1922 — The Bowdoin Orient reports Lieutenant Richard Schoslberg, Class of 1918, arrives by plane from Framingham, Mass., being the first, “as far as is known,” to visit the College by airplane.
In his latest column, John Cross ’76 recalls a tumultuous spring on campus 139 years ago when President Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain squared off against the freshman, sophomore, and junior classes during the Drill Rebellion of 1874.
When Joshua Chamberlain of the Class of 1852 became Bowdoin’s 6th president in 1871 he initiated a number of changes, not the least of which was the introduction of a mandatory program of military drill in 1872. Brevet Major General Chamberlain had seen many men killed during the Civil War due to poor military training and inexperience on the part of officers whose service rank derived from their status as college graduates rather than from their knowledge of military tactics. The federal government supported similar initiatives at about twenty colleges and universities in the early 1870s, pre-dating the establishment of Reserve Officer Training programs (ROTC) by 40 years. President Chamberlain was given his choice of available U.S. Army officers to head up Bowdoin’s Department of Military Tactics and Science, and he selected Major Joseph P. Sanger, an artillery officer and Civil War veteran.
Maine Senators Margaret Chase Smith and R. Owen Brewster, 1948
Maine State Archivist David Cheever has announced that the George J. Mitchell Department of Special Collections & Archives at Bowdoin College will receive $1,000 to digitize more than 100 Brewster family home movie reels in order to preserve them and to make them more accessible to researchers.
These 16mm films, many with Owen Brewster behind the lens or in the frame, were taken between the 1930s and the early 1960s, and only recently were uncovered and acquired by the College. Read more.
A Roman senate meeting in Michael Nerdahl’s class “The Republic of Rome and the Evolution of Executive Power” (Illustration credit: Abby McBride)
“All in favor?” says Lucius Manlius, surveying a sea of raised hands in the Roman senate. “Thus granted. Sweet.”
Manlius, a.k.a. Bowdoin senior Luke Lamar, was recently elected as consul by his fellow senators—otherwise known as the students of Classics 214, “The Republic of Rome and the Evolution of Executive Power.” The students are immersed in a month-long simulation of the Roman senate of 190-187 B.C., in the aftermath of the Second Punic War. As it happens, today’s biggest buzz is that the dreaded Hannibal was recently spotted in the east.
Taught by Lecturer in Classics Michael Nerdahl, Classics 214 might just be the world’s most lively history and government class. After spending an introductory segment learning the basics of Roman government, the students have been assigned Roman identities, complete with hometowns, ages, offices, family trees, patrons, and clients.
Theodore Roosevelt and the American Political Tradition (University Press of Kansas, 2012), the latest book by Jean Yarbrough, professor of government and Bowdoin’s Gary M. Pendy Sr. Professor of Social Sciences, has won the American Political Science Association’s prestigious Richard E. Neustadt Award for the best book published on the U.S. presidency in 2012.
“I was thrilled that the awards committee chose a book that examines the political thought of one of our most iconic presidents,” says Yarbrough. “For anyone wishing to understand how the American political tradition has unfolded over the past hundred years, Theodore Roosevelt is a good place to start.”
The Richard E. Neustadt Award For the Best Book on the Presidency is among the most prestigious awards recognizing scholarly contributions to political science in the nation.
This summer, August 8-11, Bowdoin College will present the Alumni College program, “The Afterlife of the American Civil War” — a study of culture, music, art and poetry following the Civil War.
As a part of this sesquicentennial commemoration, the George J. Mitchell Department of Special Collections & Archives is writing a blog, On this Day in Civil War History…, as a daily reminder of what occurred 150 years ago. The posts derive from Special Collections’s historical resources: a passage from a letter to a soldier, a soldier’s diary entry, a note of condolence, a daily surgeon’s morning report, an account of activities on the home front.
Thursday [April 30, 1863]. In forenoon finished the case of Theodate Melancon….I felt obliged to vote “Not guilty” on both charged & specifications, there appearing to be ground for a very reasonable doubt in regard to his guilt, & I felt bound to give him the benefit of it.” — From the Diary of Isaac Winslow Case [Miscellaneous Manuscripts Collection]
A Brunswick company is collaborating with the feds to preserve the past. “They’ve got their hands on some historic pieces of furniture that have a connection with a now infamous chapter in the Government’s history,” WGME reports.
In 2010, Chelsea Gross ’13 participated in an archaeological dig of Joshua Chamberlain’s Maine Street house with her archaeology class. The excavation, led by Professor of Anthropology Scott MacEachern, unearthed about 7,000 artifacts — far more than expected — and the findings inspired Gross to do more research and write an honors project on the untold stories of the Chamberlain household.
Michael Kolster, associate professor of art at Bowdoin, has been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship to support his photographic project “Take Me to the River,” a collection of unique glass plate photographs that depict American rivers as amalgams of human and natural forces. The award was announced today in The New York Times.
Gary M. Pendy Sr. Professor of Social Sciences and Professor of Government and Legal Studies at Bowdoin College Jean Yarbrough speaks with Professor of Government Paul Franco about her new book, “Theodore Roosevelt and the American Political Tradition.” In the book, Yarbrough “provides a searching examination of TR’s political thought, especially in relation to the ideas of Washington, Hamilton, and Lincoln—the statesmen TR claimed most to admire,” according to the University Press of Kansas.
Yarbrough teaches political philosophy and American Political Thought, and has twice received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities. She is the author of “American Virtues: Thomas Jefferson on the Character of a Free People” and has edited “The Essential Jefferson.”
