Registration open for Museum L-A history camp

LEWISTON   – Youths age 8 through 12 are invited to register for Museum L-A’s upcoming Summer Vacation History Camp. This year’s theme is “Change Over Time” and will take place July 13, 14 and 15 from 10 a.m. to 12 Noon. Registrants may sign up for all three days or single days.  The fee is $10 per day or $25 for all three days. Museum L-A Educators Joan Beal and Diane Williams developed the programs and will lead the sessions. Camp activities and programs are:

-Day 1 “Bobbin Girl”  Read and hear the story “Bobbin Girl” and complete activities related to the life of child workers in the textile mills of Lowell, Massachusetts.

-Day 2 “Weave and Spin”  Card, spin and weave cotton by hand, then tour Museum L-A to see how textiles were produced during the Industrial Age.

-Day 3 “Purchasing Power”  Participants will explore the answers to these questions: What would your family income be in 1900 if you worked in the mills? What could you buy and how much would it cost? How is it different from today?

“This year’s history camp will be a fun, hands-on way for children to get a glimpse at what it meant to work in Lewiston-Auburn’s textile mills,” notes Beal. “We’ve had fun designing the programs. The looms and spindles are waiting.”

The camp is being sponsored by Austin Associates, P.A., Certified Public Accounts and also made possible through a Rural Business Enterprise Grant from the United States Department of Agriculture. Registration is limited to 12 participants each day. For more information or to register, please call 207-333-3881 or send an email to jbeal@museumla.org. Museum L-A is located in the Bates Mill Complex at the corner of Canal and Chestnut streets in Lewiston.

Museum seeks volunteers for outdoor cleanup

 LEWISTON   –  Museum L-A is holding a “Helping Hands and Hearts Day” on Saturday, June 19 from 9 a.m. to noon at the site of its future location – the former Camden Yarns Mill on Beech Street. Volunteers are needed to help spruce up the grounds of the building in preparation for special events to be held this summer.

“We are looking for volunteers to rake, sweep, weed-whack, pull weeds and pick up rocks and stones,” said Museum L-A Executive Director Rachel Desgrosseilliers. She also noted that equipment is also needed to do the work. “The community has been so responsive to our requests for help,” Desgrosseilliers added. “We have been able to accomplish so much and are very thankful.” 

Anyone interested in helping out on June 19 is asked to call the Museum at 207-333-3881.

Museum L-A “Voices” series:

Muticultural panel to share stories of resettlement in L-A

LEWISTON   – Discover more about Lewiston-Auburn’s diverse immigrant population when Museum L-A’s popular “Voices” lecture series continues at 7 p.m. on June 10 with “Journey to America, Weaving a Cultural Tapestry.” It is the second of a three-part series being held in conjunction with the Museum’s current exhibit “Rivers of Immigration: Peoples of the Androscoggin.”

 Featured speakers are Mexican, Somali, Sudanese, Somali Bantu and Chinese neighbors who now call the Twin Cities their home. They will share how they came to resettle in Maine and some of the challenges and benefits of their relocation.

 Museum L-A’s 2010 “Voices” lecture series is being presented free of charge and underwritten by Androscoggin Bank. Museum L-A is located at 35 Canal Street in the Bates Mill Complex – at the corner of Canal and Chestnut streets. For more information, please call 207-333-3881 or email info@museumla.org

Free admission at Museum L-A for active duty military personnel

LEWISTON — Museum L-A is pleased to announce its participation in the Blue Star Museum program offering free admission to all active duty military personnel and their families from Memorial Day through Labor Day 2010. Museum L-A is one of only two Blue Star Museums in Maine.

The free admission program is available to active duty and deployed military and up to five of their immediate family members. Eligible military include active-duty Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard and active-duty Reserve and active-duty National Guard. Immediate family members who are eligible for free admission include spouse, sibling or child of active duty military. To qualify for free admission, a Geneva Conventions Common Access Card (CAC) for active duty military personnel or a DD Form 1173 for active duty military family must be presented to Museum L-A staff upon arrival. Children under the age of 10 without military ID are welcome to attend with their parents or siblings who either hold a CAC Geneva Conventions ID or a DD 1173 active duty military family ID.

Blue Star Museums is a partnership among Blue Star Families, the National Endowment for the Arts, and more than 600 museums across America.  Blue Star Families is a national, non-partisan, non-profit network of military families from all ranks and services including guard and reserve, with a mission to support, connect and empower military families.  The National Endowment for the Arts is a public agency dedicated to supporting excellence in the arts – both new and established – bringing the arts to all Americans, and providing leadership in arts education. To find out which additional museums are participating, visit www.arts.gov/bluestarmuseums.  The site includes a list of participating museums and a map to help with visit planning.

Museum L-A is currently offering two special exhibits in addition to its second-floor gallery focusing on the textile and shoe making industries of Lewiston-Auburn and the people who worked in them. Portraits & Voices: Brickyard Roads tells the story of the local brickmaking industry through first-person oral histories, documentary photographs, films showing the process of the past and present, specially-commissioned artwork celebrating the art of brickmaking, and more.  Rivers of Immigration: Peoples of the Androscoggin showcases the cultural diversity of Lewiston-Auburn, historically and in the present, with an illustrated timeline, interactive writing wall, photographs, and personal histories contributed by local English-language learners. Museum L-A is located in the historic Bates Mill at 35 Canal Street and open from Monday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. For more information call 207-333-3881 or email info@museumla.org .