The African American Collection is part of the Jean Byers Sampson Center for Diversity in Maine. It consists of collections of personal papers and archives of organizations active in the African American community of Maine. The bulk of the manuscript collection dates from the 20th century to the present, but a few collections contain items from the 19th century. There are also rare or unique print materials about the community (all 20th century or later) and the book collection of Gerald E. Talbot. The collection focuses on historical sources, excluding creative works of fiction or art, unless such works document the community.
Collections in the African American Collection
Arranged alphabetically by creator.
Cummings Guest House Register, 1923-1998 (AA-MS0005)
Cummings family
The Cummings family of Old Orchard Beach, Maine, ran a guest house for African Americans from 1923 until 1993. The names in the guest register were self-signed or written in by staff at the Cummings Guest House, 110 Portland Ave., Old Orchard Beach, Maine. Signatures include family members who attended reunions after the Guest House ceased operation.
1 Oversize Box
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Ellen T. Curtis Figurine, undated (AA-MS0032)
Curtis, Ellen T.
Ellen T. Curtis is the former owner of the item in this collection, a mixed-media figure of an African American man, in wood and cloth, with a rake tool.
1 Oversize Box
Unprocessed
African American Snapshots, October 1957 (AA-MS0034)
Dennis Photo Service (Presque Isle, Me.)
Dennis Photo Service developed photographs in Presque Isle, Maine in the 1950s. Collection includes a booklet of five “album prints,” one loose photograph, and a brown paperboard sleeve. The black and white photographs, printed in October 1957, show a group of five or six unidentified African American adults and a child relaxing in summer clothes in the living room of a typical 19th century house, likely in Maine.
1 File Folder
Unprocessed
Eastern Real Estate Company Archives, 1912-2001 (AA-MS0004)
Eastern Real Estate Company (Portland, Me.)
The Eastern Real Estate Company was an association of African Americans who bought and sold real estate in the Portland area from 1912-2001. The records in the Archives include articles of association, minutes, financial records, stock records, listings of stockholders, tax records, bank books, and legal documents.
1 Box (1 linear Foot)
“Home Is Where I Make It” – Oral History Collection, 2001-2003 (AA-MS0006)
Elgersman Lee, Maureen
This “Home Is Where I Make It” oral history project was directed by Dr. Maureen Elgersman Lee of University of Southern Maine and Rachel Talbot Ross. Local high school students conducted the interviews. The Collection includes transcripts, photographs, and audiotapes from the project’s two phases, documenting African American life in the Greater Portland and Lewiston-Auburn areas.
4 Boxes (2 Linear Feet) + 1 Oversize Box, 35 Objects
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Lee Forest Figurines, approximately 1930-1959 (AA-MS0011)
Forest, Lee
Lee Forest was Director of Environmental Services at the University of Southern Maine and donated the collection in 2002. The collection consists of 11 glazed ceramic figurines depicting Aunt Jemima and Uncle Mose. Objects include kitchen jars, a toothbrush holder, and several salt and pepper shakers.
9 Objects
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African American Maine Photograph Album, approximately 1940-1959 (AA-MS0007)
Jean Byers Sampson Center for Diversity in Maine (University of Southern Maine). African American Collection.
This collection consists of a wooden photograph album and three packets of loose photographs of African American women on vacation in Maine – about 15 women and a total of 112 photos. Many locations are identifiable along the Mid-coast, including photos of boats and shorelines along Pemaquid Point and Boothbay.
1 Box (0.25 Linear Feet)
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Ku Klux Klan Photograph (AA-MS0010)
Ku Klux Klan (1915- ) (Subject)
The Ku Klux Klan photograph is a black-and-white image of a KKK march in Lincoln, Maine, in 1927.
1 File Folder
N. T. Swezey’s Son & Co. Tin Sign, approximately 1980-1989 (AA-MS0008)
N. T. Swezey’s Son & Co. (New York, N.Y.)
N. T. Swezey (1814-1888) was a flour merchant in New York City and ran a successful business for over forty years at 176 South St. and was one of the founders of the New York Produce Exchange. This collection contains a reproduction of a sign advertising Northwest Consolidated Milling Company flour. The sign depicts the figure of a black child standing behind and slightly below the figure of a white child. Historically, the image of an African American child relies on racist stereotypes frequently depicted on advertisements, postcards, and other ephemera from about the mid-nineteenth century into the early decades of the twentieth century.
