Maine’s vegetarian history runs deep through time, yet the story of this plant-based past remains ignored and untold within the state’s conventional historical record. Since 2020, I've been engaged in the Maine Vegetarian History Project to recover this lost past. My work to unearth this history has revealed a wide range of vegetarian people and events going back at least 300 years. These include 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 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 movement. 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.

Talks

Exhibitions

Publications

News coverage of the project

• Friendly Fire: Historical links between violence & eating animals, WMPG radio, April 10, 2024
• Diet & Riot: Vegetarianism in Maine with Avery Yale Kamila, Mainely History podcast, Feb. 17, 2024
• Vegan Action: Maine Veg History, Vegan Journal, Issue 4, 2023
• The History of Vegetarianism & The Good Life, International Vegetarian Union, Aug. 11, 2023.
• The oft-invisible history of a movement that didn't even have a name! Journalist Avery Yale Kamila on Maine's scrubbed veg history, women, farm girl life, and being served a friend for dinner, Vegan Posse podcast, May 26, 2023.
• Speaker series addresses life in troubled times, Penobscot Bay Press, May 25, 2023.
• Free Research Guide to U.S. Vegan History Released by The Vegan Museum, Vegan Magazine, Dec. 24, 2022.
• Free research guide to U.S. vegan history released by The Vegan Museum, International Vegetarian Union, Dec. 10, 2022.
• Journalist and Historian Avery Yale Kamila, Vedge Your Best podcast, Oct. 25, 2022.
• Hidden vegan history in non-veg cookbook, International Vegetarian Union, Aug. 15, 2022.
• Vegetarianism in Maine in 1854, Vegetarian Resource Group, May 10, 2021.
• Vegetarian History, Main Street Vegan podcast, July 22, 2020.
• America's First Milk Was Vegan Milk, American Vegan Society, Nov. 14, 2020.
• Wabanaki Enjoying Nut Milk and Butter for Centuries, Atowi Project, Nov. 8, 2020.

Maine Sunday Telegram history columns

Contact information 

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