100 Notable alumni of Bowdoin College

John Alden Woodcock Jr. is a senior United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Maine.

Daniel Dole was a Protestant missionary educator from the United States to the Hawaiian Islands.

Stirling Fessenden, an American lawyer practicing in Shanghai, served as the chairman of the Shanghai Municipal Council from 1923 to 1929 and as Secretary-General from 1929 to 1939.

Everett Frederic Morrow was the first African American to hold an executive position at the White House. He served President Dwight Eisenhower as Administrative Officer for Special Projects from 1955 to 1961.

Thomas Worcester Hyde was an American Union Army colonel, a state senator from Maine, and the founder of the Bath Iron Works, one of the major shipyards in the United States. He wrote two books about his experiences during the American Civil War and at the Battle of Gettysburg.

La Fayette Grover was a Democratic politician and lawyer from the U.S. state of Oregon. He was the fourth Governor of Oregon, represented Oregon in the United States House of Representatives, and served one term in the United States Senate.

Henry Joseph Gardner was the 23rd Governor of Massachusetts, serving from 1855 to 1858. Gardner, a Know Nothing, was elected governor as part of the sweeping victory of Know Nothing candidates in the Massachusetts elections of 1854.

Samuel Merritt was an American physician and the 13th mayor of Oakland, California, from 1867 to 1869. He was a founding Regent of the University of California, 1868-1874. He was also a shipmaster and a very successful businessman. He died in 1890 at age 68, with a reputation as the richest man in Oakland.

Paul Batista is a television personality, American novelist and trial lawyer. He is the author of the leading treatise on the federal racketeering statute, Civil RICO Practice Manual published by the international publishing firm Wolters-Kluwer.

Charles Beecher was an American minister, composer of religious hymns and a prolific author.

Harold Hitz Burton was an American politician and lawyer. He served as the 45th mayor of Cleveland, Ohio, as a U.S. senator from Ohio, and as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.

Charles Wilbert "Bill" Snow was an American poet, educator and politician. He served as the 75th Governor of Connecticut. He generally went by the name Wilbert or Bill Snow, or formally as C. Wilbert Snow.

William Drew Washburn Sr. was an American politician. He served in both the United States House of Representatives and the United States Senate as a Republican from Minnesota. Three of his seven brothers became politicians: Elihu B. Washburne, Cadwallader C. Washburn, and Israel Washburn, Jr. He was also cousin of Dorilus Morrison, the first mayor of Minneapolis. He served in...

Horace Augustus Hildreth was an American diplomat, businessman and Republican politician. He served as the Governor of Maine for two two-year terms, and served as United States Ambassador to Pakistan under president Dwight D. Eisenhower. He also founded the company that became Diversified Communications.

Lyman Alexander Page, Jr. is the James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor of Physics at Princeton University. He is an expert in observational cosmology and one of the original co-investigators for the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) project that made precise observations of the electromagnetic radiation from the Big Bang, known as cosmic microwave background radiation.

David Duane Pearce is an American diplomat who served from 2013 to 2016 as the U.S. Ambassador to Greece. He also served as the United States Ambassador to Algeria, 2008–11 and as the U.S. Consul General in Jerusalem from 2003-2005. He was the Assistant Chief of Mission at the U.S. embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan from 2011-2012; and served as the...

John Fairfield was an attorney and politician from Maine. He served as a member of the United States House of Representatives, the 13th and 16th governor of Maine, and a U.S. senator.

Dudley Allen Sargent was an American educator, lecturer and director of physical training.

Alpheus Felch was the fifth governor of Michigan and U.S. Senator from Michigan.

Percival Proctor Baxter was an American politician and philanthropist from Maine. The son of canning magnate and Portland, Maine mayor James Phinney Baxter, he served as the 53rd governor of Maine from 1921 to 1925. A noted philanthropist, he donated several pieces of land to the public domain including Baxter Woods (Portland), Mackworth Island State Park (Falmouth), and Baxter State...

Kary Antholis is an American publisher and editor of CrimeStory.com, former executive at the television network HBO and documentary filmmaker best known for the Oscar-winning short One Survivor Remembers, which was inducted into the National Film Registry in 2012. Antholis serves on the Board of Visitors of the Georgetown University Law Center and formerly served as co-chair of board of...

Francis Robbins Upton was an American physicist and mathematician. Upton worked alongside Thomas Edison in the development of incandescent light bulbs, electric generators, and electric power distribution. He was the first president of the Edison Pioneers.

Jonathan Cilley was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Maine. He served part of one term in the 25th Congress, and died as the result of a wound sustained in a duel with another congressman, William J. Graves of Kentucky.

