University of New England

History scholar Elizabeth
De Wolfe's research on factory girl's murder is basis for Saco history walk display

The murder of Mary Bean, the story of a mid-19th century Saco, Maine, “factory girl” who died after a botched abortion, is not only the subject of an upcoming book by Elizabeth De Wolfe, Ph.D., chair of the University of New England's Department of History - the story is now one of the subjects of a new Saco Museum Main Street Walk.

The history walk, a joint project of the museum and the City of Saco, tells 12 stories in words and pictures on 12 national park-style panels along Main Street from the Saco Museum to the Downeaster train station on Saco Island.

The panel on the Murder of Mary Bean was written by Professor DeWolfe, based on her forthcoming book The Murder of Mary Bean and Other Stories, scheduled for publication by Kent State University Press in November 2007. DeWolfe's research on the murder has been featured on Maine Public Radio, the Portland Press Herald, the Journal Tribune in Biddeford, and the Biddeford-Saco-Old Orchard Beach Courier.

Elizabeth De Wolfe looks at the newly installed display on Mary Bean's murder

De Wolfe, winner of the 2004 Fairfield Award for research in Saco history, observes, "The murder of Mary Bean brought to the forefront what had been simmering in Saco - a tension between the economic benefits of the growth of the mills and the detriments of rapid growth, particularly in what was seen as a growing population of strangers."

The stories of De Wolfe's book will also be the topic of an exhibition at the Saco Museum in the spring 2008. UNE students will research, create and prepare the exhibit in a special history class to be offered next fall 2007.

The Saco Museum Maine Street Walk
Among the 11 other subjects of the Saco Museum Main Street Walk are a local renaissance man, two women who helped encourage health and education reforms in Saco, a religious cult leader, and a founder of the California Gold Rush. They include:

• Laura Black Stickney, the city health officer and Trull Hospital owner who dies in 1961 after a half-century of promoting public health.
• The Murder of Mary Bean, the story of Berengera Caswell, a mid-19th century “factory girl” who died after a botched abortion.
• Sam Brannan, who left Saco as a teenager to help found San Francisco and promote the Gold Rush.
• Jacob Cochran, whose religious followers  in North Saco practiced “spiritual wifery”.
• Sarah Fairfield Hamilton, the founder of the local chapter of the Women’s Educational and Industrial Union, which created the first kindergarten in Saco, a nursery of mill workers’ children, and summer park programs.
• Charles Henry Granger, painter, poet, translator, musician.

The colorful panels are lavishly illustrated with dozens of historic photographs from the museum and Dyer Library collections, and several private collections. The bright blue and green, two-foot by three-foot phenolic panels are installed on waist high pedestals.

The project was organized by Saco Development Director Peter Morelli and Saco Museum Director Andrea Strassner to promote history education and tourism in Saco's downtown. It was supported with a grant from the Certified Local Government Program of the National Park Service, which is administered by the Maine Historic Preservation Commission.

Other writers for the project include Saco historian Sallie Huot, Thomas Hardiman, Leslie Rounds, Elizabeth Quentin, Strassner and Morelli. The graphic design is by Lisa Muller-Jones, Mojo Graphics, Saco.
 
The subjects of the other panels are:

• Railroad and trolleys
• The Dyer Library
• The brick mill district
• The Saco Museum
• The local activities of the Ku Klux Klan
• Shipping on the Saco River

For more information or pictures on the project, contact Peter Morelli at 207-282-3487, pmorelli@sacomaine.org

Elizabeth De Wolfe
De Wolfe is an associate professor of American studies, chair of UNE's History Department and also co-chair of UNE's Women's Studies Program.  She  teaches courses in women's history, communal societies, and American culture.

She earned her Ph.D. in American and New England studies from Boston University (1996), an M.A. in anthropology from the State University of New York/Albany (1985) and a B.A. in social science from Colgate University (1983). Dr. De Wolfe is the author of Shaking the Faith: Women, Family, and Mary Marshall Dyer's Anti-Shaker Campaign, 1815-1867 (2002), which was awarded the Communal Studies Association's "Outstanding Book Award" for 2003.

She is also co-editor of Such News of the Land: U.S. Women Nature Writers (2001). In 2004, DeWolfe received the University of New England's highest honor, the Kenneally Cup, in recognition of her excellence in teaching and service to the University.

(Press release issued Nov. 13, 2006)