 Good noon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to our program called Co-Discoverer Matthew Henson, Breaking Barriers of Polar Exploration During a Time of Segregation and Racism. If you are African-American in the second half of the 19th century, life was probably difficult for you, although not much easier than the previous 250 years under slavery. This was the Jim Crow era, a time when state and local laws were introduced to enforce racial discrimination and segregation. To African-Americans, these laws were significant barriers to dreaming, much less achieving life goals and the hope of a better existence. These were the barriers that Matthew Alexander Henson had to face from the day he was born. Joining me for discussion of his life and his achievements is a group of distinguished historians. It's my pleasure to introduce you to, first of all, Lacey Flint, Archivist and Curator of Research Collections at the Explorers Club in New York City. How you doing, Lacey? All right. Next we have- How great they are. There you go. Charlie Cadolacos, the Exhibitions Research and Content Editor from the Berkshire Museum in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. Charlie. Nice to be here. There you go. And also we have Jason Vivori, Collections Manager, also from the Berkshire Museum. How you doing, Jason? Good. Nice to be here. All right. And we have Genevieve Lemoine, Curator Registrar from the Peary McMillan Arctic Museum at Boating College in Brunswick, Maine. And we're happy to have all of these panelists here today. It's nice to be here. Great. We'll start this out by talking about Matthew Henson's earlier life. He was born in, on August the 8th, 1866, in Nashville, Maryland, to sharecropper parents who were freed black Americans before the Civil War. Matthew's parents were subjected to attacks by the Ku Klux Klan and white supremacist groups who terrorized southern freedmen and former free people of color after the Civil War. Henson had an older sister and two younger sisters. His mother died when he was seven. His father remarried. And when he died, Matthew went to live with an uncle in Washington, D.C. He left school at the age of 12 and went to Baltimore where he ultimately became a cabin boy on a merchant ship called the Katie Hines. The ship's captain, Captain Charles, took Henson under his wing and taught him to read and write as well as seamanship and navigation. After Captain Charles died, Henson later returned to Washington and worked as a sales clerk at a clothing department store. And one of his customers was Robert E. Peary, who in November of 1887 hired Henson as a personal valet. Now, at that time, Peary was in the U.S. Navy as a civil engineer working on a survey in Nicaragua for a proposed canal, which later wasn't built in Nicaragua, it was built in Panama, and he took Henson along as his valet. Peary was impressed by Henson and subsequently recruited him as his first man on his Arctic expeditions. So now let's go to the panel here and talk about your early life a bit. First of all, Henson was born now and raised in a post-Civil War era. How difficult would it have been for an African-American to dream big and expect that those dreams might come true? Anyone is free to answer, don't be shy. It's all speculation. I mean, I'm not a 19th century historian by any means, but to me it would seem almost impossible for a young man in his position to have had the kinds of hopes and dreams to accomplish what he inevitably essentially did accomplish. But I'm always personally impressed with his decision as whatever he was, 12 years old, to get on a ship and get away. And I think that was maybe one of the most important decisions he ever made. Anybody else have any thoughts on that? It's pretty young to be faced with these kinds of decisions. Now, his early life was fractured. His mother died when he was very young. Then his father remarried. He had a couple of kids and then he died. He went to live with an uncle and then he went on board a ship sailing around the world, all at a very, very young age. In your opinion, how might these circumstances have impacted Hansen's expectations for the future? I think that just the experience of leaving America and traveling around the world probably really helped open his eyes to the different kinds of experiences that people can have outside of the Jim Crow life that he was living stuck in America. And that probably helped him to really think about what he wanted to do. Yeah, and it's also important to note, sorry, Jair, I didn't mean to cut you off. But I think it's also important to note, he was born in 1866. That's really only one year post-Civil War. So even calling it the post-Civil War era, although very accurate in terms of years, is really hard in terms of mentality and what's going on at that time culturally and legally everything that's happening. And then again, he was 12 when this happened. I mean, his father remarried. His stepmother was allegedly abusive. He had a really tough childhood. So to then say, you know what? I have to make something of myself, make a name for myself and kind of get on this ship. This feels like the only opportunity potentially that I could have and how often is something like this going to come around. So to make the most of that is also incredibly impressive just for anyone who's 12 years old to say, this is what I'm going to do. I'm going to join this ship. And luckily Captain Childs was fantastic, taught him so much of what he knew and also really became that father figure for him, which was a huge, huge piece of the puzzle there for his future success as well. She went up and now, of course, he probably didn't