Before They Were Students

Women’s donations to the College have funded campus buildings, scholarships, book funds, named professorships, lectureships, prizes, and other College needs. In 1891, Harriet Sarah Walker (1844-1898) and Mary Sophia Walker (1839-1904) gifted to Bowdoin the funds to construct the Walker Art Building in memory of their uncle. Theophilus Wheeler Walker financially supported the construction of a new chapel in 1850, a space that housed Bowdoin’s first art gallery and commemorated his mother. Harriet Walker wrote to Charles Follen McKim of the architectural firm McKim, Mead and White, outlining the sisters’ plan: “My sister and I wish to carry out our Uncle’s thought by erecting and dedicating to his memory a building which shall be entirely devoted to objects of art….”

This letter from President William DeWitt Hyde to Harriet Sarah acknowledges the sisters’ gift and expresses Bowdoin’s interest in the art building. Construction of the Walker Art Building was completed in 1894.

President William DeWitt Hyde to Harriet Sarah Walker, 1891