Showing 21 - 28 of 28 Items

Date: 2008-11-21

Creator: Christine G Williams

Access: Open access

Biographial Note

Christine G. Williams was born January 20, 1952, in Boston, Massachusetts, to Adelaide and Donald Williams, a Methodist minister. She earned a degree in history from Boston University. As a VISTA volunteer she taught on the Rosebud reservation in South Dakota before returning to New England to teach at Brunswick High School in Brunswick, Maine, for the 1975-1976 school year. Subsequently, after teaching in New Hampshire for four years, she was hired by George Mitchell’s U.S. Senate office in 1982 and worked there until 1994, focusing on health care issues in the latter years. She later went to work for the Agency for Health Care Research and Quality.

Summary

Interview includes discussion of: teaching social studies; working for Senator Mitchell; changes when Mitchell became chair of the Health Subcommittee of the Finance Committee; Robert Wood Johnson Fellows and staff in Mitchell’s office; involvement in Health Care Reform and the bill they wrote; changes when Mitchell became Senate majority leader; Clinton’s election and what could have been done better for health reform; the task force on the Clinton health reform bill; work on health care legislation and how the bill was finally defeated; other health legislation; the question of bipartisanship; her wedding; Mitchell’s retirement; appreciation and understanding of Maine people, Maine’s health care; ambience of Mitchell’s office and what it was like working there; Mitchell’s temperament, professionalism, and personality; Mitchell’s contributions to the Senate and leadership; Mitchell’s election to majority leader; involvement with the Mitchell Institute scholarship program; Mitchell and long term care; and federal recognition for the Micmacs.

Date: 2010-03-02

Creator: Heather M Mitchell

Access: Open access

Biographial Note

Heather McLachlan Mitchell was born and raised in Montreal, Canada, and lived in Paris, France, for fifteen years. She was assistant to the executive director of the Association of Tennis Professionals and subsequently represented professional male tennis players. She relocated from Paris to New York and in 1993 met George Mitchell at the U.S. Open. The two were married in 1994. She later worked independently coordinating tennis events. Once their children started school, she began working as a literary agent at Gelfman Schneider.

Summary

Interview includes discussion of: connections in Maine when growing up in Quebec; visiting Maine with George Mitchell; visiting Maine with their children; Mitchell’s balance between work and family; Mitchell’s contact with support staff from his Senate days; and Mitchell’s house in D.C.

Date: 1969-01-01

Creator: Theodore Elliot

Access: Open access

"Catalogue [published] on the occasion of an exhibition [at Bowdoin] of Shaker art, furniture, and objects, mostly of Maine manufacture, now at Sabbathday Lake"--Foreword

Date: 1927-01-01

Creator: Louis Clinton Hatch

Access: Open access

The History of Bowdoin College (1927), by Louis Clinton Hatch, is the most detailed history of the College for the period from the College’s founding in 1794 until 1927. It is especially useful in documenting College traditions and curricular developments, and tangentially in recording social life in Brunswick.

Date: 2009-10-26

Creator: Carole S Cory

Access: Open access

Biographial Note

Carole Cory was born September 14, 1970, in Nashua, New Hampshire, to Mitchell staffer Gayle (Fitzgerald) Cory and Donald Bruce Cory. Buzz Fitzgerald was her uncle and Gayle Cory’s brother. She worked for Senator Paul Wellstone between 1997-2002. At the time of this interview, she was systems administrator for U.S. Senator Patty Murray.

Summary

Interview includes discussion of: family background and connection to Maine; extensive discussion of her mother’s (Gayle Cory’s) family, childhood and positions with Senators Muskie and Mitchell in the U.S. Senate and her time as postmaster of the Senate Post Office; Gayle Cory’s illness and funeral; descriptions of the Hart and Russell Senate buildings; and changes in Senate security post-9/11.

Date: 2008-11-26

Creator: Joan S Pedersen

Access: Open access

Biographial Note

Joan (Speed) Pedersen was born on February 11, 1940, in Boston, Massachusetts. Her mother was a legal secretary for an attorney’s office and her father worked in distribution for Firestone Tire. She grew up in West Roxbury, a heavily Irish Catholic part of Boston. She married and moved to Cape Cod, and later to Maine. From 1982-1984, she worked in Senator Mitchell’s field office in Lewiston, Maine, serving constituents. She later worked for Senator William S. Cohen and Representative John E. Baldacci.

Summary

Interview includes discussion of: growing up in Boston in the 1940s and 1950s; work as a caseworker in Senator Mitchell’s field office; heart transplant case for a veteran; gun control and abortion issues dealt with in the office; the relationships among Mitchell’s staff; Senator Mitchell’s reputation; Pedersen’s interactions with the Senator Mitchell; anecdote about her teenage daughter answering her phone when the Mitchell called; interaction between the Washington, D.C. staff and the Maine staff; daughter’s work in Northern Ireland; increased workload for caseworkers when Mitchell became majority leader; arrival of computers in the office; roles of the press secretary and the scheduler; state staff’s serving as the Mitchell’s eyes and ears; office security; transition to working for Senator Cohen after Mitchell left the Senate; Mitchell’s and Cohen’s working relationship; Mitchell’s qualifications for playing a role in the new administration; the value of bipartisanship and how Maine politicians have exemplified it; Mitchell’s confidence in his staff; and Pedersen’s feelings about having worked for Mitchell.

Date: 2009-11-24

Creator: Brett O'Brien

Access: Open access

Biographial Note

Brett O’Brien was born on January 27, 1963, in Inglewood, California, to William and Rosalie O’Brien. He spent most of his youth in San Diego and attended Harvard, graduating in 1985. He worked for the American University in Cairo, Egypt, completed a master’s program at the London School of Economics, and then worked at the Congressional Research Service in foreign affairs and national defense. He worked for Congressman Jim Bates from San Diego, California, as a legislative assistant in foreign affairs. He began working for George Mitchell on the Democratic Policy Committee as a researcher and writer, which also included being an assistant to the Senate majority leader’s aides.

Summary

Interview includes discussion of: O’Brien’s educational background; his interest in international relations; working at the Congressional Research Service; working on the Senate Democratic Policy Committee and meeting Mitchell; Defense Authorization Bill; Mitchell’s addressing Maine issues, such as Bath Iron Works, from Washington; working on the Middle East portfolio, especially foreign assistance to Lebanon; the military base closure process and Loring Air Force Base, Brunswick, Charleston, and Long Beach bases; and Mitchell’s decision-making process.

Date: 2021-01-01

Creator: Lily Andra McVetty

Access: Access restricted to the Bowdoin Community