know, hence, and didn't know that Captain Childs was going to kind of adopt him, if you will, and be a positive influence on him. So probably in a way, he caught a break by becoming a cabin boy there. Now, then he was hired by Peary to be basically a valet or, I don't know, not a butler, but would you, do you think that that was considered a good position for a black man then? Was he, did Hanson catch a break there as well? Would that have been something about optimistic for him to get that job? What do you think about that? I think he knew, I think Peary knew when he hired Hanson that he would be taking him to Guatemala, or sorry, Nicaragua. Nicaragua. And I've always thought, you know, Hanson having had extensive experience traveling the world and then being stuck working in a shop in Baltimore, that would have been appealing to him. I don't, you know, in terms of work or pay or job security or whatever, I have no idea whether it would have been seen as a step up. But to me, it talks to Hanson's vision isn't quite the right word. But, you know, his openness to new experiences and his, you know, his love of being out of the United States to some extent. And just, yeah, his willingness to try new things and to just be out in the world. So basically, you know, with a tough and unfortunate in many ways upbringing, it turns out that Hanson probably finds himself as he is now connected with Peary as being luckier than maybe most of his contemporary African-American males during that time period. Yeah. I think he also made his own luck though, to some extent by being willing to take, like at 12 years old, going to see is a big risk. And he took that risk working for Peary and unknown going into Central America. That was a risk and he took it. And so in a sense, he made his own luck and his, I don't know, he's, you know, he's a very smart guy, a very skillful guy. And that I think must have also shone through all his experiences. It's, yeah. Yeah, I'm sorry. Oh, I was just gonna say he was more than lucky. He was, yeah. So let's follow his luck now to the next phase of his life from the time he met Peary and the two of them go to Greenland. That was in 1891 and in Greenland, you know, Henson, you know, he learned to trade with the Inuit people and learning Inuit language. Now, the northern Greenland Inuit, formerly known as the Polar Eskimos, refer to themselves as Inuguit. And Henson, while he was there, was very skilled driving dog sleds, training dog teams in the traditional indigenous way. He was also a skilled craftsman. He learned to hunt, learned to build igloos and he adapted to the Inuguit way of life. He had a good relationship apparently with the people there because they called him Maveri Pollock, the kind one. Now, Henson and Peary made seven voyages to the Arctic all the period of 23 years. They spent a total of 18 years on expeditions together and the journeys covered thousands and thousands of miles in dog sleds, ultimately reaching the farthest north point of any Arctic expedition up to 1908, 1909. Now, on one of his trips back home, Henson in 1891 marries Eva Flint, but the marriage did not survive because of the long periods of separation and they divorced in 1897. He later married Lucy Ross in New York City in 1907 and they had no children. But now back in Greenland during his expeditions they are both Henson and Peary, fathered children with Inuguit women. Henson's woman known as Akatinguah, if I'm pronouncing that correctly, he fathered his only child's son named Anuaka. Somebody's going to correct me. Anuaka. Say it again. Anuaka. Anuaka. Yep. Well, I might not pronounce it right, but he was born in 1906 and his mother, Anuaka, and now Akatinguah here. Say it again, please. Akatinguah was his mother. Akatinguah, yes. And that was the only child she had with Henson and Henson's only direct descendants. So now let's, we have some exhibits and some slides and things to show you now. So I'm going to turn it back to Ginny. And what have you got for us, Ginny? Well, Leif, we have the first slide. This is a photograph that I'd like a lot. It's from the 1890s, so from the earlier expeditions. And there you can see Matthew standing among a group of Inuit men and boys with a few, there's a few women in the background there on the left side. And he's wearing a wool jacket, but underneath you can see he's completely dressed in traditional Inuit clothing. He's got on polar bear fur pants like all the other men and seal skin, chemics and boots that have been made, but all of that clothing has been made by Inuit women. All the people on Perry's Expeditions did dress mostly in fur clothing while they were there. But Henson seems to have taken to it like a, I don't know, like a duck to water. It's, he's clearly very comfortable among the people. And even though this was early on in his time in Greenland, he's at home and they are at home with him. I think that's what I get out of this photograph. It's, he was a very personable guy and people there still talk about him in a very loving way. You know, he was called Mary Pollock, the kind one, and everyone still remembers him that way. So he's by no means forgotten in the community even though it was over a hundred years ago that he was last there. If we want to move to the next slide, let's see, there we go. So this is another image that I like very much. This one was taken in Battle Harbor in Newfoundland and Labrador in 1909 when the North Pole Expedition was on its way home. And so this is a press photograph. You can see four members of the expedition dressed in different kinds of furs sitting on a sledge on board the ship, the Roosevelt. And there's lots and lots to talk