Arts
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.
