Maine Historical Society

The Maine Historical Society (MHS) will use its grant to process and provide access to the Central Maine Power (CMP) collection, one of its largest and most important recent acquisitions. The CMP collection provides a case study of rural electrification in Maine from 1890 to 1998, one of the great technological transformations in American life. The collection includes early electrical equipment and appliance advertising, marketing, and public education materials, as well as extensive documentation of the politics, economics, and business practices of the utility industry in the twentieth century. Once processed, the society will have established physical and intellectual control over the collection, laying the groundwork for substantial scholarship, exhibition, and programming at MHS. Information about the collection will also be available online.