Marie Ahnighito Peary papers, 1862-1995

Full finding aid (pdf) | Digitized material

Collection Scope and Content

This collection consists of a wide variety of material documenting Marie A. Peary (Stafford) Kuhne’s life. There are manuscripts, including typescripts of her many publications, both of her books, and stories she submitted to magazines. The collection holds published copies, publishers’ contracts, reviews of her writings, and Marie’s notes for her stories. Also included are drafts of her lectures and speeches, as well as extensive memos about various responsibilities she accepted as the daughter of a world-famous explorer and public figure in her own right. Her large manuscript in the form of a Greenland notebook relates to her work with the American-Danish Greenland Commission. There is extensive correspondence, including letters exchanged with her mother; George Borup, the fiancé she never married; Arctic explorer and ethnologist Viljhalmur Stefansson; and William Herbert Hobbs, her father’s first biographer. There is information about Robert Peary’s early career as a surveyor, documents relating to the honors bestowed on Marie, and copies of newspaper and magazine articles providing biographical information about her. Collection’s highlights include personal scrapbooks, journals and diaries, photographs, extensive ephemera, and personal artifacts.

Biographical/Historical Note

Marie Ahnighito Peary (Stafford) (Kuhne) was born in Kalaallit Nunaat (Greenland) on September 12, 1893, to Josephine Diebitsch Peary and Robert Edwin Peary of Washington, DC and Portland, Maine, respectively. She was born on her father’s third and her mother’s second of several expeditions to the Arctic, in a structure at the base camp dubbed Illorsuaqarfissuaq (Anniversary Lodge), on the shore of Kangerluarsuk (Bowdoin Fjord). The Pearys chose her middle name in honor of the Inuk woman who made Marie’s first fur suit (today, the name is properly spelled Arnakitsoq). Marie became known worldwide as the “Snow Baby,” a nickname given to her by Inuit. In 1909, when Marie was sixteen years old, her father claimed to be the first white man to reach the North Pole, an assertion that has been the subject of debate ever since. In addition to her extensive time spent in the Arctic, Marie was raised in Washington, DC and on Eagle Island, off Harpswell, Maine, with briefer stints in Brooklyn, New York and Bucksport, Maine. Her only surviving full sibling, brother Robert Peary, Jr., was born in 1903; she also had two half-siblings, Anaukaq and Kaali Peary of Kalaallit Nunaat.

After the occasion of her birth, Marie returned to the Arctic three times as a child, all formative experiences that made a strong impact on her. As a toddler, she had spent a year at home in the United States with Eqariusaq, whom Marie called “Billy Bah,” a young teenage Inuk girl who served as her nanny from 1894-1895 while living temporarily with the Pearys. Marie reconnected with Eqariusaq on subsequent childhood visits north. In 1897, she also befriended Nassaannguaq, an Inuk boy who would save Marie’s life on more than one occasion, and she exchanged dolls with a girl at the Danish settlement of Umanak, South Greenland. During the winter of 1900-1901, which Marie and her mother spent unexpectedly frozen in at Payer Harbour, Umimmait Nunaat (Ellesmere Island), she renewed acquaintance with Nassaannguaq and Eqariusaq (who had become a talented seamstress) and made a new friend, Aqattannguaq. She also played with baby Anaukaq (unaware at the time that he was her half-brother) and adopted an Arctic hare as a pet. On this trip, she learned Morse code from Sam Bartlett, the ship’s captain. On her subsequent visit in 1902, she again enjoyed the company of her Inuit friends, this time adopting an orphaned muskox calf. Many of these experiences would inform the children’s stories she published as an adult.
In addition to the lessons taught by her mother while in the Arctic, Marie was educated at Georgetown Visitation Preparatory School, followed by public high school in Washington, DC. After graduation, she studied French and German for a year in Geneva, Switzerland, then completed secretarial school. Young Marie shared her father’s interest in aviation and served as his personal secretary for a time as they worked to establish a military aerial coast patrol. In 1917, she married Edward Stafford (1889-1955), a Washington attorney and US Army Captain in the Coast Artillery Corps during WWI. They had two sons, Edward (“Bud”) Peary Stafford (1918–2013) and Peary (“Junior”) Diebitsch Stafford (1920–1946).

Through her writing, lecturing, and public service work, Marie maintained her profile as an important figure in Arctic affairs and worked to shape the story of her family’s legacy. She was the author of seven books and many magazine articles. For children, she published Little Tooktoo: The Story of Santa Claus’ Youngest Reindeer (1930), Muskox: Little Tooktoo’s Friend (1931), The Red Caboose: With Peary in the Arctic (1932), Snow Baby (1935, an autobiography for children), and Ootah and His Puppy (1942). For adults, she published her autobiography, The Snowbaby’s Own Story (1934), and Discoverer of The North Pole: The Story of Robert E. Peary (1959). In her writing and other activities, she consistently defended her father’s claim to have been the first white explorer to reach the Pole. In 1922, she worked with the National Geographic Society to erect a memorial to him at Arlington National Cemetery; in 1932, she organized a voyage to return to Perlernerit (Cape York, Greenland) with her sons to erect a monument in her father’s honor, a journey documented on film by Pathé News; and in 1938, she worked with her mother to arrange for a bronze monument to Peary atop Jockey Cap mountain in Fryeburg, Maine. In 1955, she presented the National Geographic Society with the American flag sewn by her mother that her father had famously used to mark his achievements of Arctic exploration milestones.

Beyond her family-specific endeavors, during World War II, Marie participated in the Danish-American Commission to manage the affairs of Greenland, then a Danish colony, during Germany’s occupation of Denmark, work for which the Danish government awarded her the King Christian X’s Liberty Medal. She was active for fifty years in the Society of Woman Geographers, including serving as their president. In 1949, Bowdoin College awarded her an honorary Master of Arts degree, and in 1954, she was given the Henry G. Bryant medal by the Geographical Society of Philadelphia for distinguished services to geography.

After her husband’s death in 1955, Marie moved to Brunswick, Maine. There, she devoted considerable time to collecting and organizing her father’s voluminous papers, which she then donated to the National Archives. She donated Eagle Island to the State of Maine in 1967. That same year, she remarried to retired sea captain and longtime family friend William Walter Kuhne (1888-1977). Marie died in 1978 and is buried next to her first husband in Arlington National Cemetery.

The MWWC is grateful to Navarana Sørensen for her consultation on this note.