about with this photograph and we'll talk about some of these things in more detail later. The sledges we'll talk about and particularly the clothing that Henson is wearing. You'll see images of that in a little bit. To me, what attracts me to this photograph is that it shows both the kind of clothing that the men wore on the long dog sledge trip up to the North Pole. So the guy in the middle or up there, you can see he's wearing a very light sheepskin parka which Piri had the Inuit women make. So the men wouldn't get too hot while they were working in minus 40 degree weather pushing sledges over big ridges of ice. So that was a working clothing. And then on the left-hand side, McMillan and on the right-hand side, Bob Bartlett are wearing caribou for parkas which the men would have used to sleep in. They would have changed out of their sweaty sheepskin parkas into dry caribou parkas which are warmer for when they're sleeping on the trail. And there's Matthew Henson sitting on the sledge wearing a beautiful fox fur parka. This is a traditional Inuit parka that was made for him probably by Akatingwa. It's the kind of parka she would have made for her brothers, husbands, fathers. All the Inuit men wore these fox fur parkas for warmth or they wore, if they wanted something cooler, they'd wear a seal skin parka. They didn't usually wear caribou parkas. They never wore sheepskin parkas unless Piri gave them one, I guess. But he proudly wearing that beautiful, very traditional Inuit parka just talks a lot to me about how well integrated he was into that community. None of the other men had loving wives to make parkas for them, but he did. So that's one of the things I really like about that image. It's a kind of hidden message the public would not have recognized the importance of that particular style of clothing when they saw this image. But if you know anything about Matthew Henson, you can discern that message. If we want to move to the next slide, this is a photograph of Anoka. So after 1909, of course, Henson was never able to get back to Greenland. So he never saw Anoka again. But Donald McMillan, who you saw in the last picture, he continued to go into the Arctic up into the 1950s and he met Anoka lots of times and worked with him and took photographs of him. This photograph is from 1924. And we also know from correspondence we have in the archives here that Henson and McMillan stayed in contact. So there's no direct evidence, but we assume that McMillan was able to keep Matthew Henson apprised of how well Anoka was doing. He grew up to be a very successful hunter with his own children and he now has many descendants still living in the community. So this is a lovely portrait. McMillan took many portraits of people in the community and we have later pictures of Anoka as well going up into the 30s and 40s. So this is, we think, one way that Matthew could have had continued to have a little bit of contact with his son when he was himself was unable to return to the Arctic. And finally, the last, not the next slide. It's not the last slide by any means. There we go. This is about Henson and about the Inuit. So on the right hand side, you can see a model, a small model that was made as a souvenir of a traditional sledge from Northern Greenland. So it's made of wood. It's lashed together with seal skin. It's great for driving dogs over the sea ice. It's exactly what you need. And on the left, you can see the Hubbard sledge, which is one of the sledges that went to the North Pole with Peary. He then gave it to General Thomas Hubbard, who was one of his big backers, another Bowdoin graduate. So Hubbard donated it to Bowdoin College and it's still here. It was, of course, made by Matthew Henson. Most of the carpentry work on the expeditions was done by Henson. He had other people helping him, of course. He didn't do every single bit of work himself. And we can talk more about the sledges later because we'll see other photographs of them as well. The story I have about this one that I really like is a piece I recently found that Macmillan wrote but never published, describing how Henson was working on the sledges. And you can see it's a little easier to see in the model how they're lashed together with seal skin. And the Inwood Hunters making their own sledges, those lashings have to be very, very tight, of course, and they would use their teeth to pull on them, to tighten them. And Macmillan describes watching as Henson making these North Pole sledges did exactly that, tightened the lashings with his teeth. And then when he was finished, the elder Inwood Hunters came over and looked at his work, his handiwork, and nodded approvingly. And he'd done it right. He'd learned from them and he'd learned his lessons well. I don't want to go on too long. You can talk about all these things a lot and we can touch on these things in more detail later. So I'll hand it back to you, JR. All right, great. You know, one of the things that always fascinated me is that Henson was able to learn the, that native language, Inukton. Yeah. How difficult was that to learn? Did a lot of the polar explorers bother to learn a language? Not a lot. Here he could speak it not as fluently as Henson. Donald Macmillan learned to speak it as well, although people told me he had a funny accent and they used to tease him. They never said that about Henson. I don't know. It's, Inukton is, it is challenging for Westerners to learn because it's a very agglutinative language. So what we might say in one long sentence, they would say in one long word with a base word and a lot of suffixes and infixes and things like that. So it's, it's formed very differently. So it can