Collecting, Preserving, and Interpreting Maine’s History
By Tom Wilson ‘26​Since 1822, the Maine Historical Society has been collecting, preserving, and interpreting Maine’s history. Located by the Wadsworth Longfellow House in Portland, MHS operates a museum, a research library and the Maine Memory Network (MMN) digital museum.
During my internship I had the privilege of working with MHS’s “Early Maine Photography” collection (1840-1870). My job involved cataloging hundreds of archived photos to make them more accessible to the public. This included identifying (when possible) who the subject of the image was and when the image was taken. I also gained experience handling and digitizing centuries-old photographs. My favorite part of the work was the opportunity to add images to MMN, researching and creating short biographies of their subjects.
My research took me deep into MHS’s archives. I enjoyed using old newspapers, city directories and censuses, and family histories to unearth stories from Maine’s past and broaden the scope of history offered on MMN. This research built on skills I’ve developed at ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø±¬ÍøÕ¾, and it was fun to apply them to help Maine Historical Society tell our state’s story.
Internship funded by the Peter Buck Internship Fund.