An inside page

In this newsletter, we have followed the progress of Elizabeth Cooke's bilingual illustrated book, Tong Ting Finds a Family, as it flew with bright colors from the presses only to be confiscated as an import, to its eventual freedom. We have done so because Cooke is a scholar with New Books, New Readers, but also because this program had hoped to use the text in a series called "Telling Our Stories." Once the drama of the book's arrival in the U.S. had quieted, New Books, New Readers was free to introduce Tong Ting Finds a Family to its readers.

A difficulty, which New Books, New Readers director Julia Walkling had recognized long ago, was that Tong Ting Finds a Family was not entirely perfect for the groups that would use it. The volume contains Cooke's own fascinating story of the adoption (both in English and translated into Chinese), together with a story for children in English and Chinese. Julia wanted to use only the children's story in the New Books, New Readers series, but, while the story and illustrations were ideal, the type itself was small and would prove a challenge to new readers.

Julia had an idea. What if the children's story could be enlarged and printed separately from the bigger volume? With Elizabeth Cooke's permission and help from Kinko's in Portland's Monument Square, Julia produced a new version of Tong Ting Finds a Family as a children's book, in a format accessible to New Books, New Readers participants.

Reaction to Tong Ting Finds a Family has been tremendously positive. The story details the journey of a two-year-old Chinese girl from an orphanage in Anhui Province to the woods of Maine and the loving arms of the American couple who adopts her. Go to www.tongtingfindsafamily.com to learn more about the book.

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The 2005 Teachers for a New Century series of professional development programs begins on March 3.

These seminars will be led by independent scholars and faculty from Bowdoin College and the University of Southern Maine and are designed to improve teaching by introducing new material and encouraging lively discussion in a collegial setting.

The first, Using Documentary Film, Photography and Oral History in the Classroom, will be held on Thursday March 3rd 4:00 p.m. -7:30 p.m. at the Glickman Library at University of Southern Maine. Controversy over films such as Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 911 reminds us of the powerful role documentaries play in our culture and poses the question of how students can be taught to "read" images critically. This seminar will examine documentary and oral history from the perspective of the filmmaker, photographer and historian. Led by three University of Southern Maine faculty members (Donna Cassidy, Professor of Art History and director of the American and New England Studies Program (ANES); Ardis Cameron, Professor, ANES; and Kathryn Lasky, Associate Professor of Communications and Media Studies), the seminar will focus on using images in the art, literature, social studies, and American studies classroom.

The second, planned for Thursday, March 31st, will take place at the Topsham Public Library, from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. Maine schools are now required by the state to teach Native American studies, yet few schools have the resources or the teacher expertise to meet that mandate. Designed to help fill this knowledge gap, the Maine Humanities Council has planned an all-day seminar on Native Americans in Maine. The seminar will survey the culture ofMaine's indigenous people, their encounter with Europeans, the history of the treaties with the state and federal governments and the controversy over the Maine Indian Lands Claims Settlement Act. Neil Rolde, independent historian, former legislator, and author of Unsettled Past, Unsettled Future: The Story of Maine Indians will lead the seminar.

credit: National Archives and Records Administration

Walt Whitman's Civil War will be the topic for the final seminar on Thursday, April 7th at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, 4:00 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. Memoranda During the War is Walt Whitman's testament to the anguish, heroism, and terror of the Civil War, documented when he was a daily visitor to wounded and dying young men in Washington's crowded hospitals from 1862 to 1865. This seminar provides essential background for teachers studying Whitman's Civil War poetry and offers an understanding of the impact of war's violence long after the battle is over. This will be led by Peter Coviello, Associate Professor of English at Bowdoin College, and is based on the new edition of Whitman's journal, edited with an introduction by Coviello.

As always, Board members and friends of the MHC are welcome to attend (if there is room-these programs have been filling up quickly!). Contact Diane Magras for more information.

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Visit the link below for details of programs that the MHC funds in whole or in part by providing grants. We hope you have the opportunity to experience one of these programs and see the difference that MHC grants make.

MHC Grant-Funded Event Calendar

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We have recently approved a batch of new grants, which, when the times comes, will appear as events under the Upcoming Events heading. However, we wanted to immediately share the news of some exciting projects that we are proud to fund.

$5,000 to the Portland Museum of Art, Portland, for Look at ME
Look at ME will pair age-appropriate children's books by Maine authors with works of art from the Museum's collection, linking reading and arts literacy for Maine's early elementary school students. The Museum will also develop a family workbook to accompany the curriculum.

