Museum Roundup
News & Updates from the Maine State Museum
June 2021
New Online Collection Database Opens Doors to Information

The Maine State Museum has launched a new online collection database that marks a new era in making the museum more accessible to all. The online database begins with an enticing sample of 154 artifacts from the museum’s collection of historical objects, including everything from a Civil War recruiting poster, to a silk bonnet from the 1840s, to an 1850s tintype of a Penobscot log driver. More collections are added to the database regularly. Read more below, and begin your discovery!
The Latest...
Join author and curator Laurie LaBar on Thursday, June 10 at 6:30 pm to hear about her new book Maine Quilts: 250 Years of Comfort and Community. Register for this free event here.
The Friends of the Maine State Museum invites you to lift your glasses (from home) as humorist Gary Crocker hosts a festive virtual fundraiser featuring a whirlwind tour through Maine history, with MSM collection highlights, a mini auction, a cocktail demonstration, and some very special guests. “We’d Like to Propose a Toast!” will take place online on July 15 at 6:30 pm. Join us to support the museum and the Friends!
The Maine Legislature recently passed a bill to establish June 19 as Juneteenth Independence Day, the day in 1865 that marks the end of slavery in the U.S. If approved by Governor Mills, the law will set June 19, 2022 as the first official Juneteenth state holiday. Learn more about the history of Juneteenth here.
Follow the link to the museum’s website and the new online collection database here. 
Searches and browsing will lead you to fascinating discoveries, such as this pair of snowshoes, made with found objects by a young German soldier, held captive in a World War II prisoner of war camp at Spencer Lake in Somerset County.

The German soldier wore the snowshoes during a daring escape from the camp with two other captives, resulting in one of Maine’s largest manhunts. Learn what happened here! 
Digitization - Critical Early Step in Online Access

With the museum’s new online collection database, easier access to historical documents is not far behind. But first, those documents must be carefully digitized.

Here, the museum’s curator of archives, Zach Selley (right), is ready to help handle a fragile, bound Civil War diary while Maine State Archives imaging specialist, Peter Mallow (left), takes digital images of it. Not shown in this photograph is an impressive overhead digital camera, specially made to capture high resolution images of documents too fragile to scan with other types of equipment.  
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