Joyce Butler (1933 - )

Genre: Non-Fiction - Scholarly, Non-Fiction

Joyce Butler, born on 27 June 1933 in Portland, Maine, is now a Kennebunk resident and an historian, archivist/curator, and writer. She received an associate degree from Westbrook Junior College (now the University of New England) in 1953 and an A.B. from Boston University in 1955. She was the Kennebunkport Historical Society archivist from 1975-1979. Her next position, 1979-1995, was exhibit and manuscript curator at the Brick Store Museum, Kennebunk. More recently she curated exhibits at the Center for Maine History. In 1990 Butler was appointed the town historian for Kennebunk. She is also well-known in the historical society/museum world as a lecturer and consultant on manuscript preservation and cataloging.

In addition to the books listed below, Joyce Butler's writing has been published in magazines/newspapers such as Chapters in Local History, Christian Science Monitor, Down East, Maine Life, Landmarks Observer, Log of Mystic Seaport, and Magazine Antiques.

Butler's most widely known book is Wildfire Loose" The Week Maine Burned, originally published in 1978/79 and reissued in 1987 and 1997. A well-documented account of the 1947 Maine wildfire, the book is included in the Mirror of Maine list of 100 significant Maine books. Butler's other books and exhibit catalogs include:

• The South Congregational Church: An Architectural History (1973)
• Pages from a Journal (1976): Begins with Butler's experiences in rehabilitating an old house in Maine, and continues with her life in a small town with a family, a culture, a garden and all of the things that are looked upon as the American tradition.
• Kennebunkport Scrapbook (1977)
• Abbott Fuller Graves, 1859-1936 (1979)
• The Kennebunks: A Watering Place, the First Fifty Years, 1870-1920 (1980)
• Louis D. Norton, 1868-1940 (1982)
• The Artist as Historian: Augustus W. Buhler, 1853-1920 (1983)
• A Kennebunkport Album (1984)
• The Duchess Who Lived in the Mansion (1986)
• Spirits in the Wood (1997)

In addition, Butler has been a contributor to:

• Tilt; An Anthology of New England Women's Writing and Art (1978)
• Tales of Whales (1982)
• Ladies Choice (1982)
• Agreeable Situations: Society, Commerce, and Art in Southern Maine, 1780-1830 (1987, edited by Laura Fecych Sprague)
• Maine in the Early Republic (1988)

Butler also wrote an essay, 'Shipbuilding on the Kennebunk,' for the 1993 republication of William E. Barry's Sketch of an Old River, which was originally published in 1888.


Last Update: 07/21/2007

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