1 Object
Harold E. Richardson Papers, approximately 1931-1991 (AA-MS0003)
Richardson, Harold E., 1922-1993
Harold E. Richardson (1922-1993) was born in Portland, attended West School and Portland High School, and served on the Portland Water District Board from 1963 to at least 1987. He was very active in the Portland community: his contributions include service on the Maine State Law Enforcement Planning and Assistance Agency and membership in the Mt. Lebanon Masonic Lodge and Deering Lions Club, among many others. The papers contain his scrapbook, documenting his many contributions to the Portland community, including serving on the Portland Water District Board, photographs, and a 1949 certificate of membership in the Mt. Lebanon Masonic Lodge.
1 Box (0.5 Linear Feet) + 1 Oversize Box
Gerald E. Talbot Collection, approximately 1800-1999 (AA-MS0001)
Talbot, Gerald E., 1931-
Gerald E. Talbot was the first African American elected to the Maine State Legislature, served in the Maine House of Representatives from 1972 to 1978, and worked with the Maine chapter of the NAACP and the State Board of Education. The collection includes Talbot’s papers, records of his term in the Maine House of Representatives, and his work with the NAACP in Maine and with the State Board of Education. Other items in the collection include books, serials, posters, artifacts, and photographs documenting African Americans in the United States, emphasizing Maine.
95 Boxes (44.75 Linear Feet) + 35 Oversize Boxes, 664 Objects
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Flynn Seal Presses (AA-MS0009)
Women of the Ku Klux Klan
The collection consists of two seal presses from Augusta and Bath, Maine’s Women’s Ku Klux Klan organizations. The one from the WKKK chapter of Augusta, Maine, reads: “Women of the Ku Klux Klan; Capital City Klan; Klan No 11 Augusta, Maine.” In the center are a shield with a cross and the letters W, K, K, K at the cross’s top, bottom, and sides. The seal from the WKKK chapter of Bath, Maine, reads: “Women of the Ku Klux Klan; Bath Klan; Klan No 15 Bath, Maine.”
1 Oversize Box
Robert Bailey Poster (AA-MS0028)
Bailey, Robert, (Aviation Artist)
Robert Bailey, born in England and living in Canada, is an Artist Fellow with the American Society of Aviation Artists and a Canadian Aviation Artists Association member. Framed print, signed by 13 Tuskegee Airmen, of Robert Bailey’s painting “Red Tail Pass.” One of the signatures is the donor’s James A. Sheppard, a Maine resident and Tuskegee Airman.
1 Hanging Item
Unprocessed
William D. Burney Sr. Papers, approximately 1960-1970 (AA-MS0014)
Burney, Willam D., 1910-1979
William D. Burney Sr. was born in Georgia in 1910 and lived in Augusta, Maine, from around the 1940s to his death in 1979. This collection contains newspaper clippings from the Lewiston Journal and the Kennebec Journal from the 1960s and 1970s on civil rights issues and Mainers’ contributions to the cause nationally and at home.
1 Box (0.5 Linear Feet) + 1 Oversize Box
Unprocessed
Photographic Portrait of African American Male (AA-MS0026)
Christopher, Muriel Renee Deering, 1942-2015 (Donor)
The item is a studio portrait of an African American man mounted on an embossed card. There is light pencil writing on the back. The identity of the photographer is not known. The print is 4″ x 5.5″, and the card is 5.5″ x 6.25″.
1 File Folder
Unprocessed
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African American stereotype postcard (AA-MS0030)
Curt Teich & Co.
Curt Teich & Co. was a prolific printer of American postcards in the 20th century. This postcard, mailed from Spartanburg, South Carolina, to Westbrook, Maine on April 5, 1918, features a racist illustration and caption of four nude Black boys on a shore beside a body of water with cattails.
