Honoring a Colby Pioneer

A recent redesign of the Skowhegan History House Museum & Research Center has resulted in a new exhibition about museum founder and distinguished Colby alumna Louise Helen Coburn. The exhibition in the museum that Coburn envisioned and designed nearly a century ago offers insight into her life as a suffragist, scientist, poet, author, and cultural preservationist—and a committed early advocate for the education of women.

A pioneering woman in her time, Coburn emerges as a courageous leader for the ages in this new examination of her life, which highlights her deep connections with Colby, Skowhegan, and Maine while framing her accomplishments in the context of a larger world, then and now.

Coburn, who grew up and lived in Skowhegan just north of Waterville along the Kennebec River, studied botany and graduated from Colby in 1877, becoming the second woman to graduate following Mary Low Carver. She later attended the Harvard Summer School of Botany and the University of Chicago. Born in 1856, she died in 1949 in the town where she was born and lived most of her life.

At Colby, her legacy was one of progress and reform. Coburn was cofounder of the Sigma Kappa academic sorority, and she claims “a major share” in the progress of women’s education at Colby, according to her Colby Libraries biography. She was a lifelong advocate for the equal treatment of women and became the first woman trustee of the College and the first president of the Colby Alumnae Association. She also encouraged the appointment of Colby’s first woman as full professor, Ninetta Runnals.

With artifacts that include private letters, family photographs, cultural research, and writing that describes her life in detail, the exhibition at the Skowhegan History House highlights some of her Colby accomplishments, as well as her impact across society. It also prominently features a handsome oil portrait of Coburn, painted in 1941 by her close friend and accomplished artist Zadee Morrison.

The exhibition, Living Legacy: Remembering Louise Helen Coburn, is on view through September at the seasonal museum. Museum co-curators Sheri Leahan and Ruth Greene-McNally researched and installed the exhibition.

The Coburn family was prominent in Skowhegan. Coburn’s father, Stephen, was a U.S. Congressman, and her Uncle Abner was governor of Maine. Coburn Park in Skowhegan, where Coburn conducted much of her botanical research, is named after the family.

The museum is housed in a Cape-style brick cottage along the river. Built in 1839, the cottage had become dilapidated, and Coburn, who lived nearby, purchased it in 1936 to save it. She added the annex in the back, designed as a repository for her papers and the archives of local families and the town itself. 

At age 80, Coburn restored the building and furnished it with period antiques to operate as a public museum. It has continued in that capacity every summer since 1937. 

“The exhibition grew out of the museum’s desire to remodel the research annex and pay tribute to Coburn by naming the annex in her honor. As that process evolved, the remodel became a renovation, and the renovation spurred the exhibition to generate a deeper understanding of the museum’s visionary founder and create a space for her to re-emerge,” Greene-McNally said.

Part of that decision was motivated by the discovery during the renovation of blueprints that Coburn had drawn up of the annex and newspaper and display cases she had built to house her papers and preserve local history, as well as original lighting sconces. The cases, which are lined with slate to protect from fire, were modified for modern use and are part of the exhibition, both as original craft items to behold and as functional pieces housing Coburn’s materials. 

“I think that looking at these blueprints of how this space was originally designed by Louise Coburn is very important,” Greene-McNally said. “Just being able to see how she pictured it and being able to reconnect with our past and interpret and understand why we need to change to continue to interpret who we are now is significant.”

In doing so, the curators have created context for Coburn’s life, portrayed her personality in a humanistic way that offers dimension beyond her portrait on the wall, and, they hope, inspired a new generation to discover and appreciate all that Coburn overcame and accomplished.