AUGUSTA — The Maine State Museum’s exhibition “Malaga Island, Fragmented Lives” will be closing on Saturday, May 25. To mark the exhibit’s conclusion, the museum will offer free admission to all visitors on the exhibit’s last day, when the museum will be open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. A new publication by the Friends of the Maine State Museum “Malaga Island, Fragmented Lives” will also be offered for sale that day in the Museum Store.

“Malaga Island, Fragmented Lives” marks the centennial of the state of Maine’s eviction of the island’s poor, mixed-race community in 1912. The exhibition features archaeological artifacts, historical photographs, and documents describing the small community. Included too is information about the sometimes chilling details of the eviction itself and the ways it was bolstered by social, pseudoscience and economic claims of the day.

“The tragic subject matter of Malaga Island, Fragmented Lives distinguishes this exhibition from any other that the Maine State Museum has developed,” noted Museum Director Bernard Fishman. “I hope that all interested people will take advantage of a final opportunity to see it. It will continue in different formats in the new publication and on the museum’s website, but those media cannot substitute for the power of the exhibition environment and the unique way that it conveys the Malaga Island story.”

The next exhibition to open at the Maine State Museum is “Maine Voices from the Civil War” in commemoration of the Civil War’s 150th anniversary. That exhibit opens on Saturday, June 29.

The Maine State Museum, 230 State Street, is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Friday and from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday. For more information, call 207-287-2301 or visit www.mainestatemuseum.org.

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