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Today touted as the co-discoverer of the North Pole with Robert Peary, in 1909 few people in the white community even knew who Matthew Henson was at that time, while he was revered by the African American community as a hero. Exploring Matthew Henson's life is telling of the limits he pushed 
himself to and how much he accomplished in the process.
Matthew Henson was born August 8, 1866, just three years after the enactment of the Emancipation Proclamation, to sharecropper parents in Charles County, Maryland. He had a relatively difficult upbringing and due to a mix of accounts, the truth about his parents draws mixed conclusions. In his autobiography, A Negro Explorer at the North Pole, Henson explains that his mother dies when he was just seven years old, and he moves in with his uncle who sent him to school in nearby Washington, D.C. where he ran away after only six years of schooling. There are several accounts as to why he may have run away, the most popular, if not most romanticized, idea is that he was orphaned by the age of thirteen and his fascination with ships took him to Baltimore where he began his life's adventure.
This exhibit looks into how Matthew Henson's accomplishments were recognized as an adventurer and an explorer who helped Robert Peary locate the true North Pole.
Image Caption: This photograph titled "Farmstead of Negro sharecropper with sharecropper carrying water. Near Transylvania, Louisiana." Though not the farm Matthew Henson grew up on, this is an example of what the land was like and the conditions in which sharecroppers lived, taken by photographer Russell Lee (1903-1986) in January 1939, from the Farm Security Administration - Office of War Information Photography Collection, courtesy of the Library of Congress.
As a young man, Matthew Henson boarded his first ship, the Katie Hines, working as a cabin boy. The ship was headed for China as part of the China trade. Once he returned from his first voyage he continued to work 
as "an able-bodied seaman" sailing to North Africa, Spain, France, Manila and Japan.
Upon Henson's return to Washington, D.C. from a voyage in 1888, he met Robert E. Peary while working in a hat shop. Elysa Engelman romanticizes Henson's life before meeting Peary as working for a fur storage company, when in Henson's own account in A Negro at the North Pole, he places their initial meeting in a hat shop.
During this meeting, Peary asked Henson to join him on his next expedition to Nicaragua as his personal servant because as Floyd Miller states in his book Ahdoolo! The Biography of Matthew Henson, Peary "observed a quiet dignity" about Henson. The relationship between the two men was a lasting one, through twenty-two years of expeditions to and from the Arctic the pair were together for the final march of the North Pole Expedition. Unfortunately it would be many years before the world would know how much Henson did on the last march. Image Caption: This photograph titled "Mat. Henson, of Peary crew, on boat deck with unidentified crew member" appears to have been taken on the Roosevelt in 1906 by a photographer from the Bain News Service, courtesy of the Library of Congress.
Robert E. Peary's (1856-1920) obsession with discovering the North Pole touched many people in his lifetime. With his first expedition to find the North Pole behind him, Peary met Matthew Henson in 1888 by chance while he was working in a hat shop in Washington, D.C. where Peary was acquiring supplies and support for his second expedition to Nicaragua. Peary asked if Matthew would like to join him on 
this voyage as his personal servant and Henson agreed. Becoming Peary's assistant as described by Henson himself was a position that "covered a multitude of duties, abilities and responsibilities."
Peary was a goal oriented man and his obsession with finding the North Pole took him to the Arctic a total of eight times with Henson by his side for seven of them. During his time in Greenland, Peary got to know the Inuit and he would ask for Inuit men and women to join them and teach his men how to build sledges and dog sleds in addition to hunt and utilize the goods they needed to survive the biting cold. Henson took to the task of learning the language and skills necessary to get the teams through to the North Pole, he could speak the Inuit language fluently and learned how to drive the dog sleds with the best of them. According to Peary because of these acquired skills, he chose to take Henson on what would be his last expedition, a journey that reportedly took them all the way to ninety degrees North, the true North Pole.Image Caption: This photograph is titled "Robert Peary, full-length portrait, standing, facing front, in fur garments" and was taken between 1886 and 1909 after an expedition to the North Pole, courtesy of Library of Congress.
Captain Robert Bartlett (1875-1946) is another major figure in the story of Matthew Henson. Bartlett 
was the Captain of the Roosevelt, the ship that made the journey to the Arctic two times with Peary's expeditions to find the North Pole. In the 1905 expedition, the group blazed a trail to within two hundred miles of the North Pole, the closest anyone had come to the North Pole at this point. With the second journey to the North Pole in 1908-09 Bartlett was with Peary when they made it fifty miles closer. The work needed to break the ice and snow between camps was backbreaking. Bartlett assisted with this task to the last camp.
Peary had been sending teams back down the trail to the ship until there were just two teams left, Peary's and Bartlett's. Once both groups were at the camp, Bartlett assumed that Peary would choose him to continue on to the North Pole. Confident he would be chosen to Continue with Peary leaving Henson to head back to the ship, the "bitter disappointment" came. Peary said that because Henson could handle the dogs and sledges so well he and the four Eskimos would be of more use to him. Only in his writings did Bartlett show his disappointment in not making it to the North Pole, "he did not hold a grudge and remained fiercely loyal to Peary" to the end of his life.
