Maine State Museum May Roundup

May 2024

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The Latest...

Families Flock to April Museum Programs!

Maine State Museum educators visited libraries in Damariscotta, Waterville, Turner, and Winthrop during April school vacation week for the All About Birds! program.

More than 215 people of all ages attended. They played, learned, and tested bird-themed activities for use in the museum's future education space.

Celebrate Social Studies

Maine State Museum, Maine State Library, and Maine State Archives staff, pictured below, attended the annual Maine Council for Social Studies Conference to present information about their new website and Maine-based primary source sets.

Kate Webber (Maine State Museum), Kelli Burnham (Maine State Library), and Jon Roscoe (Maine State Archives) at the Maine Conference for Social Studies in Augusta

New Website Launched for Maine Educators

The Maine State Archives, Maine State Library, and Maine State Museum have created a new website with primary source learning sets covering several topics of Maine history. The three agencies created the website to serve as a resource for teachers and home school families.

The learning sets, which feature primary sources such as original documents, artifacts, and photographs, are available at mainesharedhistory.org.

Educators will be able to easily view and download the primary source sets, access supporting curriculum materials, and watch pre-recorded teacher’s webinars about how to use the sets.

The primary source sets cover themes such as Freedom & Captivity, the Bicentennial, the History of Maine’s Pandemics, and Maine Industries. Each set is further broken down into subsets such as Statehood and the Wabanaki, Mapping Maine, or World War II Prisoner of War Camps.

The sets contain digital versions of primary sources related to the topic, labels for each source, and worksheets that teachers can use to work with their class.

Click Here to Explore the Website

Educational Materials Highlight the Maine Blueberry Industry

This Maine machine, a blueberry winnower, is featured in the educational materials on the new Maine Shared History website.

Maine State Museum 79.25.1

The Maine Industry set poses the question “Does technology change the way people work in Maine?” Students are invited to investigate original documents, artifacts, and images to answer the question.

This blueberry winnower is part of the Maine State Museum’s collection and was on exhibit for many years. Workers cleaned berries by turning a crank that moved the fruit along on a wide belt. A fan blew away debris, such as dirt, twigs, and leaves before the berries dropped into a collecting tray.

The museum's 1926 machine was invented and built by Emil Rivers of

Rockland, Maine. His company, Emil Rivers, Inc., continued to sell winnowers until the 1970s. Winnowing machines dramatically reduced the time workers spent processing berries.

The photograph below is from the collection of the Maine State Archives. It shows Maine children working with a winnower around 1957. The machine in the photo has been updated to include a motor.

Many Maine children spent summers raking and winnowing blueberries - hard work that earned them only a few cents per pound of processed berries.

The Maine Shared History project has resulted in many rich connections between historical materials, such as this pairing of a Maine State Museum artifact and a photograph from the Maine State Archives.

Children working in a blueberry field with a winnowing machine.

Maine State Archives DED-60-R-645

Did you miss last month's Roundup? You can always read back issues here.

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