Research Guides: Architectural History of Bowdoin College Resources: Printed Materials

Printed Materials

Anderson, Patricia McGraw. The Architecture of Bowdoin College. Brunswick: Bowdoin College, 1988.
The best single resource for the architectural history of Bowdoin’s campus buildings, gates, and memorials. The book is also available online.
Brault, Gerard J. A Checklist of Portraits of the Campus of Bowdoin College before the Civil War. Brunswick, Me: 1960.
Lists, with considerable descriptive detail, available paintings and illustrations of the campus.
Calhoun, Charles C. A Small College in Maine: Two Hundred Years of Bowdoin. Brunswick, Me: Bowdoin College, 1988.
Published in conjunction with Bowdoin’s bicentenary, provides a readable, illustrated history of the College. Also available online.
Cleaveland, Nehemiah, and Alpheus Spring Packard. History of Bowdoin College: With Biographical Sketches of Its Graduates from 1806 to 1879, Inclusive. Boston: J. R. Osgood & Co., 1882.
Provides encyclopedic biographical sketches of Bowdoin presidents and graduates for most of the nineteenth century, along with engraved portraits of many. See pp. 92-97 for a discussion of Bowdoin College's architectural history. Also available online.
Hatch, Louis Clinton, and Southworth Press. The History of Bowdoin College. Loring, Short & Harmon, 1927.
the most detailed history of the College for the period from the College’s founding in 1794 until 1927. Provides an interesting and quite detailed discourse on the campus and buildings of the time (pp. 393-460). Also available online.
Schuyler, Montgomery. "Architecture of American Colleges," The Architectural Record. 29.2: February 1911.
From a series of articles, this one addressing Bowdoin's campus in particular.
Shipman, William D. The Early Architecture of Bowdoin College and Brunswick, Maine. Brunswick, ME: J.H. French, 1985.
Tolles, Bryant Franklin. Architecture & Academe: College Buildings in New England before 1860. Hanover, N.H: University Press of New England, c.2011.
Situates Bowdoin within academic institutions across Colonial and Early Republic New England; there is a chapter dedicated to Bowdoin and Williams, founded a year apart.