be challenging, but certainly people do learn it and it seems sounds like Henson was good with languages as some lucky people are. How about you, Judy? Can you speak this language? No, I know a few words and names of animals, names of foods and things like that, but I cannot speak it. Now, Henson had a good relationship as we know with the Inugwit. I'm wondering your opinion. How does that compare with the typical white polar explorer who went up there? Did they treat the indigenous people essentially the same as, as Henson did? And, and was that a reciprocal relationship? Did they like those polar explorers as much? I think it varied to a great deal. You know, it, because their interpersonal relationships and, you know, Peary for instance was much more, he's a much more hierarchical person. He was more, I don't know, people were sometimes, they liked him, but they were frightened of him. They trusted him, but they weren't friends with him. Whereas Henson just fit into the community more. He, I don't know whether it was a combination of his personality and, you know, just as a, as a human being, and because people perhaps found him less threatening, they were more open to making, being a friend with him. A few others managed it. McMillan became friends with people, you know, once he learns the language. Before that, earlier explorers, no, nobody, no earlier explorers had any significant relationships that you would think of with the Inuit that could be considered friendly, but subsequently as, you know, into the 20th century, white people, you know, Americans, Canadians, British people working in the Arctic were more likely to establish friendships with the, the men and women they were working with, but nobody I think was ever quite as integrated into the community as Henson. Right. So, and I would actually attribute some of that later, those later explorers to Henson and his successful relationships because they were so strong and that, you know, really did come across so well as part of his legacy, you know, Bill Haumer, Stephenson, who was a little bit later, who's the 1920s completely credited his, credited his success in the Arctic with becoming friends with the Inuit and working with them. And it was because of Matthew Henson's lead that that happened. Now, Pyrrion and Henson made a lot of expeditions during this time. And so I'm curious, if Pyrrion and Henson had never actually gone to the North Pole in 1908-1909 trip, would they have been as famous? How important were these earlier expeditions that they took? And would they have been that noteworthy had they not done that final one in 1908-1909? Well, Henson, not so much. Pyrrion was very, you know, the newspapers followed all his expeditions throughout the early 20th century. So he was already pretty famous by 1908. And Henson, I think less so because of the nature of American society at that time. I don't think it would have, they would have had the enduring legacy. Perhaps, you know, they, his, the work would have more of, would have sort of faded a little bit more if there hadn't been the North Pole to attach it to. I don't know what others think. I would definitely agree with that. Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, they, so this is as a whole, this period is the Golden Age of Polar Exploration. People are pushing those boundaries of further North trying to be the first expedition to get there. Countries are mounting them and supporting them, you know, through government funding. So they final North Pole headline certainly helps. And one other question here. So both period Henson had a child with a Native woman. How typical was this of early Polar Explorers? Pretty typical. Yeah, there are certainly other, Stephenson, for example, had a family, Flaherty, a little later, he had a family. One of the Bartlets had a son in Northwest Greenland as well. And there's another, another man that people have told me was fathered by a Norwegian, but they didn't know who. And that's, you know, that's just within that Inuit community. So yeah, it's common. Did they, did they tend to keep up with the children that they had or were they like period Henson when it was time to go home? They just went home. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They just went home. They just went home. And just finally, before we go on, can you say a few words about the Inugud people themselves? I mean, how did they get to Greenland? How long were they there? Where did they come from? So population of Greenland is complicated, a little bit complicated. All of the Inuit originated in, you know, sort of the Bering Strait region. Greenland was first populated around 4500 years ago by migrants out of that area. And then around 800 years ago, another group of migrants came across and those are the direct ancestors of the contemporary Inuit. So they arrived in Greenland around 1200 AD. And basically they have been as far as we can tell in that area of Greenland and lots of other places in Greenland ever since then. There's some possibility that there was a break in occupation, but we haven't, archaeologically, we haven't really been able to identify it. So they originally came from, you know, Alaska, the Bering Strait area. They've been in Greenland for a very long time. Okay. And I'm sorry about my video camera that just went off on its own and will probably come back. It probably, you know, saves you from looking at my ugly mug here on the camera. So we'll just go from here for a while. So that moves us now to 1908, 1909. Piri is now mounting his final attempt to reach the North Pole. And this expedition was large. He, Piri wanted to establish a series of caches along