Charles Otis Whitman was an American zoologist, who was influential to the founding of classical ethology (study of animal behavior). In 1888, he was the founding director of the Marine Biological Laboratory. A dedicated educator who preferred to teach a few research students at a time, he made major contributions in the areas of evolution and embryology of worms, comparative...

Donald Baxter MacMillan was an American explorer, sailor, researcher and lecturer who made over 30 expeditions to the Arctic from 1908 until 1957 during his 46-year career.

Joaquin Arambula is an American politician currently serving in the California State Assembly. He is a Democrat representing the 31st Assembly District, which encompasses southern and western Fresno County, including the cities of Sanger, Reedley, Orange Cove, and the west side of Fresno.

Abelardo Morell is a contemporary artist widely known for turning rooms into camera obscuras and then capturing the marriage of interior and exterior in large format photographs. He is also known for his 'tent-camera,' a device he invented to merge landscapes with the texture and composition of the ground where he places his camera and tripod to record the simultaneity...

Philip Baine Austin was an American comedian and writer, best known as a member of the Firesign Theatre.

John Stevens Cabot Abbott was an American historian, pastor, and pedagogical writer born in Brunswick, Maine to Jacob and Betsey Abbott.

James Bernard Longley Sr. was an American politician. He served as the 69th governor of Maine from 1975 to 1979, and was the first Independent to hold the office.

Meredith Jung-En Woo is an American academic and author. She is a Senior Fellow at the University Design Institute and a Professor of Practice at the School of Politics and Global Studies, both at Arizona State University. She served as President of Sweet Briar College and as the Dean of the College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at...

Taylor McDowell Mali is an American slam poet, humorist, teacher and voiceover artist.

Owen Lovejoy was an American lawyer, Congregational minister, abolitionist, and Republican congressman from Illinois. He was also a "conductor" on the Underground Railroad. After his brother Elijah Lovejoy was murdered in November 1837 by pro-slavery forces, Owen, a friend of Abraham Lincoln, became a leader of abolitionists in Illinois, condemning slavery and assisting runaway slaves in escaping to freedom.

John Brown Russwurm was a Jamaican-born American abolitionist, newspaper publisher, and colonist of Liberia, where he moved from the United States. He was born in Jamaica to an English father and enslaved mother. As a child he traveled to the United States with his father and received a formal education, becoming the first black person to graduate from Hebron Academy...

Laurence Everett Pope II was an American diplomat. He was the United States Ambassador to Chad from 1993 to 1996 and former US Chargé d’Affaires to Libya. Pope held a number of senior posts in the Department of State. He was the Director for Northern Gulf Affairs (1987–1990), Associate Director for Counter-Terrorism (1991–1993), U.S. Ambassador to Chad (1993–1996), and Political...

Stephen Patrick Laffey /ˈlæfiː/ is an American politician and businessman who served as the mayor of Cranston, Rhode Island, from 2003 to 2007. A former member of the Republican Party (now unaffiliated), Laffey lost primary bids for the United States Senate from Rhode Island in 2006 and the House of Representatives from Colorado's 4th congressional district in 2014.

Paul Howard Douglas was an American politician and Georgist economist. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as a U.S. senator from Illinois for eighteen years, from 1949 to 1967. During his Senate career, he was a prominent member of the liberal coalition.

Charles Wyman Morse was an American businessman and speculator who committed frauds and engaged in corrupt business practices. At one point, he controlled 13 banks. Known as the "Ice King" early in his career out of New York City, through Tammany Hall corruption he established a monopoly in New York's ice business, before buying several shipping companies and moving into...

Philip C. Bolger was a prolific American boat designer, who was born and lived in Gloucester, Massachusetts. He began work full-time as a draftsman for boat designers Lindsay Lord and then John Hacker in the early 1950s.

Susan Ashton Thornton is a former American diplomat. She served as acting Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs during the first Trump administration.

Hugh McCulloch was an American financier who played a central role in financing the American Civil War. He served two non-consecutive terms as U.S. Treasury Secretary under three presidents. He was originally opposed to the creation of a system of national banks, but his reputation as head of the Bank of Indiana from 1857 to 1863 persuaded the Treasury to...

Alvin Darnell Hall is an American financial educator, author, and media personality.

Jacob Abbott was an American writer of children's books and historical biographies.

Calvin Ellis Stowe was an American Biblical scholar who helped spread public education in the United States. Over his career, he was a professor of languages and Biblical and sacred literature at Andover Theological Seminary, Dartmouth College, Lane Theological Seminary, and Bowdoin College. He was the husband and literary agent of Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of the best-seller Uncle Tom's...

William Hodding Carter II was an American progressive journalist and author. Among other distinctions in his career, Carter was a Nieman Fellow and Pulitzer Prize winner. He died in Greenville, Mississippi, of a heart attack at the age of sixty-five. He is interred in the Greenville Cemetery.

