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HENSON, Matthew (1866-1955). A Negro Explorer at the North Pole. With a forward by Robert Peary. Introduction by Booker T. Washington. New York: Frederick A. Stokes Company, [1912].
8vo. Portrait frontispiece, 6 photographic plates. Original publisher's blue cloth with mounted photographic portrait (a touch of light sunning to spine and top edge of covers); ORIGINAL DUST JACKET (spine and extremities a bit soiled, chipping at ends, front joint detached but repaired, small chip with loss on rear panel near bottom edge). Laid in with the rare prospectus for Peary’s first edition of “The North Pole”. Provenance: early gift inscription from A.G. Kropacek to Leslie E. Kennedy on front free endpaper.
FIRST EDITION of the account of the first African-American polar explorer and the first to step foot at the North Pole. Henson was hired by Admiral Peary in 1887 to accompany him on seven voyages to the Arctic over a period of nearly 23 years. Henson would become Peary’s “first man” as he was the only member of Peary’s party to master the Inuit language and method of driving dog sleds. On 7 April 1909, Peary, Henson and several Inuit reached the North Pole on their third attempt. It would be several decades before he would receive full credit for being the co-discoverer of the pole, an historic event that finally happened in 1937 when he was inducted as an honorary member of the Explorer’s Club, breaking the color barrier as the first African American to be made life member. IN THE EXCEEDINGLY RARE DUST JACKET. Not in Arctic Bib.