Above image: Toy truck with Country Kitchen bakery logo. Model Country Kitchen delivery truck, complete with driver, bread, and working lights. Designed and built by Henry Doyon.
At the Franco-American Collection, we have materials that date from the late 19th century to the present day, and represent diverse aspects of Franco-American history and culture. Bring your class to engage with our primary source materials and learn more about the Franco-American experience in Maine!
We have objects of interest to multiple academic disciplines: history, education, social work, criminology, law, sociology, marketing and more. Examples include the Albert Beliveau Collection, the professional papers of Justice Beliveau, the first Franco-American Justice of the Maine Supreme Court, memorabilia from Lewiston-Auburn snowshoeing clubs, and Lewiston and Auburn City Directories featuring advertisements from the early 20th century. We also have a large collection of oral histories from Franco-Americans, discussing objects as varied as skating, local businesses, and military experience.
Please contact us for more information about setting up a class for your students.
Previous Class Experiences
These are examples of what we have done with past classes. We’re happy to cater to whatever needs your class may have.
ENG 201 with Franco-American Fellow Laima Sruoginis, 2023
Students in Laima Sruoginis’ Creative Writing class were tasked with formulating a travel writing piece about the history of Franco-Americans in Lewiston. To gather information for their papers, they either visited the Franco-American Collection for an in-person or virtual tour, or used the Specialized Collections mobile app to explore downtown Lewiston with one of our pre-created walking tours.
ECE 232 (University of Maine Farmington) with Franco-American Fellow Kari Payne
Kari Payne’s Early Childhood Education class at the University of Maine, Farmington were encouraged to develop a lesson plan that explored history through play. They began with a presentation about the archive and our resources, with a focus on the history of snowshoeing among Franco-Americans. Next the students used craft supplies to create “snowshoes” of various types. Students then developed lesson plans of their own with different historical elements incorporated.
HON 315 with Franco-American Collection Fellow Cassandra Dove, 2022
Students in Cassandra Dove’s Honors Technical Writing class learned about how to use and cite archival materials, as well as find them online at the Collections’ Digital Commons site. The students explored the Digital Commons and included information they found there in cluster maps, along with secondary sources, which they then used to write a paper about what they found.
HTY 350/534 with Franco-American Collection Fellow Elizabeth Bischof, 2022
Students in Elizabeth Bischof’s History of Maine class visited the Franco-American Collection in-person, as one of eight field trips to local history institutions throughout the semester. Students learned about collections management, storage and acquisition, as well as having the chance to examine artifacts relevant to their studies up close, and learn about their context.
COR 101 with Franco-American Collection Fellow Emily Zider, 2021
Students in Emily Zider’s COR 101 class learned how to navigate the Franco-American Collection’s Digital Commons site, and explored our Franco-American COVID-19 Experiences in Maine collection during a virtual lesson. Students were encouraged to explore the collection and then discuss what connections they made about wellness, health and the pandemic.
ENG 100 with Franco-American Collection Fellow Sharon Ross, 2021
Students in Sharon Ross’ ENG 100 class visited the Collection in a virtual class which included an introduction to the Collection, how to use the Digital Commons to search, and how to use finding aids. Students then explored the Digital Commons on their own and discussed what items they found, and what they learned from these items. Students were encouraged to use the Digital Commons as a research tool for a class project.
HTY 132 with Franco-American Collection Fellow Amy Smith, 2021
Students in Amy Smith’s HTY 132 class used resources from the Collection to learn about the Red Scare, labor, and WWII, primarily from our oral history collection. The Collection also provided an asynchronous introductory video to the students, which included information on our materials and how to search our online collections.
ENG 100: College Writing
In Fall 2020, the Collection worked with USM Libraries to create a “Digital Field Trip” on the Vamonde app. The field trip consists of four plug and play modules designed to teach students information literacy and archival literacy, and get them ready to engage with the ENG 100 unit assignments.
Professors can assign these modules to students to complete in class, or outside of class time. Professors can choose how much or little they refer to the modules in class. The modules have been designed around each unit on the ENG 100 syllabus.
Check out the ENG 100 class units here.
SBS 304: Food and Culture
Students looked at sample cookbooks to see different types of adaptation in Franco-American foodways.
Interested in learning more about our yearly faculty fellowships for USM instructors? Check out our Faculty Fellowships page!