Maine Humanities Council

Miss May Sarton (1904-1995), 1936; oil on canvas, by Polly Thayer Starr. Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum; Courtesy of the Polly Thayer Starr Revocable Trust and the Polly Thayer Starr Charitable Trust

Commemorating the 100th birthday of the acclaimed poet, novelist, and memoirist who lived and worked in Maine for the last 22 years of her life, the May Sarton Centennial Symposium will take place May 3 – 6, 2012, in York. It will focus attention on May Sarton as a major literary voice, building awareness of Maine as a place where literature and the arts are supported and celebrated. This exemplary program by the May Sarton Centennial Committee is supported by a major grant from Maine Humanities Council.

May Sarton wrote 16 books of poetry, 19 novels, 12 published journals and memoirs, and two children’s books, as well as essays, articles, and thousands of letters to her friends and readers. She wrote about empathy and compassion, nature and spirituality; she engaged deeply with the ideas of the feminist struggle, of developing a sense of self, of marriage and friendship, and, later, of old age and the links between art and death. The Symposium will explore all of these facets of Sarton’s work.

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The tragic events of September 11, 2001 have evoked complicated responses from Americans and also the rest of the world. Now, ten years later, we are reflecting on how we at the Maine Humanities Council have responded. In summary, I think it is fair to say that we have tried to learn from the events of 9/11 and to promote understanding of how people in other parts of the world live, what they believe and want, and how they view the United States. 9/11 also caused us to reflect on how Americans see themselves, and we’ve created a number of programs and given grants that explore that as well.

In this post, we’ll present programs that look outward, towards the rest of the world, and in October focus on programs and activities that have encouraged us to reflect upon ourselves as Americans.

The Council’s immediate response to 9/11 was our quickly organized statewide reading and discussion program Let Freedom Ring! On October 11, 2001, nearly 1,000 Mainers came together in 63 libraries to share thoughts on W.H. Auden’s ”September 1, 1939” and Franklin Roosevelt’s speech, “The Four Freedoms”, and to reflect on the events of September 11. As one participant wrote afterwards, “There was freedom and respect in this circle – it models what we wish for in the larger world.”

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Marionettes for the upcoming performance of "Goldilocks and the Three Bears." credit: Blainor McGough

In the fall of 2010, the MHC awarded a $1,000 to Mayo Street Arts in Portland for “The Children’s Puppet Workshop,” teaching puppetry, reading, and creative writing to low-income youth from the Kennedy Park neighborhood, culminating in a performance and art exhibit.

The first performances were in March, and now the puppets and scripts are displayed in the Mayo Street Arts gallery. But there is more:  on Friday April 22 and Saturday April 23 at 2:00 pm, the Children’s Puppet Workshop will present Goldilocks and the Three Bears performed with vintage marionettes carved especially for the musical performance.

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The second half of December 2010 saw a round of major grants approved by the Maine Humanities Council. These included grants for infrastructure as well as project support.

$10,000 to theDyer Library/Saco Museum for The Moving Panorama of Pilgrim’s Progress

This grant will complete a project to conserve the historic “moving panorama” originally created in 1851 and make it accessible permanently to audiences once again. A full-sized replica of the fragile original will be created, using high-resolution photography, along with a mechanism that will allow the replica to be unfurled in motion for audiences as originally intended.

$10,000 to the Franco-American Heritage Center for They came, they served. Elles sont venues, elles ont servi.

This permanent, interactive exhibit will use bilingual videotaped interviews, oral histories, photographs, and other memorabilia to explain the enduring legacy of the Sisters of Charity to Lewiston-Auburn’s 19th and 20th century religious, community, health, and cultural life. Recorded interviews will create a lasting testament for Heritage Center visitors.

$9,640 to the Camden Conference (on foreign affairs) for Camden Conference Curriculum Enrichment Project

This project is designed to provide online study guides for teacher/student use in high school social studies courses. The study guides will preserve video content from each year’s Camden Conference, exploring topics of major foreign affairs interest for the United States. The study guides will organize conference content and be available each year online for free.

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Issues on Trial in 2010 debated the Fugitive Slave Law of the 1850’s

The Game Loft, a community based organization of Spurwink Services, will host an event called “Issues on Trial” as part of the annual celebration of Martin Luther King Day on January 17, 2011. This event is part of The Game Loft’s study of the 1950’s and 1960’s in its Eureka Learning Program. This event is funded in part by a grant from the Maine Humanities Council.

In the January 17 event, Jonah Chandler (a fictional character played by Luke Merrithew of Belfast) will face the consequences of refusing to register for the draft in the 1960’s. He will be defended by attorney Orrin Brown of Belfast with the prosecutor being played by Bangor attorney Jim Munch. This issue has particular resonance for Martin Luther King Day because in 1967, Dr. King denounced the Viet Nam War in his speech, “A Time to Break Silence.” This event will give participants and audience members a look at the turbulent ‘60’s and their impact on the lives of average Americans.

Issues on Trial will be held on January 17, 2011 at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Belfast on 37 Miller Street. The doors open to the public at 1:00 pm with the trial running from 1:45 until 4:00 pm. Light refreshments will be served. The public is invited to watch or participate in this live courtroom event. The event will be covered live by BC-TV2. Vietnam protest musician, Vince Gabriel, recently showcased on National Pubic Radio’s Soundprints, will be on hand to perform his original music. Audience members may also volunteer to sit on the jury.

For more information, contact: Patricia Estabrook.

