Winter Lecture Series 2024
- January 27 - Paul J. Ledman presented "Expanding a Peninsula: The Growth of Portland"
Portland has undergone many economic transformations over the centuries. At
different times, the city has been a center for shipbuilding and fishing, an important
port for exports, an industrial hub, and more recently, a growing center for research
and the service economy. This evolution has affected not only its people but the
land as well. Over the centuries, hundreds of acres, where people live and work,
have been "reclaimed" from the city’s adjacent waterways. Ledman illustrated this
process of infilling while also discussing the historical patterns and trends which
connect us to this process.
- March 16 - Andy O'Brien presented "Black Mainers and the Struggle for Freedom and Equality in the 19th Century"
Since the Colonial era, African Americans in Maine have fought for liberation, first
by resisting their enslavement and petitioning for their emancipation and then by
joining national movements for abolitionism and civil rights. O’Brien traced the roots of Maine’s racial justice movement from slavery to its formal abolition in 1865, covering the role of Black Mainers in electoral politics in the antebellum period and grassroots organizing in the abolitionist and National Colored Convention movements. Attendees learned about influential Black Mainers like activist Reuben Ruby, intellectual Robert Benjamin Lewis, pioneering journalist John Brown Russwurm, Reverend George H. Black, and the radical preacher Reverend William C. Monroe.
- March 30 - Christopher Packard presented "Mythical Creatures of Maine"
An introduction to the creatures, beings,
and monsters found in the stories and legends of all the cultures that have called Maine home over the years. Packard shared the descriptions and stories of two dozen magical and mysterious creatures said to be found in the Maine woods and waters. Inspired by family oral tradition and personal experience, Packard conducted extensive research and investigation while writing his book “Mythical Creatures of Maine,” and he shared some of his favorite creatures in this talk which took us well beyond Bigfoot. From the humorous to the terrifying, Maine has it all.