NAFOH: Occupational Folklore

Here we have finding aids for collections of accessions focused on occupational folklore. As some of these collections were created around a theme (rather than based on a single donation or class), there is some overlap in the collections.

Related: If you find the finding aids on this page interesting, you may want to check out some of the following resources.

• Marine resource: The Penobscot Marine Museum.
• Scott and Helen Nearing related resources: The Good Life Center, The Scott and Helen Nearing collection at Boston University’s Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center, The Scott and Helen Nearing Papers at The Thoreau Institute
• Farming: Maine Organic Farmers and Gardners Association (MOFGA).

Related: If you find this collection interesting, you may want to check out some of the other Scott and Helen Nearing related resources: The Good Life Center, The Scott and Helen Nearing collection at Boston University’s Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center, and The Scott and Helen Nearing Papers at The Thoreau Institute at Walden Woods.

Friendship Sloops
Number of accessions: 17
Description: Accessions dealing with Friendship Sloops, a type of vessel now used for sailing, but which was originally used as a working boat by loberstermen in the Muscongus Bay on the Maine coast (Friendship Sloops, Betty Roberts).

MF 003 Argyle Boom Collection
Number of accessions: 31
Dates when interviews were conducted: 1973, 1975
Time period covered: 1900-1930
Principal interviewers: Susan Tibbetts, Ralph Cook, Mary Beth O’Connor, Dusty Carr, Mark LaFond, Kenneth Whitney, Edward D. “Sandy” Ives, Lucinda Lamb, Elizabeth Warner, Jack Beard, Ann Pierter, Bessie Dam
Finding aides: brief indexes and full transcripts
Access restrictions: none
Description: The Argyle Boom Collection consists of approximately seventy-five hours of tape-recorded interviews in twenty-nine accessions, most of which reflect interviews conducted by students in classes taught by Edward D. “Sandy” Ives at the University of Maine in 1973 and 1975. Argyle Boom was one of several locations at which logs that had been cut upriver and floated or “driven” down the Penobscot River were sorted before being sent on to the lumber mills in Old Town, Orono, Veazie, Bangor, and Brewer, Maine, from approximately 1900 to 1930. These interviews, along with associated photographs, maps, and diagrams, were the basis for Argyle Boom , Northeast Folklore, XVII (1976). Under Ives’ direction, the students consulted existing manuscript sources, sought out potential informants who had worked on the boom, conducted interviews, and wrote essays on various aspects of boom construction and operation and the daily lives of the workers. Ives then edited and rewrote these essays for publication. For more information see Argyle Boom.

MF 009 Rum Running/Bootlegging Collection
Number of accessions: 36
Dates when interviews were conducted: various
Time period covered: early 20th century
Principal interviewers: various
Finding aides: some catalogs and transcripts
Access restrictions: NA0655, 0700, 0769, 1793, 2487
Description: This collection was originally just NA2487 (Cavallini Rum Running Collection), but was expanded to include other accessions that dealt with rum-running, bootlegging, and illegal alcohol during Prohibition.

MF 012 Lumberman’s Life Series
Number of accessions: 54
Dates when interviews were conducted: 1969 – 1990
Time period covered: late 19th and 20th centuries
Principal interviewers: various
Finding aides: indexes and transcripts
Access restrictions: NA0580
Description: This is an arbitrary series of accessions created in May 2002 to bring together interviews that focus on lumbering, woods work, and river drives that are not associated with specific projects. Many were previously assigned to the Maine/Maritime Folklore Collection, the General Collection, or those of individual interviewees or collectors.

MF 013 Cranberry Culture in Massachusetts Project
Number of accessions: 20
Dates when interviews were conducted: 1982 – 1983
Time period covered: 19th century
Principal interviewers: Stephen Cole and Linda Gifford
Finding aides: transcript
Access restrictions: yes
Description: A series of 20 accessions featuring interviews done by Stephen Cole and Linda Gifford (1982-1983) documenting cranberry growing in southeastern Massachusetts. Permission of the director required for copying or quoting for publication.