Maine Humanities Council grants awarded in November and December 2010 include:

$1,000 to the LARK Society for Chamber Music, Portland, for Common Threads: From Rags to Riches

This grant funded the final session of A Listener’s Guide to Chamber Music, a  3-part lecture and live demonstration series exploring Chamber music from three different genres: Ragtime, Dance, and Fugue. “The Art of the Fugue” on Nov. 22, 2010, featured musicologist Steven Saunders of Colby College as guest speaker.

$1,000 to Mayo Street Arts, Portland, for The Children’s Puppet Workshop

A small group of low-income youths from the Kennedy Park neighborhood in Portland will meet over 10 sessions, beginning in January 2011, to explore world folklore through puppet making, reading, and creative writing. The project will culminate in a puppet performance (mid-March) and art exhibit (March-April) at the Mayo Street Arts gallery.

$715 to the Midcoast Monthly Meeting of Friends, Cushing, for Cultures and Conflicts in United States Foreign Relations: How Can Engaged American Communities Respond?

Four meetings, from January to April, 2011, will explore issues of foreign relations for residents of Lincoln, Knox, and Waldo Counties. Participants will discuss social, cultural, and religious forces challenging the United States in its relations with Iran, Central America, and the two Koreas, plus how the U.S. might improve relations and help resolve conflicts in these regions.

$600 to Spirits Alive, Portland, for Spirits Alive Winter Lecture Series – Death and Survival in the Civil War

Spirits Alive will present a free, three-session lecture series relating to the topic “Death and Survival in the Civil War” to mark the sesquicentennial of the start of the Civil War.

$492.98 to Sebago Elementary School, Sebago, for Literacy Legacy Conference: Read for Life

Katherine Paterson, National Ambassador for Children’s Literature (and author of such novels for children as Bridge to Terabithia, The Great Gilly Hopkins, and Jacob I Have Loved), will be a guest speaker at a family literacy legacy conference in Sebago. Families will attend sessions on engaging in literacy activities and produce a scrapbook of their unique reading history.

Life hits all of us with blows at one time or another, but it’s especially hard to be hit by the regular blows of a persistent illness. Fran Houston, a photographer and writer on Peaks Island, has suffered from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome for more than 15 years. It has made executing her work impossible at times. Yet one creation has helped her understand how much she can do even while living with this illness.

For the Love of Peaks is Fran’s effort to keep the memories of Peaks Island residents alive. It began as an exhibit of black and white photographs and storyboards that relate each subject’s story (funded in part by a grant from the Maine Humanities Council in 2008), and in June 2010 was launched as a book.

The project that became For the Love of Peaks began in 2007 when Fran attended an oral history workshop funded by the Maine Humanities Council. It was, in part, the inspiration she received from this workshop that led her to interview older Peaks residents about their stories. Fran gives much credit to the community that helped her.

“For the Love of Peaks was a labor of love on my part,” Fran wrote to me, “but I also had a lot of support from the community. I could never have done it without the help. Here I thought I was giving a gift back to the community, yet I received even a greater gift back in the process of doing the book. I learned how to live my life fuller. From these older islanders, some of whom have limited lives, pain, memory loss, I learned grace, courage, and the love of little things that matter. My cfs limits me, but I can choose to live as fully as I want within its framework and be thankful.”

The 20th Maine fires a salute at General Burnham's grave. Credit: Darla Letourneau

A MHC grant to the Cherryfield-Narraguagus Historical Society helped fund Cherryfield Living History Day on September 25, 2010. Civil War reenactors formed the Company B 20th Regiment Maine and, in their historic characters, engaged with visitors and shared details of life as a Civil War soldier, including enlisting, drilling, eating, music, and general military life.

Part of the day involved a ceremony in the graveyard for a “favorite son” of Cherryfield, General Hiram Burnham. Killed during the Civil War, General Burnham’s New York Times obituary stated, “It is simple truth to say that a braver and more conscientious soldier never lived.”

Maine Humanities Council grants awarded in September and October 2010 include:

$1,000 to the Raymond H. Fogler Library, Orono, for The William S. Cohen Papers Forum 2010: The Promise and Problems of Transparency

On November 12, 2010, the library will host a one-day conference on the topic of transparency in government. The public is invited, and speakers will include respected government representatives, scholars, and journalists. The content of the conference is available online, accompanied by related documents from the William S. Cohen archive. Registration is free, though limited to 120 participants.

$808 to the Maine Correctional Center, Windham, for Meet the Authors Reading/Writing Program

Over the course of ten two-hour sessions, 12 incarcerated women with an interest in reading and creative writing will meet authors of various genres: fiction, poetry, nature writing, and children’s stories. The students will read and discuss representative work from the guest authors and engage in their own writing, guided by the authors.

Maine Humanities Council grants awarded in August 2010 include:

$500 to the Maine Civil War Sesquicentennial Committee for Maine in the Civil War – 150 Years Ago Today

This grant will fund the research required to plan an online archive of brief excerpts from two Portland newspapers between the election of Abraham Lincoln (Nov. 1860) and the secession of the first southern state (Feb. 1861). If material exists, the Committee plans to expand the project and cover Maine comments for the whole Civil War.

$1,000 to Museum L-A for Shoemaking Skills of Generations

A year-long Museum L-A interactive exhibit, scheduled to launch Fall of 2010, will provide insight into the culture of work, family and life in the industrious twin cities of Lewiston and Auburn.

$1,000 to King Middle School Library for One Nation, Divided: Commemorating the Sesquicentennial of the U.S. Civil War

This year-long commemorative study of the beginning of the US Civil War will inspire students and their families to read and discuss the events that shaped our nation with a series of Humanities programs to include Socratic Book Circle titles, author visits, movies and historic field experiences. This grant will fund a school trip for students to take Boston’s African American History Walking Tour.