Women of Acadia

Women of Acadia is the first book to showcase the talented women who made Acadia National Park what it is today. Boldly told, these stories of private lives and public legacies emerge in a meticulously researched narrative, archival photographs, and brilliant original paintings.

Acadia is the first American national park created entirely through private land donations—a monumental feat of conservation. Many of the park’s most popular sites, including Sand Beach, the Beehive, and Witch Hole Pond, were gifts from women. Women also funded a network of hiking trails noted for its exquisite engineering. One woman was even the impetus for changing the park’s name from Lafayette to Acadia in 1929.

Beyond the national park, these fifty trailblazers saved from development other parts of Bar Harbor, Mount Desert Island, and the coast of Maine. They played roles in creating preserves, gardens, and children’s parks, as well as the Abbe Museum and the MDI Biological Laboratory. In addition to conservation, they led key social movements of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, including prison reform, women’s suffrage, Native American rights, city beautification, and saving America’s farmlands.