MF 016 Deering Lumber Company Project
Number of accessions: 14
Dates when interviews were conducted: most in 1980, also 1987 & 1989
Time period covered: 20th century
Principal interviewers: Michael P. Chaney
Finding aides: catalogs
Access restrictions: none
Description: Project undertaken by Michael Chaney in the summer of 1980 which led to the publication of White Pine on the Saco: An Oral History of River Driving in Southern Maine (Northeast Folklore XXIX: 1990). Collection consists of fourteen interviews with employees of the Deering Lumber Company.

MF 025 Honest Woodsman Collection
Number of accessions: 2
Dates when interviews were conducted: 1980
Time period covered: 20th century
Principal interviewers: William Warner
Finding aides: catalogs
Access restrictions: none
Description: This collection consists mainly of a series of interviews with David Priest, retired game warden, about his experiences as a warden, trapper, and guide.

MF 033 Machias River Project
Number of accessions: 20
Dates when interviews were conducted: mostly 1986, also 1989
Principal interviewers: Edward D. “Sandy” Ives
Finding aides: transcripts
Access restrictions: none
Description: This collection consists of nineteen interviews totaling approximately thirty-two hours conducted by Edward D. “Sandy” Ives in 1986 with men who worked in the woods and on the riverdrives along the Machias River. In part it grew out of the “Stump to Ship” project in which the 1930 logging film was revived and shown around the state. Many of the interviewees in the Machias River Project came from the audiences for the film.

MF 038 Labor Relations in Maine
Number of accession: 54
Dates when interviews were conducted: 1969-1974
Time period covered: early-to-mid 20th century
Principal interviewers: Charles O’Leary, Jay McCloskey, Ken Morgan, Kevin Madigan
Finding aides: indexes and some transcripts
Access restrictions: yes
Description: This is a combination of two collections that both deal with labor issues in Maine (MF 038 Maine State Federated Labor Council Collection and MF 127 Labor Relations Project). The original MF 038 is “A collection of 24 accessions featuring interviews conducted from 1969-1973 under the auspices of the Maine State Federated Labor Council. Topics range widely over the spectrum of organized labor issues in Maine, but seem to deal primarily with unions, union organizing, and elections. Interviewees include top ranking union officials as well as lobstermen, longshoremen, bricklayers, quarry workers, textile and paper millworkers, sulfite workers, iron workers, shipbuilders, railroad workers, typesetters, building trade workers, electricians, garment workers, and shoe makers. Also represented are union organizers, labor historians, and publishers of labor periodicals such as “Labor News.” MF 127 is “a series of five interviews conducted in the spring and summer of 1974 , one by Charles O’Leary and four by Kevin Madigan. Focus of the interviews includes labor unions, right to work laws, strikes, featherbedding, union negotiations, State Labor Council, labor-management relations, carpenters, boot and shoe workers, women in industry, and relations between the international and the locals of individual unions.”

MF 042 Frederick Pratson Collection
Number of accession: 3
Dates when interviews were conducted: 1972
Time period covered: Early to mid 20th Century
Principal interviewer: Frederick Pratson
Finding aides: transcripts
Access restrictions: none
Description: Independent collection of folklore material contributed to the Maine Folklife Center by Frederick Pratson. Contains interviews in connection with donor’s “Oral and Visual History and Talent Development Program Among Indians and Inshore Fishing People of the State of Maine, The Canadian Maritime Provinces, and Quebec,” done under the sponsorship of the New England-Atlantic Provinces-Quebec Center at the University of Maine (Orono), 1972. The interviewees were a group of Nova Scotia fishermen, a Maine lumberjack, and a Micmac chief living on the Indian Island Reservation in New Brunswick.

