Founder and Director, Franco-American Women’s Institute

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Rhea Côté Robbins was brought up bilingually in a Franco-American neighborhood in Waterville known as the South End. Côté Robbins is the author of creative nonfiction, memoirs titled, ‘down the Plains,’ and Wednesday’s Child, winner of the Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance Chapbook Award.

She is editor of Canuck and Other Stories, an anthology of translations of early 20th century Franco-American women writers who wrote about their immigration experience. Her poems and essays have appeared in many publications. She is the founder and director of the Franco-American Women’s Institute, FAWI.

Talks

Who Gets To Tell Story? 

Telling or hearing story while conscious of the human ecology—listening to story justly with social consciousness of equality. I would like to define what qualifies as “story.”  I believe essentially that every person, artifact, ritual, etc. is story.  Everything we know comes to us via story; we are surrounded by story.  Story is the microcosm of the macrocosm. Who, in the cultural milieu, gets to tell story?


Where Are the Franco-American Women in Your Community?

Using a Franco-American woman’s search and research as a model to address the issue of what, if any Franco-American woman wanted to know about Franco-American women and their history, where would they begin if they were not told or not allowed to know and value the contributions of the Franco-American women’s history? Who are the Franco-American women in the state of Maine in regard to the history of ethnic populations? What makes the Franco-American culture worth the focus in regard to ethnic diversity? The answers to these questions remain unknown in the history of Maine. Deeper review of the lives of the Franco-Americans, present and past, reflects this hidden history.


Franco-American Women, Suffrage and Political Activity

What was Camille Lessard Bissonnette doing to promote women’s suffrage in 1910-1911, and what barriers did she face?  What was happening across the border in the QC/Canadian women’s suffrage movement, which started in 1912?  And who were the Franco-American women of Maine who served in the Maine State Legislature starting in 1935?  The lives of these women illustrate the history of women’s suffrage here, connects the present, and helps us understand how we got here.

Historian, Educator

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Paul Buck is a Professor of History and Education at the University of Maine at Fort Kent. He has a doctorate in U.S. and Canadian history from the University of Maine, which he completed in 2008. Paul is proficient in English, French, Spanish, German, Russian, and Wolof. 

He has either studied or taught over the course of four academic years in French Canada (Québec City), Russia (Voronezh), and Senegal (Dakar). Paul enjoys participating in his adopted community of St. Agatha, particularly in local organizations that promote and celebrate the French language and the Acadian and Franco-American culture of the St. John Valley.

Talks

Webster-Ashburton Treaty (1842) and Maine’s Northern Border 

Paul’s presentation examines the different perspectives of Maine statehood and of Maine culture as seen through the prism of the Webster-Ashburton Treaty of 1842, which definitively established the boundary between British North America and the United States.

Paul explores the treaty itself and its impact on the singular Acadian and Francophone community of the St. John Valley, which found itself split into two countries. He gives historical context as well, most certainly commencing with the long-standing Maliseet and Mi’kmaq communities of the region, along with Scots-Irish and, by the 1820s, of Maine Yankee residents

President, Board of Directors, Abyssinian Meeting House

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Pamela Cummings is President of the Board of Directors and Director of Education Programs for The Abyssinian Meeting House. She is also the writer of two books and the founder of A Walk Back in Time, a theatrical walk retracing the footsteps of enslaved people in Portland, Maine. She is proud mother of Lindsey Alston DAndrea and Douglas Alston. 

Photo: PORTLAND, ME - Pam Cummings, the head of the Committee to Restore the Abyssinian, in the upstairs of the meeting house which is currently being restored. The historical place of worship built by African Americans in the 19th century fell into disarray and a committee to restore the building has been working toward the goal for 20 years. (Staff photo by Brianna Soukup/Staff Photographer)

Talks

The Underground Railroad: Retracing the Tracks

An illustrious walk back in time to discuss the history of the Underground Railroad and its relevance and significance to Maine’s total and accurate history. Pamela explores the places that are hidden all around us in plain sight, each with its own story begging to be told and lessons waiting to be shared.


What’s in Your Hand? 

Use readily available resources to create your underground railroad–your escape from slavery to freedom. 

Founder and Executive Director, Atlantic Black Box

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Meadow Dibble, Ph.D. is a researcher and antiracist historical recovery advocate organizing to surface New England’s suppressed narratives. In 2018 she founded Atlantic Black Box, a grassroots public history project that empowers communities throughout the Northeast to take up the critical work of researching and reckoning with the region’s complicity in the slave trade and the global economy of enslavement. Meadow serves as Project Lead on the Place Justice project in collaboration with the Permanent Commission on the Status of Racial, Indigenous, and Tribal Populations. 

Talks

Whitewashing the Diseased Ship: New England’s Role in the Slave Trade 

On August 1, 1819, a majestic Maine-built ship docked at Boston’s Long Wharf, completing a nearly year-long voyage to West Africa and the West Indies that only a few crew members were fortunate enough to survive. When customs officials descended into the hold to examine the precious cargo for which so many had died, what they found instead were clouds of mosquitoes playing host to a deadly yellow fever virus.

