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BOWDOIN
Concerned about Coverage
Dear Editor,
First, I want to congratulate you on
the overall quality of the Winter issue
of the Bowdoin magazine. It is very,
very good. However, I must say that
your coverage of the fall sports made
me angry. To be specific, pages 4 and 5
depict the success of the men’s soccer
team. Following this coverage, and in
second place, is page 6, one page given
to the women’s field hockey team’s
third national championship. To add
to this initial coverage, you gave equal
coverage to both teams’ achievements
[last] fall on pages 38, 39 (men) and
pages 40, 41(women). So, in the first
instance, you gave less coverage to
the field hockey team’s achievement,
and in the second instance, you gave
the men’s success equal treatment
to the women’s. This simply isn’t
right. Any young or old woman
should be outraged at this treatment. I
shudder to think of the coverage if the
any men’s sport team wins a national
championship—just one.
Sincerely,
Robert N. Morrison ’52
Ed.: Our “Moments in the Game” piece
was not intended to suggest that the success
of the men’s soccer team was equivalent to
the three national championships of the field
hockey team (we did a cover story on the
field hockey team in Fall ’09)—we were
just trying to convey the excitement of the
season in both cases.
Not the Only One
Dear Editor,
In reference to Bowdoin magazine,
Volume 82, Number 1 (Winter:
2011), “Africana Studies: A World
Dialogue, A Campus Conversation,”
and the sidebar “Setting The Table”
on page 29, to say the least, I was a
bit embarrassed to read in the third
paragraph:
“Very quietly that year, Theodore
Howe ’55 was making his own mark.
He was beginning his freshman year
2 BOWDOIN SUMMER 2011
as the only African American student
then enrolled at Bowdoin College.”
In September 1951, two (not one)
Negro students began their freshman
studies at Bowdoin. James Milo
Murray from Gary, Indiana, and I
were roommates. We joined two
other Negro students on campus,
Roderick Simpson from Maine and
Theophilus McKinney from North
Carolina, who had been admitted in
1949 and 1950.
During the 1954-1955 academic
year, I was the only Black student on
campus because due to illness, Jim
was not able to return for his senior
year. He was able to return the next
year and graduated with the Class
of 1956. To my knowledge, three
Negro students were admitted and
matriculated in the fall of 1955.
Theodore H. Howe ’55
Ed.: Thank you also to Pete Forman ’55
for his letter, which addressed the same error.
Recording Seeger
Dear Editor,
In the sidebar to “On the Air”
(Bowdoin, Fall 2009) the tape recorder
is described as Ampex. It was actually
Presto 800. I was running the amplifier
in Pickard Theatre at Seeger’s feet
during this performance, while the
recordings were made in the studio.
WBOR’s [Presta 800] was in 3 cases
(2 amplifiers for stereo) for portability.
Bob White ’63
Ed.: Smithsonian Folkway Recordings
now plans to release a double album
made on that Presta 800, “Pete Seeger:
The Complete Bowdoin College Concert
1960,” next spring.
Heartened and Encouraged
Dear Editor,
I’m white and straight, and found
the article on Africana Studies at
Bowdoin, along with the feature about
campus support for LGBTIQ students,
heartening and encouraging. Bowdoin
in my era—the late 1970s—was a
place brimming with progressive ideas
and actions. I was among those who
presented “The Case for Women’s
Studies” at a campus town meeting my
freshman year, and later I belonged to
a dynamic campus organization called
Struggle and Change. But at Bowdoin
in those days, the field of black studies
was just beginning, and coming out
in public was for the very few. Thank
you, Bowdoin College, for changing,
and thank you, Bowdoin magazine, for
a wonderful Winter 2011 issue.
Martha Hodes ’80
Corrections
Dear Editor,
Every now and then I see reference
to the (U.S.) Air Force during the
Second World War. There was
no such organization then. It was
the U.S. Army Air Corps, just as
the Army had Signal Corps. The
U.S. Dept. of the Air Force began
operations September 18, 1947.
Now see the Winter 2011 issue,
page 89, Robert Donovan ’46. There
were several “Air Forces” within the
Army Air Corps in WWII just as the
Navy had “task forces.”
On page 94, I suggest that Harry
Waning ’49 was stationed on the
island of Vieques, a part of Puerto
Rico, not Vieacus.
Herbert A. Mehlhorn ’46
Our Civil War History
Dear Editor,
The fascinating article on Nathaniel
Hawthorne (Bowdoin, Winter 2011)
was most welcome.
Will there be more drawn from
the remarkable history of our small
College here in the State of Maine
with its ancient frontiers—the forested
wilderness and the endless sea—that
shaped the spirit of so many?
During this 150 th anniversary
of the Civil War can we graduates