For Immediate Release
November 16, 2021

Media Contact:
Emma Dimock, Marshall Communications
(207) 620-9072 or edimock@marshallpr.com
Maine Maritime Museum to Unveil “Cotton Town” Exhibit in December
New exhibit, supported by Bowdoin College, reveals Maine’s economic connections to slavery
BATH, Maine - Today, the Maine Maritime Museum is announcing the launch of a new exhibit, titled “Cotton Town: Maine’s Economic Connections to Slavery.” Unveiling newly discovered artifacts exposing the efforts of 19th-century Bath captains, merchants and shipbuilders to stifle abolition and protect the town's economic interests in slavery, primarily through the cotton trade. The exhibit will open to the public on Thursday, December 16 and run through May 2022.
Among other artifacts, the museum’s new exhibit will feature pre-Civil War letters from ship captains and merchant logbooks that detail the transport of enslaved people on Maine ships. Pictures of the schooners used for the Southern cotton industry—primarily built in Bath—will also be on display. This project is supported in part by an American Rescue Plan grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

The museum is unveiling its new exhibit in partnership with Bowdoin College’s Africana Studies Department, led by Tess Chakkalakal. Serving as Peter M. Small Associate Professor of Africana Studies and English and Chair of the Africana Studies Department, Chakkalakal has published widely on 19th-century African-American literature. She and her students have worked with the museum for months in preparation for the exhibit, uncovering a complicated past in Maine that many people in the state do not fully recognize. They will attend the exhibit’s official opening and discuss their recent collaborations with the museum.
Bowdoin students examine artifacts for the Maine Maritime Museum's new exhibit.
“Museums serve an essential role as open places of inquiry, dialogue, and education. It is therefore all the more important for institutions to think critically about their collecting processes, institutional biases, and traditional narratives. This important collaboration between Maine Maritime Museum and Bowdoin College helps complicate Maine’s role as a ‘free state’, by pointing to its involvement in the shipping of cotton and enslaved peoples. In the past, this was sanitized through a focus on global trade or naval architecture—this exhibit instead emphasizes the direct human and cultural cost, which continues to this day,” said Christopher Timm, interim executive director of Maine Maritime Museum. “We are so appreciative of the opportunity to work with Tess Chakkalakal and her students to give new generations authorship and voice in the way our collective history is presented.”

Founded in 1962, the Maine Maritime Museum sits on a beautiful 20-acre campus on the banks of the Kennebec River and is dedicated to promoting an understanding and appreciation of Maine’s maritime heritage and culture. The museum recently eliminated admission fees for visitors under 18 and joined the “Museums for All” initiative to provide free admission to visitors with electronic benefit transfer (EBT) cards.

To schedule an interview, please contact Emma Dimock at edimock@marshallpr.com. For more information, please visit MaineMaritimeMuseum.org.
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About Maine Maritime Museum:
Maine Maritime Museum is a nonprofit institution dedicated to promoting an understanding and appreciation of Maine’s maritime heritage. Founded in 1962, the museum’s campus covers 20 acres on the Kennebec River in historic Bath, “The City of Ships.” Call (207) 443-1316 or visit mainemaritimemuseum.org for more information.
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