On June 12, 2024, at Northeast Harbor Library, Carl Little shared a slide talk based on his 2024 Chebacco essay, Mary Cabot Wheelwright’s ‘Journey Towards Understanding.’ This program was a collaboration between the MDI Historical Society and the Northeast Harbor Library.
Wheelwright (1878-1958) was a wealthy Bostonian, avid sailor, and amateur anthropologist with homes in Maine and New Mexico. After being introduced to Navajo culture around 1920, she sought to preserve it. She became friends with the celebrated medicine man Hastiin Klah (1867-1937) who helped her document Navajo religion. Wheelwright brought Klah to Northeast Harbor in 1931, a remarkable visit that included the creation of sand paintings on the terrace of his host’s house. Wheelwright’s final home in Maine was on Sutton Island. Her legacy includes the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian in Santa Fe and a collection of Wabanaki artifacts in the Abbe Museum collection.
Born in New York City, Carl Little holds degrees from Dartmouth, Middlebury, and Columbia. Little is the author of more than 30 art books, including The Watercolors of John Singer Sargent, Edward Hopper’s New England, and Paintings of Maine. He has collaborated with his brother David on four books, including Art of Acadia and Art of Penobscot Bay. Little writes for Art New England, Hyperallergic, Maine Boats, Homes & Harbors, The Working Waterfront, Island Journal, and Ornament, and has contributed essays and reviews to MDI Historical Society journals since 1998. In 2021 the Dorothea and Leo Rabkin Foundation honored Little with a Lifetime Achievement Award for his art writing. He lives in Somesville.
Image: Mary Wheelwright rowing Clyde Beall and Hastiin Klah in Northeast Harbor, 1931. Courtesy of the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian. Gift of Mary Cabot Wheelwright, MS1-6 Box 29, Album XVII