ROCKLAND — Rockland’s Sail, Power & Steam Museum kicks off its 2024 “Museum Monday” line-up with Kevin Johnson, photo archivist for the Penobscot Marine Museum on Monday, Aug. 19, at 6 p.m. Johnson will give a guided tour of photographs found in the photography archives of the Penobscot Marine Museum.

Penobscot Marine Museum in Searsport, has the largest photography archives in the state made up of dozens of collections and consists of more than 300,000 photographic images spanning the 1880s to the recent past. The slide show and talk will look at the various collections including the Kosti Ruohomaa, Carroll Thayer Berry, the Eastern Illustrating & Publishing Co., and Ed Coffin with a special focus on Rockland. The archive is being digitized and more than 130,000 images can now be viewed on the museum’s website in their online database: www.PenobscotMarineMuseum.org

“Museum Mondays” are just one of the ways the Sail, Power & Steam Museum achieves its mission to celebrate, honor, experience, and share the story of Maine’s maritime heritage, according to the Museum, in a nes release.

Johnson earned his bachelor’s degree from St. Joseph’s University, and after a number of years working as a paralegal, he decided he wanted to shift his focus to fine art photography. He earned his Professional Certificate in Photography from the Maine Photographic Workshops, where he first encountered the Eastern Illustrating and Publishing Company’s postcard collection. When the collection needed to be rehoused in 2007, Penobscot Marine Museum brought it into their collection. Since then, Penobscot Marine Museum Photo Archivist Kevin Johnson has grown the Museum’s current collection to more than 300,000 images from various sources including the Eastern Illustrating and Publishing postcard company, National Fisherman magazine, the Maine Sardine Council, photographer Kosti Ruohomaa, and many others.

Museum Mondays are held at the Sail, Power & Steam Museum at 75 Mechanic Street, Rockland, Maine.

Suggested donation: $5. Visit https://sailpowersteammuseum.org/ for a schedule of all museum events. The museum is open 10-3:30, Wed-Sat, May-Oct.