Publications (Annual Event Catalog)

Follow

• 

  Diversity at the Ballot Box: Electoral Politics and Maine's Minority Communities, Post-WWII to the Present

  University of Southern Maine, Selma Botman, Howard M. Solomon, Abraham J. Peck, and Bob Greene

  As this year’s Sampson Center exhibition makes clear the powerful desire to find historical inevitability in the advance toward equal opportunity for all Americans has become far more nuanced by the sometimes discomforting reminders that advances at the ballot box are neither as clear-cut nor as unconditional as we once hoped. The ancient antipathies of racism, anti-Semitism, and homophobia are not so easily elided by political campaigns and elections. The pace of social consensus requires a degree of patience and continuing attention that tries the very fabric of American life while we attempt to comprehend the consequences of change wrought by our heightened understanding of the implications of diversity in American life.

  
  Table of Contents:

  Introduction (Selma Botman, USM President)

  Quiet Revolution: A Tally of Black Victories (Bob Greene, for the African American Collection)

  Is It Good for the Jews? Is it Good for Everyone? Maine Jewry between Civic Idealism and the Politics of Reality (Abraham J. Peck, Scholar-in-Residence for the Judaica Collection)

  From the Closet to the Ballot-Box: Electoral Politics and Maine’s LGBT Citizens, 1970s to the Present (Howard M. Solomon, Scholar-in-Residence for the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Collection)

• 

  'Remember Me?' The Life and Legacy of Jean Byers Sampson

  University of Southern Maine, Joseph S. Wood, Abraham J. Peck, Mark Lapping, and Margaret Ann Brown

  In April 1961, Jean Byers Sampson wrote to the director of branches of the NAACP notifying him that she was involved with establishing a branch in Lewiston-Auburn. Because Jean had worked for the national branch of the NAACP in the late 1940s, she began her letter with a friendly “Remember me?” It is a short, intimate phrase that characterized how Jean worked throughout her life. “‘Remember Me?’ The Life and Legacy of Jean Byers Sampson,” the third annual event of the Sampson Center, is a tribute to how one person’s life changed Maine.

  
  Table of Contents:

  The Mosaic of Maine Life (Mark B. Lapping, Provost and Vice President of Academic Affairs 1994-2000, Interim Provost and Vice President of Academic Affairs, 2007-08)

  History of the Jean Byers Sampson Center (Susie R. Bock, Director, Sampson Center for Diversity in Maine and Head, USM Special Collections)

  “Remember Me?” The Life and Legacy of Jean Byers Sampson(Margaret Ann Brown, owner of Storyworks in South Portland with Abraham J. Peck, scholar-in-residence for the Sampson Center for Diversity in Maine’s Judaica Collection)

• 

  Liberating Visions: Religion and the Challenge of Change in Maine,1820 to the Present

  University of Southern Maine, Susie Boch, Joseph S. Wood, Maureen Elgersman Lee, Howard M. Solomon, and Abraham J. Peck

  Liberating Visions: Religion and the Challenge of Change in Maine, 1820 to the Present. Each of the Sampson Center’s three scholars has crafted an original essay related to one of the Sampson Center collections—African-American, Judaic, and Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender—thereby reflecting on how religious institutions have fostered minority identity and have framed social and cultural transformation.

  
  Table of Contents:

  Religion and Transformation (Joseph S. Wood, Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs)

  Jean Byers Sampson Center for Diversity in Maine Programming (Susie Bock, Director, Sampson Center for Diversity in Maine and Head, USM Special Collections)

  The African American Collection
  “There’s a Blessing in Pressing:” Change in Maine’s African American Churches (Maureen Elgersman Lee, Associate Professor of History and Faculty Scholar for USM’s African American Collection)

  The Judaica Collection
  “Orthodox and Yet thoroughly Liberal:” Jews and Judaism in Maine Between Tradition and Change (Abraham J. Peck, Director, Academic Council for Post-Holocaust Christian, Jewish, and Islamic Studies and Scholar-in-residence for USM’s Judaica Collection)

  The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Collection
  Coming Out, Going In: Spirituality and Religion in Maine’s LGBT Communities (Howard M. Solomon, Adjunct Professor of History and Scholar-in-Residence for USM’s LGBT Collection)

• 

  The Ties That Bind: Experiences of Family in Maine, 1900-Present

  Univeristy of Southern Maine, Susie Bock, Joseph S. Wood, Maureen Elgersman Lee, Abraham J. Peck, and Howard M. Solomon

  The Ties That Bind opens a window to meaning in the material culture of Mainers outside the dominant culture. Focusing on family, the three Center scholars whose work is catalogued here provide a lens that allows us to peer through that window into something of the complex nature of difference. The three scholars reveal otherwise anonymous Maine people, whose very anonymity came from the difference that was culturally constructed to segregate them from the dominant culture. Family, which reflects something common to every different culture, works here to highlight unity in human diversity. In that way, family also provides a mirror for every one of us in Maine's increasingly diverse population.

  
  Table of Contents:

  Jean Byers Sampson Center for Diversity in Maine (Susie Bock, Director, Sampson Center for Diversity in Maine and Head, USM Special Collections)

  Diversity, Scholarship, and Learning (Joseph S. Wood, Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs)

  The African American Collection
  Migration, Mortality, and Maturation:Three African American Families of Bangor and Portland (Maureen Elgersman Lee, Associate Professor of History and Faculty Scholar for USM’s African American Collection)

  The Judaica Collection
  If Not Jerusalem, Then at Least ‘The Jerusalem of the North:’Continuity and Discontinuity in Three Portland Jewish Families(Abraham J. Peck, Director, Academic Council for Post-Holocaust Christian, Jewish, and Islamic Studies and Scholar-in-residence for USM’s Judaica Collection)

  The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgendered Collection
  Ozzie and Harriet, Same-Sex Marriage, and the Culture Wars:LGBT Families in Maine, 1960 to the Present (Howard M. Solomon, Adjunct Professor of History and Scholar-in-Residence for USM’s LGBT Collection)