 My name is Hillary Valsit. I'm the Executive Director of Greater Portland Landmarks, and I'd like to welcome all of you. As you know, Greater Portland Landmarks' mission is to preserve and revitalize Greater Portland's remarkable advocacy of historic buildings, neighborhoods, landscapes, and parks. We have had a very busy year this year so far. We've been active in research, education, and advocacy. We've been recently working with leaders in the Woodford's Corner neighborhood to build awareness of the amazing historic buildings in the Forest Avenue area. And I'd like to invite you all to talk by Julie Larry, who's our Director of Advocacy, 27th at 6.30 in the Vod Fellows Building, which is that very interesting building with the clock tower right at Woodford's Corner. She will give a talk about the neighborhood, and then you'll have a chance to tour the building that's not usually open to the public. So I invite you all to come next Wednesday at 27th at 6.30. We'll have great refreshments and we'll partner in with the Friends of Woodford's Corner and the Vod Fellows, who are a paternal organization who are working to restore the clock tower in that building. I'd also like to remind you now that we're in better weather, we hope, that the Portland Observatory will be opening soon on May 28th, Saturday, May 28th, Memorial Day weekend. And we're having a great time right now training our new crop of dosage and getting ready for school tours for that opening. Now, if you'd like to go to the Observatory a lot, that's one of the benefits of memberships at Greater Portland Landmarks. It's free admission to the Observatory. And so I'd like to invite you all to join the Portland Landmarks. There's information at the table when you check in. I'd also like to take this opportunity to thank the Portland Public Library for allowing us to use their auditorium. To CTM Channel 5, who is taping this presentation and you can watch it on CTM Channel 5 or someone you know missed it. You can catch it later. I also would like to thank you all for making a donation to support Greater Portland Landmarks today for this lecture. And to introduce our staff, you Matt, Ejekemen, Alessa Wiley, and Amanda Larson, who is staffing the admission table. And I also always like to bring up Ruth's story, who is our volunteer extraordinaire. Ruth, every year brings together a wonderful series of lectures for our Landmarks lecture series. I want to give Ruth a great hand. And our speaker tonight is Alene Howard Sutherland. She is the associate professor emeritus of political science and women's studies at Bowling Reed State University in Ohio, specializing in Middle East studies. She received her Ph.D. in Middle East studies in political science from Indiana University in Bloomington and her BA from Western College for Women, which is now part of Miami University Topsford, Ohio. She taught at the American University in Cairo, which is the city of her birth and long-time residence. Kathleen's publications focus on the role of women in public life in Egypt and Morocco, and she received a Fulbright fellowship in Morocco. She joined the Osher Lifeline Learning Institute at Olly, faculty in 2005, and has taught courses on the Middle East, Islam, women, refugees, and Sub-Saharan Africa. She is the recipient in 2012 of the annual The Interest Chapman Ninote Award for Public Service, awarded by the World Affairs Council of Men, where she serves on board. So she also has a very strong interest in women's history, and it's been really fun to get to know Kathleen as she's been poking around our archives and landmarks, asking me if I could give her phone numbers of people who still own and live in the greater Portland area for first-hand accounts, and so I'm very delighted to be able to welcome today Kathleen Sutherland. A great pleasure to be with you this evening. When Ruth Story asked me a year ago to address this topic, I wondered whether she knew what she was doing, because my focus had been primarily in the Middle East, but in the Middle East, and specifically in Egypt, I was aware and I visited some of the sites that were being restored in Cairo, and I recently checked up on it, and it's a fascinating story there. And I also have some main roots, and I could tie those in somewhat with the women I will be talking about this evening. One of them, Edith Seltz, who will be a major figure that I will be discussing this evening, was living in her late teens, I believe, in Holton, Maine. As her father was the vicar of the Episcopal Church, Good Shepherd. Well, it so happened that some 60 years later, I was married in that church for the first time. And so that was a link. And my former in-laws had settled in Damascada. The reason I was in Holton was that my father was president of a small liberal arts college, their record college. It is now succumbed to that wave of closings in the 70s. So I also know something about the life of a president's wife as my mother certainly played that role, as did Edith Seltz. And so I was really interested in doubling into this subject, and it's been a fascinating journey, and I hope to continue it in some way. So what I thought I would do, and first I would like to apologize of all things today, my computer crashed, and I had a PowerPoint presentation almost ready to present to you, and it crashed. So you will have to wait on the pictures for some future day when I may be able to maybe print up an article on this. At any rate, let's