Stay up to date with our newsletter
News, Videos, and Stories
Explore the latest happenings at the museum.
Categories: Countdown to Reopening | News | Objects, Artifacts, & Specimens | Staff Happenings | Uncategorized | Videos
Countdown to Reopening, News, Staff Happenings / September 25, 2025
What’s Been Going On at the Museum?
Gearing up for the first phase of our Grand Reopening on October 24, 2026! Are you missing the Maine State Museum? You are not alone. Many have expressed frustration that the museum has been closed for so long. The reasons for this long timeline? The renovation of the Cultural Building, the 55- year-old structure that […]
Read more »
News, Objects, Artifacts, & Specimens
This Month We Remember
This October marks two years since the Lewiston mass shooting, which claimed 18 lives. In response to the tragedy, one artist and teacher from Lewiston, Ellen Hodgkin, chose to use her art to aid in her healing process and raise awareness about gun violence. Her project, “Remember Lewiston,” took nearly two years to complete and […]
Read more »
Objects, Artifacts, & Specimens
Recently Discovered Charts Link Maine to Slave Economy
Sixteen nautical charts, discovered walled up in a downtown Brunswick business’s upstairs room, were recently donated to the Maine State Museum. The charts, used by Brunswick sea captain and shipping agent Robert T. Giveen (1808-1862), were published between 1831 and 1858, and detail shipping between European and American Atlantic and Gulf ports. The donor purchased […]
Read more »
Objects, Artifacts, & Specimens
New Signs Serve Up a “Happy Hit of Flavoring”
The Maine State Museum recently acquired two rare Moxie advertising signs. Designated as Maine’s official state soft drink in 2005, this infamous drink has acquired a cult following over the last 139 years. Originally called Moxie Nerve Food, the inventor, Dr. Augustin Thompson was born and raised in Union, Maine. After serving in the Maine […]
Read more »
Objects, Artifacts, & Specimens, Videos
Dan DenDanto and the Maine State Museum’s Whale Exhibit
On October 24, 2024, the Friends of the Maine State Museum welcomed Dan DenDanto of Allied Whale as the featured speaker for their annual meeting. Dan walked the audience through the work he has been doing to prepare two whale skeletons, an adult female humpback (known as Vector to the scientists that tracked her) and […]
Read more »
Objects, Artifacts, & Specimens
Who is the Man with the Eyepatch?
Remembering the C. F. Hathaway Company, Waterville Maine National media celebrated the C. F. Hathaway Company as America’s oldest and last major shirt manufacturer when it closed its Waterville factory in 2002. Over twenty years later, the Maine State Museum received a donation of dozens of Hathaway shirts and the company archives so that the […]
Read more »
News, Objects, Artifacts, & Specimens
Samantha Smith Featured in International Exhibit
The Maine State Museum has recently joined with museums from around the world to bring a new exhibition – The Berlin Wall: A World Divided – to international audiences. Samantha was the girl from Manchester, Maine who, as a ten-year old in 1982, wrote to Soviet leader Yuri Andropov, questioning his commitment to world peace. Shortly after […]
Read more »
Objects, Artifacts, & Specimens, Staff Happenings, Videos
Mystery Tusk: Searching for Elephants in the Maine Woods
Gary Hoyle, author and former Natural History Curator at the Maine State Museum, discussed his book, Mystery Tusk: Searching for Elephants in the Maine Woods, at the Friends of the Maine State Museum annual meeting on October 19, 2023. His illustrated talk described one of his great achievements for the museum: the 1993 excavation of […]
Read more »
News, Objects, Artifacts, & Specimens, Staff Happenings
Great Coat, Great Discoveries
Members of the public frequently contact museum staff with inquiries about items in the collection. Often, the resulting research leads to the discovery of new, exciting information. This is just what happened last spring when an individual contacted museum curator Angela Goebel-Bain to ask about measurements of a Civil War great coat that was donated […]
Read more »
News, Objects, Artifacts, & Specimens
A Flag, A Cane, and A Governor’s Best Friend
June 1, 2023 was the 100th anniversary of the death of then-Governor Percival Baxter’s beloved Irish setter, Garry II. The death of a Maine governor’s pet seems an unlikely event to note 100 years later. But Baxter’s actions following Garry’s passing made headlines around the country and are still remembered today. Baxter’s response to the criticism […]
Read more »