UPCOMING 2023 Programs
June 9th at 7:00pm Eastern Illustrating & Publishing Company (EIP)
Penobscot Marine Museum Photo Archivist, Kevin Johnson will give an illustrated slideshow on the Eastern Illustrating and Publishing Company (EIP) collection with a special focus on Hancock views. Eastern Illustrating of Belfast, ME was the largest manufacturer of real photo postcards in the U.S. The collection at the museum consists of more than 50,000 glass plate negatives that cover all of Maine and the rest of New England and upstate New York taken between 1909-1950s.
Kevin Johnson earned a bachelor’s degree from St. Joseph’s University, and a Professional Certificate in Photography from the Maine Photographic Workshops, where he first encountered the Eastern Collection. Johnson has grown the Museum’s collection to more than 500,000 images from various sources including EIP (acquired in 2007), National Fisherman magazine, the Maine Sardine Council, photographer Kosti Ruohomaa, and many others. He is the co-author of Maine on Glass: The Early Twentieth Century in Glass Plate Photography.
July 14th at 7:00pm
We are pleased to welcome Maine State Historian, Earle G. Shettleworth, Jr.. Mr. Shettleworth will reprise a talk he did several years ago at the Chapel on the John Calvin Stevens designed buildings in Hancock.
Mr. Shettleworth was educated in Portland public schools, graduating from Deering High School in 1966. He received a B.A. in Art History from Colby College in 1970, an M.A. in Architectural History from Boston University in 1979, and an L.H.D. from Bowdoin College in 2008, and an L.H.D. from the Maine College of Art in 2012.
At the age of thirteen, Shettleworth became interested in historic preservation through the destruction of Portland’s Union Station in 1961. A year later he joined the Sills Committee which founded Greater Portland Landmarks in 1964. In 1971 he was appointed by Governor Curtis to serve on the first board of the Maine Historic Preservation Commission, for which he became architectural historian in 1973 and director in 1976. He retired as director of the Commission in 2015.
Shettleworth’s elected and appointed positions include president of the Maine Historical Society (1977-79), president of the New England Chapter, Society of Architectural Historians (1995-98), chair of the State House and Capitol Park Commission (1988-2015), chair of the Capitol Planning Commission (1998- ), and chair of the Blaine House Commission (2004-2015). He served on the Maine Lighthouse Selection Committee in 1997-98 and the State Facilities Master Plan Commission in 1999.
Earle Shettleworth has lectured and written extensively on Maine history and architecture. The Maine Historical Society’s auditorium in Portland was named for him in 1999. In 2004 Governor John E. Baldacci appointed him as State Historian, and he was reappointed to a second term by Governor Baldacci in 2008 and to a third term by Governor LePage in 2014.
August 4th at 7:00pm The Disaster at Bar Harbor Ferry
“Sunday, August 6, 1899, is a date that for many years will be held in memory as signalizing the most dreadful accident that has ever occurred within the boundaries of the state of Maine.” (Bangor Daily Commercial, August 7, 1899)
In an era when the only means of travel to the new, glamorous, and growing resort of Bar Harbor was through a small, isolated, rural-yet-elegant point of land on the mainland in the small town of Hancock, Disaster at Bar Harbor Ferry tells the true story of what was, at the time, Maine’s deadliest disaster. The heartbreaking tale starts with the arrival of a train overcrowded with passengers anxious to be among the first to cross the bay and their rush for a ferry with too few seats, turning a casual summer Sunday outing into a scene of chaos, tragedy, death and heroism, occurring as quickly as the break of a wooden gangplank. Disaster at Bar Harbor Ferry tells not only the complete story of the people and the events of that day, but of a time and way of life long gone by and nearly forgotten.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
A Navy veteran of the first Gulf War and former reporter for The Bar Harbor Times, Mac Smith lives in Stockton Springs, Maine, in the village of Sandy Point. He is also the author of Mainers on the Titanic, Peyton Place Comes Home to Maine, Maine’s Hail to the Chief, and Siege at the State House.
September 8th at 7:00pm Annual Meeting and Election of Officers for 2024
September 29th at 7:00pm
Judith Burger-Gossart will talk about her book, Sadie's Winter Dream: Fishermen's Wives & Maine Sea Coast Mission Hooked Rugs, 1923-1938, the story of Mrs. Alice M. Peasley from Hancock who inspired fishermen's wives first to hook rugs to siupplement their families' meager incomes and then to be imaginative and creative. These rugs created during the 1920s and 1930s are today prized examples of American folk art.