$5,000 to the Penobscot Marine Museum, Searsport, for Waymouth 400: History Symposium
Waymouth 400 is a multi-faceted project commemorating the 400th anniversary of George Waymouth's exploration of the Maine Coast. A consortium of midcoast organizations is working together to highlight aspects of Waymouth's expedition and his times. The History Symposium will feature historians, including Native Americans, discussing topics of exploration and colonization in early Maine.

$3,000 to the Vinalhaven Historical Society, Vinalhaven, for The Bodwell Granite Company Store and its Influence on Vinalhaven, 1871-1914
This project and its resultant exhibit looks at the history and economy of Vinalhaven through the lens of the Bodwell Granite Company and the Bodwell Granite Company Store. The company store was a major force in the island economy from 1871 to 1919. The History Symposium will feature historians discussing topics of Native American civilization and European exploration and colonization in early Maine.

$3,000 to the Maine Alliance of Media Arts, Portland, for Henry David Thoreau, Surveyor of the Soul
This project consists of a two-hour film on the life and writings of Thoreau and his influence on American culture through history and on our current time.

$1,000 to the Island Institute, Rockland, for Island Historical Institutions Needs Assessment, Resource Guide & Island Settlement Exhibit
In recognizing that volunteer-driven nonprofits such as island historical institutions are an essential component of a vibrant, thriving community, the Island Institute is implementing a complement of historical programs between January 2005 and May 2006. The Island Institute will conduct a needs assessment of these on-island organizations, produce a resource guide specific to their needs, and will convene these organizations around an exhibit featuring a timeline describing settlement of Maine's island communities.

$1,000 to the North Yarmouth Historical Society for Bringing North Yarmouth's Past to Generations of the Future
This project seeks to adapt and use the North Yarmouth Historical Society's resource publication as an education tool in MSAD 51's third grade Maine Studies classes.

$500 to the South Hiram Elementary School/SAD #55 for Bringing Words to Life
Maine children's author Lynn Plourde will visit all SAD #55 elementary schools in an effort to bring words to life.

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On February 6, 2005, the Portland Press Herald announced the formation of the Select Panel on Revisioning Education in Maine. The State Board of Education created this new panel to prompt discussions of what 21st century students "will need to know and be able to do" in order to succeed. MHC Board Member and former University of Maine System Chancellor Robert Woodbury will serve on this panel with former Governor Angus King, former Attorney General James Tierney, former Central Maine Power chief David Flanagan amd State Board Chairman Jim Carignan, among others.

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In April, 2005, University of New Hampshire Press with University of New England will release Donna M. Cassidy's Marsden Hartley: Race, Region, and Nation. This text explores the trends in the late work of the artist. University of New Hampshire Press writes:

At the vanguard of renewed interest in Maine's influential early modernist Marsden Hartley (1877-1943), author Donna M. Cassidy brilliantly appraises the contemporary social, political, and economic realities that shaped Hartley's landmark late art. During the late 1930s and early 1940s, Hartley strove to represent the distinctive subjects of his native region-the North Atlantic folk, the Maine coast, and Mount Katahdin-producing work that demands an interpretive approach beyond art history's customary biographical, stylistic, and thematic methodologies.

Cassidy, sensitive to the psychological and gender analysis traditionally central to interpretations of Hartley, becomes the first scholar to reassess his late work in light of contemporary American perceptions of race, ethnicity, place, and history. This remarkable new book resonates not only as a seminal Hartley study and a complex art and cultural period history, but as a superb example of applied early twentieth-century American intellectual history informed by an impressive command of primary and secondary interdisciplinary literature. Numerous and rich illustrations, as well as transcriptions of several key essays by Hartley, some never before published, including "This Country of Maine" (1937-38), round out this insightful, nuanced, and revolutionary treatment.

We are pleased to offer congratulations to Donna Cassidy, former Board member of the Maine Humanities Council, for her new book.

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This year again the literature dealt with the deepest issues of the human soul across cultures. To read the prose of great writers expands and nourishes us profoundly. To have an opportunity to discuss these works with others again takes us to the limitations of our own perspective.

— A Hospital Administrator in Maine, from a
Literature & Medicine: Humanities at the Heart of Health Care® evaluation

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Notes from an Open Book welcomes feedback from its readers. Please contact Diane Magras by email at diane@mainehumanities.org or by phone at (207)773-5051 ext. 208 (toll-free 1-866-637-3233, ext. 208) to respond.