Maine Speaks Presents Elizabeth DeWolfe

Mark your calendars for this midwinter event. University of New England professor Elizabeth DeWolfe is coming to Spaulding Memorial library to give us a historical presentation about Maine’s women who worked in factories in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It’s titled Dangerous Temptations: Textile ‘Factory Girls’ in Fact and Fiction.

The 1849 “murder” of textile worker Berengera Caswell shattered the tranquility of life in Saco and Biddeford. In the wake of her death, authors published over a dozen tales set in Maine factory towns. To protect Maine’s young, female workforce throughout the state, short stories and novellas reviewed the “dangerous temptations” young people found in Maine’s cities, and offered advice on how to avoid Caswell’s tragic fate. These sensationalized, gothic stories were eagerly read cautionary tales that offered young women (and their nervous parents) guideposts to safety. But did the factory girls take the advice?

Elizabeth DeWolfe is Professor of History at the University of New England where she teaches courses in women’s history, archival research, and American culture. Dr. DeWolfe is a historical detective: she hunts archives for the traces of ordinary women, piecing together their all-but-forgotten lives from faint clues.

Dr. DeWolfe’s latest work, Alias Agnes: The Notorious Tale of a Gilded Age Spy, reveals the tale of a Maine stenographer turned undercover detective. Her previous work includes the award-winning book The Murder of Mary Bean which illustrates the great opportunities as well as the dangers for young women working in the textile mills of the 1830s and 1804s. DeWolfe has also written about the Shakers, Victorian hair jewelry makers, and a Maine woman’s battle with bullfrogs in the Great Depression.