MF 045 “One Year Later: The Closing of Penobscot Poultry and the Transition of a Veteran Employee”
Number of accessions: 8
Dates when interviews were conducted: 1988 – 1989
Time period covered: 20th century
Principal interviewers: Alicia Rouverol
Finding aides: some transcripts
Access restrictions: none
Description: Traveling exhibit of photos and oral history text panels based on a series of interviews with Linda J. Lord in which she talks about the work she did for 20 years at Penobscot Poultry, her feelings about being unemployed after Penobscot closed and general conversations about her life in Maine. The exhibit traveled in 1988-1989 to East Millinocket, Orono, Machias, Portland, and Augusta, with panels, presentations, and forums occuring at each opening. Speakers and panelists included Jay Davis, Bernard Lewis, Dr. Richard Barringer, Dr. Paula Petrik and Carolyn Chute. Primary researchers were Cedric Chatterly and Stephen Cole. This project was funded by four grants from the Maine Humanities Council in 1989 and 1990. A book based on the exhibit, coauthored by Cedric Chatterley, Alicia J. Rouverol, and Stephen A. Cole received funds from the Maine Humanities Council in 1990: I was Content and Not Content: The Story of Linda Lord and the Closing of Penobscot Poultry. Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 2000.

MF 049 Penobscot River Commercial Fisheries Project
Number of accession: 8
Dates when interviews were conducted: most in 1974
Principal interviewers: David Taylor
Finding aides: index
Access restrictions: none
Description: The collection consists of a series of interviews with eight fishermen done by David Taylor on the commercial fisheries of the Penobscot River in Maine. Taylor interviewed men who fished for smelt, salmon, sturgeon, alewives, eels, and cod; also an eel wholesaler. Methods discussed include net fishing; weir fishing; and winter fishing. Towns discussed include Winterport; Frankfort; and Bangor.

MF 055 American Thread Company/ Russell Carey
Number of accessions: 14
Dates when interviews were conducted: 1992, 1993
Time period covered: 20th century
Principal interviewers: Russell Carey
Finding aides: transcript
Access restrictions: NA2339
Description: A collection of fourteen accessions deposited by University of Maine graduate student, Russell Carey between March, 1992 and November, 1993. The accessions feature videotaped interviews (some contain audio only) with workers at the American Thread Company’s wooden spool mill in Milo, Maine, and contributed to research for Carey’s Master’s thesis entitled 3,750,000,000 Perfect Wooden Spools (University of Maine, 1994) (See NA2329). The collective oral history of the mill’s workers documents conditions, issues, history, occupational lore, and people’s feelings about the mill from the 1930s through the 1960s.

MF 058 “Suthin” Project
Number of accessions: 12
Dates when interviews were conducted: 1976
Time period covered: late 19th and 20th centuries
Principal interviewers: Joan Brooks, Dona Brotz, Stephen Ballew, and Edward D. “Sandy” Ives
Finding aides: indexes/transcripts
Access restrictions: none
Description: Ten interviews totaling 23 hours conducted for a course at University of Maine taught by Edward D. “Sandy” Ives in 1976 about a pulpwood operation at Little Musquash Lake run by Grover Morrison. This project included the publication of Northeast Folklore: Suthin, XVIII. These interviews were the basis of “Suthin”: It’s the Opposite of Nothin’: An Oral History of Grover Morrison’s Wood’s Operation at Little Musquash Lake, 1945-1947 (Northeast Folklore XVIII: 1977). Collection includes the text of the poem, “Suthin’”; other poems; information about daily work in the woods and with the portable sawmill; life in the woods camp; and notes, letters, sketches, and journals from the class’s field trip to Little Musquash Lake.