try to visualize some of these women. What I'm going to do is to look first at the spark that prompted a recognition of the need for preservation of Portland's historic landmarks. And then we'll take a historic approach to the precursors to the whole idea of saving valuable architectural relics. And we will look at what happened in 1961. Of course, the spark that really ignited this interest-reviewed concern over what was happening to Portland was that famous demolition of the Union Station tower in 1961. And until that time, of course, you probably were that Portland had been going through a urban renewal phase. The economy had kind of suffered, they wanted to bring tourism, and so the whole idea was to tear down things, never mind their beauty, and in fact many people didn't see the beauty. The old was passe. Let's build something new and clean. Well, this was a big shock, as I'm sure many of you know, and experienced in 1961. This prompted Mrs. Sills to call together a group of concerned citizens, and we'll talk about that, to see what could be done to prevent further destruction. Okay, so let's see what her ancestor, her precursors, had done in going back to the 19th century. Well, one major saving event was the preservation of Mount Vernon in Virginia. By one Anne Pamela Covington. This was in the 1830s, 40s, 50s, and her mother had been sailing right down the Potomac, and had seen what the derelict of addition of Mount Vernon was at that time, because the descendant of George Washington, Peter Augustine Washington, just didn't have the money at that time or the will to do anything to repair it. And so Anne Pamela's mother wrote to her daughter and Pamela saying, you know, we've really got to do something to repair, to restore Mount Vernon. And she said, if the men don't seem to be interested in doing this, it is probably up to the women to take responsibility. And so her daughter said, we'll do it. And she was a very shy person, but she was determined, and she started a campaign, her friend, they worked well to do, to raise money, to buy the property, and to form an association which was called the Mount Vernon Ladies. And it is in existence today and runs it. And it was a fascinating tale of the difficulty that they had in persuading our wonderful government to really allow it to be preserved, to provide the legislation. Well, they did it. They paid $207,000 and they raised the money for this. Well, that was on the national scale. You also have another figure on the national scale, a Susan Pringle Frost. Any of you have visited Charleston, South Carolina. Apparently, she was a very key member of the community in the late 19th century, early 20th century, to restore the Charleston, South Carolina. And she was rather unique in the sense that she was brought up in the traditional Southern household of women who could be at home in conformity at that time to the Victorian notion of motherhood and the role of women. But she branched out and she became a real estate developer and was very concerned. And she mobilized the community and she was also quite active in the suffrage movement. So that's another major figure and that's important. She's important because later the SILTS Committee then contacted the preservation mission in Charleston for ideas on what to be done here. Well, let's look at the more local scene and of course we have Anne Wadsworth-Piers who you probably have known her story. John Vaibn was very interesting in talking and writing about her in the book on Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Well, Anne was his younger sister and she was born in 1811. And she was married, she married Henry's classmate at Bowdoin and it was a very accomplished young lawyer. This was in 1832. And the very happy moved out of the Wadsworth Longfellow home where she had been very happy. It was a very happy home life. And she lived with Pierce for three years and then very sadly he died of typhus 1835 and she moved home and lived there for the rest of her life and was very determined to maintain the house. And contributed to the upbringing of her nieces and it was interesting she never remarried because apparently George Washington Pierce was her big great love and that was it. And she preferred to return home and she was very concerned with preserving the wonderful home that had been developed. So in 1895 she was concerned about the surroundings being outside the house being changed considerably. And she bequeathed the house to the main historical society because although of course the city had offered her a fairly generous I believe at that time $25,000 for the house but no way was she going to sell that. And so she bequeathed it to the main historical society and I believe it was really to preserve that house as it had been and you really should take a tour if you haven't done it already I'm sure you can. So she represents a figure on the logo saying the very important in the idea of preserving architecture and the glories inside the house. Well turning then further down the timeline you have the story of the Victorian mansion which had been built by Ruggles Morse in the mid 19th century. And he then he was a wealthy tellur who had made his money in New Orleans and then came back to build this fantastic Victorian structure and he lived there for the summer. And then he died in the late 1980s early 90s and his widow then didn't want to live there alone which couldn't manage it maybe. And so she sold