The most difficult aspect of this project was actually just finding a person to do the presentation on. I was not interested in doing someone like Muskie because I assumed others would already have chosen him, and I didn’t want to research someone fairly insignificant or who lacked accessible information. Pettengill ultimately felt like the appropriate choice given those criteria, especially since we take the class in the building named after him.
Finding information about Frederick Pettengill was even easier than I expected, despite being one of the most common names heard on campus. I began simply by walking through Pettengill Hall after class, looking for plaques, nameplates, or maybe a brochure that might tell me some kind of information about him. Unfortunately, there is very little information about Pettengill in Pettengill Hall, which is not super surprising. After failing to find anything there, I looked online and found several substantially sized sources that looked promising. Among them were yearly compilations of The Bates Student from the 1929-1930 and 1930-1931 school years, a yearbook for the graduating class of 1931, and the largest, The Ursula and Frederick Pettengill Papers. While the prior three sources provided small glimpses into Pettengill’s life at Bates, the latter was a massive compilation of lifetime accomplishments, awards, correspondences, and much more. The Pettengill Papers, however, required that I go to the Muskie Archives to view more than simply a summary of its contents.
The Pettengill Papers contained memorabilia from throughout his life, including playbills, graduation certificates from grammar school and high school, correspondences with colleagues and friends, letters from Bates (mostly thanking him for his generous donations), speech transcripts referring to him, and a massive one hundred page scrapbook made by his wife, Ursula. The Papers shed light on the many lives he affected through his dedication to serving others and put in perspective just how many awards one person can receive. Seriously. He got so many.
Nonetheless, after spending hours pouring over the Pettengill Papers, I was ready to begin thinking about potential haunting ideas. Initially, I looked into putting together a timeline or short video, however, the details of his life in terms of dates are very unclear, and a video is a substantial commitment. I ultimately decided to make a Twitter account to show more pictures of him and shed light on who he seemed to be.
I did struggle to put it all together, however, as I couldn’t find any information on what he liked to do other than ride horses
(it really seemed like the only thing that came up as a hobby), but I ended up going through the scrapbook one more time and found that he loved his dog, Dukey, and frequently had students over to his home to talk. After incorporating those things into the Twitter account, I decided it was ready.