1 File Folder
Unprocessed
Joseph Bernard Collection (AA-MS0027)
Bernard, Joseph, 1933 (Subject)
Joseph Bernard was born in 1933, lived in Bangor, Maine, and worked for the Social Security Administration and other government organizations. This collection consists of two black-and-white photographs, likely from Fifth Street Middle School in Bangor, Maine, one of the basketball team and the other of the football team; included within the photos is Gerald Talbot.
1 File Folder
Unprocessed
Black and Born in Bangor (AA-MS0033)
Dymond, Nancy
Nancy Dymond is a 1st generation college graduate, educator from Bangor, Maine. The collection consists of one 47-minute digital video file about her family and the community where they lived
1 File Folder
Unprocessed
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Bob Greene Papers, 1952-2003 (AA-MS0021)
Greene, Robert E., 1936-
Bob Greene, an eighth-generation Portland native and Maine historian interested in African American history, worked as a journalist reporting on tennis for the Associated Press. The Papers include vital records, documents, and printouts from his genealogical research, a lettered high school football sweater and certificate, and press badges and tickets for sporting and other events from 1969 to 2002.
2 Boxes (2 Linear Fett) + 1 Oversize Folder, 1 Hanging Item
Unprocessed
Bishop James Augustine Healy Portrait (AA-MS0013)
Healy, James Augustine, 1830-1900 (Subject)
James Healy, 1830-1900, was the first African American Bishop in Maine. The collection consists of a hand-colored silver gelatin photograph of him. Accompanying materials in the collection include two color printouts of Healy’s memorial cross; documents related to the portrait’s auction and restoration; a CD with a digital reproduction of the image; and a book, The Catholic Church in the land of the Holy Cross: a history of the Diocese of Portland, Maine.
1 Hanging Item + 1 Oversize Box
Unprocessed
Anchor of the Soul Collection, approximately 1991-1992 (AA-MS0012)
Hoose, Shoshana
Shoshana Hoose, a Maine educator, and Karine Odlin are the creators of “Anchor of the Soul,” a video documenting the history of Maine’s African American community produced by the Abyssinian Church in Portland. The collection contains materials used in the video production and accompanying exhibition.
5 Boxes (5 Linear Feet) + 3 Oversize Boxes
Unprocessed
Eugene Jackson Papers, 1880-2006 (AA-MS0019)
Jackson, Eugene B., 1923-2015
Eugene B. Jackson, born in Portland, Maine, was a Tuskegee Airman and received the Congressional Gold Medal. The collection includes Christian religious text, books of common prayer, holy books, personal photographs and albums, family papers including vital records, and Ruby Family notes from the early 20th century onward.
1 Box (1 linear Foot)
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Photograph from a Wedding in Bangor Maine, June 19, 1943 (AA-MS0025)
Kellogg, Zip (Donor)
Photograph of an African American woman sitting in a pew in St. John’s Episcopal Church in Bangor, Maine.
1 File Folder
Unprocessed
Knights of the Ku Klux Klan Medallion (AA-MS0023)
Ku Klux Klan (1915- )
The collection consists of a medallion, “Knights of Ku Klux Klan Realm of Michigan.”
1 File Folder
Unprocessed
Malaga Island Collection (AA-MS0022)
Maine State Museum
This collection contains a collection of artifacts from the Maine State Museum collections. Artifacts include small broken fragments of clay, plastic, pipe, glass, buttons, metal, dirt, and ceramic found on Malaga Island, Phippsburg, Maine. An interim report on Malaga Island’s Archaeological and Environmental investigations is included.
1 Box (1 Linear Foot) + Oversize Folder
Unprocessed
Maxfield Photograph (AA-MS0024)
Maxfield family
The collection consists of one 16″x12″ framed daguerreotype of the Maxfields, an African American family.
1 Oversize Folder
Unprocessed
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Reverend Jeffrey McIlwain Theater Sign, July 1931 (AA-MS0037)
McIlwain, Jeffrey M.
Grand Theater (Savannah, Ga.)
