Lincoln County is a county located in the U.S. state of Maine. As of the 2020 census, the population was 35,237. Its seat is Wiscasset. The county was founded in 1760 by the Massachusetts General Court from a portion of York County, Massachusetts and named after the English city Lincoln, the birthplace of Massachusetts Bay Provincial Governor Thomas Pownall.
Newcastle is a town in Lincoln County, Maine, United States. The population was 1,848 at the 2020 census. The village of Newcastle is located in the eastern part of the town, on the Damariscotta River. Together with the village of Damariscotta linked by the Main Street bridge, they form the Twin Villages.
Frances Perkins was an American workers-rights advocate who served as the 4th United States secretary of labor from 1933 to 1945, the longest serving in that position. A member of the Democratic Party, Perkins made history as the first woman ever to serve in a presidential cabinet and the first woman to serve as secretary of labor. As a loyal supporter of her longtime friend, Franklin D. Roosevelt, she helped make labor issues important in the emerging New Deal coalition. She was one of two Roosevelt cabinet members to remain in office for his entire presidency.
The Maine Women's Lobby (MWL) was founded in 1978 and is dedicated to legislative action on behalf of Maine's women and girls. The Maine Women's Lobby believes women and girls should have economic security, access to health care, and freedom from violence and discrimination.
Ram Island Light is a lighthouse located just offshore of Ram Island, marking the eastern entrance to Boothbay Harbor, Maine, and the west side of the mouth of the Damariscotta River. It was built in 1883 and automated in 1965. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places as Ram Island Light Station on January 21, 1988.
The Maine Women's Hall of Fame was created in 1990 to honor the achievements of women associated with the U.S. state of Maine. The induction ceremonies are held each year during March, designated as Women's History Month. Nominees are chosen by the public via an online nomination form. The University of Maine at Augusta displays the hall of fame in its Bennett D. Katz Library, and also hosts the hall of fame online at the university's website. The nomination form lists three criteria for eligibility:
Eloise A. Vitelli is the majority leader of the Maine Senate. She is a Democrat representing Senate District 23, which serves all of Sagadahoc County and the adjacent town of Dresden, Maine in Lincoln County. Vitelli was first elected to the Maine Senate in a 2013 special election, but lost her re-election bid in 2014. She was re-elected in 2016, 2018 and 2020. Vitelli began working as an entrepreneurship trainer in the early 1980s and was the director of program and policy for New Ventures Maine for 38 years. She became the Assistant Senate Majority Leader in December 2020, and Majority Leader in February 2021.
Shenna Lee Bellows is an American politician and a non-profit executive director, best known for her work with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). She is the 50th Maine secretary of state. On December 2, 2020 the Maine Legislature elected her to be Maine secretary of state. She is Executive Director of the Holocaust and Human Rights Center of Maine.
The Perkins Homestead, also known as the Brick House, is a historic homestead at 478 River Road in Newcastle, Maine. The 57-acre (23 ha) property, including its 1837 brick farmhouse, was designated a National Historic Landmark for its association with the life of Frances Perkins (1880–1965), the first woman to hold a position in the United States Cabinet. Perkins spent many years, both as a child and later as an adult, at this property, which she considered to be her true home. The property was first listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2009 as the Brick House Historic District in part for its archaeological significance.
Gilda E. Nardone is an American women's employment advocate and nonprofit director. She is the executive director of New Ventures Maine, a career counseling and employment development program for middle-aged and older women who have been thrust into the role of family breadwinner due to the death or disability of a spouse, divorce, or separation. Nardone has been one of the directors of the organization, headquartered at the University of Maine at Augusta, since its inception as the Maine Displaced Homemakers Program in 1978. She was inducted into the Maine Women's Hall of Fame in 1991.
Mabel Antoinette Sine Wadsworth was an American birth control activist and women's health educator. Influenced by the work of Margaret Sanger, she organized door to door campaigns in rural Maine in the 1950s and 1960s to teach women about birth control. In the 1960s she established and directed the state's first family planning program which provided contraceptive services, and helped found the Maine Family Planning Association in 1971, serving as its first president. In 1984 she supported the establishment and naming of the Mabel Wadsworth Women's Health Center in Bangor, Maine, a private, non-profit, feminist health center. Wadsworth was in the first class of inductees to the Maine Women's Hall of Fame in March 1990.
Patricia E. "Pat" Ryan is a human rights and women's rights advocate. She served as executive director of the Maine Human Rights Commission, a state agency tasked with enforcement of Maine's anti-discrimination laws, for over three decades. Prior to that, she chaired the Maine Commission for Women and the Maine State Personnel Board. She was a co-founder of the Maine Women's Lobby. She was inducted into the Maine Women's Hall of Fame in 2014.
Lois Galgay Reckitt is an American feminist, human rights activist, LGBT rights activist, and domestic violence advocate. Called "one of the most prominent advocates in Maine for abused women", she served as executive director of Family Crisis Services in Portland, Maine for more than three decades. From 1984 to 1987 she served as executive vice president of the National Organization for Women in Washington, D.C. She is a co-founder of the Human Rights Campaign Fund, the Maine Coalition for Human Rights, the Maine Women's Lobby, and the first Maine chapter of the National Organization for Women. She was inducted into the Maine Women's Hall of Fame in 1998.
Ethel "Billie" Wilson Gammon was an American educator and living history museum founder and director. In 1974 she founded the Washburn-Norlands Living History Center on the former estate of Israel Washburn in Livermore, Maine, and served as its volunteer executive director until 1991. Her educational and outreach programs brought 40,000 visitors to the site annually by the end of the twentieth century. She was inducted into the Maine Women's Hall of Fame in 1997.
Ruth L. Lockhart is an American women's health advocate, women's rights activist, AIDS educator, and feminist. She is a co-founder of Mabel Wadsworth Women's Health Center, was its executive director Bangor, Maine, from 1992 to 2015, and previously worked in health education and AIDS education for the City of Bangor and the University of Maine. She was inducted into the Maine Women's Hall of Fame in 2012.
Sharon E. Barker is a Canadian-American women's rights activist, women's health advocate, and feminist. She is the founding director of the Women's Resource Center at the University of Maine and one of the founders and first president of the Mabel Sine Wadsworth Women's Health Center in Bangor. For over 30 years she has advocated for women and girls in the areas of health care, gender equality, sexual assault, and reproductive rights. She was inducted into the Maine Women's Hall of Fame in 2009.
Ellen Frances Golden is an American nonprofit executive specializing in micro-enterprise and women's business development. She was senior vice president of Coastal Enterprises, Inc. of Wiscasset, Maine, where she directed the Women's Business Center and CEI Investment Notes. She has testified before congressional committees on women's entrepreneurship and micro-enterprise development, and has sat on the boards of policy-making groups in these fields. She was inducted into the Maine Women's Hall of Fame in 2015.
Linda Smith Dyer was an American lawyer, lobbyist, and women's rights activist. After a two-decade legal career, she entered public service as deputy commissioner of the Maine Department of Agriculture. She co-founded the Maine Women's Lobby and was active in the effort to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment in Maine. A member on numerous boards and committees, she was a past president of the Maine State Bar Association and the Family Planning Association of Maine. She was inducted into the Maine Women's Hall of Fame in 2001, a few months before her death.
Maine Question 2, formally entitled "An Act To Enhance Access to Affordable Health Care", was a citizen-initiated ballot measure that appeared on the November 7, 2017 statewide ballot in the State of Maine. Maine Question 2 sought to expand Medicaid eligibility under the terms of the Affordable Care Act. The measure passed.
