Fall 2024
From the Executive Director, Raney Bench
You know the expression “times were simpler then”? The more I study the past, the less I agree with this statement. T he past was never simple to the people living at the time. Our ancestors too had to contend with complicated issues and struggled to find solutions. History can teach us important lessons about how to come together and solve problems, to persevere in the face of complex issues that can take years of debate and compromise to solve, and to refute fear and hyperbole.
MDI Historical Society shares stories from our past that add perspective to issues taking place today, like housing, climate change, food security and access, and civic engagement. Collaborative partners help present a longer view on these issues, which can decrease our sense of urgency and helplessness to envision creative solutions. We hope that by facilitating conversations in all island communities we are helping build trust and promote dialog. You can learn more through our programs, events, Chebacco, and by supporting the Society through membership and annual giving.
Somesville Museum & Gardens
You may have noticed more traffic at the Somesville Museums & Gardens in the fall this year. Thanks to our summer docent Jennifer Heindel, we chose to keep the Museum open a month longer, extending our incredibly successful summer into the fall.
During Summer 2024, the Museum hosted many tour groups and trainings, from local students and Acadia National Park rangers, summer campers, Birch Bay residents, and boy and girl scouts. We had multiple pet and human photoshoots and assisted in one marriage proposal. The Museum had a little over 1,200 visitors and posted record donations and sales, up 150% from 2023. Popular items were our baseball caps, back issues of Chebacco, and our Somesville Village Walking Tour booklet. From July 1 to Oct 1, 2024 the Historical Society welcomed 21 new members and we added 5 new members to our Voyager Circle, a dedicated giving community committed to the stewardship and appreciation of the history of Mount Desert Island.
Summer Program Review - by Lisa Taplin Murray, Assistant Director
In 2024 we increased our programming from 22 offerings in 2023 to 36. In addition to our Chebacco author programs, the Society worked with Acadia National Park to provide ranger trainings and worked with middle schoolers to learn about fish migration in Somesville. We provided 5 talks to Road Scholar tours and participated in the MDI BioLab’s Science Cafe Series. Director Raney Bench spoke at over a half-dozen private events, from country clubs to summer parties. We participated in collaborative events at MDI BioLab, the Oceanarium, Garland Farm, Jesup, Northeast Harbor, and Southwest Harbor Public Libraries.
Our annual Vintage Classroom program had great coverage from Carrie Jones at Bar Harbor Story and WABI TV. This unique program has been running for nearly 30 years and welcomes all area 3rd graders to the Sound Schoolhouse for a day of school in the 1890’s.
Inspired by Eliza Bryant Worrick’s 2024 Chebacco article, The Influence of the Seasonal Economy on Mount Desert Island’s Year-Round Housing Patterns Raney Bench was joined by Susanne Paul and Noel Musson with the Housing Solutions Initiative to present “Housing, Historic Struggles, and Thoughts on the Future” at Southwest Harbor and Northeast Harbor libraries. We will bring this important program to Bar Harbor and Tremont in the coming months.
Six Chebacco authors spoke at island libraries throughout the summer: Mollie Cashwell with “The Connoisseur of Prints: Experiments in Modern Art at the Jesup Memorial Library,” Carl Little with “Mary Cabot Wheelwright’s “Journey Towards Understanding,” Anne Kozak with “The Wild Gardens of Acadia: A Unique Teacher for Cultivating Native Plants,” Ella Kotsen with “Ruth Moore’s Microcosm,” Patrick Callaway with “The Mount Desert Island Committee for Peace,” and Jenna Jandreau with “Learning from LaRue Spiker.”
Anna Durand gave us a preview of her 2025 Chebacco article at her Jesup Library talk “Eden’s Other Sons: MDI Seafarers, Shipbuilders, and the Slavery-Based Economies of the West Indies Trade” and author Mac Smith shared research and stories from his book, “Plain Madeleine: Mrs. John Jacob Astor in Bar Harbor.”
If you missed any of these events, we archive many of our programs on our webpage at: https://mdihistory.org/program-archives
From the Collections - by Patrick Callaway, Collections Manager
One of the challenges of the island economy is finding seasonal employees or seasonal employers. Although the power dynamic between the employer and the employee is clear, there is also a mutual dependence between the two groups. A new donation of records from the Kimball House gives us an insight into this relationship in the 1920s.
Two letters between L.E. Kimball and Miss Alta Joy of East Franklin represent the opportunities and challenges of employment. Writing to Kimball in February 1929, Joy wrote expressing a desire for a position as a dishwasher at the Kimball House for the summer. A note written by Kimball on the back of her letter noted that he would hire her for $7 ($129.07 in 2024 dollars).