it to the J.R. Libby family and J.R. Libby came to Portland from Bineford and set up one of the first department stores in Portland. And they appreciated what had been put into the Victorian mansion and used and kept all the furnishings in it. There was some rearrangement of course and they were able to do that too because they had five children and there were three daughters and two sons. And there was a very lively household and Mrs. Holmes did a lot of entertaining while the music was played there. They were very interested in art and so they lived there until 1928 and then of course the descendants lived in there until 1928. And then of course the depression came they left the house and it was maintained by custodians throughout the depression but nothing really was done to it. Then of course a big storm had damaged the roof and they wanted to turn it into a gas station. So they really went around for buyers and I believe the head of the main historical society at that time tried to find buyers but it was depression. People didn't have any money. Fortunately in 1940 Dr. William Holmes and his sister Clara Holmes took up the, they looked at it. They wanted to retire or at least have it as a home and they, there were some people around who saw the possibilities of preserving it. So the Holmes, the brother and sister bought the Victorian mansion and then turned it over to what became the Victoria Society for women. And it was to be used as a cultural center for these ladies who were very concerned about promoting education for women and recognizing achievement of women in Maine. And they wanted a nice place to hold various events there which they did. It's interesting that Holmes was an educator. His sister Clara Holmes was an art historian, art teacher and she was rather quiet in terms of public presence. But she was very active in determining the, the decoration, the restoration of the mansion inside. We have Arlene Schwinn, who is very kind in showing me some of these letters that she wrote to the society saying, Now she wrote in particular about the color scheme and where the furniture should be and so forth. So, and she did say, yes, it's a joint project, but it was Dr. Holmes who really wanted me to take care of this. And I am very active and I will, I hope you will pay attention to my wishes. So she was very concerned about her own role, but she don't have much biographical information on her. So this was, this was a project that developed through the 40s and continues on to today and had been a remarkable project. Arlene was saying that, and you can see it in the literature, 90% of the original furniture belongings dating back to the livings before had been restored to the mansion. And it's been quite a project for her because she's been having to trace the descendants and they had their several descendants trying to trace them and to get back these objects. So that is another more contemporary example of the concern that women have had in restoring the architecture of the Victorian mansion. And it was very interesting, particularly at the time when the, you know, the depression and then you had the war. So it was difficult, but people were at that time more and more interested, particularly the women. And the activities of the Victoria Society, I think it was overlapped into the groundwork for the later developments after the tower was destroyed. Because, of course, this was in the 40s and the 50s and then Portland was going through a growth of economic decline and you had growing concern for urban renewal. As I mentioned earlier, it was, the idea was to tear things down. We were having the building of the arterial, which split neighborhoods, and there were other problems in trying to restore what we were going to do with the old port. And then in the effort to build up tourism and so forth, you had the appeal to say hotels. Well, the holiday inn was made up of hotels, but they insisted that, this was later, but just to give you an example, having the widening of Spring Street and tearing down the buildings, but that came later. But the developers and the city fathers simply didn't care whether or not you preserved, say, the Union Station. Of course, the train service had declined and the Union Station was just sitting there. And until later, the 60s and 70s, there just wasn't this idea of restoring the stations, you had this case in other cities too, and making other use of these stations rather than just delivering and sending away people on trains. So come 1961, you have the tearing down all of a sudden of the station. Now, I understand from some kind of a plum, perhaps, that figures like Vida Sils knew that this might be in the works. And she may well have tried on her own to put pressure on the city fathers, but that didn't work. And lo and behold, in 1961, the destruction of the bulldozers appeared and went down. So this was, as I mentioned earlier, a big shock. And Vida Sils decided, okay, if she couldn't do it herself, she joined Action Head to be made. And so she gathered together a group of leading personalities in the city. Those who had influence, those who were concerned with art, with architecture, and she invited them for tea one afternoon and raised them for what they were going to do about it. And evidently, if you know the people who knew Vida Sils, you did not turn down the invitation to the home to Vida Sils. So there were a few individuals there. Let me talk first about the background