Politics and Government Resources in Special Collections & Archives

The northeast boundary controversy refers to the conflict between the state of Maine and the province of New Brunswick, as well as the United States and British Canada respectively, over the placement of the boundary defined in the 1783 Treaty of Paris. Repeated attempts at settlements during the 1820s and 1830s failed, resulting in the largely bloodless Aroostook War (1838-1839). The Webster-Ashburton Treaty of 1842 settled the long-standing dispute by defining the current demarcation line.

This collection of pamphlets (1826-1840) includes both state (Maine and Massachusetts) and federal publications concerning the boundary and the dispute, as well as a bibliography of "Works Relating to the North East Boundary" published in the December 1900 Bulletin of the New York Public Library.

John Hubbard (1794-1869) and his son, Thomas Hamlin Hubbard (1838-1915, Bowdoin 1860), are the central figures of this collection which also includes material relating to other members of the family. Although Thomas was interested in politics, his father, John, was the principal political figure in the family. A physician with a practice in Hallowell, John Hubbard served as a Democratic governor of Maine (1850-1853), as special agent for the U.S. Treasury examining New England customs houses (1857-1859), and as U.S. commissioner negotiating the Reciprocity Treaty with Great Britain (1859-1861).

Among the correspondence, diaries and journals, account books, student notes and teacher records, business records, addresses, etc., is material relating to John Hubbard's political career. It includes letters to and from his family, his political colleagues, and individuals such as President James Buchanan, Secretary of the Treasury Howell Cobb, Maine governors Robert P. Dunlap, Anson P. Morrill, Lot M. Morrill and Samuel E. Smith, Vice President Hannibal Hamlin, and railroad official John Alfred Poor. There are also private and business account books, early records of the Maine Democratic Party, records relating to the negotiation of the Reciprocity Treaty, and other relevant materials.

Neal Dow (1804-1897), Union brigadier general and mayor of Portland, Maine (1851-1858), is best remembered as a temperance reformer and "father of the 1851 Maine Law." He was, throughout his life, deeply involved in temperance organizations and became the Prohibition Party's presidential candidate in 1880.

The collection consists almost entirely of letters, 1852-1887, concerning temperance. Most are from Dow, while mayor of Portland, to E.W. Jackson, a minister, temperance activist and, later, agent of the Maine Temperance Society.

William E. Lunt (1882-1956, Bowdoin 1904) spent most of his academic career as Walter D. and Edith M.L. Scull Professor of English and Constitutional History at Haverford College (1917-1952). Woodrow Wilson appointed Lunt chief of the Italian Division of the American Commission to Negotiate Peace at the Paris talks that ended the First World War (1918-1919). His responsibilities included developing the American position on the Italian-Yugoslav border.

Letters (1918-1919 and undated), documents, reports, maps, original or copied statistical charts, clippings, etc. (1918-1926 and undated), all concerning the American Commission to Negotiate Peace, the Italian-Yugoslav border, or the general peace negotiations. The letters include several from Lunt and other negotiators, many addressed to President Wilson.

Bowdoin, like other American colleges and universities, was caught up in the issues of the late 1960s, especially the social unrest triggered by the Vietnam War. The student body, with support from some faculty members, reacted with two major movements: a peace and anti-draft movement which started in 1968 and continued in a small way through 1970, and a student strike which shut down classes and other College activities in May of 1970.

Clippings, news releases, broadsides, and other material relating to the peace and strike movements on the Bowdoin campus. The collections were compiled by a member of the Bowdoin College Library staff.

John M. Bachulus (1899-1984, Bowdoin 1822) was a medical officer in the U.S. Navy, serving around the world, including in Algeria, Italy and England. In 1972 he was retired from the Navy, living in Brunswick, Maine.

Bachulus compiled this collection of clippings and copies of the daily Kent Stater relating to the 1972 shootings of student protesters by members of the Ohio National Guard.

George J. Mitchell (1933- , Bowdoin 1954) was an officer in the U.S. Army Counter Intelligence Corps until 1956. In 1960 he earned a law degree from Georgetown University. He was executive assistant to Senator Edmund Muskie (1962-1965), then returned to private practice, though remaining active in state Democratic politics. While filling a 1977 appointment as U.S. District Court judge, Mitchell took over the remainder of Muskie's Senate term when the latter became Secretary of State under President Carter (1980). His Senate career included membership on the Iran-Contra investigative committee and a term as Senate Majority Leader (1989-1995). He served a pivotal role in the Northern Ireland peace process (1995-1998), and, at the request of President Bill Clinton and Israeli and Palestinian leaders, chaired an international group organized to address the escalating violence in the Middle East (2000-2001).

The collection, the largest in the Library, documents Mitchell's professional and political career, including his 1974 gubernatorial campaign; his career as senator from Maine; his six years of service to the nation as Senate majority leader; and his work in Northern Ireland. His political papers include Judiciary files comprising reports, correspondence, briefs and other materials under consideration in the Senate Judiciary Committee and in Congress, including civil rights (especially PL102-166, which amended Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act), and information on the nominations of cabinet and judicial candidates such as Lani Guinier, Zoe Baird, Janet Reno, Clarence Thomas, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Stephen G. Breyer.