This dramatic story features a prominent Yankee sea captain, a tragedy on the high seas, a viral outbreak, a major political cover up, and a conspiracy of silence that has lasted two centuries surrounding New England’s involvement in the slave trade. Following these historical threads into the present day allows us to consider the ways in which our region’s suppressed history of complicity in slavery relates to our current national conversations about racial justice and healing


Hiding in Plain Sight: New England's Complicity in Slavery

New England has long suppressed the memory of its involvement in slavery, just as it has concealed or failed to center the stories of the region’s free and enslaved Black and Indigenous populations. How could we have gotten the story so wrong for so long? This interactive presentation will contrast the cherished narrative of Northern exceptionalism and innocence with recent scholarship that reveals a long history of exploitation with which our communities have barely begun to reckon.


Place Names in Wabanakik/Maine

Place names have a lot to teach us about our history, values, and present-day relationships with one another. Even when these names fade into the backdrop of our lives, they continue to inform our sense of place in subtle but important ways, communicating ideas about who belongs and what matters. Here in Maine, racist and problematic place names have long marred the landscape and continue to impact our communities. By examining trends in toponymy, we can gain insight into whose perspectives have been privileged and, by contrast, whose experiences have been dismissed and forgotten.

In this presentation, participants will gain foundational knowledge about Maine’s place names profile in relation to those of other states in New England and across the U.S. They will also learn to identify problematic place names in their area and develop approaches to understanding the historical context behind them. Together, we will explore ways to make the commemorative landscape more welcoming, inclusive, and reflective of the breadth of experiences of the people who have made these places what they are today.

Osher Map Library and Smith Center for Cartographic Education, University of Southern Maine

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Libby Bischof explores American society through the lens of history—and the lens of a camera. A nineteenth-century American cultural historian, Professor Bischof specializes in the history of photography, particularly in Maine. Her other research interests include Maine history, modernism, how friendship informs cultural production, and nineteenth-century New England women writers. 

Bischof co-curated of the exhibition Maine Moderns: Art in Sequinland, 1900-1940 at the Portland Museum of Art with Senior Curator Susan Danly. The show won the critic’s choice award for best Historic Show in the 2011 New England Art Awards.

Talks

Maine at 200: A Visual History


History of Photography in Maine 


Visual History of Maine Through Postcards


The World War I Centennial and WWI Monuments and Memorials in Maine 

Professor of History, University of Maine

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Liam Riordan is a faculty member in the Department of History at the University of Maine in Orono. He is a specialist on the American Revolution, and has published about religious, racial and ethnic diversity in the Philadelphia region from 1770 to 1830, and the history of Loyalists. Riordan currently serves on Bangor’s Historic Preservation Commission.

He is the past the Director of the University of Maine Humanities Center, and a former board member of the Maine Humanities Council. He helps organize Maine National History Day, a statewide history contest for middle and high school students. Liam’s wife is the principal of Reeds Brook Middle School in Hamden and they have two children.

Talks

Picturing Maine’s Indigenous Context: Colonialism and the Penobscot

This illustrated lecture uses the recent removal of the Gomez Memorial in Bangor, Maine, and four works of art created from 1835 to 2020 to reconsider how we understand colonialism in the lower Penobscot river and bay as well as the experiences of Penobscot people and their nation. Contemporary Wabanaki vitality has profound implications for how we should understand colonialism and this region in the past, present, and future. Our shared landscape is inscribed with memories about the past (from place names to monuments and more) that provide a rich point of entry to better understand ourselves and our history. 


What Did We Learn from the Maine State Bicentennial? Reflections on Historical Commemoration 


What are the Humanities, and Why are They Essential for our Future? 


The Five Most Important Things to Know about the American Revolution 


The American Revolution & the Origins of Multiculturalism in the U.S. 


Does the American Revolution Look Different from the Penobscot River?

Scholar of Cultural Narratives

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Gaudet is a member of the Humanities faculty and associate director of the University Honors Program at the University of New Hampshire, where she teaches courses on topics like addiction, criminality, and plagues.

She is the editor of What Is a Criminal?, a collection of essays by people with diverse knowledge of the U.S. justice system, which is forthcoming in 2022. She is also working on a scholarly collection about literature and addiction. She lives in Saco with her spouse and two children. 

Talks

Drug Tales: Old and New Stories about People Who Use Drugs 

The stories we know influence how we see the world. This interactive talk will discuss some familiar narratives about drug use, and explore how those stories can fail the people most affected by them. Participants will be invited to shape new narratives and imagine how to disrupt the conventions of drug tales. 


Stories of Epidemics

Are we living through a Biblical plague? Or are we feeling the wrath of the gods on our society, like Thebes in the time of Oedipus? This talk considers what stories, histories, and legends of epidemics have to tell us about how to understand our own time. 

