Company Profile

Brick Store Museum
Company Overview
Founded in 1936, the Brick Store Museum's mission is to preserve the heritage of the Kennebunks for year-round residents, seasonal visitors and future generations through the collection, preservation, interpretation and exhibition of its material culture. The museum complex, located within the heart of a National Register Historic District, contains five historical buildings dating from 1810 to 1860. Among the Museum's more than 70,000 objects are extensive archival collections, early American fine and decorative arts, maritime artifacts, and objects dating from the region's earliest settlements to the present day.
Company History
The Brick Store Museum was founded in Kennebunk, Maine, in 1936 by Edith Cleaves Barry (1884-1969), an artist, patron of the arts and world traveler. The museum's original home was in the second story of a brick, general store which Barry had inherited through her great-grandfather, but she quickly expanded the institution to encompass five 19th-century commercial buildings on Main Street. The museum was incorporated in 1940. The museum expanded to year-round operations in 1971 and acquired its first professional director in 1976. The museum was first accredited by the American Association of Museums in 1978 and was subsequently reaccredited in 1986 and again in 1997; it is currently (2010) in the midst of its next reaccreditation process. The Brick Store Museum is among only approximately 11 accredited museums in Maine and approximately 770 accredited museums out of approximately 17,000 museums nationally.