GREAT GIFT IDEAS FROM MAINE’S MUSEUMS AND ARCHIVES Here are a handful of gift ideas from Maine’s Archives and Museums. Please contact the organization for purchasing information. You can also look up member institutions using the “Find a Museum/Archive” search feature on MAM’s website: http://www.mainemuseums.org/members.asp. General Maine’s Museums: Art, Oddities & Artifacts (Countryman Press, 2011) by Janet Mendelsohn is the first and only book devotedly solely to Maine’s great art, history, maritime, children’s and quirky museums. MAINE magazine called the book a “thorough, affectionate, and engaging exploration of Maine’s obscure and popular museums.” It is available wherever books are sold including many museum gift shops. www.janetmendelsohn.com The Pembroke Historical Society The Pembroke Historical Society’s 2011 Christmas ornament, each hand painted by artist Joan Dodge, is on sale locally and ready for shipment to those who live away. It is the sixth in our series of ornaments that commemorate historic Pembroke, and a companion to last year’s depiction of the clipper ship Western Continent. Built in Pembroke by Stephen C. Foster in 1853, the vessel was shown moored in 2010, with her sails furled and rigging exposed. This year, she’s under full sail in a roiling sea. The artist based her design on a sketch from 1861 attributed to the captain. The Farnsworth Art Museum In celebrating Maine’s role in American art, the Farnsworth Art Museum offers a nationally recognized collection of American art in its elegantly appointed galleries. Featured this year in the Museum Shop: Paul Caponigro of Cushing Maine, “The Hidden Presence of Places”; the show catalog of black & white photography. Classic gold & silver hoop earrings by Yarmouth artist Judith Barker. “Airborne,” limited edition Giclee print by Andrew Wyeth. Farnsworth Art Museum 16 Museum St. Rockland, Me. 04843 207-596-6457 www.farnsworthmuseum.org http://shop.farnsworthmuseum.org The L.C. Bates Museum The L.C. Bates Museum, in Hinckley, opens its gift shop from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Wednesday to Saturday and Sunday from 1 to 4:30 p.m. The museum gift shop has a good selection of gifts including jewelry, puppets, minerals, environmental educational toys, and many stocking stuffers. For Young Naturalists: The Young Naturalist Bag - Three sizes $10, $15 and $25. Every young naturalist would love to receive a bag of fascinating natural treasures from around the world. The bags contain fossils, minerals, shells, and—to study the treasures—a 7-tools in one that also magnifies. We also have individual specimens of minerals, fossils, and sea life available for purchase to augment the gift. For the Historian: Original copies of John Francis Sprague's Journal of Maine History will delight those interested in Maine History. Special for the holiday the issues are $5 each and three for $10. Also available is Sprague's book, Three Men from Maine on holiday special at $5. The Brick Store Museum Brick Store Museum Heritage Ornament Series: Now in its second year, the Heritage Ornament Series offers an opportunity to create a unique holiday collection. Each year a new expertly crafted keepsake ornament depicts a regional theme. This year’s ornament features Kennebunk’s shipbuilding history. The 2010 ornament is still available and features Kennebunk’s architectural treasures. Cost is $21.95 plus tax. Shipping via USPS is available for an additional fee. Windows on the Past: Kennebunk’s History through Architecture: Published in 2010, this popular book features 42 of Kennebunk’s historic properties. Richly illustrated with full-color photography by Kevin Byron, Windows on the Past features a pullout locator map that may also be purchased separately. Bonus material includes a time line, index, glossary of architectural terms, bibliography of historical resources, and images of related collections from the Brick Store Museum. Cost is $15.95 plus tax. Shipping via USPS is available for an additional fee. About the Brick Store Museum: The Brick Store Museum is located at 117 Main Street in Kennebunk’s historic district and for 75 years has been dedicated to preserving and exhibiting the region’s rich cultural and artistic heritage. Its galleries and research archives are open to the public year-round: Tuesdays through Fridays, 10 – 4:30 and Saturdays, 10 – 1. Admission to the Museum is by donation, suggested $5 per person. Visit www.brickstoremuseum.org or call 207-985-4802 for further information. The Maine State Museum The Maine State Museum houses artifacts that highlight the collective heritage of the people of Maine - from prehistory to the modern era. The exhibits offer insight into Maine’s History, Natural History, & Social History. Our Museum Store has a lovely selection of toys, gifts, and books that reflect the diversity of the museum’s collection. Fine Maine tourmaline jewelry, reproductions of vintage toys and hundreds of adult and children’s book titles are