Reverend Jeffrey McIlwain is originally from Portland, Maine and is chaplain at the Cumberland County Jail. The cast iron sign is from the Grand Theater, Savannah, Georgia, which reads, in white-painted rained letters “COLORED MUST SIT IN BALCONY.” It measures 8″ x 2.75″ and was acquired by McIlwain from the Arundel Flea Market in Arundel, Maine.
1 File Folder
Unprocessed
NAACP Maine Archives (AA-MS0018)
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Maine State Conference.
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in Maine began with a short-lived chapter starting in the 1920s in Bangor; by 1947, the Portland chapter was established, and by 1962 new chapters were in place in Lewiston-Auburn and Brunswick. The collection consists of a diverse set of records of the Greater Bangor Area, Central Maine, and Portland Branches of the NAACP, including administrative records, photograph albums, newspaper clippings, videos, awards, programs, financials, and correspondence.
36 Boxes (29.5 Linear Feet) + 13 Oversize Folders
Unprocessed
George Neavoll Collection (AA-MS0020)
Neavoll, George
George Neavoll was a long-time Portland resident and friend of Gerald E. Talbot. The Collection contains items representing “three important periods in the liberation struggle” for African Americans and Africans. Contents of the collections consist of a souvenir cup from W.E.B. Dubois’s home in Accra, Ghana; photocopies of newspaper articles from the Topeka Capital-Journal series on Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas (April 18-25, 1993) and subsequent court action (June 22, 1993); a Nelson Mandela poster; and a 2003 Ebony calendar, “Great Black Americans.”
1 Oversize Box
Unprocessed
Pedero Tovookan Parris Photographic Portrait (AA-MS0017)
Parris, Pedro Tovookan, 1833-1860 (Subject)
Frances E. Godfrey, from Bangor, Maine, Prentiss Godfrey’s wife, was the collection’s creator. The collection consists of a photograph taken by his ancestor, Virgil D. Parris, of Pedro [T]ovorkan, a formerly enslaved person taken to Portland, Maine.
1 File Folder
Unprocessed
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Maine’s Visible Black History Archives, 1996-2006 (AA-MS0016)
Price, H. H. (Harriet H.), 1940-
Maine’s Visible Black History is a partnership of H. H. Price and Gerald E. Talbot to make accessible the history of African Americans in Maine through publications and presentations. The Archives contains research materials and published writings on African Americans in Maine and New England. The collection includes the Frederick D. Williams papers, records, correspondence, VCR tapes, Fanny Talbot photos, and books.
2 Boxes (2 linear Feet) + 1 Oversize Box
Unprocessed
African American Oral History Collection, 1985 – 1996 (AA-MS0029)
University of Southern Maine. Center for the Study of Lives.
Cournoyer, Jill, 1957-
The Center for the Study of Lives was established in 1988 by Robert Atkinson, professor emeritus of human development, multicultural studies, and religious studies at University of Southern Maine. Collection includes recordings and documents related to oral histories conducted by Jill Cournoyer and other students of Joseph Conforti. Interviewees are Eugene Cummings, Rev. Margaret Lawson, Ronald S. Lynch, Leola Marshall, Dana Richardson, and Gerald E. Talbot. Also includes a speech by Eugene Jackson. Interviewees speak about their lives and histories as African Americans in the United States, particularly in Portland, Maine.
0.25 Linear Feet (1 Box)
Frederick D. Williams Papers (AA-MS0015)
Williams, Frederick D.
Frederick D. Williams, an attorney, and long-time Maine resident, was a Tuskegee Airman during WW II, served in the Korean War, and was the first African American to join the Maine Bar in 1969. The collection contains books, undated clippings, and a photograph related to Williams’s legal career; 3 vinyl records produced by the U.S. Dept. of Education on African Americans in the United States; and a 1971 letter from Maine Governor Kenneth M. Curtis congratulating Williams on his election to Selectman of Windham.
1 Box (1 Linear Foot)
Unprocessed
Gary Woolson Collection (AA-MS0002)
Woolson, Gary W. (Gary Wayne), 1937-
Gary Woolson is a used bookseller of Bangor, Maine. The collection consists of two issues of The Oracle (1903, 1939) and a monthly student publication of Bangor (Maine) High School.
1 Box (0.25 Linear Feet)
Unprocessed