A Discussion on the Jonathan Poor Murals in Maine with Jane Radcliffe

Jane Radcliffe is a graduate of Connecticut College, with a master’s degree in American History and Historical Museum Work from the University of Connecticut in a program co-sponsored by Old Sturbridge Village. She has been studying and researching New England painted wall decorations since she arrived as a staff member of the new Maine State Museum in Augusta. She learned that the museum has the custodian of a complete muraled room from the Captain Samuel Benjamin House which had been in Winthrop, Maine until it was demolished during the late 1960s. During the past fifty plus years, Jane's specific area of study has been the murals painted between 1830 and 1842 by Jonathan D. Poor, the nephew and follower of Rufus Porter. Jane is a past trustee of the Rufus Porter Museum of Art & Ingenuity, and one of the founders and the Immediate Past President of the Center for Painted Wall Preservation.