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MF035 Maine Folklife Survey
Special Collections, Raymond H. Fogler Library, University of Maine
The survey was developed to identify and document folklife resources within the state. Material culture collections were identified, and traditional festivals and community events were recorded using audio and video equipment. Almost a hundred interviews were conducted with informants during the course of the project. The interviews have been accessioned in summary form instead of with full transcriptions, and they are open to the public. Through a series of questionnaires and interviews, fieldworkers were able to locate and document private collections of photographs, artifacts, family records, etc. The materials found within the Maine Folklife Survey are most valuable to researchers seeking leads or preliminary information. The survey project laid valuable groundwork for future projects. However, it is only the diligent researcher who can make productive use of the printed Index. It is at best simply a finding list. Though a variety of topics are included, such as unpublished manuscripts (letters, scrapbooks, business records), local publications, (county histories, church or civic group cookbooks), material culture (kitchenware, farm implements, school and household furnishings, textiles) and ephemera (broadsides, postcards, letterhead), the Index lacks vital information on the quantity and condition of materials. The slide/tape program, "Maine's Folklife," presents an overview of the traditional arts and occupations of Maine and the Canadian Maritime Provinces. Other resources include a black and white photo exhibit, "Maine Folklife 1980", and a color exhibit, "The Lobster Buoy". These are the results of the many fieldwork photographs collected during research. The most valuable records of the Maine Folklife Survey materials are the fieldwork journals kept by researchers. Although these materials are not at present available to the public, they provide significant information about the regions, informants and folklife encountered during the study. The Archives also houses the questionnaire forms completed for the survey which often provide more specific details than those included in the Index. A sampling (not exhaustive) of interview topics covered during the survey includes crooked knives and gum boxes; river drives; country music; supernatural powers; wood carving; Skowhegan Fair; scrimshaw; vernacular architecture; dowsing; canoe building; fiddling and fiddle making; moose calling; livestock auctions; horse and ox pulling; bean hole beans; Ossipee Valley Fair; Jonesport lobster boat races; Franco-American music; Fryeburg Fair; guides and guiding; storytelling; buckwheat milling; lobstering; Blue Hill Fair; and blueberry raking. The collection includes artifacts, photographs, videotapes, audio tapes approximately 80 hours), field journals, questionnaires forms, and other materials.
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MF 036 Maine Leaders Oral History Project
Special Collections, Raymond H. Fogler Library, University of Maine
Interviews with Senator Margaret Chase Smith (1990), James Russell Wiggins (1988) (Editor of the Ellsworth American). The interviews were supported with funds from the University of Maine President’s Office.
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MF037 “Life of the Maine Lobsterman” Project
Special Collections, Raymond H. Fogler Library, University of Maine
The bulk of the nineteen accessions (33 hours) in this collection consists of interviews by David Taylor conducted during the summer of 1974 focused on Maine lobster fishermen.
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MF038 Labor Relations in Maine
Special Collections, Raymond H. Fogler Library, University of Maine
A collection featuring two sets of interviews. The first was conducted from 1969-1973 under the auspices of the Maine State Federated Labor Council. Topics range widely over the spectrum of organized labor issues in Maine, but seem to deal primarily with unions, union organizing, and elections. Interviewees include top ranking union officials as well as lobstermen, longshoremen, bricklayers, quarry workers, textile and paper millworkers, sulfite workers, iron workers, shipbuilders, railroad workers, typesetters, building trade workers, electricians, garment workers, and shoe makers. Also represented are union organizers, labor historians, and publishers of labor periodicals such as "Labor News." The second set interviews were conducted in the spring and summer of 1974 and focused on labor unions, right to work laws, strikes, featherbedding, union negotiations, State Labor Council, labor-management Labor Relations in Maine relations, carpenters, boot and shoe workers, women in industry, and relations between the international and the locals of individual unions.
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MF039 Traditional Music of Maine Project Collection
Special Collections, Raymond H. Fogler Library, University of Maine
Field recordings made primarily by Jeffrey “Smokey” Mckeen for use in developing a series of radio programs devoted to traditional music in Maine. The collection includes 37 cassette recordings of interviews with 44 individuals in addition to performances. The programs were later packaged and released by the Maine Folklife Center as a series of four cassettes entitled “Traditional Music of Maine, Vols. 1-4.”