MF 061 “Tom Tilton: Coaster and Fisherman”/ Gale Huntington
Number of accessions: 1
Dates when interviews were conducted: 1979
Time period covered: late 19th and 20th centuries
Principal interviewers: Gale Huntington
Finding aides: transcript
Access restrictions: yes
Description: NA1278 Basis of Northeast Folklore XXIII: Tom Tilton: Coaster and Fisherman (1982). Tom Tilton, interviewed by Gale Huntington, Nancy Safford, and Nora Groce Kaplan, 1973 and 1979, Vineyard Haven, Massachusetts. The interviews were mostly between Gale Huntington and his father-in-law Tom Tilton, but they were also joined by Nancy Safford in 1973 and Nora Groce Kaplan (and once by Tilton’s wife Laura) in 1979. All of the tapes are on file at the Dukes County Historical Society, Edgartown, Massachusetts, with duplicates here at the Northeast Archives of Folklore and Oral History. Tilton, 92, talks his work on the water around Martha’s Vineyard; his childhood during the late nineteenth century on Martha’s Vineyard; education; preparing salt cod; boxing a compass; childhood recreation; sailing to transport fish to New Bedford; May baskets; trapping fish, including methods, fish species, and prices; salvaging salable goods from the wrecked Port Hunter and disputes over salvage rights; bull-raking for quahogs; comparison of shoal vessels and keel vessels; cargoes carried on ships and why lime was dangerous; how to slip the anchor and when it was necessary; purification process for contaminated oysters; growing oysters; the transportation of goods to Martha’s Vineyard and seasonal patterns; dances; a near-shipwreck; swordfishing off the coast of Nova Scotia, including season, boat preparation, and techniques; use of sail and power on boats; different styles of dragging boats; tales of fishermen lost at sea; use of trunnels in boat construction; limited options for making a living available to him; his father’s lobstering; living on Nomans’s Land (Island) in the late nineteenth century; keeping fish alive in pockets; end of trap fishing; coasting; goods salvaged from wrecks; fishermen helping each other, particularly when the Coast Guard was occupied with military matters; alcohol and the rarity of drinking while at sea; wasted catches when fish were not iced properly; boating superstitions; potato bugs; and the importance of not giving in to fear in dangerous seas. RESTRICTED. Text: 251 pp. transcript. Recording: T 1340 – T 1345, T 1409 – T 1410 8 hours.

MF 081 Lynn Franklin Collection
Number of accessions: 73
Dates when interviews were conducted: 1971 – 1983
Principal interviewers: Lynn Franklin
Finding aides: indexes
Access restrictions: none
Description: A collection 73 separate accessions containing interviews with Mainers on a wide range of topics relating to life and work in the state of Maine, conducted 1972-1983 by Lynn Franklin, a journalist who specialized in cultural stories, occupational lore, life histories, and human interest stories. Of special interest are Franklin’s interviews relating to lobstering, woods work, guides and canoe building, boats and boat building, and rural education. Franklin published Profiles of Maine in 1976 based on some of his interviews deposited in the Northeast Archives (see MFC Library).

MF 082 C. Richard K. Lunt Collection (Jones Tracy & Boat Builders)
Number of accessions: 25
Dates when interviews were conducted: primarily in 1970, but also 1963 & 1964
Time period covered: 19th and 20th centuries
Principal interviewers: C. Richard K. Lunt
Finding aides: indexes/transcripts
Access restrictions: none
Description: This collection consists of two series. The first deals with storyteller Jones Tracy (NA2968- 2976). The second series is about boat builders (NA0582, 2827-2837), conducted by Lunt in 1970, relates to boat building and were done in preparation for his doctoral dissertation, Lobsterboat Building on the Eastern Coast of Maine: a comparative study, Indiana University, 1975. These interviews are fully transcribed. Interviewees include Ronald Rich, Southwest Harbor; Malcolm McDuffy, Bernard; Len Pierce, Southwest Harbor; Clarence Harding, Bernard; Oscar Smith, Jonesport; Ralph Stanley, Bernard; James. E. Beal, Jonesport; Erwin Alley, Jonesport; Harold Gower, Jonesport; Alvin Beal, Jonesport; Bert Frost, Jonesport; Richard Alley, Jonesport; Harry Beal, Jonesport; Clinton Beal, Jonesport; and Raymond Bunker, Southwest Harbor.

