Kosti Ruohomaa’s Maine | Classic Photos of Rural Maine in the ’40s and ’50s
Kosti Ruohomaa’s classic photographs of rural Maine in the 1940s and 1950s are now being shared with the help of the Penobscot Marine Museum.
By Heather Marcus|Mar 23 2022|
Worm diggers rake the mud at low tide at Cod Cove in Wiscasset in 1958. Harvesting bloodworms to sell for bait was and is a common practice to supplement a fisherman’s income. Bloodworms and their cousin, sandworms, are found in the silty clay or mud of Maine’s extensive mud flats. The worms are so named because their blood shows through their pale skin, giving them a faint-pink color.
Photo Credit: From the Kosti Ruohomaa Collection at Penobscot Marine Museum, Searsport, ME, courtesy of Black Star, White Plains, NYYankee editor Mel Allen recently paid a visit to the Penobscot Marine Museum in Searsport, Maine, to get a better look at its resurrection of the work of Maine photojournalist Kosti Ruohomaa. One of the top names at the famed Black Star photo agency in the ’40s and ’50s, Ruohomaa created images of rural New England and its people — mostly Mainers — that graced the pages of the nation’s most famous magazines. But after he died in 1961 at age 47, his fame faded and his photographs ended up boxed away in a New Jersey warehouse.
That changed in 2017, when the Penobscot Marine Museum brought Ruohomaa’s archives back to his home state. There may be as many as 50,000 images in the collection, all waiting to be catalogued, and eventually scanned and digitized, then placed on the museum’s website for the public’s viewing. There have already been two exhibits from what arrived in Maine from the warehouse. Photo archivist Kevin Johnson thinks they will need $350,000 and three more years to put them all online — and bring back Kosti Ruohomaa’s legacy.
The following are selected Kosti Ruohomaa images from the museum’s collection. You can see more in the photo essay “Bringing Kosti Home” in the March/April 2019 issue of Yankee.
All photographs from the Kosti Ruohomaa Collection at the Penobscot Marine Museum, Searsport, ME; courtesy of Black Star, White Plains, NY.
Kosti Ruohomaa’s Maine | Classic Photos of Rural Maine in the ’40s and ’50s
Photo Credit : From the Kosti Ruohomaa Collection at Penobscot Marine Museum, Searsport, ME, courtesy of Black Star, White Plains, NY
Photo Credit : From the Kosti Ruohomaa Collection at Penobscot Marine Museum, Searsport, ME, courtesy of Black Star, White Plains, NY
Photo Credit : From the Kosti Ruohomaa Collection at Penobscot Marine Museum, Searsport, ME, courtesy of Black Star, White Plains, NY
Photo Credit : From the Kosti Ruohomaa Collection at Penobscot Marine Museum, Searsport, ME, courtesy of Black Star, White Plains, NY
Photo Credit : From the Kosti Ruohomaa Collection at Penobscot Marine Museum, Searsport, ME, courtesy of Black Star, White Plains, NY
Photo Credit : From the Kosti Ruohomaa Collection at Penobscot Marine Museum, Searsport, ME, courtesy of Black Star, White Plains, NY
Photo Credit : From the Kosti Ruohomaa Collection at Penobscot Marine Museum, Searsport, ME, courtesy of Black Star, White Plains, NY
Photo Credit : From the Kosti Ruohomaa Collection at Penobscot Marine Museum, Searsport, ME, courtesy of Black Star, White Plains, NY
Photo Credit : From the Kosti Ruohomaa Collection at Penobscot Marine Museum, Searsport, ME, courtesy of Black Star, White Plains, NY
Photo Credit : From the Kosti Ruohomaa Collection at Penobscot Marine Museum, Searsport, ME, courtesy of Black Star, White Plains, NY
Those pictures are wonderful. They are my generation and My Maine.
Thank you to Yankee Magazine for introducing me to the world of Kosti Ruohomaa. I smiled to see the photos that included Andrew Wyeth because I am a big admirer. His photographs here and in the magazine are wonderful. I’ve requested a library copy of Night Train at Wicasset Station. When I visit the area this year, I’ll check to see if there is another exhibit of Kosti’s photos.
Good Evening,
These photos and looking in to their age, took me back to my childhood.
Great snaps and equally great old days too. I am quite fortunate to born in those days.
Regards
Uma
These photographs are breathtaking! They inspire me!
Back when America was great!
Your right !
Amazing and riveting stories of the ships meeting terrifying fates. Thanks.
I lived in West Lebanon in the 50’s not near Rockland area, but remember my Mom taking laundry frozen stiff from the winter clothesline.
These pictures bring back memories of a much simple life back then—and yes, I remember the frozen clothes on the line
Love the stories and picture. Many thanks
Love these pictures!!
Being a Mainer dies hard. I still hang out the wash in winter – and it still freezes!
I, too, enjoyed seeing the photos y’all posted. Lived in Maine/NH for 13 years, teaching. Wonderful experience! Wonderful photos. I’d love to go to the museum to see many more. Thank you for this wonderful article!!!
The collection of Kosti Ruohomaa’s photographs at the Penobscot Marine Museum is very much worth seeing. His images, many much more interesting and artful than the ones you include in your article, capture the stark flavor of Maine life as it once was. For other Ruohomaa images and the story of his life as a traveling photographer on assignment from major magazines, a must read is Deanna Bonner-Ganter’s recent book “Kosti Ruohomaa: The Photographer Poet.” He was a small-town Maine boy who, after a stint at Walt Disney Studios, roamed the nation and the world capturing what he saw on film with a poetic impulse. Don’t miss the book or the exhibit. -John Gibson
Great stuff! More civilized times in spite of raging wars.
What kind of equipment did he use?such as cameras
These are so neat! History restored and remembered…flash from the past etc. What a wonderful legacy of Maine Long Ago to see and enjoy. Thank you. I grew up in Washington County and appreciate seeing these and the work and interest of reviving his photographs-ty.
Back in the 30&40’s, my mother did not have paper diapers, cloth ones and were washed and reused. See hung them to dry on the open piazza and in the cold Maine winters, they would freeze stiff but dry.
My mom did the same. No matter how cold, laundry was hung outdoors. We lived and it made us better and more resilient.
The photographs of Maine make me lonesome to get back to New England. Especially when they are classic pictures. Thank you so much for sharing.
Such stunning photos!
They capture the essence of Maine perfectly
Love these old photos! It’s like opening a time capsule and glimpsing life back in the earlier years (which some of us still remeber vividly). Great selection of photos showing life in New England in the earlier years.