Matthew Henson in the Early Years

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.