Many of the items in the permanent collection on the upper floors deal with the subject matter of the new exhibit at the Maine MILL in the Bates Mill Complex in Lewiston.
Photos on a series of panels at the Maine MILL help tell the story of Maine’s labor force in the early 1900s.
U.S. Army Captain Seth Eastman, born in Brunswick, Maine, played a pivotal role in the study of indigenous North American tribes. This engraving, titled “Native sugar camp and sap collecting from maple trees,” was created in 1853 and likely depicts members of the Sioux tribes, which Eastman followed for a time.
This unattributed engraving, titled “Native Americans collecting sap and cooking maple syrup in pots, tilling soil into raised humps, and sowing seeds…”, was created in 1724.
This photograph taken by Roland W. Reed, dated between 1908 and 1912, depicts a Chippewa woman “boiling syrup, probably maple syrup, on an open fire.”
A photo of a Native American woman harvesting sap is on display at Merrifield Farm in Gorham.
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