visitors to Portland’s architecture, maritime history, and sense of place at the Portland Observatory Museum on Munjoy Hill. New computer equipment, enhanced historic images, PowerPoint presentations, and furnishings will provide the infrastructure the museum needs to present educational information to students and tourists alike. A state-of-the-art webcam, in particular, will enhance the experience of mobility-impaired visitors who cannot climb the 103 steps to the top of the Observatory. The Observatory Museum is open from April to October, and the webcam is available year-round at www.portlandlandmarks.org/observatory/Web-Cam.php.
SACO
Public History in Public Places for Saco Bay Cities
$10,000: The Saco Museum plans to create three new local history exhibits covering the Saco Bay communities of Biddeford, Saco, and Old Orchard Beach. One of the exhibits will be installed permanently in the Saco Museum, where local history is a focus of the collection but isn’t currently presented to the visiting public in a comprehensive manner. A smaller exhibit will be installed at the Amtrak Downeaster Station in Saco’s historic mill district. Twenty linear feet of colored panels will hook tourists just entering the area as well as commuters who use the station but aren’t familiar with the museum. Finally, a lightweight exhibit that travels to local schools will include a trunk filled with objects from the museum’s collection, to ensure a tactile experience of history. All three are slated for completion in 2010; to learn more, please contact the museum at (207) 283-3861 or www.sacomuseum.org.
SEARSPORT
Fisheries Exhibit
$8,500: A new exhibit on fisheries will soon occupy its own building at the Penobscot Marine Museum. This comprehensive exhibit will combine gear, photographs, models of boats, and educational films to inform visitors about the four major types of fisheries on the coast of Maine (designed to catch shell, ground, sea run, and schooling fish). Visitors will be able to view the fisheries from the perspectives of fisherman, researchers, corporations, legislators—even the fish themselves! They will leave with an understanding of both the history and the questions about the future that face fisheries today. Examples of the photographs that will appear in the new exhibit are available on the museum’s website, www.penobscotmarinemuseum.org.
SOUTH PORTLAND
2008-2009 Educational Initiative
$10,000: The Portland Harbor Museum is in the process of developing three web-based curricula for use in Maine schools, each elucidating the impact of world events on ordinary life in and around Casco Bay. The first curriculum focuses on commerce in the age of clipper ships. The second looks at Ferry Village in South Portland during World War II, and the third looks back further still, to the colonial era. Students will use online tools to learn about daily life during these periods, then make the connection to national and world history. All curricula will be aligned with the Maine Learning Results.
