This post is by Matthew Poth, 2017-18 Library of Congress Teacher in Residence.
A quick search of the name “Robert E. Peary” in the Library of Congress online collections yields hundreds of results. There are articles about his life, images cataloging his career, and great pronouncements of the achievement for which he was best known, being the first man to reach the North Pole in April of 1909. A similar search of “Matthew Henson,” Peary’s right-hand man, generates only about half the number of results, with the majority identifying Henson as Peary’s “Negro companion,” although by some accounts he, along with Inuit members of the expedition, may have reached the location considered the true North Pole even before Peary. When the team returned to the United States, Peary received the majority of the credit for discovering the North Pol