FRIENDS of UMAINE LIBRARIES NEWSLETTER | |
In This Issue:
- New installation at Fogler Library honors Penobscot history and art
- UMaine Press editors discuss Maine Amphibians and Reptiles on Maine Calling
- New from Special Collections and Projects: Papers of Carl Little; UMaine funded research records; papers of Ava Chadbourne
- UMaine Libraries Companion Animals Feature: Gaius and Frankie Frinklepod
| | New installation at Fogler Library honors Penobscot history and art | | |
Fogler Library is pleased to share a new permanent installation that highlights the rich cultural history and enduring presence of the Penobscot Nation.
The display features giclée reproductions of two 19th-century oil portraits, courtesy of the Tarratine Club of Bangor:
- Mary Pelagie (Molly Molasses), Penobscot Elder (painted posthumously by Isabel Graham Eaton)
- Sarah Polasses (Sarah Molasses), a Penobscot woman and daughter of Molly Molasses and Old John Neptune (painted by Jeremiah Pearson Hardy in 1835)
Both portraits frame a contemporary beaded medallion by Jennifer Galipeau, a citizen of the Penobscot Nation and member of the Eel Clan. Galipeau’s piece, Beaded Medallion (2024), incorporates glass beads, sweetgrass, abalone shell, birch bark, and brain-tanned deer hide. The medallion shows Molly and Sarah watching over the Penobscot River, offering protection for the ancestral waterway “until the sun and the moon no longer rise on the dawnland.”
Also included in the installation is an 1839 letter from Penobscot Governor John Attean and Lieutenant Governor John Neptune to Maine Governor John Fairfield. In it, the authors describe the profound impact of settler encroachment on Penobscot lands, natural resources, and lifeways.
Fogler Library would like to thank Gretchen Faulkner, Director of the Hudson Museum, which is part of the University of Maine, for her generous assistance in helping bring this installation to fruition.
This new installation serves as a space for reflection on Penobscot and wider Wabanaki history, land, and sovereignty. We invite all visitors to engage with these works and consider the long-standing and continuing relationships between Indigenous peoples and the lands now called Maine.
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UMaine Press editors discuss “Maine Amphibians and Reptiles on Maine Calling”
On Wednesday, August 27, Maine Public Radio’s “Maine Calling” featured editors Mac Hunter and Phillip deMaynadier discussing the brand-new third edition of Maine Amphibians and Reptiles (UMaine Press, 2025). UMaine Press is a division of UMaine Libraries.
This landmark volume welcomes readers into the lives of 38 Maine species — from turtles and snakes to salamanders, frogs, and toads — and covers nearly all herpetofauna in the Northeast from eastern New York to Newfoundland. Twenty-five years in the making, the edition synthesizes 20,000+ distribution records contributed by 3,000 observers, incorporates 600+ new references, and brings together insights from 27 authors. A dramatically expanded portfolio of color photographs and artwork (including contributions from five artists) helps bring these stories to life for naturalists, educators, and curious readers alike.
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New from Special Collections and Projects: Papers of Carl Little; UMaine funded research records, papers of Ava Chadbourne
The Special Collections and Projects Department in Fogler Library has added two new collections to the online archival content management tool ArchivesSpace.
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Carl Little is the author and producer of several books on the art of Maine, including “The Art of Maine in Winter”, and “Art of Penobscot Bay.” He has also published two personal poetry anthologies, “3,000 Dreams Explained” (1992) and “Ocean Drinker: New & Selected Poems” (2006).
Little’s career as a curator, director of public affairs at the College of the Atlantic’s Ethel Blum Gallery, lecturer, and writer, has put him in contact with some of Maine’s most renowned contemporary artists. Little’s dedication and passion to and for Maine’s unique place in the art world is evident throughout his collection, which consists of correspondence and interviews with the hundreds of artists he worked with, and many volumes of independent Maine artists’ and poetry magazines spanning his entire career.
Little has connections and correspondence with the Monhegan Artist’s Residency Corporation (MARC), which provides residencies to artists who wish to create on the historic artist’s colony Monhegan Island. Monhegan Island has inspired impactful painters, such as Andrew Wyeth, for over 150 years. He worked with several museums in coastal Maine, such as the Farnsworth Museum in Rockland, and the Ogunquit Museum of American Art, providing art history education to the public.