Traditional Music of Maine celebrates the musical legacies of a variety of Maine folk communities by exploring their cultural and historical significance through oral history interviews with musicians and other community members. The tapes introduce the general public to the remarkable diversity and vitality of Maine's musical traditions. Originally developed as a radio series for the Maine Public Broadcasting Network, the project was funded by grants from the Maine Arts Commission and the Maine Community Foundation. This series consists of four cassette tapes containing a total of eight half-hour programs documenting Maine's rich, traditional musical heritage.
Program themes include: Songs of the Maine Lumberwoods; Music of the Maine Grange; Swedish Music of Aroostook; Music of Maine’s Finnish Communities; Slavic Music of the Lower Kennebec; Acadian Music of the St. John Valley; Pioneers of Maine Country Music; and Songs of the Passamaquoddy. To date, no accessions have been specifically linked to the last three program themes. Topics discussed in the interviews include: life in lumber camps; working in the lumberwoods; working on river drives; transition from river driving to using trucks to haul logs; the Maine Grange; changing role of the Grange in Maine life; immigration; and the Swedish and Russian communities in Maine. Interviewees sing traditional songs; and play the harmonica; piano; concertina; mandolin; and other instruments.
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MF040 Maine Women During the Depression and World War II
Special Collections, Raymond H. Fogler Library, University of Maine
This collection began with the research done by Rita Breton as part of her graduate work in history at the University of Maine. Breton conducted approximately twenty interviews with Maine women about their lives and work during the Great Depression and World War II. In addition, in the fall of 1982, students in Edward D. Ives’ class were asked to locate and interview people on the topic of womens’ lives during the Depression and WWII. The semester project yielded forty-five accessions. Collection also contains numerous photographs. Some of the interviews relate to Winkelman’s M. A. Thesis “Work is What Keeps You Going: The Life and Times of Bertha Moore Lord: An Experiment in Biography,” University of Maine, 1986.
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MF041 "Me and Fannie" Interviews
Special Collections, Raymond H. Fogler Library, University of Maine
This series of interviews resulted in the publication of the 1973 XVI edition of Northeast Folklore (Me and Fannie: The Oral Autobiography of Ralph Thornton of Topsfield, Maine, ed. by Wayne Bean). Note: The Fannie in "Me and Fannie" refers to Ralph Thornton's wife, maiden name Fannie Hamilton.
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MF042 Frederick Pratson Collection
Special Collections, Raymond H. Fogler Library, University of Maine
Independent collection of folklore material contributed to the Maine Folklife Center by Frederick Pratson. Contains interviews in connection with donor's "Oral and Visual History and Talent Development Program Among Indians and Inshore Fishing People of the State of Maine, The Canadian Maritime Provinces, and Quebec," done under the sponsorship of the New England-Atlantic Provinces- Quebec Center at the University of Maine (Orono), 1972. The interviewees were a group of Nova Scotia fishermen, a Maine lumberjack, and a Micmac chief living on the Indian Island Reservation in New Brunswick.
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MF043 Northeast Harbor Library Oral History Collection
Special Collections, Raymond H. Fogler Library, University of Maine
These accessions were brought to the Northeast Archives by Pamela Dean. They are copies of tape-recorded interviews about the history of Northeast Harbor, Maine, and are from the Northeast Harbor Library's oral history collection. They provided part of the source material for Dean's M.A. Thesis, "Us and Them: An Oral History of Life on the Summer Estates in Coastal Hancock County, Maine." University of Maine, 1984. See also MF 119 "Us and Them" Summer Estates Collection. For access, contact Northeast Harbor Library.
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MF045 One Year Later: The Closing of Penobscot Poultry and the Transition of a Veteran Employee
Special Collections, Raymond H. Fogler Library, University of Maine
Traveling exhibit of photos and oral history text panels based on a series of interviews with Linda J. Lord in which she talks about the work she did for 20 years at Penobscot Poultry, her feelings about being unemployed after Penobscot closed and general conversations about her life in Maine.
The exhibit traveled in 1988-1989 to East Millinocket, Orono, Machias, Portland, and Augusta, with panels, presentations, and forums occurring at each opening. Speakers and panelists included Jay Davis, Bernard Lewis, Dr. Richard Barringer, Dr. Paula Petrik and Carolyn Chute. Primary researchers were Cedric Chatterly and Stephen Cole.
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