Wabanaki Veteran’s Community History Exhibit
2025 Major Grant – $7,500
The Abbe Museum of Wabanaki art, history, and culture created a new permanent installation featuring stories of Wabanaki Veterans.
Supported by a Maine Humanities Major Grant, the interactive digital kiosk serves as an archive where the stories of Wabanaki Veterans can be kept—and where they can be told. Native Americans have the highest per capita rate of military service of any group in the United States.
“For the Wabanaki, military service began before the United States was a country and includes every American war since the Revolution”
—ABBE Museum
Pictured using the Interactive Community History kiosk is one of the Abbe Museum’s Wabanaki Fellows, Liliana Sapiel-Bobadilla (Penobscot and Passamaquoddy). Through the Wabanaki Fellows program, the Museum is training the next generation of museum professionals.
For the Wabanaki, military service began before the United States was a country and includes every American war since the Revolution. The kiosk offers a way for the wider public and new generations within Wabanaki communities to reflect on Wabanaki military service and empowers visitors to build their understanding of Wabanaki nations’ deep and complicated relationship with democracy.
Aaron Miller, Curator of Exhibits & Collections at the museum, created the exhibit with co-curator Donna Loring, Penobscot elder, Vietnam Veteran, and the Penobscot Nations’ elected representative to the Maine State Legislature for 12 years. The kiosk was designed by Don Havey at Perch Designs.