the way, along the roots of the North so that they would have enough food and supplies to get there and get back. So when Piri and Henson board their ship, the Roosevelt's, they left Greenland August 18th, 1908. They were accompanied by 22 Inuguit men, 17 Inuguit women, 10 children, 246 dogs, 70 tons of whale meat, 50, the meat and blubber of 50 walruses. They had hunting equipment and had tons and tons of coal. And then on February 1909, Henson and Piri depart from their ship from Cape Sheridan on Ellesmere Islands. And they began laying the final trail and caching supplies in route to the North Pole. Now on that final stretch, Piri selects Henson and for Inuguit as part of that final team of six to make the final run at the pole. Before they got there, Piri could no longer continue on foot and he rode in a dog sled. He was having trouble because he had lost eight of ten of his toes to frostbite prior to this expedition. So he sat in the sledge and he sent Henson ahead to scout and then Henson later claims that he was the first to reach the North Pole. Now, when they came back, the claim by Piri's team that they reached the North Pole was widely debated in the newspapers at the time, as was the competing claim by Frederick Cook. The National Geographic Society, which I believe may have been a sponsor of this, as well as the Naval Affairs Subcommittee of the U.S. House of Representatives, both credited Piri's team with having reached the North Pole. But others remain doubtful. A reassessment of Piri's notebook by British Polar Explorer Wally Herbert in 1988 found it, quote, lacking an essential data on, quote, thus renewing doubts about Piri's claim. So that's a brief description of that ship to the North Pole that made them famous or made Piri famous at the time. We have some more exhibits to show you here. And so we'll turn it back over to Charlie. You want to take it here? Sure. So the Berkshire Museum has both the sledge, one of the sledges that made the final trip to the North Pole, as well as Henson's first suit. So this is the sledge that we're looking at right now. I think that, as Jenny was saying earlier, talking about like the lashing, so the sledge was designed by Piri and then built and maintained by Henson. And I think it really exemplifies the collaborative nature of this expedition in the combination of the traditional Inuit technique of the lashing, as opposed to using pins to withstand the harsh sea ice of the North Pole and then the slanted upstanders were in addition changed by were changed from just the straight upstanders by Piri, which gave the sledge more lifting capabilities. So they were able to transport up to I think 1200 pounds of supplies on just the single sledge. And we can move to the next slide. Look at the Henson first suit as well. Jason, if you want to talk a bit about the materials used here, that would be great. Yes. So the first suit, the parka is made of blue fox, which is a blue fox fur, which is a polymorph of the arctic fox. It's a variant of it. You can see underneath there is the flannel shirt that was underneath of the suit. And then of course the pants are polar bear and then the boots are seal skin. I think this one's really interesting having seen that picture earlier with Matthew Henson in it because you can see that this is the exact design. This is that suit from that image in an interesting piece. Is this the actual suit from that photo that he was wearing? I believe so. It is Matthew Henson suit. It was given by Matthew Henson to Zenas Crane. And we have some letters that between Zenas Crane and Matthew Henson were Henson things of first kindness and they had a visit and Zenas Crane had read his book and then Henson made a gift of the suit to Zenas Crane which came to the Berkshire Museum. It's great. Now I believe Lacey, you have some things to show us as well. I do. Yes. So I have the, I have the Explorers Club has the mittens that Henson wore. So if we can get that. I'm sorry. Did you, Jason and Charlie want to talk about this photo? So yeah, this is just us taking the suit out for some filming for filming that video that you just saw. It was most recently displayed along with the sledge. I believe last summer and when we were talking about exploration and just like human, the human drive to go to extreme places. And so it was really, it was a great experience to work on writing some more interpretation for that exhibition and kind of update the way we were framing the expedition and the importance of both Henson as well as the Inuit men and women who were really essential in having the expedition be successful. I would also comment where we're wearing disposable lab coats in the picture because the, well, the park are particularly is very soft and supple, which is very nice. It's been well maintained. But as happens with these older pieces like this, when you have skins that have maintained that a level of elasticity, a lot of it has to do with the fact they've been at some point treated with some sort of arsenic compound or something of that nature to protect it from, you know, infestation in the future. But we're just taking a little bit extra precaution because of that, we suspect there's some level of treatment to the piece when it arrived. Well, it looks great. Lacey, do you, do you have something else? Sure. Yeah. So these are the mittens that go with it and I can have the, if I could have the next slide, please. Thank you so much. So that's a photo. Here they are in reality. So you can see sort of the size. This is a seal skin mitten and Henson actually inscribed them worn by me to it, it of course, being the North Pole and he gifted them to the explorers club