Bowdoin College

September 10, 2013

With the possibility of rain today we decided to visit Bowdoin College and check out the Peary-MacMillan Arctic Museum.  

Bowdoin College, founded in 1794, is small--1700 students.  Famous graduates include Nathanial Hawthorne and William Wadsworth Longfellow, Franklin Pierce, 14th President of the United States, Robert Peary, Alfred Kinsey of human sexuality and gender research fame, and George Mitchell, class of 1974.  

You have heard of Robert Peary, one of the first people to reach the true North Pole.  He was a graduate of Bowdoin College, class of 1877.  Donald MacMillan, also a Bowdoin grad, class of 1898, was also a member of the polar exploration party.  But, the real hero of the expedition was Matthew Henson, a black man who was Peary's right hand.  Mr. Henson could fix anything, solve logisitical problems, communicate with the native population, handle the dogs pulling the sledges, and  Peary flatly stated that he could not have made the expedition without Mr. Henson.  And, Matthew Henson was the real first person to set foot on the North Pole.

The museum offers an extensive collection of artifacts from the Peary expedition, including one of the original sledges used to transport food and equipment, scientific tools as well as native tools, Inuit art and religious icons, face masks, and a huge, stuffed polar bear.  Inuit religious beliefs and their ideas about the balance of nature and man are presented.  There was also a very interesting display of how the arctic ice cap has grown and shrunk over the centuries.

After visiting the Arctic Museum we strolled across the campus to the Art Museum.  The featured artist was Maurice Prendergast, 1858-1924.  The theme of the display is "By the Sea" and Prendergast paints very busy pictures of crowds of people strolling along boardwalks, sitting on beaches, wading, playing and swimming.  I liked his watercolors better than his oils, but Don found his work too busy for his taste.  It was interesting to see the progression in Prendergast's work as he became friends with Cezanne and began to practice some of Cezanne's style and impressionist techniques. http://www.bowdoin.edu/art-museum/exhibitions/2013/prendergast.shtml

The museum offers an extensive collection of Assyrian, Egyptian, Greek, Roman, and Byzantine objects as well as a large collection of colonial and Federal portraits, with presidential portraits of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison by Gilbert Stuart and works by Robert Feke, John Singleton Copley, Joseph Blackburn, and Rembrandt Peale. It also includes works by 19th- and 20th-century American artists such as Mary Cassatt, Thomas Eakins, John Sloan, Rockwell Kent, Marsden Hartley, and Andrew Wyeth.  

The Bowdoin College Museums turned out to be far more that we expected and we thoroughly enjoyed our day there.