Maine Vegetarian History Project: Recovering the vegetarian movement's buried past in the Pine Tree State

Maine Vegetarian History Project

Maine’s vegetarian history runs deep through time, yet for centuries the story of this plant-based past remained ignored within the state’s conventional historical record. This has begun to change. Since 2020, when I started the Maine Vegetarian History Project, others in Maine have begun to explore and embrace this lost history. In 2024, the Maine Historical Society in Portland opened a first-of-its-kind exhibition of this vegetarian history, which includes intriguing vegan meals eaten in Maine hundreds of years ago and details of the state’s lengthy involvement in the worldwide vegetarian movement, which stretches back through time more than 2,500 years.  

My research suggests many other American states also have as-yet untold vegetarian histories waiting for researchers to recover. Often, the history of vegetarianism is incorrectly categorized as a "fad" or a "diet." But vegetarianism is neither a fad nor a diet but rather a social change movement that seeks to modify the human relationship with animals. Like other social change movements, such as civil rights and feminism, mainstream interest in vegetarianism waxes and wanes throughout history. Scholars have referred to these upswings in mainstream vegetarian interest as health reform cycles, clean living cycles, or food protest cycles. We're living in one right now. However, even when mainstream culture ignores vegetarianism, vegetarians continue to be active and the social movement continues to exist. The Maine Vegetarian History Project aims to uncover this buried past within the geography of a single state and contextualize it within the broader national and international movements. I welcome calls, emails, and messages from those working to unearth buried history, who have information to share about Maine's rich vegetarian past, or anyone else interested in this project.

Maine's Vegan & Vegetarian Food Map

I created this Google map using publicly-available mapping tools to visualize how contemporary plant-based restaurants, businesses and affiliated sites fit within the Maine landscape, including where they are absent and where they cluster. As of 2023, Kittery is the state's statistical plant-based hot spot with the most plant-based businesses per capita: https://www.pressherald.com/2023/08/20/vegan-food-businesses-thrive-in-kittery/ 

Maine's Vegan & Vegetarian Food Map: bit.ly/MaineVeganMap

~ The Google map below may take a moment to load. ~

Maine Vegetarian History Project

Publications

300 Years of Maine's Untold Vegetarian History, by Avery Yale Kamila. (Portland, Maine), 2024. Vegetarian meals flavor America's culinary past, yet the history of this cuisine is little known. These collected columns from Maine journalist Avery Yale Kamila explore the vegetarian movement's ties to riots in the 1830s, a 19th century activist newspaper and the 1970s back-to-the-land movement. Reaching back 300 years, Maine's Untold Vegetarian History features stories of Mainers who changed what vegetarians eat and opened access to plant-based food. Published in conjunction with the first-of-its-kind exhibition of Maine's vegetarian history on view at the Maine Historical Society. Available for the sale at the Maine Historical Society bookstore, 489 Congress St., Portland, and in select library collections, including the Portland Public Library, https://portlandlibrary.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S77C1791180

The Vegan Museum historical vegetarian research guide, 2022, compiled by Avery Yale Kamila. The museum hopes the guide will aid others in researching U.S. vegetarian history, where past scholarship has been scant. veganmuseum.org/resource-guide-1

Maine's Hidden Vegan & Vegetarian History: Learn the secret plant-based past excluded from the Pine Tree State's official history, by Avery Yale Kamila. XPress Copy (Portland, Maine), 2022. Available for the sale at the Maine Historical Society bookstore, 489 Congress St., Portland, and in select library collections, including the Maine Historical Society's Brown Library, the Portland Public Library's Portland Room, and the American Antiquarian Society library in Worcester, Massachusetts. 

"A Brief Vegetarian History of Maine," by Avery Yale Kamila. Maine Community Cookbook, Volume Two, Margaret Hathaway and Karl Schatz, ed. Islandport Press (Yarmouth, Maine), 2022. https://www.islandportpress.com/product-page/maine-community-cookbook-volume-2

Exhibitions

Maine's Untold Vegetarian History, September 10, 2024 to May 17, 2025, Maine Historical Society, 489 Congress St., Portland, Maine. Avery Yale Kamila co-curated with John Babin, author and Maine Historical Society Visitor Services Manager. https://www.mainehistory.org/all-exhibitions/maines-untold-vegetarian-history-exhibit/

America's Hidden Meals: The History of Vegetarianism in the U.S., an online story map exhibition that went live Dec. 10, 2023, hosted by The Vegan Museum, Chicago, Illinois. https://veganmuseum.org/vegetarian-history-in-the-us  Avery Yale Kamila was one of four curators who co-wrote the exhibition. 