MF 095 Dowsing and Dowsers Collection
Number of accessions: 60
Dates when interviews were conducted: 1984
Time period covered: 20th century
Principal interviewers: various
Finding aides: indexes and some transcripts
Access restrictions: NA0596, 0597, 0599
Description: A series of interviews and supplemental manuscript material on dowsing or water witching, most conducted as part of a class project in Edward D. “Sandy” Ives’ Oral History and Folklore: Fieldwork (AY 125) course at the University of Maine in 1984. Other accessions were added to the series because of their focus on dowsing. Dowsers discuss techniques and materials; uses of dowsing in archaeology learning to dowse; beliefs about dowsing; dowsing as a way of healing; locating ley lines; and tell dowsing stories.

MF 104 Whitewater Raft Guides Project/ Ian Cameron Collection
Number of accessions: 4
Dates when interviews were conducted: 1986
Time period covered: 1970s and 80s
Principal interviewers: Ian H. Cameron
Finding aides: transcripts
Access restrictions: none
Description: This collection consists of a series of interviews with whitewater rafting guides conducted by Ian H. Cameron in 1986 as part of an independent study class at the University of Maine. The guides interviewed worked on the West Branch of the Penobscot River. Supplementary manuscript materials such as newspaper clippings and maps are also included.

MF 105 Margaret Martin / Liveaboard Sailors Interviews
Number of accessions: 9
Dates when interviews were conducted: 1985- 1986
Time period covered: 20th century
Principal interviewers: Margaret Martin
Finding aides: transcripts
Access restrictions: NA1943
Description: This collection consists of nine interviews with people who live aboard sailboats, mostly along the coasts of North Carolina, South Carolina, and Florida, although one interview was done in Maine. The live-aboard sailors discuss their life histories; experiences on the sea; design and maintenance of their vessels; recipes; sea lore; and sea stories (yarns).

MF 121 Maine Organic Farmers and Gardners Association (MOFGA)
Number of accessions: 52
Dates when interviews were conducted: 2000-2004
Time period covered: mid-to-late late 20th century
Principal interviewers: Pauleena MacDougall, Pamela Dean, James Moreira, Anu Dudley
Finding aides: some transcripts
Access restrictions: none
Description: This collection consists of interviews with individuals associated with the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association and the Common Ground Fair. Themes include the process of beginning to farm organically, the early development of MOFGA and its growth; the Common Ground Fair and its expansion; marketing organic food; farming strategies; raising livestock; and MOFGA’s interactions with conventional farmers and the wider community. See also: MF 148 Margaret “Mimi” Killinger/Helen Nearing Collection.

MF 122 Page Farm Museum History Project
Number of accessions: 29
Dates when interviews were conducted: 1996-1999, 2001
Time period covered: 20th century
Principal interviewer: Mary Jo Sanger
Finding aides: transcripts
Access restrictions: none
Description: A series of interviews on farming and rural life in Maine conducted for the Page Farm Museum at the University of Maine, 1996-99 and 2001. The primary interviewer was Mary Jo Sanger. Includes photographs.

MF 147 Nursing Collection
Number of accessions: 22
Dates when interviews were conducted: 2005 & 2007
Time period covered: 20th century
Principal interviewers: various
Finding aides: some transcripts and some indexes
Access restrictions: none
Description: A series of interviews recorded by students in the nursing program at UMaine for classes taught by Elizabeth Clark on the history of nursing.

MF 154 Stinson Sardine Collection
Number of accessions: 25
Dates when interviews were conducted: March 30 and 31, 2010
Time period covered: last half of 20th century to 2010
Principal interviewers: Pauleena MacDougall, Cindy Merrill, Kyle Kernan, Andrew Catalina
Finding aides: some transcripts and indexes
Access restrictions: none
Description: Twelve interviews with the employees of the Stinson Sardine plant in Prospect Harbor, Maine, on March 30 and 31, 2010. These interviews were conducted a couple of weeks before the plant closed on April 18, 2010 during the work day. The Stinson Sardine plant was the last sardine canning plant in the state of Maine. Included with this accession are notes by Pauleena MacDougall regarding the people the interviewers spoke with as well as job descriptions. Also part of this collection are a documentary, a slide show, photographs, and a collection of poems “Sardine Songs, Herring Hymns.” In October 2011 Keith Ludden sent to the Maine Folklife Center an additional nine interviews, some with photographs, that he had conducted during April through September 2011.