Historian, scholar, independent museum professional

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Kate McBrien currently serves as Maine State Archivist, overseeing Maine State Government’s archives and records management programs. As curator of the award-winning exhibition “Malaga Island, Fragmented Lives,” McBrien is also an historian for the Malaga Island community. She previously held positions as Chief Curator and Director of Public Engagement at the Maine Historical Society and as the Curator of Historic Collections for the Maine State Museum. 

Talks

Malaga Island

This presentation and discussion explores the true history of the community who lived on Malaga Island, off the coast of Phippsburg, Maine, in the late 1800s. The program examines the individuals who were part of this community and the state’s actions to evict them from their homes through the complex history of racism and eugenics in Maine. 

Associate Professor of Africana Studies

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Judith Casselberry is Associate Professor of Africana Studies at Bowdoin College. Her teaching and research focuses on Black American religious and cultural studies, social movements, and Black intellectual thought with particular attention to gender and liberation. 

She is author of The Labor of Faith: Gender and Power in Black Apostolic Pentecostalism (Duke University Press, 2017) and co-editor of Spirit on the Move: Black Women and Pentecostalism in Africa and the Diaspora (Religious Cultures of African and African Diaspora People series with Duke University Press, 2019.

Talks

Afrofuturism in 19th century Black Spirituals 

What can 19th century Black spirituals teach us about Afrofuturism? What if we fully embraced the insistence of the spirituals—insisting on humanity, insisting on a divine ethical and moral vision?

Nineteenth century Black spirituals laid the foundations for Afrofuturism as Black people brought God and the battles and heroes of the Old Testament into their history while projecting liberation in the now and future. Through the spirituals Black people insisted on the value of their ways of knowing and ways of expressing life, death, sorrow, and joy.

This talk is made possible in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this presentation do not necessarily represent those of the NEH.


Black Women’s Freedom Practices: 17th to 21st Century

This talk centers four Black women of consequence who affected the American political landscape between the 17th and 21th centuries—Elizabeth Key, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Fannie Lou Hamer, and Stacy Abrams.

Their experiences highlight how power dynamics of race, gender, sexuality, status, and religion converge in different moments and are shaped by social, political, and historical contexts. At the same time, each woman shows how Black women’s activism has had a profound impact on America’s self-understanding—in social, legal, and political realms. 

This talk is made possible in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this presentation do not necessarily represent those of the NEH.


Intentional Community Building: Blackness in Lesbian Musical Culture 

Based on reflections from a cultural worker/performer at the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival, this talk address the commitment to building an intentional community rooted in a lesbian feminist musical and artistic ethos.

This talk provides a glimpse into spaces where lesbians of color negotiate questions about autonomy, coalition work, and intentional community building which inform our notions of civil society, citizenship, and social justice. This talk explores these themes by looking specifically at the evolution of the festival’s theme song, “Amazon”

This talk is made possible in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this presentation do not necessarily represent those of the NEH.

Storyteller and oral historian

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Before returning to her family home in western Maine as a freelance storyteller and oral historian, Jo Radner spent 31 years as a professor at American University in Washington, DC. There she taught literature, folklore, women’s studies, American studies, Celtic studies, and storytelling.

In 2023 she published a book, Wit and Wisdom: The Forgotten Literary Life of New England Villages, about a 19th-century tradition of creating and performing handwritten literary newsletters. Radner received her PhD from Harvard University and is a past president of the American Folklore Society and the National Storytelling Network.

Talks

Burnt into Memory: How Brownfield Faced the Fire

Drawing on interviews with townspeople, letters, photographs, and newspaper reports, Jo Radner tells the history of the furious 1947 wildfire that in a few hours destroyed almost all of the little town of Brownfield in western Maine.

Neighbors fought and fled the fire, saving what they could and supporting one another, then returned to the devastated town to rebuild their community. In the Brownfield citizens’ own words Radner tells an epic story of terror, courage, generosity, and hope. 


Family Stories: How and Why to Remember and Tell Them

Telling personal and family stories is fun – and much more. Storytelling connects strangers, strengthens links between generations, and gives children the self-knowledge to carry them through hard times. Knowledge of family history has even been linked to better teen behavior and mental health.

In this active and interactive program, storyteller Jo Radner shares foolproof ways to mine memories and interview relatives for meaningful stories. Participants will practice finding, developing, and telling their own tales.


Wit and Wisdom: Homegrown Humor in 19th Century New England 

Whatever did New Englanders do on long winter evenings before cable, satellite and the internet? In the decades before and after the Civil War, our rural ancestors used to create neighborhood events to improve their minds. Community members would compose and read aloud homegrown, handwritten literary “newspapers” full of keen verbal wit.

Sometimes serious, sometimes sentimental but mostly very funny, these “newspapers” were common in small villages across Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont and revealed the hopes, fears, humor, and surprisingly daring behavior of our forebears. Jo Radner shares discoveries about hundreds of these “newspapers” and when possible, provides examples from villages in your region.