The Levasseur Collection consists of the complete transcripts of the 1989 sedition trial of the “Ohio Seven” (US v. Levasseur) as well as miscellaneous motions and legal documents leading up to the trial.
Collection includes statutes and by-laws, minutes, administrative records, correspondence, financial records and receipts, scholarship records, publications, records of programs and events, and artifacts and ephemera.
"VISIT AND HEAR U.S. SENATOR EDMUND S. MUSKIE . . . CELEBRATE MAINE'S SESQUICENTENNIAL FRENCH CANADIAN DAYS" 14" x 22" From the Series: This subseries comprises artifacts that were manufactured for a specific, limited use related to politics or a poiltical campaign. It includes items such as buttons, bumper stickers, posters, and miscellaneous promotional items, as well as original political cartoons.
For nearly forty years Joseph Jovite "J.J." Salvas was actively engaged in the staging and direction of amateur theatrical productions for French-speaking audiences. His companies were made up largely of Biddeford people, and they played to enthusiastic audiences locally and throughout New England. Felix Coulombe (his cousin, Conrad, as well as Mr. and Mrs. John B. Joncas), were amongst the many active members of this vibrant local theater community. The materials donated by Salvas and Coulombe make up the basis of this collection, which tells the story of Biddeford's incredibly rich theatrical tradition.
The photographs, posters and programs in the collection reveal some of the players and the well-known plays they appeared in. They form an interesting part of Biddeford's social history, and showcase the talents of numerous local women and men who spent their non-working hours actively engaged in Biddeford's cultural life.
1623 Juliette Filteau, interviewed by Margaret Lanoue, October 8, 1982, in Lewiston, Maine. Filteau discusses growing up near Quebec in the 1910s; moving from Canada to Lewiston circa 1921; childhood experiences with nuns; living and working during the Great Depression; Franco-American food; operating a restaurant which sold alcohol; the advent of WWII; and her thoughts on cultural identity in Lewiston. Exhibit poster included. Text: 40pp catalog plus poster. Recording: T 1728 2 hours.
This project involved a series of bilingual interviews utilizing family albums to stimulate discussion about Franco-American culture, particularly as it pertained to work. That is, it concerned the following: how work reflected cultural values; work ethic; work/occupation patterns; how work was integrated with family life (or interfered with it); the history of work patterns in the Lewiston area, and about Franco-American culture and family life in general. We interviewed elderly persons identified by the Western Maine Older Citizens Council. The interviewers included Raymond Pelletier (professor of French at UM), Marcella Sorg, Mark Silber, and Steffan Duplessis. The products of these interviews included: (1) a filmstrip with bilingual audio tape using reproduced family photos which illustrated themes from the ethnography and excerpts from the tape-recorded interviews; and (2) a bilingual traveling photo exhibit using selected family photos and captioned with quotes (with translations).
Memoirs of Israel Belanger as dictated to stenographer. Israel Belanger was Margaret Powers' great uncle, brother to her maternal grandfather. In this "little sketch of my life," Israel recounts his roots in Ste. Beatrix, QC, his arrival in Cohoes to begin work in Harmony Mills at the age of eight, his education and family life as a child and later as an adult, and his trials in the political arena. He served in many roles, including Deputy Attorney General.
Genealogy of the Riberdy Family, compiled and typed by Margaret Powers' mother to record the genealogy of her mother, Melanie Riberdy Belanger, Margaret's grandmother. Melanie was from Ste. Melanie, QC. It is noteworthy that Alice was able to do this research and to type the genealogy in French because the girls in the family were educated. The boys, meanwhile, went to work, all of them for various mills in Cohoes with the exception of one who went to work for a railroad company. This reversal of gender expectations regarding schooling was unusual.
The Je me souviens…I remember Collection includes images of artifacts generally owned by Franco-Americans and shared with Siena College for the purposes of historic preservation and broader education. This collection was made possible by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage grant.
