Maine State Museum Wins Two National Awards for Malaga Island, Fragmented Lives Exhibition

Augusta, Maine - On September 20, 2013, the American Association for State and Local History (AASLH) presented the Maine State Museum with two prestigious awards for its recent exhibition project, Malaga Island, Fragmented Lives.  Maine State Museum Director Bernard Fishman accepted the awards on behalf of the Maine State Museum at the annual AASLH national conference in Birmingham, Alabama.

The Maine State Museum in Augusta was one of 88 recipients nationwide to receive an Award of Merit in the AASLH Leadership in History Award program.  Now in its 67th year, the Leadership in History Award program is the nation’s most distinguished recognition for achievement in the preservation and interpretation of state and local history.

In addition to the Award of Merit, the AASLH Leadership in History awards committee selected the Maine State Museum to receive a 2013 History in Progress award.  Given entirely at the discretion of the awards committee, the History in Progress award is an additional distinction for an Award of Merit winner whose nomination is recognized as highly inspirational, shows exceptional scholarship, or is outstanding in terms of funding, forming partnerships or collaborations, providing creative problem solving, or displaying unusual project design and inclusiveness. Only five History in Progress awards were given among the eighty-eight Award of Merit winners this year.

“We are honored to receive these awards for our Malaga Island, Fragmented Lives project,” commented Museum Director Bernard Fishman.  “A particular point of pride for us is the special History in Progress distinction.  The museum assumed some risk in taking on the difficult story of the Malaga Island community.  Presenting that dramatic and heart-rending episode in Maine’s history through our exhibit and related programming was a real departure from past public programs here at the museum.  The special nature of the award and the significant popularity of the exhibition remind us that we were right to take that risk, and that the new dimensions and values expressed by the exhibit should help inform our future work.”

Malaga Island, Fragmented Lives was a one-year exhibition that closed at the Maine State Museum on May 25, 2013.  The exhibition’s historical photographs, artifacts, and documents told the story of the poor, mixed-race, sometimes controversial community that lived on the 42-acre island off the Phippsburg mainland.   The exhibition also presented information about the most notorious event in the island’s history, which occurred in 1912 when, amid pressures of economic change and contemporary ideas about social reform, the State of Maine evicted Malaga Island’s residents from their homes.

Although the museum’s Malaga Island, Fragmented Lives exhibition is no longer on view, in-depth educational material about the story of the Malaga Island community remains available on the museum’s website, www.mainestatemuseum.org, for free use by teachers, students and the general public.

A beautifully illustrated publication, Malaga Island, Fragmented Lives, by exhibition curator Kate McBrien, also continues to be available at the Maine State Museum Store.  The store is open during regular museum hours or can be reached at 207-287-2938.