when he became a member here in 1937. So you can see this is sort of the, the exterior layer of course, seal skin being fantastic for waterproofing. And then you have more of the, the warm flare and this is the sort of the interior mitten, right with the seal fur and then the polar bear fur cuff. And these were actually just recently brought back from conservation. So we know there's no arsenic on them. They have been treated, which is why I don't need the protective suit in case anyone was worried about that. But yeah, I mean, it's, it's fantastic to see how they've held up and, you know, to sort of just think about that human experience of, you know, bringing these items with you, you know, and having them, having worked with and collaborated with the Inuit people to, to have created these items. The other thing that's important to note too, kind of back to the sledges is, you know, Henson writes that when you're doing these lashings, right, you can't wear these really cumbersome gloves or mittens or things like that. So you actually have to do it, you know, using your teeth A or B, you know, take your mittens off and do it without anything on. And of course, you're in the Arctic, it's freezing cold. So he would say, you know, you could really only lash one or two pieces before having to stick your hands back into your gloves and kind of regain that warmth to, to kind of complete the job. Again, just another sort of incredible thing when you're thinking about the logistics of planning for and actually executing an expedition. And up next, we see some lantern slides that are part of the Explorers Club collection. If I could get the next slide and this kind of shows you and I'll show you another slide as well. Some of the images that were taken in the field on the actual expedition itself. So the, the image of the map there, these I should also mention lantern slides. It's actually the first form of projected image. These are actually small glass slides that in many cases have been hand colored. So this is from our North Pole collection from that 1908, 1909 expedition. So the top image you see there in the corner is a map of the region. So if you're looking at the very, very top corner there, that's where Ellesmere Island is. It's hard because I can't really point to it for you on the map and I'm sure you can't really see it. But to give you some context, that's where they were to the left that ship. There is the SS Roosevelt and you can see it did get stuck in the ice. Ultimately, they had to wait a very long time before they could sail home from Cape Sabine. And then in the bottom corner, I think it's always really interesting to point out, you know, you can see Robert Perry there in the center with the mustache. And these members of the expedition team are dressed kind of in their formal gear, right? They're a nice formal where they're heading up embarking on this journey in really fairly normal regular clothes for the time. And again, that really speaks to preparedness. Very often explorers say, you know, there's no no bad conditions. You have to be prepared for everything, right? Really only bad gear and bad prep. What Robert Perry is wearing there is a great example of really bad gear and bad prep. You know, they're sort of just getting on in their Sunday best and there are so many examples of expeditions, early expeditions where the expedition teams actually died, frostbite, all of that because of their inappropriate gear and again speaks to Matthew Henson's spirit and his, you know, craftiness and skillfulness in realizing the Inuit people live here. They probably figured out what works and what doesn't. Let's learn from them. Let's live with them. So I would like to point that out as well. And if I could get the next slide, please. Thank you so much. I love this large photo, this larger photo here because you can see Henson. He's right there in the center sort of by that crack in the slide itself, but he's there in the center surrounded by the Inuit community and the members of that expedition team. And again, all dressed in very traditional clothing, speaking to that spirit of collaboration. You can see them again. He's eating with them that in that photo at the top there with the tent, you know, really embracing life with them. And then of course we've included a formal portrait of a sled dog because why not? There were so many of them on the expedition as well. And with that, I think. Yeah, thank you, Lacey. So now period on the on the on this last segment on his way to the North Pole of all of the expedition members here that that went with him. If he chooses Henson and four Nougat hunters, Utah, Gengua, Siglu and Oquia to accompany him on this final push. Why did he pick those guys, those five guys specifically to make that final dash? Well, I can jump in. I think he obviously he picked Henson. He gives conflicting reasons for picking picking Henson, but realistically, because he couldn't really function without Henson in the field. Both as an aid and as an interface between the Inuit because he had much better relationships with them and things like that. And he was an excellent dog sled driver. The other men he picked because they were the best. Also dog sled drivers, the best workers. Utah in particular had worked with him on many, many expeditions and I wouldn't say they were close, but they did have a very good working relationship and Utah later talked about the amount of respect that he had for Peary. And even though that they thought going to the North Pole was pretty pointless, you know, they had an understanding of that this was something Peary wanted to do and Peary would pay them well to do it with