AUGUSTA — In celebration of Maine’s upcoming Bicentennial, Lithgow Public Library will offer three final free events in its six-month long, Maine history series, according to a news release from the library.
In February, a bluegrass concert with the Sandy River Trio, featuring music of and about Maine, will be held at 6:30 p.m. Monday, Feb. 24, at the library at 45 Winthrop St.
The trio features Stan Keach on guitar and harmonica, Julie Davenport on bass and fiddle, and Dan Simmons on mandolin and fiddle. They’ll play songs such as “Bull Moose,” “Logger’s Son,” “Lobsterman,” “Rugged Rocky Shore,” “Trout on the Line,” and more.
In March, two events are planned — a presentation about a textile workers’ strike in 1841 and a living history “moveable museum” on the era of the French-Indian wars.
On Wednesday, March 4, Elizabeth DeWolfe will present “The Great Turn-out of 1841: Maine’s Textile Workers on Strike” at 6:30 p.m. This event is sponsored by the Maine Humanities Council as part of the World in Your Library speaker series and was rescheduled from November.
DeWolfe is a Professor of History at the University of New England, where she teaches courses in women’s history, archival research, and American culture. DeWolfe is a historical detective: she hunts archives for the traces of ordinary women, piecing together their all-but-forgotten lives from disparate clues. DeWolfe’s book on the short life and tragic death of a textile mill girl, “The Murder of Mary Bean,” was named the Outstanding Book of 2008 by the New England Historical Association. She also has written on anti-Shaker activists, on textile factory workers, and on an 1890s political scandal involving a U.S. congressman, his mistress, and a spy.
Living history reenactors Mark Rohman, Mike Dekker and Craig Young will present “Maine’s French and Indian Wars: A Mobile Museum” at 6:30 p.m. Monday, March 9.
Between 1675 and 1760 the Maine frontier was ravaged by a series of six wars involving the native people and the English-speaking colonists. Explore the history of this 80-year conflict with historic interpreters from Maine’s French and Indian Wars. Taking a different approach to living history, Maine’s French and Indian Wars provides topics-based presentations combining period documents, images and items with period attired historians to furnish an interactive, museum-like, educational experience.
Through the perspective of a 1750’s soldier and a 1600’s farmer/settler, Maine’s French and Indian Wars tell the story of war on the Maine frontier from its origins to its conclusion. Learn how issues concerning trade and land contributed to the intercultural tensions which led to perhaps the darkest and most tragic period in Maine history. Delve into the history of the six wars and their impact on both the native and English-speaking inhabitants of early Maine.
Maine’s French and Indian Wars was founded in 2016 by Rohman and Dekker, providing educational outreach by giving presentations at area nonprofits on Maine’s history from the mid-1600s to the mid-1750s.
Rohman has a degree in secondary education from the University of Maine at Farmington and has been doing living history since 2004.
Dekker is the author of “Maine’s French and Indian Wars” and works as an educator in the Brunswick school system; he has been doing living history since 2004.
Young is a retired member of the mental health field and has been doing living history since the 1990s.
For more information, call the library at 626-2415 or visit lithgowlibrary.org.
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