Penobscot Marine Museum Photo Archivist, Kevin Johnson will give an illustrated slideshow on the Eastern Illustrating and Publishing Company (EIP) collection with a special focus on Hancock views. Eastern Illustrating of Belfast, ME was the largest manufacturer of real photo postcards in the U.S. The collection at the museum consists of more than 50,000 glass plate negatives that cover all of Maine and the rest of New England and upstate New York taken between 1909-1950s.
Kevin Johnson earned a bachelor’s degree from St. Joseph’s University, and a Professional Certificate in Photography from the Maine Photographic Workshops, where he first encountered the Eastern Collection. Johnson has grown the Museum’s collection to more than 500,000 images from various sources including EIP (acquired in 2007), National Fisherman magazine, the Maine Sardine Council, photographer Kosti Ruohomaa, and many others. He is the co-author of Maine on Glass: The Early Twentieth Century in Glass Plate Photography.
July 14th at 7:00pm
We are pleased to welcome Maine State Historian, Earle G. Shettleworth, Jr.. Mr. Shettleworth will reprise a talk he did several years ago at the Chapel on the John Calvin Stevens designed buildings in Hancock.
Mr. Shettleworth was educated in Portland public schools, graduating from Deering High School in 1966. He received a B.A. in Art History from Colby College in 1970, an M.A. in Architectural History from Boston University in 1979, and an L.H.D. from Bowdoin College in 2008, and an L.H.D. from the Maine College of Art in 2012.
At the age of thirteen, Shettleworth became interested in historic preservation through the destruction of Portland’s Union Station in 1961. A year later he joined the Sills Committee which founded Greater Portland Landmarks in 1964. In 1971 he was appointed by Governor Curtis to serve on the first board of the Maine Historic Preservation Commission, for which he became architectural historian in 1973 and director in 1976. He retired as director of the Commission in 2015.
Shettleworth’s elected and appointed positions include president of the Maine Historical Society (1977-79), president of the New England Chapter, Society of Architectural Historians (1995-98), chair of the State House and Capitol Park Commission (1988-2015), chair of the Capitol Planning Commission (1998- ), and chair of the Blaine House Commission (2004-2015). He served on the Maine Lighthouse Selection Committee in 1997-98 and the State Facilities Master Plan Commission in 1999.
Earle Shettleworth has lectured and written extensively on Maine history and architecture. The Maine Historical Society’s auditorium in Portland was named for him in 1999. In 2004 Governor John E. Baldacci appointed him as State Historian, and he was reappointed to a second term by Governor Baldacci in 2008 and to a third term by Governor LePage in 2014.
August 4th at 7:00pm The Disaster at Bar Harbor Ferry
“Sunday, August 6, 1899, is a date that for many years will be held in memory as signalizing the most dreadful accident that has ever occurred within the boundaries of the state of Maine.” (Bangor Daily Commercial, August 7, 1899)
In an era when the only means of travel to the new, glamorous, and growing resort of Bar Harbor was through a small, isolated, rural-yet-elegant point of land on the mainland in the small town of Hancock, Disaster at Bar Harbor Ferry tells the true story of what was, at the time, Maine’s deadliest disaster. The heartbreaking tale starts with the arrival of a train overcrowded with passengers anxious to be among the first to cross the bay and their rush for a ferry with too few seats, turning a casual summer Sunday outing into a scene of chaos, tragedy, death and heroism, occurring as quickly as the break of a wooden gangplank. Disaster at Bar Harbor Ferry tells not only the complete story of the people and the events of that day, but of a time and way of life long gone by and nearly forgotten.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
A Navy veteran of the first Gulf War and former reporter for The Bar Harbor Times, Mac Smith lives in Stockton Springs, Maine, in the village of Sandy Point. He is also the author of Mainers on the Titanic, Peyton Place Comes Home to Maine, Maine’s Hail to the Chief, and Siege at the State House.
September 8th at 7:00pm Annual Meeting and Election of Officers for 2024
September 29th at 7:00pm
Judith Burger-Gossart will talk about her book, Sadie's Winter Dream: Fishermen's Wives & Maine Sea Coast Mission Hooked Rugs, 1923-1938, the story of Mrs. Alice M. Peasley from Hancock who inspired fishermen's wives first to hook rugs to siupplement their families' meager incomes and then to be imaginative and creative. These rugs created during the 1920s and 1930s are today prized examples of American folk art.