LEWISTON – The Maine Public Broadcasting Network on Thursday will launch a new television series called “Maine Experience,” which examines the people, places and events that have shaped Maine and its history.

The first episode, airing at 8 p.m., spotlights U.S. Sen. Margaret Chase Smith, Maine’s Grange halls and a typical Maine winter morning, circa 1895.

The series is the most researched and highest quality program MPBN has ever produced, according to Marketing Manager Lou Morin.

The first segment is a history of the “Declaration of Conscience” speech delivered on the Senate floor by Margaret Chase Smith on June 1, 1950, when the senator from Skowhegan publicly took on the powerful red-baiting senator from Wisconsin, Joseph McCarthy, and warned the nation of the dangers of the politics of paranoia.

The segment weaves in historical film footage, including legendary CBS journalist Edward R. Murrow pondering Sen. Smith’s political future on the eve of her 1954 Republican primary election against an opponent selected by McCarthy to run against her.

Other segments in the debut program include a look at the history and function of the many Grange halls that dot the state – with an in-depth look at the Houlton Grange, once the world’s largest – and a re-enactment of a winter morning from the late 19th century, which was not the same relatively comfortable experience that it is today.

The second episode of Maine Experience, to be broadcast on Oct. 26, features an extensive profile of 19th-century Portland Mayor Neal Dow, who became known as the country’s “father of prohibition” due to his efforts in passing the nation’s first law prohibiting the sale of liquor; a trip to the Norlands Living History Center in Livermore, where Maine’s agrarian past comes to life for visitors; and a history of the Seguin Island Light Station, commissioned by President George Washington in 1795 and the setting of many an interesting tale.