In researching the seemingly uncharted northern half of Maine, we discovered that Aroostook County - a landmass that occupies more square miles than Connecticut and Rhode Island combined - contains one of the country’s only Swedish settlements, the aptly named New Sweden. Most residents of the enormous county are of French ancestry (Acadians), but this one tiny hamlet has a predominantly Swedish population.
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| "It's only natural" might be the best location slogan ever. |
New Sweden’s population has dwindled greatly in recent years. Many of the homes have been abandoned and left to rot under moss and fallen branches. We averaged at least a quarter (maybe even more) of the homes were up for sale. This isn’t isolated just to New Sweden; in fact, this seemed to pepper most of Northern Aroostook. For such a large section of land, it has been woefully overlooked, and its economic structure is suffering greatly for it.
New Sweden’s historical museum, overseen by an elderly woman, contains artifacts and memorabilia owned by its earliest settlers — baby shoes, traditional dresses, suitcases, and musical instruments, all in absolutely beautiful condition. The building is filled with hundreds of pieces, laid out more like someone’s messy bedroom than a museum. It is almost impossible to see everything unless you shuffle items around and pull things out of cabinets, both of which are strongly discouraged.
That didn’t stop us from poking around. Underneath the shelf of musical instruments (including a bizarre two-sided violin), he pulled out a white cardboard box and cracked open the lid.
“Holy shit! You have to see this.”
Inside were literally dozens of perfectly preserved wax cylinders, including one of The Passing Show of 1912, all from the Vaudeville era of popular song. One of Alex’s friends and former teachers at Brooklyn College is literally the only scholar in the country who specializes in this time period of popular song.
Recognizing its value, both for research and historical purposes, he said, “These should be in an archive, not rotting away in a box in this town with 450 people.”
When we went downstairs, Alex spoke with the curator, identifying himself as a music historian (he always jokes about the rare occasion he gets to say he is a musicologist) very interested in the wax cylinders upstairs. At first, the lady wasn’t sure what he was talking about. After she finally remembered, she said their museum was keen on hanging onto them. Their reason? “Every now and again, a school group comes by and we’ll play one for them.” Deflated, Alex still left his full contact info, providing the names of several music archives and archivists who would be very interested in acquiring the wax cylinders.
Three months have passed since our visit, and as of this writing Alex has yet to hear back.
Just recently, we met up with Alex’s friend who specializes in popular music from the 1910’s, Dr. Jonas Westover. When Alex shared this story with Jonas, after telling him the old lady’s rationale for hanging onto boxes of wax cylinders, Jonas stopped him and said, “Wait a second - those cylinders are playable?!”
“In pristine fucking condition.”
Jonas shared in our pain.
Back to June: As we left New Sweden, we thought about all the similar museums we had seen on our trip so far. Many of them receive funding from local, state, or even federal sources. This museum seemed to be run by a local historical society. There was so much history, preserved so poorly. An institution like this in such a sparsely populated region could very well die with its curators, the contents sold at auction for a pittance, winding up in someone’s curio cabinet instead of an archive.
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