Image Caption: This photograph titled "Peary & Bartlett, Battle Harbor" of Captain Robert Bartlett and Robert Peary standing a a ship, presumably the Roosevelt in Battle Harbor, Labrador circa 1909 after returning from the North Pole Expedition, courtesy of the Library of Congress.
As argued by Dr. S. Allen Counter in his book North Pole Legacy: Black, White & Eskimo before Matthew Henson joined Peary on the 1891 Arctic expedition, Henson's first, he was trying to find a way to be accepted by "the educated, successful blacks of Washington and Philadelphia" 
and now that he is headed to an area of the world "where no one, white or black" has ever stepped foot, he felt vindicated. In the Arctic with the Inuit, Henson, in a way, had the opportunity to be freer and more independent. Some crewmembers had some issue with this because of the easy acceptance of Henson's behavior by Peary. In the United States never would this kind of relationship have been accepted due to the enactment of the Jim Crow laws, which were segregation laws that stripped any rights gained by African Americans after the Emancipation Proclamation.
With gaining the respect of Robert Peary, Henson was determined to be useful not only on the ship, but on the expedition. Learning the language of the Inuit early on in their expeditions to the Arctic was key for Henson as described by Counter. From the 1891 expedition to the Arctic, Henson began working with a group of Inuit, the native people of Greenland, to learn their language and how to hunt and build/drive sledges in addition to basic cold weather survival skills. Henson would be the only one in any of Peary's expedition parties to learn the language and gain a rapport with the Inuit and to be completely accepted by them. Having the opportunity to prove himself useful to Peary, Henson gained the respect he was looking for.
Image Caption: This photograph titled "Matt Henson (of Peary's crew) in Arctic costume on deck of the "Roosevelt" on arrival at Sidney, Nova Scotia" was taken of Henson in Arctic gear in 1906 with equipment for the second to last expedition, courtesy of the Library of Congress.
The 1908-1909 North Pole expedition was broken into multiple sections or marches. At each camp there was a group sent back along the blazed trail to leave supplies in determined locations for the last parties' return. Peary ultimately 
had a choice between taking Captain Robert Bartlett or Matthew Henson with him for the last march. Citing that they had been together for over twenty years, Peary chose Henson and four Eskimos Seeglo, Ooqueah, Egingwah and Ootah to accompany him.There has been some speculation that Peary did not choose Captain Bartlett to join him on the last march so that he could receive all the recognition. Conversely, according to Elysa Engelman in the article Black Hands, Blue Seas: Matthew Henson at the North Pole, racists assumed the reason for Peary to have chosen Henson and the four Inuit was because being men of color they "lacked the intelligence or ability to contradict his claims."
Image Caption: This photograph titled "The five flags at the Pole" was taken in 1909 once the Peary expedition made it to ninety degrees North. Matthew Henson is in the center holding the American flag with, from left, Ooqueah, Ootah, Henson, Egingwah, and Seeglo (presumably in this order) holding flags from the Daughters of the Revolution Peace Society, one with the Navy League emblem and two with Peary's college fraternity emblems, Peary is the photographer, courtesy of the Library of Congress.
With Robert Peary having taken all the credit for the discovery of the North Pole in 1909, there are some people who believe that Matthew Henson should have been the one to receive the credit, awards and 
accolades. Afterall, Henson had been the one to break the trail ahead of Peary and reached ninety degrees North first. At the point when Peary took the measurements which proved the party had reached the North Pole, he made this realization himself and limited his contact with Henson from that day on mostly due to his selfish nature. As Robert Bryce indicates in his introduction to the 2001 edition of A Negro Explorer at the North Pole by Matthew Henson, Henson and Peary parted ways soon after they reached the North Pole because Peary could not share the stage with anyone for fear it would detract from his popularity. Henson states that:"Commander Peary, for all the years I have known him, has been a selfish man, after his own glory and that of nobody else.... Since he discovered the North Pole, I have had a chance to see that more plainly than ever before, and so have some others."Image Caption: This photograph titled "Matthew Henson, head-and-shoulders portrait, facing front, holding a portrait of Robert E. Peary taken during an expedition to the North Pole" was taken in 1953 by photographer Roger Higgins for the New York World-Telegram and the Sun Newspaper, courtesy of the Library of Congress.
Upon returning to the United States, Robert Peary and Captain Robert Bartlett were met with much praise and adoration for their achievements. Both men were honored at dinners and award ceremonies hosted by royals from all over the world. Each of the explorers was awarded many of the same medals and commendations, but Peary, never 
to be overshadowed, would not be honored at the same time as Bartlett or anyone else.In December 1909, Peary was awarded a special medal from the National Geographic Society for the discovery of the North Pole. Peary was awarded numerous awards from countries all over the world for his accomplishments within just a year or two after the discovery.Bartlett was awarded the Hubbard Medal by the National Geographic Society in 1909 upon his return from the North Pole expedition. He was also awarded the Peary Polar Medal by Congress for the 1908-09 expedition among several others.Image Caption: This photograph titled "Dinner to Commander Robert E. Peary, U.S.N., Hotel Astor, March 5, 1910" is just one example of the type of honors Peary and Bartlett received when Henson was not known by many to have even been with the expedition, this photograph taken for the Geo. R. Lawrence Co., available courtesy of the Library of Congress.