of Vida Sils. She was quite a very forceful but very delightful woman. She was very vivacious, apparently, and very cordial. And she had been educated in Smith, excuse me, well-footed, well-footed, Smith L.W. This Smith branch was also very active. So she graduated in 1911 from Wellesley and in classics. And she then taught briefly in Holton and then Portland High School in 1213. And she had a lot of connections from her Wellesley experience. And she happened to meet a fellow classics scholar who was at Bowen, one Kenneth Sils, who was teaching at Bowen at that time. Rose to be Dean. And a courtship developed. And since then they used to sometimes correspond in Greek and Latin. And those of you who have, there's a very interesting book named Sils at Bowen. And so a courtship developed and she, at that time she had gone down to New York to teach and to get a master's degree. But then things proceeded and they got married in 1918. She was just appointed president of Bowen, one of the youngest presidents, 39 at that time. And so she became a president's wife. Well, she taught herself into that with gusto. And she, they did a lot of entertaining and they decided to entertain every Bowen student with periodic dinners, teas. So they got to know the student body at that time. And it was her mission to socialize the young men at Bowen. And she brought out the best service, best China and silver. So they were probably socialized. And so her involvement in the Bowen campus life was very important because she developed many connections in that way. She saw herself very concerned with the education also of women. She was very active in the AAUW branch in Brunswick. And she, they did a lot of traveling. And so her horizons certainly expanded. One very rather interesting side light to that. I came across in the collection, by the way, it's at Bowen, the sales collection. She wrote a paper that was not published stating her anti-suffrage women position. And I was astounded at that. But yet you had, at that time, you had elite women, both for women's suffrage and against women's suffrage. You have to remember at that time that it was the Goldman age. And there was a rapid immigration from people from Eastern Europe who were not necessarily very educated at the time. And so there was some concern on the part of women and others as to probably the eventual quality of the voters. And so that, there was a movement. There were elite women who were for suffrage, you know, and also anti-suffrage. Just to go back a little bit, Margaret Jane Muthyswet, in her activities in the late 19th century, was in favor of AAUW branch. And she had met Susan Anthony, and she had established this little club called the Cobb Web Club. And they have papers read on different subjects. And apparently she was for suffrage, but limited suffrage. And to own, earn your voting privilege. Well, so you had varying positions on that. Whether Edith Sills changed her position on this, I have to say more, but there was nothing more that I could see that showed that she had changed her position. On the other hand, she became very active in, as I said, AAUW and then also the college club. Once they came down to Portland after his retirement in 1952. She was very active in the college club, and then she also was apparently president of the Wellesley Club. And so she really established many different connections and valuable connections. So she was able to count on these connections to push for preservation and preservation, and preventing further destruction. Another key member of this group was Elizabeth Rind. Some of you may have gone to Darien High School in the 60s. She was taught at Darien High School from the 40s to 69. She also was basically the main history. She was born in 1902 and graduated from University of Maine in Orano, 1923. And from then on, she really delved into history. She loved it, and she was totally devoted to it. She did teach at the University of Maine. I understand that she was kind of a victim at the time of Orano University of Maine politics. And the Home Economics Department and History Department were fighting turf wars over whether or not she could be teaching in history. They wanted her in Home Economics to tell us something about the role of women at that time in education. So she escaped that and was able to come down here to teach in Portland High Schools. She was paid to do it better. And she concentrated on Maine history. She also was the beneficiary of the Depressionary of WPA, where they created physicians for jobless academicians to do research on genealogy and getting records straight. And so she really made a study for the state of Maine on the histories of Maine families, and she documented a great deal. So she also published a book on the progressive movement in Maine. And she worked all her life practically on the history of Maine and the making of the nation. It's a monumental work like that and it's from 1850 to 1870. And I understand that from some of her colleagues, her problem was that she could never stop doing research and she was always sticking in further information. And some people were afraid that she'd never publish it. She finally did publish it shortly before she passed away. She also wrote a very interesting work on the MacArthur's of Lamington, which forms part of her major work. But it follows a family in the origins of the settlers in Lamington. So she had many connections too, and she was able to