among our most popular offerings. The Museum Store is open the same hours as the museum; 9-5 Tuesday – Friday, 10-4 Saturday, closed Sunday & Monday. Location: The Maine State Museum, Capitol Complex, 83 State House Station, Augusta, Maine 04333 or http://mainestatemuseum.org/. The store phone number is 207-287-2938. The Whitefield Historical Society Situated in the beautiful Sheepscot River Valley, the Whitefield Historical Society has been collecting and preserving its local history to share with others for thirty-five years. Contact us via email at [email protected]. Two items available this winter are a map of Whitefield and a bicentennial coin. The map, scanned from an original 1857 Lincoln County Map, used actual surveys by C. M. Hopkins. On this quality reproduction, black dots show where houses were located plus the name of the owner and it shows several mills, churches, and schools. Comes in a cardboard roll; 20" x 30". $35 + $3 s/h. Whitefield 2009 Bicentennial Coin minted by Northwest Territorial Mint. This coin, designed for us, has a mill on one side and 11 historic events listed on the reverse. Each of the 100 coins was individually numbered and comes in a case. Available numbers from the remaining 9 coins are 55, 61, 72, 76, 79, 81, 86, 87, and 92. $25 + $3 s/h. The Boothbay Region Historical Society The Boothbay Region Historical Society, located at 72 Oak Street in Boothbay Harbor, offers several new items in our gift shop include our historic canning label lobster mug for $15 or our mackerel, lobster or clam historic canning labels. Suitable for framing and reasonably priced at $10 each or a set of three for $25. See images at www.boothbayhistorical.org. Year- round our open hours are Wednesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. – 2 p.m. FMI: [email protected], 207-633-0820 or boothbayhistorical.org The Bethel Historical Society ITEMS NEW! “Write Quick": War and a Woman’s Life in Letters, 1836- 1867. Transcribed and edited by Ann Fox Chandonnet and Roberta Gibson Pevear, and published by the Bethel Historical Society, this long-awaited book is based on Civil War era documents, letters and diaries donated to the Bethel Historical Society by Mrs. Pevear in 2005. Impressively narrated and edited, the book tells the story of one New England family's daily experiences on the Civil War home front and battlefield, through never- before-published primary source materials. Amid the gathering clouds of war, far from the nation’s centers of power, two American families felt the first ripples on the breeze. Andrew Bean, a teacher and farmer from Bethel, Maine, answered the call to the Union infantry. His younger sister, Eliza, having found both employment and a suitable marriage in the bustling mill city of Lowell, Massachusetts, soon saw her husband, Henry C. Foster, enlist as well. In more than 150 revealing letters dispatched from camp and field and home front, as well as Eliza Bean Foster’s own diary, the honors and horrors of war play out on an intimate stage. Seldom does a surviving cache of documents illuminate the full span of the antebellum and war years in such close detail, from so many different angles. Illustrated with original documents and never-before-published photographs, the book traces Eliza’s life from New England mill girl, to young married woman and mother, to war widow and victim of consumption. Write Quick presents a valuable case history and a poignant story of one Northern woman through her own pen and the lens of her contemporaries. The book contains over 50 photographs, illustrations, and maps, plus an index. 572 pp., softcover, $34.95 NEW! Folk Art Murals of the Rufus Porter School : New England Landscapes: 1825- 1845 by Linda Carter Lefko and Jane E. Radcliffe. Here is the long awaited update of research on the Rufus Porter Landscape Mural School, greatly expanding the knowledge and understanding of this uniquely American folk art field of the 1820s to 1840s. The text provides detailed documentation never seen before in print. The book takes the reader on a virtual tour of Porter School murals in the New England states, presenting and analyzing more than 400 colorful images, which will provide inspiration for historians, researchers, designers, and painters alike. It offers evidence regarding the attribution of these mostly unsigned works, and encourages readers to apply that evidence in reaching their own conclusions. In addition, there is a section concerning the preservation of historic murals and various challenges and threats to such preservation. Finally, the book offers a “how-to” section that interprets Porter’s original published mural painting instructions in terms of modern equipment, materials, and supplies. Linda Carter Lefko, of Penn Yan, New York, is an artist, teacher, and scholar of the historic decorative arts known for her research, classes and lectures on various topics such as historic watercolors, school girl arts, love tokens, wall murals, and theorem painting.