The Brick Store Papers

Since 1936, the Brick Store Museum has stood proudly on Main Street in Kennebunk, serving as a beacon for art, history, and community. For nearly a century, we have welcomed curious visitors from all walks of life. But behind our exhibition gallery doors lies another world: a bustling hub of global scholarship.

We are thrilled to turn a new page in our museum’s history with the launch of our brand-new bi-annual journal, The Brick Store Papers.

The Brick Store Museum is home to an archival collection of roughly 35,000 documents. Within our vaults lie the materials illustrating human life, including personal diaries and intimate letters, photographs and scrapbooks, ledgers, deeds, and historic maps, rare history books, newsletters, and everything in between.

In any archive, we face a dual challenge: How do we preserve these fragile physical materials for future generations while still making their invaluable information accessible today?

For decades, Museum staff and volunteers have had front-row seats to the breakthroughs of amateur and professional researchers who dive into the Archives to piece together our collective past. The Brick Store Papers was born out of a desire to share these discoveries. Rather than keeping this incredible work tucked away in research folders, we are bringing it directly to you.

For its debut edition, our Journal Committee, composed of Museum staff and dedicated, knowledgeable volunteers, invited recent researchers to share their work under the theme: “On Revolutions.” Inside this issue, you will find interpretations of change, and evolution, all rooted in the historical records of our region.

Looking ahead, The Brick Store Papers will be printed bi-annually. In future issues, we will be opening the floor to the public with official calls for journal submissions. We invite writers, historians, and amateur researchers alike to share their discoveries.

At its heart, this journal is a tribute to the very spark that built our Museum. Like the Museum itself, The Brick Store Papers are dedicated to the memory of William and Florence Barry. The Brick Store Museum was originally founded by their niece, Edith Barry, to honor their lifelong, tireless work in preserving the history of the Kennebunk region.

By launching this journal, we hope to continue their legacy—not just by keeping history safe on a shelf, but by breathing new life into it, one story at a time.