Winter Lecture Series 2019
- Herb Adams: Digging up the War of 1812
Adams focused on the 21 American Prisoners of War (POWs) buried on the Eastern Promenade in Portland
- Elizabeth DeWolfe: An Employment for the Fingers: The
Hair Work Craze of the 19th Century
We learned the history of hair work, a popular Victorian craft using human hair. While mourning jewelry is the most familiar form of hair work today, jewelry made of human hair became all the rage in the mid-19th century. Intricately-woven bracelets, chains, and earrings were a fashion craze, and middle-class women found this a new craft to undertake in their parlors. Many women took up hair work as a lucrative occupation as well, and dozens of Maine hair workers—entrepreneurs whose needlework skills using a customer-provided resource—produced jewelry, 3-dimensional wreaths, or bouquets of flowers from finely-braided human hair.
- Tim Gillis: The 1849 Augustus King Riots on Munjoy Hill
On July 4, 1849, sailors out of Cape Ann attacked a Portland, Maine brothel and dance hall owned by Augustus King on Munjoy Hill. Within 3 months, the fight had escalated to cannon fire, murder, and a full-scale riot. This talk reveals previously unknown details of the street war—including King’s origins, an unreported pregnancy, and genealogical clues to other family members living in Portland at the time.