Le Théâtre

An exhibit of the Maine Memory Network, the online museum of the Maine Historical Society, Le Théâtre is a small collection of photographs and printed material relating to the cultural presence of the French-Canadian influx to Lewiston, Maine at the end of the 19^th century. The community opened several theatres in the mill-town and produced plays and opera for decades. This exhibit represents the theatrical activity with some photographs of key figures and a few pieces of ephemera from the period.

Collection Principles
The material for the exhibit came from the Franco-American Collection of the Historical Society, and focuses for the most part on several men such as Jean-Baptiste Couture and Alphonse Coté, who were responsible for establishing early production companies and acting in many of their own shows. Several of the prominent troupes are shown as well as posters and playbills from the period. Other than one or two later photographs (the theatre companies continued to stage productions well into the 1980s), the exhibit focuses on the late 1800s to the early twentieth century, when it seems the interest in theatre was at its height.

Object Characteristics
The scans here (and throughout the exhibits of the Maine Memory Network) come in three sizes, the largest of which is fairly suitable for study, but all scans are very heavily compressed, with artifacts from the compression marring the image, and each is typed over with a sort of watermark/disclaimer stating that they’re for education use only. This disclaimer is large, ugly, and intrusive. The scans have not been retouched in any way (no level correction, etc), and this sometimes makes them a bit hard to study. Since these are surrogates meant for informal viewing, there’s no reason the Society couldn’t have corrected them for easier viewing.

Metadata
There is some metadata included here. We’re given the photo’s title, creation and subject dates, place of origin, and dimensions. LCSH headings are also included as well as the internal item number. More information can be requested. Each photo and document also has a very brief contextual description.

Intended Audience
The audience for this and the Network’s other exhibits seems to be the casual browser. I’d imagine that the intent is to informally introduce users to the more interesting facets of the Historical Society’s holdings, and perhaps to increase traffic to the actual archives themselves.