Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Maine Folklife, Vol. 18, Iss. 1-3, Maine Folklife Center

Maine Folklife Center Newsletter

When we began developing the Maine Song and Story Sampler, our graduate assistant, Josh Parda, worked on the project as his primary task at the Folklife Center. Folks who follow us on Facebook or check our website frequently have seen the occasional posts of a song here or a story there that is relevant to some holiday or other event(s) going on in the wider world. And, thanks to our Archives Manager, Katrina Wynn, the full Sampler is available through Digital Commons. However, we went a full year without actually adding material to the Sampler.

Oral History, Working Class Culture, And Local, Pauleena M. Macdougall

Publications

Stories of factory closings from many industries throughout the latter part of the twentieth century are common and numerous studies have documented the economic impact of these unfortunate events. In this case study of Brewer, Maine, oral histories with former workers at the primary source of local employment, Eastern Corporation, illuminate the nature of management-worker interactions at the mill. Eastern’s former employee narratives reveal a surprisingly unified perspective regarding the closing of the mill that does not reflect the public narrative put forward by management and business leaders.

Molas: The Jane Gruver Collection, Jane Gruver

Molas Collection

For over 40 years, Jane Gruver, "the Mola Lady," and her husband Dr. Daniel Gruver lived and worked among the Kuna of the San Blas Islands of Panama. Jane acquired a deep appreciation and understanding of Kuna mola making and collected the molas presented here to document this tradition. Beginning in 1994, she began to donate molas to the Hudson Museum as a way of recording this artform and the lifeways of the Kuna for the future.

Molas are reverse appliqued fabric panels made to adorn women's blouses and were probably derived from body painting of the pre-Conquest era. The …