Carl Little’s work has been a vital part of the Maine art community since he started working in the state in 1989, and his collection will preserve the work he’s done for both the contemporary artists of Maine, and the colorful art history of the state, particularly the coastal and island regions.
(Photos: Carl Little, and the cover of “Portrait of a Maine Island.”)
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Summer student employee Madeline Howorth (pictured below) has recently completed processing and producing a finding aid for the 12 boxes of Vice President for Research Records that describe important University of Maine funded research carried out by UMaine faculty from 1929–1982. The funds for the research were administered by UMaine’s former Faculty Research Committee.
As part of the processing work Howorth transferred material to archival quality acid-free folders and boxes. Howorth also organized the material and added file names and title information, both on the folders themselves and in Special Collections and Project’s content management system ArchivesSpace. The end result of this work was the creation of an archival finding aid to allow the content to be more easily found by researchers from across the globe.
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Ava Chadbourne was a scholar of the history of education in Maine, serving as a professor at the University of Maine. Born in Mattawamkeag in 1875, she received a BA from the University of Maine in 1915, later obtaining her MA and Ph.D. from Columbia in 1918 and 1922, respectively. Her work centered on the establishment of public education, as well as the proliferation of private schools, in Maine after statehood. Before working at UMaine, she gained experience as a primary and secondary school educator. Combined with her strong involvement in academic and social societies like Phi Kappa Phi and Delta Delta Delta, she devoted her career to the advancement of education in Maine. She retired as a full professor in 1942, serving as Professor Emerita thereafter. Her book, “A History of Education in Maine,” remains a foundational work in regional education history. In 1954, a freshman women’s dormitory was named Chadbourne Hall in her honor. She authored four books and belonged to Phi Kappa Phi, Phi Beta Kappa, and Delta Delta Delta. She died in 1964.
Tom Pinette (pictured in photograph below) has recently completed processing and producing a finding aid for the papers of Ava Chadbourne. The papers contain research materials and manuscripts of Dr. Chadbourne’s research on the history of academies in Maine; materials composed during Dr. Chadbourne’s composition of “The History of Education in Maine (1936), including town histories, individual histories of religious orders, and charters for private educational institutions; copies of legal documents important to the development of public education in Maine during the 19th and early 20th century; and primary documents related to the naming of Maine towns, detailing their etymology and cultural impact in Maine. There are historical references to Wabanaki place names, student papers on individual Maine place names, and photographs.”
(Photos: Dr. Ava Chadbourne, Tom Pinette.)
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UMaine Libraries Companion Animals Feature: Gaius and Frankie Frinklepod
This month’s companion animals come to us from Rosie Seaber, administrative specialist and assistant financial manager at Fogler Library.
First up Gaius, who is an 18-year-old European Burmese. Seaber and her sister/housemate adopted Gaius and his sister, Drusilla, last year at the age of 17. Unfortunately, Drusilla succumbed to advanced age a few months later, but Gaius is still going strong and is a wonderful, loving and very loud cat — typical of the Burmese breed. The other feline in the family is Frankie Frinklepod, a tiger and white girl who was adopted from P.A.W.S. in Camden three years ago. She is believed to be around 13 years old, but she dashes around the house like a delinquent 2-year-old. Both cats are very much adored and totally rule the roost in the household.
| | In complying with the letter and spirit of applicable laws and pursuing its own goals of diversity, the University of Maine System does not discriminate on the grounds of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, transgender status, gender, gender identity or expression, ethnicity, national origin, citizenship status, familial status, ancestry, age, disability physical or mental, genetic information, or veterans or military status in employment, education, and all other programs and activities. The University provides reasonable accommodations to qualified individuals with disabilities upon request. The following person has been designated to handle inquiries regarding non-discrimination policies: Director of Equal Opportunity, 5703 Alumni Hall, University of Maine, Orono, ME 04469-5754, 207.581.1226, TTY 711 (Maine Relay System) |
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Raymond H. Fogler Library