bring to this Silver Committee new blood from among her students, one being Earl Shutherworth. And you probably know the story which he shared with me over the phone of how he was like 14 in junior high school when she learned about him from his sister and he was really obsessed with history. Very precocious, apparently he was 13 going on, 50. And so she brought him to that first meeting of the Silver Committee at 14. Well, he continued with her and she was apparently a fantastic teacher, really got students involved. Very imposing figures and yet very engaging, made you want to study history, made it really alive. And she assigned him as a class project to go around Portland and photograph buildings and he did. And then she had him present his slideshow to the college club and then also to the Silver Committee. And everyone was very impressed with it and so he was a launch on his career to be the state historian. So she brought her academic skills, her historical skills and her connections to the school too, the working of the Silver Committee. The Silver Committee met for two years on a weekly basis in Mrs. Hill's home and then she was getting older at that time. Then it was incorporated into the greater Portland landmarks. And younger blood came in and one of the great forces actually in enabling Great Portland landmarks to move on was working with the Junior League in a project to restore the house. And they brought the Junior League was comprised of women who could not really work in the professional world at that time. It was difficult and they could load themselves to voluntary work and they really did push for projects such as the greater Portland landmarks. Apparently they take projects on another basis every two years. And so you had young blood being brought in and they funded the establishment of the hiring of the executive part-time director who had Pamela Plum. And I'm running out of time here but I just want to... Pamela Plum came in when one of the first major projects was moving the Gothic house from the site where the Holiday Inn was being built. And of course the Holiday Inn had resisted saving the Gothic house. May I ask? I have to know the house. But finally the greater Portland landmarks persuaded them to at least save them and demolish the other buildings on that Spring Street. But they moved it, they found a buyer from the plot and they moved it in 1971 from Spring Street up, further up Spring Street near the cemetery and there it stands today and I had a very interesting talk with its present owner Marta Morse who bought it from the Gribbles who had bought it at the time that it was moved. It has a very interesting history which related to the connection between Stolt and Cuba in the 19th century because the owner's Horatio Fox, the Fox room had built it and also the Cologne and they were tied together. And so it was allowed to be preserved and restored and it was there and I had done a wonderful job in preserving the character inside while still modernizing it somewhat. I've got ten minutes so I wanted to leave some time for connections. Before I open it up I want to thank the various institutions which have provided me with information. The University of New England women's writers collection is very useful for these collections of memoirs of different important women. Also the main historical society has been very helpful in the Elizabeth Ring collection and Bowdoin, of course, library has a collection of, it is the Sills collection and I'm also very grateful to the main historical site where the information on and John Baylin for information on them and long fellow peers. I, there are several other members who I should really mention apparently Francis Peabody was a very important figure. She had a connection with the junior of the, but she also was a member of the Colonial Dames. Also Mary, the dodge was, had been very active in the greater portraits and she was telling me the other day that what the early members did was just going around canvassing property and trying to see what was needed to get the landmarks to get on the ball and try to save these buildings. The whole idea is really to encourage people to buy the property but with a proviso preserving the architectural value of these buildings. So there are several other people that I could mention. If I haven't mentioned someone, please speak up. I'd be very happy to know. I see Janet Hertz here, Jane Hertz and others. So please speak up if you have some questions. Yes, just curious during your interviews and whatnot. Did anyone ever mention the San Antonio Conservation Society? Because that was primarily a women-led effort in the 1920s. Wait, what was the purpose? The San Antonio Conservation Society? Oh, no. Thank you for mentioning it. No, I haven't. I'm kind of focused on Portland but that's a good point because San Antonio has been restored. I just was curious whether any of the women that you had spoken to or had done research if they knew about what was going on in San Antonio or if they had a means of ideas or wrote to anybody there and corresponded to them? They may have. I know they looked at, as I said, the Charleston. Of course one was regarding Charleston, South Carolina. But I don't see the San Antonio one. That's a good point to check on. Any others? Yes. Second question. I was also curious. I don't know much about the Passage of the National Historic Preservation Act in 1906. But I was curious whether the Ed Muskie, I