Women as Agents of Change

Women as Agents of Change: Social Reform in the USM Specialized Collections

As a public university, the University of Southern Maine’s three specialized collections — the Franco-American Collection (Lewiston-Auburn Campus), the Osher Map Library and Smith Center for Cartographic Education, and the Department of Special Collections — have long been devoted to using our collections for education and outreach to USM students, faculty, and staff and the larger local, regional, national, and international communities we all serve. Each collection supports USM’s educational mission by placing original materials, some dating back hundreds of years, into the hands of learners for examination and interpretation—inspiring curiosity, research, creativity, and action.

Each year, USM’s three specialized collections come together to organize a joint exhibition. This, our third annual collaborative exhibition, focuses on items in our individual collections related to the theme of women and social reform, broadly conceived. The materials on display in this exhibit website are primarily from the 19th and 20th centuries, and, in many instances, are directly related to social and political actions taken by women in Maine over the course of two centuries. In this exhibit, visitors can learn more about each specialized collection, as well as view examples of the diverse materials held by each collection that relate to the broader theme of women as agents of change.

Archives and special collections were once privileged spaces, open only to “academic” or “professional” researchers. In the late-20th century, particularly among colleges and universities, such repositories of rare books, manuscripts, maps, and artifacts re-aligned themselves with a new mission: open education. A new focus on connecting people to historical materials and collections (also known as primary sources) opened the doors of these once rarified spaces to all. Collecting practices have also varied widely over the years, and USM’s Specialized Collections are proud to preserve and share materials that help us better understand the actions that individuals and communities have taken to make a lasting impact on society. The Sampson Center for Diversity in Maine, and the Franco-American Collection are community archives, with many collections developed in response to the needs of the communities who created them.

These items are but a small sampling of our larger collections, all of which are open to members of the USM community, as well as members of the public.

Franco-American Collection

The mission of the Franco-American Collection is to preserve and promote the culture and heritage of Maine’s Franco-American population. Items in the Collection relate to local history, government, religion, language, education, industry, sports, and the arts. The Collection focuses on Lewiston-Auburn and other areas of Maine. You can learn more about the collection at our website: https://usm.maine.edu/franco-american-collection.

Franco-American women in Maine have served as agents of change since the early days of French Canadian immigration to New England. This is exemplified here in this exhibit by suffragist, author and reporter Camille Lessard Bissonnette. Later on, other Franco-American women would take up this mantle as well, in causes such as labor rights, civil defense, civil rights, sexism and bilingual advocacy. In this exhibit, we display works by Dr. Madeleine Giguère, Professor Emerita of Sociology at USM; Georgette Bérubé, a politician and businesswoman; and items related to women and sexism from the Franco-American Collection. This case exhibit was curated by FAC staff–archivist Anna Faherty and librarian Maureen Perry.

Osher Map Library & Smith Center for Cartographic Education

The Osher Map Library and Smith Center for Cartographic Education (OML) has been part of the University of Southern Maine for nearly three decades. We have nearly half-a-million cartographic items (maps, atlases, globes, rare books, games, ephemera, etc.) dating back to 1475 in our collections. Over 80,000 of these items are fully digitized on our website, oshermaps.org.

Our diverse collections are global in scope, and contain materials relevant to a great variety of subjects. In this case, you will find maps, books, pamphlets and objects related in some way to women and social reform movements, such as educational access, suffrage, temperance and prohibition, Civil Rights, and dress reform—including unique items from our historic board game collections not often on display. The items featured in this exhibition case were selected by our fall 2023 OML collections intern Robin Davis, a December 2023 graduate of the Art History program here at USM. Robin also did the research and much of the writing for the case labels. Many items in this case not only feature women and social reform, but were also created by women.

We love #TEACHINGWITHMAPS and we hope that you will come and visit our gallery, reading room, and classroom on the first floor of this building. We are open Tuesday-Friday, 10am-4pm, and Saturdays from 10am-2pm. Follow our adventures on Instagram @oshermaplibrary.

Special Collections

Agents of Change in Maine

By example, action, and through legislation, Lois Galgay Reckitt and Jean Vermette improved the lives of marginalized groups in the state they called home.

Lois Galgay Reckit (1944-2023), who moved to Maine in 1968, was an unflagging supporter of equal rights for women and LGBTQ+ communities as an activist and as executive vice president of the National Organization of Women. She stood up for equal funding for female sports, women’s rights in employment, and, through the Family Crisis Center, women’s rights to be free from domestic abuse. Reckitt also co-founded the Human rights Campaign Fund, the Maine Coalition for Human Rights, the Maine Women’s Lobby, and the Maine Chapter of NOW, as well as serving in the Maine House of Representatives from 2016-2023.

Jean Vermette (1954-), who was born and educated in Maine, has dedicated her life to the trans community, working through education and legislation to improve conditions. She boldly took direct action when no one else would. She founded the Maine Gender Resources and Support Service (MEGRESS), a professional, educational, informational, consulting, and referral organization working to help Maine’s trans and intersex communities. The organization educated or consulted with over 8,000 students, nurses, social workers, psychologists, counselors, doctors, educators, administrators, customers, and neighbors. Vermette also spread her message by founding an online newspaper, The Family Affairs Newsletter, and testified in support of inclusive legislation.

Exhibit website

This exhibit website was created by the Digital Projects department in partnership with the Specialized Collections group.