SHOWCASE – July 2012

By Rebecca Falzano

Time stands still in a photographic exhibition at the Penobscot Marine Museum.

Photographs have a remarkable way of taking life’s fleeting moments and preserving them for generations to come. A look through the Penobscot Marine Museum’s online photo archive reveals thousands of moments suspended in time. The museum has one of the largest archives of historical photographs in Maine. More than 100,000 negatives, prints, slides, postcards, and daguerreotypes provide a glimpse into what life in Maine was like in the late nineteenth to mid-twentieth century: the boats, ships, and waterfronts; cities, towns, and countrysides; fashion, furnishings, industry, architecture, and people of that era. The collections range from the archives of the Eastern Illustrating and Publishing Company and the works of professional photographers to intimate family albums, and each collection has a connection to the Penobscot Bay region, either through the photographer, publisher, or subject matter.

Drawing on the PMM’s vast photographic archive, the summer exhibition, Summer Folk, explores the history of tourism around Penobscot Bay from 1890 to 1960, with a brief look at the eco-tourists of today. According to the PMM, these years saw dramatic change in all aspects of tourism: transportation, lodging, activities, and the characteristics of the tourists themselves. The exhibition covers the rusticator and hotel era, when visitors arrived by steamboat or private yacht; the rise of individually owned summer homes and of vacations for the middle and not-so-middle class; and the automobile and motel age, when Maine became “Vacationland,” in the 1940s through the 60s. The exhibition spans multiple museum buildings, offering present-day tourists as well as local residents a look at the long tradition of visiting Maine in the summer.

SUMMER FOLK AT THE PENOBSCOT MARINE MUSEUM RUNS FROM MAY 25 THROUGH OCTOBER 21.

VISIT PENOBSCOTMARINEMUSEUM.ORG FOR MORE.