Ellis Spear was an officer in the 20th Maine Volunteer Infantry Regiment of the Union Army during the American Civil War. On April 10, 1866, the United States Senate confirmed President Andrew Johnson's February 24 nomination of Spear for appointment to the grade of brevet brigadier general to rank from April 9, 1865. He was United States Commissioner of Patents...

William Pitt Fessenden was a politician from Maine, United States. He was a Whig (later a Republican) and member of the Fessenden political family. He served in the United States House of Representatives and Senate before becoming Secretary of the Treasury under President Abraham Lincoln during the American Civil War. Fessenden then re-entered the Senate, where he died in office...

John Parker Hale was an American politician and lawyer from New Hampshire. He served in the United States House of Representatives from 1843 to 1845 and in the United States Senate from 1847 to 1853 and again from 1855 to 1865. He began his congressional career as a Democrat, but helped establish the anti-slavery Free Soil Party and eventually joined...

John Albion Andrew was an American lawyer and politician from Massachusetts. He was elected in 1860 as the 25th Governor of Massachusetts, serving between 1861 and 1866, and led the state's contributions to the Union cause during the American Civil War (1861–1865). He was a guiding force behind the creation of some of the first African-American units in the United...

John Joseph Paul Studzinski, CBE is an American-British investment banker and philanthropist. Since September 2018 he has been managing director and vice chairman of the global investment-management firm PIMCO.

Dean E. Preston is an American attorney and former member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. In November 2019, Preston won a special election to finish Mayor London Breed's term on the Board of Supervisors. He was re-elected in 2020 but lost to Bilal Mahmood in 2024.

Major Everett Parker Pope was a United States Marine who received the Medal of Honor for his conspicuous gallantry on Peleliu in September 1944 while leading his men in an assault on a strategic hill, and for holding it, with rocks and bare fists when ammunition ran low, against Japanese suicide attacks.

Andrew Serwer is an American journalist and editor-at-large of Barron's, who oversaw Yahoo Finance from 2015 to 2022 as editor-in-chief, and prior to that was the top editor at Fortune. Serwer is based in Manhattan.

Paul Dennis Miller, known professionally as DJ Spooky, That Subliminal Kid, is an American electronic and experimental hip hop musician whose work is often called by critics "illbient" or "trip hop". He is a turntablist, record producer, philosopher, and author. He borrowed his stage name from the character The Subliminal Kid in the novel Nova Express by William S. Burroughs....

Thomas Brackett Reed Jr. was an American attorney, author, parliamentarian and Republican Party politician from Maine who served as the 32nd Speaker of the United States House of Representatives from 1889 to 1891 and 1895 to 1899. He represented Maine's 1st congressional district in the House from 1877 to 1899 and, prior to his time in Congress, represented Portland in...

Edwin Herbert Hall was an American physicist who discovered the Hall effect. He also conducted thermoelectric research and wrote numerous physics textbooks and laboratory manuals.

Christopher Robert Hill is an American diplomat who had served as United States Ambassador to Serbia. Previously, he was George W. Ball Adjunct Professor at Columbia University in the City of New York, the Chief Advisor to the Chancellor for Global Engagement and Professor of the Practice in Diplomacy at the University of Denver. Prior to this position, he was...

Robin McKinley is an American author best known for her fantasy novels and fairy tale retellings. Her 1984 novel The Hero and the Crown won the Newbery Medal as the year's best new American children's book. In 2022, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association named her the 39th Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master in recognition of her significant contributions...

Geoffrey Canada is an American educator, social activist and author. Since 1990, Canada has been president of the Harlem Children's Zone in Harlem, New York, an organization that states its goal is to increase high school and college graduation rates among students in Harlem. This initiative serves a 97-block area of Harlem replete with at-risk children. Canada serves as the...

Sir Harry Oakes, 1st Baronet was a British gold mine owner, entrepreneur, investor and philanthropist. He earned his fortune in Canada and moved to the British Bahamas in the 1930s for tax purposes. Though American by birth, he became a British subject and was granted the hereditary title of baronet in 1939.

Katie Benner is an American reporter for The New York Times covering the United States Department of Justice.

Justin Jamal Pearson is an American activist and politician. He is a member of the Tennessee House of Representatives representing the 86th district, covering parts of the city of Memphis. He was elected in a January 2023 special election to succeed Barbara Cooper, who was posthumously re-elected in the November 2022 Tennessee House of Representatives election after dying in October...

Ralph Owen Brewster was an American politician from Maine. Brewster, a Republican, served as the 54th governor of Maine from 1925 to 1929, in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1935 to 1941 and in the U.S. Senate from 1941 to 1952. Brewster was a close confidant of Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin and an antagonist of Howard Hughes. He was...