think was a senator at the time. And because he was very involved in the model cities, I didn't know whether he had a role in the 1966 act and whether that was prompted by anybody in Maine and then he was a constituent here in Portland. I think that certainly the preservation, they had connections. They did get funding from the federal government. Yeah, and probably that's another point. Yes. Oh, yes, yes. Another question. I was wondering if you could, you know, if you read about these women who sort of mobilized themselves to fight for historic preservation. Obviously it's a little bit shocking the building started to be knocked down around you. But can you talk a little bit more about what some of the things were that motivated them? Was it appreciation of architecture? Or was it history? Or what was it that sort of drove them? Well, I think, you know, a lot of them were, some of them were, you know, art majors and architecture. And they had the time, at that time, to think more long term and to look at these issues, whereas the men were, you know, so busy making money. And they left it sort of on the... I mean, I asked that question. Why didn't the men get concerned about tearing down the tower? They must have done it. But they were concerned with renewal. So they weren't that concerned with the beauty. But there were men, actually, who were invited by Jesus, to one of the men, John Patekos, who was the curator of the museum. But they were very concerned with, you know, their own careers, making money, or doctoring, a lawyer. So... But it was involved with them, too. They focused on that. But more of when men had become involved. So they had to be given the space for push. Yeah. I'd like to address that for a minute. I don't think you can overestimate the impact of the Great Depression upon that kind of attitude toward historic preservation. Our parents, gentlemen, my parents, some of you, your grandparents, were of that generation of adult, middle-aged adult men at that time. My dad was a very intelligent guy. He was a good citizen. He participated in civic affairs in South Portland. I remember coming home in 1961, or 60, probably early 62, and driving down St. John's Street. And I heard, what? Earth has been going on. The train's not running anymore. So why would you keep it? It was a very utilitarian attitude, I think. And I find it very understandable. I'm an historian, too. I got involved in historic preservation in Connecticut. And not too long afterwards, in 1970, for about three years, trying to save a miltown, or a segment of the town that was miltown, dating back to 1820. And it was interesting. The family mansions, which are all around the hill, of the owners, some of you who know textiles have heard of Chinese silks. It was that time. Yeah, we can say, we ought to save those. They look nice. We got to the mill buildings. Oh, for God's sake. And there was no talk of reuse. The talk was demolition. Then we got to the workers' neighborhoods. You're out of your mind. And again, I do think it's that, you know, if it's not being optimally used every little bit, and I think a lot of the young men are in great depression, for what that's. I'm glad you brought that up, because that is an important factor. But I think it's changed over the years. Oh, yes! Dramatically. Well, we're a new generation. Yes. Well, one of my sons is an architectural historian, and he is in the University of Tennessee. And one of the reasons he took the job was that they were trying to restore downtown, and they wanted to know what to tear down. And he came in, and he said, this is an important building designed by the important architect, et cetera. And they listened to him. They said, well, what do we do with it? And that was repurposing. And that's what changed that whole, we'll just get rid of it, because they could see ways of repurposing the building and adding a little glamour to it. Certainly, I think by the mid-70s, there was much more concern, and because a number of brothers coming in, and there was much more concern with the presentation. And the bicentennial. Yes, bicentennial. People started. And then also, as you said, the landmarks, people could convince the city that it could be an advantage, a tax advantage to restore. Ooh, yes. So let's go ahead and preserve, because maybe it'll bring in money. But that took time to convince. There was a period when the radicals in the landmarks were demonstrating and standing in front of the bulldozer, and so forth. And apparently that was the case of Carol, for the Carol mansion. And they were buying, they run the reserve of the building, which was about to be torn down near 75 State Street for a parking lot. And they demonstrated that some were arrested. But then they kind of changed their tactics and their approach. And there were much more quietly persuaded dinners and seating people at crucial places at dinners which could influence the city falls. Yeah. I have told you, and I'm getting tired of hearing myself say it, so maybe this is the last time I'll tell people. I was one of several pre-teens. Oh, I'm not sure how old I was. We'll put pennies down on the track of the last passenger train into port. And it was very stern, very sad, and I think we were self-motivated. Something had to take us, but I don't think it was organized. But it was sad. Yes, absolutely. Thank you. Thank you, everybody, and thank you, Kevley, for a very interesting talk. We look forward to it.