Have you tried one of our Time Machines?

Gardiner was a robust printing center throughout the 19th century and into the 20th century, producing, in addition to books and pamphlets, several newspapers over the decades.  From the Eastern Chronicle (1824-1826) and Cold Water Fountain (1844-1848) to the Gardiner Home Journal (1858-1892) and Reporter Journal (1893-1913) (and many others in between and after), Gardiner steadily chronicled local goings on and kept up with the news of the state and nation. We are incredibly lucky to have the majority of Gardiner’s historic periodicals preserved on over 100 reels of microfilm here in the library’s Community Archives Room and available for research.  We …

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One hundred years ago, a letter arrived in Gardiner….

Written from Columbia University, the letter congratulated a Gardiner author on winning the Pulitzer Prize for biography.  The author, who compiled scrapbooks of her family life and day-to-day goings on, dutifully pasted the letter on the next available page in her Family Log and moved right along…. Neither she nor the letter made note of the fact that that she and her sister were the first women to win a Pulitzer.  In fact, as 1917 was the inaugural year of the most celebrated prize for literature, the event made little more than a tiny ripple in Laura E. Richard’s daily life. …

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Happy Birthday, Marjorie Standish!

Did you know that a Gardiner kitchen was once every Maine kitchen?  From Biddeford to Boothbay, Waterville to Washington County, I’ve never known a Maine home that didn’t contain one or both (or multiple copies of each) of Marjorie Standish’s classic cookbooks, Cooking Down East and Keep Cooking – The Maine Way.   It may be old news to many, but it came as quite a wonderful surprise to me (and to many of those with whom I’ve recently shared my enlightenment) that Marjorie Standish lived, cooked, and wrote most of her famous cooking columns and recipes right here in …

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T.W. Dick Relics, Part 1

T.W. Dick, the company and the facilities, was a part of Gardiner’s historic tapestry for over 100 years.  As many of you know, the now vacant buildings are owned by the city and slated for removal for new projects.  As the Community Archives Room at the Gardiner Public Library is the repository for Gardiner’s history and artifacts I was able to visit the site and gather a few representative items to ensure that some part of this history is preserved.  The spaces were immense and patchworked with little details from many eras but, sadly, there was little tangible material left …

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A Most Welcome Surprise Package!

A box arrived in the mail on Friday, out of the blue and addressed as shown: “Historical Papers Dept.” is a wonderful way of describing our Community Archives Room, which is where the box was swiftly taken and immediately given a new and permanent home.  As many of you know, the C.A.R. first opened in 1985, was renovated into a beautiful, climate controlled space last year, and was re-dedicated just last month.  It is home to a collection of unique and engaging local history materials and artifacts covering the historic past of Gardiner and its surrounding towns, as well as …

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A new year, a new calendar — or…

If you never got around to using an old 1988 or have a favorite 1960 calendar, they are finally functional again! How do I know this?  One of my favorite perpetual calendars tells me so.  Calendars can come in pretty handy when working with historic materials. For example, many newspapers published weekly editions and often referred only to the weekday an event occurred (so and so arrived Wednesday or such and such will be held on Monday) and today we must scurry to find a now ancient calendar to determine what date they were talking about.  Of course, a quick Google search …

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