Having had such an achievement as reaching the North Pole, Matthew Henson was not honored in any way by the white community, unlike Robert Bartlett who received awards and honors even though he never made it past the eighty seventh 
parallel.The African American community, on the other hand, embraced Matthew Henson and saw him as a hero. With invitations to speak at black schools and colleges about his travels, he was highly regarded by some. He published his autobiography A Negro Explorer at the North Pole in 1912, which included an introduction by Booker T. Washington. Unfortunately that would be one of the last honors Henson would receive until 1937 when he was honored with a lifetime membership by the Explorers Club of New York. It was not until 1954 that Matthew Henson and his wife were hosted by President Eisenhower at the White House allowing him to witness some honors before his death in 1955.Image Caption: This photograph titled "Matthew Henson shows President Eisenhower the location of the North Pole on a globe at the White House while his wife, Lucy Henson, watches" was taken in 1954 by a photographer from the New York World-Telegram and the Sun Newspaper while they were visiting President Eisenhower at the White House, courtesy of the Library of Congress.
Having died, February 20, 1920, just eleven years after his successful expedition to the North Pole, Robert Peary had a funeral that would rival some dignitaries. Honored with interment at Arlington National Cemetery, Peary's 
funeral included the type of distinction and ceremony he had when he returned from his most famous expedition. With a horse drawn hearse and band playing, Robert Peary was an honored explorer even in death. There is speculation that on his deathbed Peary asked to see Henson. According to Pauline Angell the author of To the Top of the World, Henson hastened to Peary's side shortly before his death. Henson was present at his side when he died and was overcome with grief and locked himself in the bathroom for fear his wife, Lucy, would see him sobbing. Lucy was unable to ever forgive Peary for his treatment of her husband after the North Pole expedition. Image Caption: This photograph titled "Funeral of Adml. Peary" was taken as part of a series of photographs on February 23, 1920 of his casket being taken from his home in Washington D.C., courtesy of the Library of Congress.
Interred in Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx, Matthew Henson was buried in a simple grave. The recognition Matthew Henson received was far overdue and it is unfortunate that his highest honors came after his death in 1955.
Dr. S. Allen Counter, a professional explorer, has studied Henson's life and brought much needed attention to what he accomplished in his lifetime. Counter petitioned President Ronald Reagan in 1987 to have Henson and his wife Lucy Ross' remains re-interred in Arlington National Cemetery. After much debate,Counter was granted his request and the Hensons' remains were taken to Washington, D.C. and
buried alongside those of Robert and Josephine Peary in April 1988.
It was not until 2000 that Henson was posthumously honored by the National Geographic Society by receiving the Hubbard Medal. This award is one of the highest honors an explorer like Matthew Henson could receive. Bartlett and Peary received the Hubbard Medal for their accomplishments in finding ninety degrees North shortly after returning to the United States from the expedition. As John Fahey, the National Geographic Society president stated during the celebration of Henson's accomplishments, "the Hubbard Medal is awarded for distinction in exploration, discovery and research. Henson embodies what this award stands for. The honor is long overdue."
Image Caption: This photograph titled "Matthew Alexander Henson, head-and-shoulders portrait, facing front, wearing fur hat and fur coat" was taken in 1910 and was used as the image on the bronz plaque that has been placed on Matthew Henson and Lucy Ross' plot in Arlington Cemetery, courtesy of the Library of Congress.
Books
- Angell, Pauline K. To the Top of the World: The Story of Peary and Henson. New York: Rand McNally, 1964.
- Counter, S. Allen. North Pole Legacy: Black, White & Eskimo. Massachusetts: The University of Massachusetts Press, 1991.
- Henson, Matthew A. A Negro at the North Pole. New York: Frederick A. Stokes, 1912.
- Henson, Matthew A. A Negro at the North Pole. New York: Cooper Square Press, 2001.
- Horwood, Harold. Bartlett: The Great Explorer. Toronto: Doubleday Canada Limited, 1989.
- Jenkins EdE, Edward S. et al. American Black Scientists and Inventors. Washington, D.C.: National Science Teachers Association, 1975.
- MacMillan, Donald. How Peary Reached the Pole: The Personal Stor of His Assistant. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1934.
- Miller, Floyd. Ahdoolo! The Biography of Matthew A. Henson. New york: E.P. Dutton & Co., 1963.
- Peary, Robert E. The North Pole: Its Discovery in 1909 Under the Auspices of the Peary Arctic Club. New york: Cooper Square Press, 2001.
Articles- Engelman, Elysa. "Black Hands, Blue Seas: Matthew Henson at the North Pole." Sea History 117 (Winter 2006-07): 34-37.
