THIS MONTH IN PR/MARKETING HISTORY BY JEFF RODRIGUEZ
An irreverent look at the people and events that keep us up at night
The Cold, Hard Truth
How a Famous Explorer Pole-vaulted His Way into the History Books
Quick: Who was the first man to reach the North Pole? If you said Robert Peary, you’d be right in step with what your history teacher taught you — and probably wrong.
The fun began in July 1908, when Peary, on a six months' leave from the Navy,
set sail from New York with 23 men. This was his fifth expedition to the
Arctic, the first occurring in 1886. With him this time was Matthew Henson, an African-American man Peary met in Washington, D.C. Henson had been working
as a sales clerk in a men’s clothing store, but when Peary learned that he had six years experience at
sea, he hired Henson as his personal valet.
For the final leg of the journey, Peary took five assistants, including Henson,
good men all, but none skilled in navigation. Nonetheless, on April 6, 1909,
the team reached its destination. Peary began his trip home later, no doubt
anticipating fame, fortune and appearances with Letterman and Fallon.
Just one problem, though. Dr. Frederick Cook, an American physician and explorer, claimed he had reached the pole in April
of the prior year. Thus began a PR battle that would impress any modern-day consultant.
Cook could not produce any detailed navigational records to substantiate his
asssertion. He said he did not have a large enough team to bring all the
records back, so he left them with one Harry Whitney, an American who had traveled to Greenland. In 1909 Whitney tried to get the
boxes to the U.S., but he allegedly was not allowed to take them on the ship by
— guess who? — Peary. Cook’s alleged records remained in Greenland and were never found.
Peary, meanwhile, had no intention of leaving the outcome to chance. He enlisted
the support of several individuals who had celebrity status but no scientific
expertise; for example, one of the people who endorsed him was a famous
football coach.
Launching a second front, Peary began lobbying a few friendly congressmen,
asking them to prevent other members of Congress from having his claims
evaluated. In fact, Peary refused to let any third party review his records.
Instead, he gave them to the National Geographic Society, which also refused to
make the records available to researchers.
Peary had every reason to worry. As noted, the men on his team lacked the skills
to confirm his navigation. Too, if his claims were true, he made the last leg
of the trip almost three times faster than he managed previously. And to cover
the distance in the time available, Peary’s team would have had to travel in a straight line north. But none other than
Mathew Henson later reported that they had been forced to make numerous detours
on the last leg.
A few weeks after returning home, the NGS certified Peary’s claim as true; coincidentally, the Society was a major sponsor of Peary’s expedition. Shortly after the NGS certification, a commission at the
University of Copenhagen examined Cook’s evidence and ruled that he did not have adequate proof to support his claim.
Whitney, for his part, thought Cook was telling the truth, but he preferred not
to be part of the controversy.
Thus, Peary prevailed. Congress later recognized him for having “attained” the pole (a cursory nod to Cook’s claim), and he received an official thanks from Congress. Later, by another
special act of Congress, Peary was promoted to rear admiral, retroactive to the
historic date at the pole, whereupon he retired.
Cook did not surrender completely. In 1911 he published some of his navigational
data, but the records were found to be slightly inaccurate.
Today, with the benefit of better navigation equipment, scientists generally
agree that Cook did not reach the pole. However, they also doubt that Peary
did, either. As late as 2005, a British explorer claimed he had confirmed Peary’s success. But in 2009 a scientist at the California Institute of Technology
documented a number of problems with Peary’s data, essentially settling the matter.
For the record, the first undisputed incidence of explorers walking on the North
Pole did not occur until 1969, 60 years after Peary’s epic date. But for millions of students, that’s a piece of history we didn’t get; instead, we learned, and some continue to learn, that Peary and Henson
were the first to reach the North Pole. Maybe Peary couldn’t prove that, but he did prove one thing: There’s more than one type of snow job.
