Enjoy a colorful tour of historic wallpaper with Peggy Wishart, Americana Foundation Assistant Registrar at Historic New England, on July 12, at 3 p.m. in the Nickels-Sortwell House barn. Learn about New England wallpaper evolution, how to tell the difference between block-printed paper and later machine prints, or a 20th-century reproduction wallpaper and its 19th century original. Nickels-Sortwell House is located at 121 Main Street in Wiscasset. The barn entrance is on Federal Street. Admission is $5 for members of Historic New England, $10 for nonmembers. Pre-registration is recommended. To reserve a place, call 207-882-7169 or visit www.historicnewengland.org.

Historic New England began collecting wallpapers in 1911, when William Sumner Appleton, who founded the organization, added 39 wallpaper samples to the collection. Today, Historic New England's extensive wallpaper collection contains more than 6,000 individual samples of wallpaper, historic photographs of wallpaper in situ, and ephemera related to the wallpaper industry. The collection is one of the largest and best documented in the nation with extraordinary depth, including a complete range of designs available from the 18th century to the 20th century.

In addition to papers that came off the walls of buildings, the collection includes wallpapers used to line trunks, cover bandboxes, and decorate fireboards. Recent additions include the Waterhouse Archive of Historic Wallpapers, 2,000 samples collected by Dorothy S. Waterhouse, founder of Waterhouse Wallhangings, a company that specialized in reproducing historic wallpaper designs.

For a full program calendar and more information on its collection and 36 historic house museums across five states, visit www.historicnewengland.org.