NORWAY — Elizabeth DeWolfe, award winning author, history professor and chair of the Liberal Studies program at the University of New England, will present a slide show and discussion on “The Murder of Mary Bean and Other Stories” at 7 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 25, at the Norway Universalist Church. The program is free and open to the public.

DeWolfe’s book has received multiple awards, in both Historical Book and True Crime categories. It is an account of a famous case involving the death of a textile mill worker in Saco in the mid 19th Century. It weaves together such themes as the rapid social changes brought about by industrialization in 19th Century society, the phenomena of “mill girls” moving from family-based rural life to independent lives as factory workers, changes in sexuality and the specter of abortion, the development of modern medicine and the role of sentimental novels as guidebooks.

DeWolfe is also a co-author of “Such News of the Land: U.S. Women Nature Writers” (2001) and the author of “Shaking the Faith: Women, Family” and Mary Marshall Dyer’s “Anti-Shaker Campaign, 1815–1867” (2002), which received the 2003 Outstanding Publication Award from the Communal Studies Association.

“The Murder of Mary Bean” is available at Books ‘N Things in Norway and will be available for purchase and signing at the event.