Although not stated, this is presumably per week and included room and board. A follow up form letter presents a more complicated picture. The letter requested Joy to provide her age, weight, height, availability, and experience. Age, availability and experience are questions that would appear on an application for employment in 2024. Requesting height and weight from an applicant may have a benign purpose- ordering uniforms for the summer for example. However, this direct approach would be awkward to say the least in the present day. The form letter provides another interesting detail about Joy. Her present age is 17, meaning that she first worked at Kimball House as a 14-year-old in 1926 and had been formally employed since that time. The Keating-Owen Child Labor Act (1916) was the first federal child labor regulation however this law was declared unconstitutional in 1918. The first sustained federal legal parameters for minor workers was not passed until 1938.
Other than her employment at Kimball House we do not know anything about Alta Joy. However, we can make a few judicious inferences. Her age reflects a time where formal youth employment was more common, especially for rural families and working class families. The middle class ideal of a single income family clearly did not apply to the Joy family. However, her ability to read and write suggests some level of education. The position as a dishwasher was in keeping with the gender norms of the era. The relatively low wages paid to her also reflect a gendered framework- with board, the average wage in 1929 for a farm laborer in Maine was $43 per month ($792.86 in 2024 dollars).
Rutherford Platt’s 1929 volume The Manual of Occupations suggested another means of earning money. According to Platt, a blood donor could earn $35-$50 ($645-$921 in 2024) per quart. The manual, however, did not provide any information as to how to gain such employment.
The Sound Schoolhouse Receive’s a facelift thanks to generous donor
The 1892 Sound Schoolhouse practically glows after a beautiful new paint job completed by Andrew Beitler and his team of painters. This historic building was showing wear and tear from winter storms and exposure. That inspired Chris Toomey to surprise the Society with a gift to have the building painted.
“I love historic structures and was sorry to see this iconic one looking in such rough shape. I knew Andrew and his team would do an excellent job and the result has exceeded all expectations. It’s extra fun to be able to help when you can see such dramatic results. I usually prefer my philanthropy to be private, but if it inspires others to help restore this important structure, and to support the Society as it approaches its centennial celebrations in 2031, I’m all in!”
“The Society was planning to write a series of grants to paint the building, but there’s no guarantee that a project will be funded. This gift from Chris was a huge help and recognized how important it is to preserve our historic buildings, and how challenging it can be for a small organization to raise the money needed for capital projects,” said Raney Bench, Executive Director. “We are so grateful to Chris for this gift so the schoolhouse can continue to be a beautiful landmark in our community.” The Society has also been seeking funds to upgrade the heating system and repair the chimney. T hanks to a grant from the town of Mount Desert last year, the MDI Historical Society was able to paint and repair the iconic footbridge and museum building on their Somesville campus, working with the talented team at Welch’s Painting.
The Schoolhouse is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and Beitler Painting ensured the yellow of the schoolhouse was in keeping with the original paint color. Additional attention to detail included glazing the windows and painting the edges of the trim white to match the window frames, instead of the yellow of the clapboards. Andrew pointed out that this technique really makes the contrast between window frames and the siding “pop.”
We encourage you to stop in and visit the schoolhouse Monday through Friday, 10:00-4:00 where visitors will f ind a small exhibit about the village of Sound and education in a one-room schoolhouse. We also use the space to catalog archival collections. Behind the schoolhouse are staff offices, the Ralph Stanley Research Library, and archive storage.
Upcoming Programs -Save the Date
Click here for more information and to register
December 9, 2024 at 6:00pm: History Book Club
The Mantle of Elijah by LaRue Spiker, Zoom
December 11, 2024 at 5:30pm: History Happy Hour with Seal Cove Auto Museum at Pats Pizza, Bar Harbor
January 20, 2025: 14th Annual Baked Bean Supper at MDI High School
January 25, 2025: Free Screening of “Join or Die” at Reel Pizza Cinema
You can learn more about our programs and register to attend at mdihistory.org/events or on Facebook and Instagram @mdihistory.
History Matters: Climate Change and Housing
Have you noticed higher tides this fall? It’s king tide season and working with partners at Schoodic Institute, Bar Harbor Oceanarium, Jennifer Steen Booher, and MDI high school students in Ruth Poland’s environmental studies class, the Society will be out on the landscape using history to measure increases in sea level, mapping those changes, and marking the coast to show areas that will be inundated by rising seas. Students will think about strategies to be resilient to rising sea levels and envision changes to our infrastructure that take sea level projections into account.
If climate resilience is a slow and steady evolution then the housing crisis certainly feels more urgent. The Society has been working with MDI Housing Solutions Initiative to engage our community in conversations about how we approach solving this problem. By looking at lessons from the past we have learned how the island can come together over shared values to solve issues of land conservation; that in the absence of island-wide agreement on an issue affecting all towns equally, like whether to allow cars on the island or not (1903-1915), outside forces will step in and make the decision for us; and how fear and hyperbole can turn us against one another and sow seeds of mistrust, like when the Klu Klux Klan was prevalent on MDI in the 1920s. Today’s housing crisis involves all of these lessons and will take perseverance and flexibility to resolve, but if history teaches us anything it’s that we can pull together as an island and find solutions.
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