LEWISTON — “The Murder of Mary Bean and Other Stories” is the topic of Museum L-A’s author talk and book signing on Wednesday, July 20. The 7 p.m. program is free.

In the illustrated talk, Dr. Elizabeth De Wolfe, will relay the tragic real-life story of a woman known as Mary Bean, a 19th century factory girl who met her unfortunate end in Saco in 1849. When Mary Bean’s body was discovered, pulled from an icy brook in April 1850, residents were aghast. They closely followed the investigation and subsequent trial of Dr. James Smith, a local physician charged with Bean’s murder.

The intense newspaper coverage and public scrutiny of Bean’s death revealed that the economic success of the textile factories had a terrible cost: the virtue, and perhaps the very lives, of the young women who worked there.

DeWolfe, who has a Ph.D. in American and New England studies from Boston University, will share some of the tragic tales that found their way into sensational fiction about Maine mill girls in the 19th century. 

Filled with despicable villains and tragic deaths, this fiction warned its young readers that the best way to stay safe was simply to stay home. The book, published in 2007 by Kent University Press, was honored with book awards from the New England Historical Association and the Northeast Popular Culture Association. 

DeWolfe is professor and chair of the history department at the University of New England in Biddeford. She has written three other books. Her latest release, “Domestic Broils: Shakers, Antebellum Marriage, and the Narratives of Mary and Joseph Dyer,” was published in July 2010 by the University of Massachusetts Press.

Museum L-A is at 35 Canal Street, at Canal and Chestnut streets. For more information, call 333-3881 or email [email protected]