Maine Humanities Council

History Camp is a one week seminar for high school students who enjoy history. Each history camp theme is related to a Maine person, historical site, or event in United States history and may be offered in collaboration with a history-related organization.

One of this year’s camps, titled “The Cold War, McCarthyism, and Margaret Chase Smith’s ‘Declaration of Conscience’ ” was held at the Margaret Chase Smith Library in Skowhegan. This podcast, Margaret Chase Smith and Cold War America was from a lecture by Gregory Gallant, Ph.D, the Director of the Margaret Chase Smith Library.

The Cold War, McCarthyism, and Margaret Chase Smith’s “Declaration of Conscience” took place June 28 - July 2, 2010 at the Margaret Chase Smith Library in Skowhegan, Maine.

 

 Margaret Chase Smith and Cold War America [52:20m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (824)

Listen to the inaugural event that launched the new minor of Holocaust, Genocide and Human Rights Studies at the University of Maine, Augusta. This program was hosted by the Director, Abraham Peck at the Michael Klahr Center in Augusta. The panel discussion: First Mainers and New Mainers was part of a project entitled The Dignity of Difference: First Mainers and New Mainers that allowed Maine’s First Nations and Maine’s most recent immigrants and refugee communities the opportunity to showcase their cultures, history and communities to the broader UMA and Central Maine populations. This panel was moderated by Reza Jalali and included Ismail Ahmed, Paul Bisulca, Grace Valenzuela and Pious Ali all leaders in their communities.

For more information on the Holocaust, Genocide and Human Rights Studies minor please visit their website. This program was made possible through a Community Outreach grant from the Maine Humanities Council.

 

 First Mainers and New Mainers [76:02m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (2074)

Denise Pendleton, Maine Humanities Council’s Program Director of Born To Read and poet, sat down at the Belfast Free Library with two of Maine’s best-known poets, Elizabeth Garber and Dawn Potter. In addition to reading from their memoirs, the poets spoke about why they turned to prose and how their poetry background has influenced their current writing. Elizabeth W. Garber is the author of two collections of poetry and is currently writing a memoir, The Architect’s Daughter, about growing up in a modern glass house in the 1960’s. Her chapter “Stones” won the Maine Writer’s and Publishers Alliance 2009 Literary Award for unpublished Non-Fiction.  She was voted 2009 Best Writer in Waldo County in a Reader’s Poll conducted by The Village Soup/Republican Journal. Dawn Potter is the author of two collections of poetry and, most recently, a memoir, Tracing Paradise: Two Years in Harmony with John Milton. It recounts her project of copying out every word of John Milton’s epic poem Paradise Lost while living an everyday life in the central Maine town of Harmony. According to writer Sam Pickering “Potter writes beautifully. . . . [Her book] made me ponder my life as well as literature, as a good book should but few books do.”

 

 Poets Writing Memoir: A Conversation with Elizabeth Garber and Dawn Potter [78:14m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (2132)

For the kick-off of the new season of the Portland Public Library’s brown-bag lunch series, Pulitzer Prize winning author, Richard Russo, came back to Portland to read from his new novel That Old Cape Magic. Despite being a Yankees fan, Russo lives in Coastal Maine. Here, Russo reads a colorful chapter of his newly released and critically acclaimed novel.

This talk was part of the Portland Public Library’s Brown Bag Lecture Series. We welcome your feedback on this Richard Russo podcast.

 

 Richard Russo [35:03m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (2245)

Connie Burns is a school librarian in South Portland with a hidden passion: the lives of Victorian women. In pursuit of her passion, Burns researched Margaret Jane Mussey Sweat (1823-1908) for her Master’s thesis in the American and New England Studies program at the University of Southern Maine. Sweat is best remembered for her bequest of the mansion that would become the Portland Museum of Art, but she was also a published author and an influential member of Portland’s elite during her life. Here, Burns reads from Sweat’s diary and letters (held in the Maine Women Writer’s Collection) and discusses her role in Victorian society.

We welcome your feedback on this Margaret Sweat podcast.

 

 Margaret Jane Mussey Sweat [37:14m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (1061)

The Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Robert P. Tristram Coffin (1892-1955) was a native Mainer, Bowdoin College graduate, and longtime Bowdoin faculty member. Though a popular writer and speaker in his time, his work is not widely known today. In this podcast episode, Kevin Belmonte, who recently completed a Master’s thesis on Coffin for the American and New England Studies program at the University of Southern Maine, considers why. In the process, he shares pieces of Coffin’s correspondence and, with permission from Coffin’s literary executor, reads three poems aloud. Kevin Belmonte is the author of William Wilberforce, A Hero for Humanity (Zondervan/HarperCollins, 2007), for which he received the John Pollock Award for Christian Biography, and has served as a script consultant for the BBC and PBS. He lives in York, Maine, where his family has resided since the 1630s.

Permission to read Coffin’s poems was granted by the Estate of Robert P. Tristram Coffin. Photo courtesy of Kevin Belmonte. We welcome your feedback on this Robert P. Tristram Coffin podcast.

 

 Robert P. Tristram Coffin [23:48m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (947)