Penobscot Marine Museum’s historic photography exhibit Hancock County Through Eastern’s Eye is now at the Island Heritage Trust barn, in Deer Isle, Maine. The photographs in Hancock County Through Eastern’s Eye are of places people loved a century ago, when the owner of Eastern Illustrating sent his crews with their box cameras into tiny towns telling them to ask local citizens what they should photograph, what was important to them about their town. This exhibit is hosted by the Deer-Isle-Stonington Historical Society, and will be at the Island Heritage Trust barn, 420 Sunset Rd., Deer Isle, through August 31st.
Stonington, Maine courtesy Penobscot Marine Museum
An online exhibit on Penobscot Marine Museum’s website www.penobscotmarinemuseum.org includes many additional Hancock County images. The Eastern collection is the largest single photographic collection in Maine, consisting of nearly 50,000 images of Maine and the rest of New England and upstate New York. Most of the photos are on glass-plate negatives. The Penobscot Marine Museum is raising funds to acquire more of Eastern’s negatives, and has recently added a searchable database online to their website which includes nearly 30,000 Eastern Illustrating photographs. Photo prints are available from the museum, with proceeds from their sale going to expand the collection. The exhibit was funded in part by a grant from the National Endowment of the Arts and is part of four county exhibits the Penobscot Marine Museum will produce.
Exhibit hours are Monday through Friday, 8:00 am to 4:00 pm, Saturday and Sunday 10:00 am to 3:00 pm. The exhibit is free. For more information go to www.penobscotmarinemuseum.org or www.dis-historicalsociety.org.
Penobscot Marine Museum is in Searsport, Maine and has seven new exhibits and over fifty programs and events during the 2014 season. Its three acre, ten building campus is open Monday through Saturday, 10:00 am to 5:00 pm, and Sunday noon to 5:00 pm, through Sunday, October 19.