Collegiate Republic: Cultivating an Ideal Society in Early America

Two Organizing the College World “All Various Nature”

• 47 • on a Winter’s day in 1808 Martha Cleaveland sat by the fire in her parlor near Bowdoin College and answered a letter from her brother John. Ensconced in her new home in the eastern territory of Maine, Martha was a determined collector of what her sister in Boston jokingly called “all the proceedings of the western World.” Her correspondents ranged from families in port cities to country villages throughout New England, and her contacts were always glad to hear news about how her family—and the family business at Brunswick—was faring.1 Two years earlier, this merchant’s daughter had taken a huge risk by accepting the marriage proposal of Parker Cleaveland, a Harvard graduate determined to build his fortune through the new “business of instruction.” After his graduation in 1805, Parker had dutifully tried out each of the established paths open to a young college graduate. He read law. He studied medicine. He even engaged in literary aspirations, publishing some rather effusive poetry. Nothing seemed to hold his attention for long. A man of diverse interests and talents, Parker confused and worried his family with his desire to explore everything. They wanted him to pick a future path quickly. The only position that finally sustained his attention was teaching . To support himself, Parker had begun teaching classes in a number of academies in Massachusetts. He found that he liked to teach, that the students liked him, and that their parents noticed. This flair for instruction soon earned him an invitation to return to Harvard to work as a tutor. In this assistant teaching position Parker began to envision a future for himself as a college professor. He grew more confident in this decision once he met the encouraging Martha, a woman who was more open to the possibilities of the teaching profession than his own family.2 “All Various Nature” Organizing the College World Two 48 • collegiate repuBlic When the Bowdoin College trustees, in search of a mathematics professor for their new college in the Maine Territory, offered Parker the post, with a salary of $800 a year, he gladly accepted. It was then that he finally felt free to propose marriage to Martha, who accepted. As the young couple settled in Brunswick, built a house near campus, and began their own family (baby Moses appeared in 1807), the Cleavelands joined an emerging Parker Cleaveland. Passing through Maine in the 1830s, the artist Thomas Badger hoped to “put on canvas the face of many” promoting the new state and its first college. Displayed in the Boston Athenaeum in the 1830s, this image of Parker Cleaveland promoted his popular geology studies and his patron, Bowdoin College. The image was used again in the college’s first institutional history in 1880, Cleaveland continuing to promote Bowdoin College long after his death. Courtesy of George J. Mitchell Department of Special Collections and Archives, Bowdoin College Library, Brunswick, Me. organizing the college World • 49 class of men and women who hoped that the new “business of instruction ” would provide their family with economic success and emotional satisfaction . At the same time, this new class had to make their “business of instruction” and their colleges relevant (and profitable) in the expanding market society of the early republic. The whole project was risky, especially when success hinged on the willingness of parents to send their children to new, untried educational outposts on the frontiers of the republic.3 Martha’s merchant family had never sent any of its young men to college . After her marriage to Parker, however, some relatives took a sudden interest in acquiring a classical education. She was pleased to answer a letter from her brother John, inquiring about his chances of admission to Bowdoin. In her response, Martha spoke as a loving sister. She was also just The Cleaveland House, ca. 1900. The Cleavelands lived in their home as Bowdoin ’s rent-free tenants during Parker’s lifetime. After a number of faculty owners, Bowdoin bought the house in 1991 as a presidential residence. It now serves as a reception space for the traditional college “sociable.” Courtesy of William D. Shipman Scrapbook, Cleaveland House Papers, George J. Mitchell Department of Special Collections and Archives, Bowdoin College Library, Brunswick, Me. 50 • collegiate repuBlic then learning how to speak as a professor’s wife, practicing how to provide one of the new products of her new college world...