MF 155 Eastern Fine Pulp and Paper Company
Number of accessions: 49
Dates when interviews were conducted: December 2004-August 2007
Time period covered: latter half of the 20th century and beginning of 21st century
Principal interviewers: Pauleena MacDougall, Amy L. Stevens
Finding aides: transcripts
Access restrictions: none
Description: This collection consists of a series of interviews conducted between 2004 and 2006 as part of a project funded by the Maine Humanities Council, “The Writing on the Wall: Oral Histories of Eastern Fine Paper Company Workers”; a Women in the Curriculum grant “from the Women in the Curriculum program at UM to interview women in the pulp and paper industry; and a grant from the Save Our History program of the Maine History Channel (A&E Television) that involved middle school students in the Brewer schools conducting their own interviews. The project resulted in a 2008 master’s thesis in history by Amy L. Stevens “From Broke to Finish: A History of the Eastern Fine Paper Mill, 1889 – 2004”; a web site on Women in Pulp and Paper: http://www.umaine.edu/folklife/wmp/wpindex.html; a DVD “The Writing on the Wall: Oral Histories of Eastern Fine Paper Company Workers” V324; and a second DVD prepared by Brewer Middle School students “Mill Town” V325. In addition, we collected approximately 3,000 photographs. Documents collected as part of this project are housed in Special Collections, Raymond H. Fogler Library, University of Maine, Orono.

MF 157 Brooklin Boat Building Collection
Number of accessions: 10
Dates when interviews were conducted: 2003 – 2004
Time period covered: 20th century
Principal interviewers: Pauleena MacDougall
Finding aides: transcripts
Access restrictions: NA3292
Photographs: P09157 – P09175, P09271 – P09286
Description: Interviews about boat building in Brooklin, Maine.

MF 164 Maine Pack Basket Makers Collection
Number of accessions: 8
Dates when interviews were conducted: 2010
Time period covered: 20th century
Principal interviewers: Bill Mackowski
Finding aides: transcripts
Access restrictions: no restrictions on interviews; videos may not be copied
Description: Maine Pack-Basket Makers Tradition consists of eight transcribed interviews conducted by Bill Mackowski in 2010 with basket makers in several communities (5 hrs., 33 min.) involving Maine basket making techniques. Themes include: how many years they produced baskets, how they first received information on making a basket, as well as collecting raw materials, the kinds of baskets they made and the tools they used to make them. The collection includes description of the process of picking a good tree by the environmental conditions, the height and type of tree, as well as the treatment of the tree through forms of pounding, splitting, and weaving. The collection includes audio interviews, transcripts, and 3 videos (V310 How to make an Adirondack Packbasket with Jack Leadley, V311 Basket Making by Lawrence Hurd, and V312 Ash Pounding by Bill Mackowski).

MF 168 Crab-Picking Project/ Blossom Kravitz
Number of accessions: 29
Dates when interviews were conducted: 2012
Time period covered: 20th century
Principal interviewers: Blossom Kravitz
Finding aides: transcripts
Access restrictions: none
Description: Interviews about crab-picking in Maine. This research led to Crab Picking: An Endangered Maine Cottage Industry, Northeast Folklore XLVI.

MF 171 AY 122/ANT 322/ANT 422 Folklore of Maine and The Maritime Provinces
Number of accessions: 135
Dates when interviews were conducted: 1976 – 2006
Time period covered: late 19th and 20th century
Principal interviewers: various
Finding aides: none
Access restrictions: none
Description: Papers by students enrolled in ANT 422/AY 122/ AY 322 (the number changed) at UMaine. Class description: A survey of the genres of folklore found in the major linguistic traditions (English, French, Native American) of the Northeast, with emphasis on Maine. Special attention given to the occupational traditions of farming, fishing and lumbering.