P8225 Penobscot women and Child
from Old Town, Maine displaying baskets they have woven.
circa 1890 [Abbe Museum, Bar Harbor] (P 8225)
Beginning in the mid-nineteenth
century, Native American women in Maine worked hard all winter long
making baskets to sell to the summer tourist trade. Their basket
sales enhanced the family income.
"I couldn't remember how old I
was, I was little. Very little and my grandmother gave me all
the gauges and the material and everything and said, 'Now you
sit and you work, you learn how to make baskets, because
sometime when you marry and have a family, its gonna come in
handy, and believe me, it did." (NA 2383)
