From Hero to Humbug

In the wake of his triumphal return to New York, and despite Peary’s charges that Cook’s prior claim to the North Pole was a “gold brick,” the Arctic Club of America decided on a gala dinner in his honor to be held on September 23 at the Waldorf-Astoria. A grand assembly of 1,185 guests [...]

Not long after returning to the United States from nearly a year of “exile,” in December 1910, Dr. Cook went to Chicago, then the center of the film industry.
The result was the formation of the North Pole Picture Co. Its production, The Truth about the North Pole, in which Cook played himself, was [...]

This is the latest in a series of posts that publish for the first time significant documents related to the Polar Controversy.

This is how I portrayed Dr. Cook’s stop at Lerwick in the Shetland Islands to announce his claim to have attained the North Pole on September 1, 1909 in my book, Cook & [...]

This is the latest in a series of posts that publish for the first time significant documents related to the Polar Controversy.
Peary had given his longtime expedition member, Matthew A. Henson, the cold shoulder ever since their “arrival” at what Peary claimed was the North Pole. Henson reported Peary practically said nothing to [...]

This is the latest in a series of posts that publish for the first time significant documents related to the Polar Controversy.

In the latest book on the Polar Controversy, author Darrell Hartman focuses on the Press’ role in making the 1909 dispute between Cook and Peary a national obsession. He agrees with me [...]

The ongoing series on the “Eskimo Testimony” will resume next month.
In early 1997 I was asked to submit a paper for a symposium to be held at Ohio State University in Columbus. The aim of the symposium was to commemorate the 100th Anniversary of the Belgian Antarctic Expedition, led by Adrien de Gerlache. [...]

This is the 21st in a series examining significant unpublished documents related to the Polar Controversy.
As we have already seen, the newspapers carried an account saying Ed Barrill had been bribed with $5,000 to make his affidavit against Cook, but that General Hubbard was quoted several times as denying he had received anything for [...]

This is the 20th in a series examining significant unpublished documents related to the Polar Controversy.
During the Barrills brief visit to New York, they swore out additional affidavits on October 14, 1909, concerning a letter Fanny claimed her husband had received from Dr. Cook, sent from Labrador in July 1907, but which had been misplaced. [...]

This is the 19th in a series examining significant unpublished documents related to the Polar Controversy.
On October 5, after he had taken affidavits from four others bedsides Barrill, Ashton wrote to General Hubbard, misdating his letter by a month as September 5.

Ashton had proposed to General Hubbard that Walter Miller bring the affidavits he had [...]

This is the 18th in a series examining significant unpublished documents related to the Polar Controversy.
In all of the Polar Controversy, perhaps the most telling piece of evidence produced against Frederick Cook’s claim to have discovered the North Pole had nothing to do with his 1908 polar expedition. It came instead out of his [...]