them. But yeah, he was the kind of person who would just he would find the best person for the job and get them to do the job. That was so they were best, you know, hunters, the best dogs, like drivers, the most healthy, you know, they hadn't injured themselves on the trail or anything like that. So, but it's been said that Peary chose them because he didn't want any other white polar explorers to go along with him. So, to what extent is that is that true? That yes, he was picking. He didn't want the best guys to go with him, but at the same time he wanted most of the fame for himself. Is that a fair evaluation that some people have? I certainly think that could be a fair assessment. It's certainly one of the reasons people claim he chose Henson. I mean, yes, I do believe he chose Henson because he was the best person for the job. Peary has a very long history of choosing him for that reason. But when you think about these these explorers, right, ego is absolutely part of it. So, you know, Bob Bartlett was the last to turn back. He turned back at 87 degrees north latitude. And you know, with him, I don't want to say out of the way, so to speak, but there could be really no other claim for Peary to say anybody else, you know, any other white man had had reached the pole first. It would have, you know, ostensibly been him because he was the only one up there at that point. And in terms of, you know, recognition and fame, at that point, Bartlett had certainly not equal recognition and fame as Peary. He was very, very young and early in his career. He would later gain significant recognition and, you know, there absolutely could have been some early perception from Peary that, you know, Bartlett could claim you could take could steal some of his thunder. Who's to say? But now after all these years together, Peary and Henson, the relationship changed forever on that trip. Does anyone want to speak to to that? Was it jealousy? Was it, you know, the fact that Henson claimed that he was there first? I mean, I mean, something definitely happened and changed him forever, I would say. I think there was a combination of things. One, Peary was, you know, he was very good at picking the best person for the job. But he was also, I think, historian Lyle Dick has described him as being very instrumentalist. That is, he would pick the best person and then when they weren't the best person anymore, he was done with them. And to some extent Henson's role once they got to the North Pole was over. He didn't, Peary did not need him anymore. And then there's the, you know, the argument that they had basically back in New York when Henson wanted to go on a lecture tour and to publish and things like that. And Peary did not want him to and Henson went ahead and did it anyways because he had, he needed the money. He didn't, you know, he had no job. Peary didn't need him anymore and he didn't have any job and in those days in, you know, at that point he was in New York, you know, his options were extremely limited. So there was an opportunity for him to make a living and he took it. And that was a real, Peary was extremely angry about that, I think. And that really, whatever divide was there before that just widened it. One other question on this segment of Henson's life and this expedition 1908-1909. So Dr. Frederick Cook says, well, he was there or before them, they were here before them. How strong was his case? You know, ultimately they said, they're shaking their heads, no. It wasn't a very strong claim. I mean, it was later, there's always going to be controversy over whether Peary and Henson actually made it to the pole. You know, it just will always exist. Right now the best we can do is say if they didn't actually get there, they got very, very close and certainly wore the closest. Cook's claim really, I don't want to say came out of nowhere, but essentially he kind of went up on this expedition and in terms of speed and how quickly he did it. You know, in terms of actual commentary from Matthew Henson that he had heard from Inuit who had been with Cook on the so-called North Pole, his so-called North Pole Discovery Expedition that they never lost sight of Elzmere Island, which isn't possible if you're heading to the North Pole. So, you know, there were a lot of factors in there that ultimately could discredit that claim and it ultimately was discredited. Granted, Peary had a lot to do with that in terms of sort of a smear campaign, if you want to say it that way. He certainly had the press going and, you know, was able to talk to Congress about it and sort of they ended up voting who got their first, you know, it was a really, really contentious time. But in terms of Cook's claim, back to the original question, it scientifically likely wasn't possible. Right. Let's then go on to the final segment of Henson's life here, post 1909. When he returns from the Pole in 1909, Henson is honored by dinners within the Black community, but during the following decades, Admiral Peary received many honors for leading the expedition to the Pole, but Henson's contributions were largely ignored. And in 1912, Henson published a memoir about his arctic explorations called a Negro Explorer at the North Pole. And in it, he describes himself as, quote, a general assistant, skilled, craftsperson, interpreter and laborer, unquote. He later, Henson later collaborates with the author Bradley Robinson in 1947 to write a biography, Dark Companion, which told more about his life. So Henson spent most of the next 30 years working on staff in the U.S. Customs House in New York, and he later gained a measure of attention and recognition. For example, in 1937, Henson was admitted