Early photos of Wiscasset and neighboring towns are included in a talk by Kevin Johnson on Thursday, Aug. 12 at the Old Jail on Federal Street in Wiscasset. Photo courtesy of Penobscot Marine Museum
Kevin Johnson, photo archivist for the Penobscot Marine Museum in Searsport, plans to showcase the current exhibit of early 20th-century photos at Lincoln County Historical Association’s Old Jail in Wiscasset.
Johnson is scheduled to speak at 5 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 12, during a reception at the historic Museum & Old Jail on Federal Street.
His slide show and talk, “Wiscasset Maine: The Postcard View,” will delve into the story of the The Eastern Illustrating and Publishing Company postcard company and its photos of Wiscasset and its neighboring towns in the early 1900s. The presentation amplifies the photography exhibit, “Lincoln County Through the Eastern Eye,” that will be on display through the end of September.
Admission to the talk is free, but advance registration is requested. For more information, visit lincolncountyhistory.org.
Eastern Illustrating and Publishing Company was founded in 1909 in Belfast by Rudolph Herman Cassens. Cassens’ goal was to photograph small towns and rural areas from Maine to California, producing “real photo” postcards that would be valued for promoting tourism.
Cassens did not fulfill his dream of photographing the entire country, but his company did produce more than 50,000 glass plate negatives of New England and Upstate New York between 1909 and 1947. The collection is full of historic businesses, family homes and local landmarks.
The images take viewers back in time to when the roads were still dirt, horse-drawn carriages outnumbered cars, coastlines were undeveloped, and elms lined the streets. The collection is now part of the archives of the Penobscot Marine Museum and continues to grow as more negatives that “escaped” from the collection are located and acquired.
Copies of the book about the collection, “Maine on Glass,” will be available for purchase. The PMM Photo Archive offers more than 100,000 images in its database at penobscotmarinemuseum.org.
Lincoln County Historical Association is a nonprofit organization that provides stewardship for the 1754 Chapman-Hall House in Damariscotta, the 1761 Pownalborough Court House in Dresden, and the 1811 Old Jail and Museum in Wiscasset. For more information, visit its website or Facebook at Lincoln County Historical Association (Maine).
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