Skip navigation

Winter Lecture Series

Each winter, we sponsor a series of public talks exploring how people and events helped shape New England into what it is today. We just wrapped up our 14th year of providing enriching experiences to our community from notable experts on various historic topics. The series was hosted by USM.

Thank you all for your support and participation in our 2024 series! The line-up included:

• January 27 - Paul J. Ledman presented "Expanding a Peninsula: The Growth of Portland"
  Portland has undergone many economic transformations over the centuries. At different times, the city has been a center for shipbuilding and fishing, an important port for exports, an industrial hub, and more recently, a growing center for research and the service economy. This evolution has affected not only its people but the land as well. Over the centuries, hundreds of acres, where people live and work, have been "reclaimed" from the city’s adjacent waterways. Ledman illustrated this process of infilling while also discussing the historical patterns and trends which connect us to this process.
• March 16 - Andy O'Brien presented "Black Mainers and the Struggle for Freedom and Equality in the 19th Century"
  Since the Colonial era, African Americans in Maine have fought for liberation, first by resisting their enslavement and petitioning for their emancipation and then by joining national movements for abolitionism and civil rights. O’Brien traced the roots of Maine’s racial justice movement from slavery to its formal abolition in 1865, covering the role of Black Mainers in electoral politics in the antebellum period and grassroots organizing in the abolitionist and National Colored Convention movements. Attendees learned about influential Black Mainers like activist Reuben Ruby, intellectual Robert Benjamin Lewis, pioneering journalist John Brown Russwurm, Reverend George H. Black, and the radical preacher Reverend William C. Monroe.
• March 30 - Christopher Packard presented "Mythical Creatures of Maine"
  An introduction to the creatures, beings, and monsters found in the stories and legends of all the cultures that have called Maine home over the years. Packard shared the descriptions and stories of two dozen magical and mysterious creatures said to be found in the Maine woods and waters. Inspired by family oral tradition and personal experience, Packard conducted extensive research and investigation while writing his book “Mythical Creatures of Maine,” and he shared some of his favorite creatures in this talk which took us well beyond Bigfoot. From the humorous to the terrifying, Maine has it all.

We rely on donations and event ticket sales to fund our conservation efforts. Your donations are so appreciated. Some of you remember the lecture tip jar we keep on our welcome table next to the cookies! We also have a PayPal virtual tip jar: Donate to Spirits Alive today. Thank you!

Lecture Archives

We have been presenting public lectures that educate us on the history of our city, state, and country since 2008. Here is a listing of those who have participated as well as their lecture subject matter.

• 2023 Lecture Series
• 2022 Lecture Series
• 2021 Lecture Series
• 2020 Lecture Series
• 2019 Lecture Series
• 2018 Lecture Series
• 2017 Lecture Series
• 2016 Lecture Series
• 2015 Lecture Series
• 2014 Lecture Series
• 2011 Lecture Series
  • Kim MacIsaac of Fifth Maine Regiment Museum - The Forest City Regiment: Death, Mourning and Loss
  • Tom Desjardin, PhD, Chief Historian, Maine Bureau of Parks and Lands - Civil War Heroes and Heroines Buried in Evergreen Cemetery
  • Margaret Creighton, Professor at Bates College - Dead Men’s Pockets: Gettysburg Bodies and Other Stories
• 2010 Lecture Series
  • Salem State College professor Emerson Woods Baker II - Native Americans of Casco Bay
  • Author Jim Nelson - Privateering on Casco Bay
  • Maine State Historian Earle Shettleworth - The Development of Munjoy Hill
• 2008 Lecture Series
  • Joy Giguere - Death & Commemoration on the Frontier: An Analysis of Early Gravestones in Cumberland County, Maine, 1720 to 1820
  • David Watters, Director of the Center for New England Culture and professor of English at the University of New Hampshire - Stranger, Stop and Cast an Eye: A Cultural History of New England Burying Grounds
  • Earle Shettleworth, Director of the Maine Historic Preservation Commission -The Day Portland Burned: July 4, 1866