While for some students familiarity with the White Mountains begins and ends with their freshmen DOC trip, the area has a rich history.
Yesterday at the Hood Museum, Art History Professor Robert McGrath described this past in a lunchtime gallery talk entitled, "Gods in Granite: The Cultural History of the White Mountains of New Hampshire."
In his well-attended presentation, McGrath spoke about the extensive collection of White Mountains materials accessible in Dartmouth's Rauner Special Collections Library before detailing the history of the region as a vacation spot for urban New Englanders.
According to McGrath, today's perception of the White Mountains as a heavily developed mesh of ski resorts and tourist traps falls in stark contrast with its role as a place of spiritual refuge for New Yorkers and Bostonians of the 1800's.
"Now we think of it as a commercial colony of Boston -- and that's not entirely unfair ... But in the 19th century, this was the most accessible bit of wilderness America had," McGrath stated.
In the golden age of the mid-1800s, enormous hotels were constructed on mountain sides, and great hunting and fishing camps sprung up across the countryside.
"That's a culture we've almost entirely lost touch with," McGrath said, noting that only two such hotels stand today and most of the camps have been either destroyed or converted into condos.
One of the primary sources of publicity for the White Mountains region at that time came from the somewhat unlikely origin of Boston Unitarian ministers. These men told their wealthy parishioners that if they wanted to find God, they should stay out of the churches and go atop the mountains.
The ministers approached their advertisements with a thoroughness that extended to explaining what women should wear on the trips and how best to avoid insects. They listed points of interest to visit "as though they were stations of the cross," McGrath explained.
This idealized portrait of the region was reflected in the art it inspired. Up until around the 1870's, paintings of the White Mountains conspicuously omitted mosquitoes, muck and most notably, the thick blanket of clouds that frequently obscures peaks such as Dartmouth's Mt. Moosilauke.
"Nobody was interested in optical truths," McGrath said.
The White Mountains eventually declined as a prime escape from city life as the timber industry increased its presence. By 1900, the region was among the most heavily logged in America.
"We wanted to have our wilderness and eat it too," McGrath joked.
Additionally, an enhanced perception of California and the Rocky Mountains as our "real wilderness" dealt an effective death blow to the White Mountains' place as the premiere shrine of American nature.
Efforts by the Society for Protection of the New Hampshire Forest to curb development by lobbying Congress yielded results in 1911 through the passing of the Wykes Act. This bill allowed great portions of the Appalachian Range, from Maine to Tennessee to be purchased at prices of approximately 50 cents per acre. The act served as a precursor to the creation of the Appalachian Trail.
McGrath said he initially became interested in the White Mountains as an outdoorsman -- he started climbing Moosilauke and other mountains with friends and family. The idea to write a book on the history of the area came after he saw a few 19th century pictures of sites he had hiked. McGrath realized that little had been written on this topic, and described feeling a sort of moral obligation to celebrate this place he had grown to love.
The gallery talk was presented in conjunction with Hood's "Treasures from Dartmouth College's Rauner Library" exhibition, which will be on display through March 11.
McGrath's book on the topic, "Gods in Granite: The Art of the White Mountains of New Hampshire," is set for publication later this month.