CODE RED: Climate, Justice & Natural History Collections, March 17-December 30, 2023, Maine Historical Society, 489 Congress St., Portland, Maine. https://www.mainehistory.org/all-exhibitions/code-red/  Exhibition advisor Avery Yale Kamila wrote two wall panels about the connections between climate, animal agriculture, and pathogenic disease.
View the panels online:
Eating lower on the food chain,  https://www.mainememory.net/sitebuilder/site/3278/page/5201/display?popup=1      
Vegetarians and zoonosis,  https://www.mainememory.net/sitebuilder/site/3279/page/5202/display?popup=1

News coverage of the project

Talks

Maine's Untold Vegetarian History: A talk with the curators, Sept. 30, 2024, 7 p.m., a virtual talk with co-curators Avery Yale Kamila and John Babin, Maine Historical Society, 489 Congress St., Portland, Maine. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxEQWxyJpGI

Vegetarianism & The Good Life, July 30, 2023, 4 p.m., talk by Avery Yale Kamila, Good Life Center Summer Speaker Series, The Good Life Center, 372  Harborside Road, Brooksville, Maine. 
Read about the presentation, which explored The History of Vegetarianism & The Good Life, in this report from the International Vegetarian Union.

300 Years of Vegetarianism in Maine, June 21, 2023, 6:30 p.m., talk by Avery Yale Kamila, Harrison Village Library, 4 Front St., Harrison, Maine.

300 Years of Vegetarianism in Maine, April 18, 2023, 7 p.m., talk by Avery Yale Kamila, Buxton-Hollis Historical Society, 100 Main St., Buxton, Maine.
Watch a video of Avery Yale Kamila's presentation of 300 years of Maine vegetarian history for the Buxton-Hollis Historical Society. 

300 Years of Hidden Vegan & Vegetarian History in Maine, October 29, 2022, talk by Avery Yale Kamila, Maine VegFest, Portland, Maine.

Maine Sunday Telegram history columns

Open access versions of these columns are accessible from the top navigation menu

Father Sebastian Rale may have been Maine’s first vegetarian, Maine Sunday Telegram (Portland, Maine), June 23, 2024.

The opening of Good Day Market in 1970 ignited Portland’s vegetarian food scene, Maine Sunday Telegram (Portland, Maine), May 12, 2024.

Nearly 150 years ago, a Seventh Day Adventist leader had a vision about vegetarianism, Maine Sunday Telegram (Portland, Maine), February 20, 2022.

Nearly 200 years ago, the lectures of a celebrity vegetarian visiting Portland caused a riot, Maine Sunday Telegram (Portland, Maine), June 27, 2021.

A 19th-century Portland newspaper an early advocate for a vegetarian diet, Maine Sunday Telegram (Portland, Maine), February 14, 2021.

Americans have been enjoying nut milk and nut butter for at least 4 centuries, Maine Sunday Telegram (Portland, Maine), November 8, 2020.

Exactly 45 years ago, Maine hosted a historic 2-week conference for vegetarians, Maine Sunday Telegram (Portland, Maine), August 16, 2020.

Embrace of vegetarian diets in Maine predates statehood, Maine Sunday Telegram (Portland, Maine), May 24, 2020.

A meat-free diet in Maine is nothing new, Maine Sunday Telegram (Portland, Maine), March 29, 2020.

Maine back-to-the-land leader Helen Nearing’s cookbook makes meatless eating simple, Maine Sunday Telegram (Portland, Maine), March 30, 2016.

Maine woman founded church, converted followers to vegetarianism, Maine Sunday Telegram (Portland, Maine), May 13, 2015.  

Contact information 

Avery Yale Kamila 
PO Box 4242
(Packages: 622 Congress St., #4242)
Portland, ME 04101
207-780-0915
avery.kamila@gmail.com

Maine Sunday Telegram Vegan Kitchen newspaper column
https://www.pressherald.com/foodanddining/vegan-kitchen/

Social Media links 
www.instagram.com/averyyalekamila
www.facebook.com/averyyalekamila
www.linkedin.com/in/avery-yale-kamila-a964b020
https://beyondanimal.com/user/profile/view/AveryKamila
 

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