Lucy's Lens: Life on Mount Desert Rock, 1906-1909 In-Person

In this richly illustrated lecture and discussion, Libby Bischof will feature the Great Harbor Maritime Museum's collection of photographs by Lucy McMullen Dodge, taken when she and her family lived on Mount Desert Rock in the early-1900s.  Bischof will contextualize Lucy's life and photographic work in the larger scope of amateur photography at the turn of the century, as well as her life as the wife of a lighthouse keeper. In addition to illuminating daily life on the Rock, these photographs also serve as a visual archive of the life of a lighthouse keeper’s wife, at a time when written archives of many women’s daily lives remain scarce. Sponsored by the Mount Desert Island Historical Society, Great Harbor Maritime Museum, and Northeast Harbor Library.

Libby Bischof is Executive Director of the Osher Map Library and Smith Center for Cartographic Education and Professor of History at the University of Southern Maine where she teaches courses in Maine History, History and Photography, Popular Culture, and Public History.  A visual and cultural historian of the 19th and 20th centuries, Bischof is interested in the ways in which friendship informs cultural production, especially in relation to landscape and place.  A public historian, Bischof believes deeply in site-based, hands-on education, and the ways in which teaching local and regional history can lead to deeper civic engagement.  She frequently lectures to public audiences throughout New England and serves on the board of the New England Historical Association and as President of the New England Regional Fellowship Consortium. She lives with her husband and children in Gorham, Maine.