as a member of the Explorers Club in New York City. In 1948, he was made an honorary member. In 1944, Congress awarded him and five other Peary Aids, duplicates of the Peary Polar Expedition Medal, a silver medal that was given to Peary, and Presidents Truman and Eisenhower both honored Henson. In March of 1955, Matthew Henson died in the Bronx at age 88 and was buried in Woodlawn Cemetery. He was survived by his wife, Lucy, and after she died in 1968, she was buried with him. And then 20 years later, in 1988, both their bodies were removed for internment in the Arlington National Cemetery. Thus bringing an end to a long and glorious life for Matthew Henson. We have, I think, a slide right here. Yeah, I think this is, is this your slide, Jenny? Do you want to? Yeah, this is a very early 20th century piece of ephemera. It's a cigarette card. They were these collectible cards that came packaged with cigarettes in those days. And this company, Hassan Tobacco, had a series, the world's greatest explorers that had, you know, Henry Hudson and Greeley and lots and lots of different explorers of the day, usually the names we associate with big expeditions. And then the period was in there, of course, and then there was Matthew Henson and he's the only sort of non-scientist big name explorer included in this, certainly the only African-American included in this whole series. And I, I like it because I attribute his inclusion to the fact that the series, all the paintings in the series were done by Alberto Perti, who was an artist, who knew Henson. He'd been on summer expeditions with Piri and Henson to the Arctic and the fact that he knew Henson and he knew how important Henson was to the expeditions and what a big role he had in them. That personal connection caused him to convince somehow this tobacco company among all the white people, all the white men, there's one woman, an old sea of white men in this collectible card series to include Matthew Henson in there. And I think that just speaks to the impact Henson had on the people who knew him and, you know, people could see how important he was, what a big role he had in all of these things. So to me, it's, it's very early 1910 was when he was issued. And after that, it was probably, you know, until he published his book, not much attention paid to him, but this is something to me that really stands out as unusual for this time period. And, and I think Lacey, you have something to show us as well. Yeah, so from our archives here at the explorers club, if I could get the next slide, please, and I'll just go through these quickly because I know we're short on time here. But the first item that you'll see is a citation that was granted. This is the press release for a bust that was being put up in Henson's honor at the time was the National Association for the Advancements of Color People. This was in 1955. So this was actually right after his right before his death. I'm sorry, this was in February and he he would die in March. But this again speaks to his legacy and how he need how he was honored and would be honored and really sort of, you know, would would his legacy would continue forward. The title of his is the going and getting forward, which I think is really remarkable. The next slide that we have a similar situation. This is another sketch done by Albert O'Pairty here based on this photograph. This was from to kind of speak to his legacy. This is from an article published in 1966 in the American history, the illustrated history of America. And essentially this article was based on an interview done during Matthew Henson's life with the author. So this was actually done about 20 years prior to publication in this and again speaks to, you know, telling that story and giving him the credit that he deserved. And then our final slide that we have, and I love this because again speaks to pop culture and and kind of getting the word out to the masses in this comic book called The Golden Legacy. You see him and Harry reaching the North Pole. And again, just speaking to the audiences that they're trying to reach and capture and, you know, share this story with comic. Excellent. Yeah, it does show. I do love it shows Harry arriving to the pole after Henson had already gotten there and built in a glue, which I think is fantastic as well. Well, this brings us to the end of the panel. And in summarizing, excuse me, a hundred and fourteen years after his death to the North Pole with Piri and for Nguyen Hunters 1909. Matthew Henson is finally getting the recognition and appreciation he deserves. After being virtually ignored after after the epic voyage, Henson has now been regarded as the co-discoverer of the North Pole alongside Robert Piri. Excuse me. And parenthetically, I believe that the four Nguyen Hunters who are with Piri and Henson should also be given credit as co-discoverers of the North Pole. As I look back on Henson's long life, I believe his most enduring legacy is not as a great polar explorer, but as a man from humble beginnings who despite all odds was able to rise above discrimination and racism of his era to become an extraordinary person worthy of admiration and respect. The lesson from Henson's life is that if you want something badly enough and you try hard enough, you can overcome any barriers that are placed in your way. And although Henson was African-American, his life lesson applies to everyone, thus making him an inspiration and a role model for all of us. I'd like to thank all of you for joining us today on our panel discussion, and I also like to thank our panelists for being here and all the artifacts and exhibits that they've shown. Thank you very much.