Cynthia McFadden is an American television journalist who was the senior legal and investigative correspondent for NBC News. She was an anchor and correspondent for ABC News who co-anchored Nightline, and occasionally appeared on ABC News special Primetime. She was with ABC News from 1994 to 2014 and NBC News from March 2014 to May 2024.

Edwin Mah Lee was an American politician and attorney who served as the 43rd Mayor of San Francisco from 2011 until his death in 2017.

Melville Weston Fuller was an American politician, attorney, and jurist who served as the eighth chief justice of the United States from 1888 until his death in 1910. Staunch conservatism marked his tenure on the Supreme Court, exhibited by his tendency to support unfettered free enterprise and to oppose broad federal power. He wrote major opinions on the federal income...

Hari Karthikeya Kondabolu is an American stand-up comedian and writer. His comedy covers subjects such as race, inequity, and Indian stereotypes. He was a writer for Totally Biased with W. Kamau Bell and the creator of the 2017 documentary film The Problem with Apu.

Thomas Albert Ecke Van Dekker, commonly known as Albert Dekker, was an American actor and politician. He starred in Broadway productions like Death of a Salesman (replacing Lee J. Cobb), An Enemy of the People, A Man for All Seasons, and The Devils. He was also a Hollywood character actor, notably playing memorable villains in films like Dr. Cyclops (1940),...

Kenneth Irvine Chenault is an American businessman who was chairman and chief executive officer (CEO) of American Express (AMEX) from 2001 to 2018. When he was named AMEX chair, he became the third Black CEO of a Fortune 500 company. Since 2018, he has been chairman and managing director of General Catalyst, a venture capital firm.

DeRay Mckesson is an American civil rights activist, progressive podcaster, and former school administrator. An early supporter of the Black Lives Matter movement, he has been active in the protests in Ferguson, Missouri, and Baltimore, Maryland and on social media outlets such as Twitter and Instagram. He has also written for HuffPost and The Guardian. Along with Johnetta Elzie, Brittany...

James Edward Staley is an American banker and the former group chief executive of Barclays. He spent 34 years at J.P. Morgan's investment bank. After moving to BlueMountain Capital in 2013, Staley became CEO of Barclays in December 2015.

Herbert Tsangtse Kwouk was a British actor. He is perhaps best known for his role as Cato in the Pink Panther films. He made appearances in many television programmes, including a portrayal of Imperial Japanese Army Major Yamauchi in the British drama series Tenko and as Entwistle in Last of the Summer Wine.

Brad Anderson is an American film director, producer and writer. A director of thriller and horror films and television projects, he is best known for directing The Machinist (2004), starring Christian Bale, psychological horror film Session 9 (2001) and The Call (2013), starring Halle Berry. He also produced and directed several episodes of the Fox science fiction series Fringe. Earlier...

Evan Gershkovich is an American journalist and reporter at The Wall Street Journal covering Russia.

Gary Fred Merrill was an American film and television actor whose credits included more than 50 feature films, a half-dozen mostly short-lived TV series, and dozens of television guest appearances. He starred in All About Eve and married his costar Bette Davis.

Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain was an American college professor and politician from Maine who volunteered during the American Civil War to join the Union Army. He became a highly respected and decorated Union officer, reaching the rank of brigadier general (and brevet major general). He is best known for his gallantry at the Battle of Gettysburg, leading a bayonet charge, for...

George John Mitchell Jr. is an American politician, diplomat, and lawyer. A leading member of the Democratic Party, he served as a United States senator from Maine from 1980 to 1995, and as Senate Majority Leader from 1989 to 1995. After retiring from the Senate, Mitchell played a leading role in negotiations for peace in Northern Ireland and the Middle...

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was an American poet and educator. His original works include the poems "Paul Revere's Ride", The Song of Hiawatha, and Evangeline. He was the first American to completely translate Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy and was one of the fireside poets from New England.

Robert Edwin Peary was an American explorer and officer in the United States Navy who made several expeditions to the Arctic in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He was long credited as being the discoverer of the geographic North Pole in April 1909, having led the first expedition to have claimed this achievement, although it is now considered...

Stephen Arnold Douglas was an American politician and lawyer from Illinois. As a U.S. senator, he was one of two nominees of the divided Democratic Party to run for president in the 1860 presidential election, and lost to Republican candidate Abraham Lincoln. Douglas had previously defeated Lincoln in the 1858 United States Senate election in Illinois, known for the pivotal...

Wilmot Reed Hastings Jr. is an American billionaire businessman. He is the co-founder and chairman of Netflix, Inc., which provides the Netflix streaming service. Hastings serves on a number of boards and works with various non-profit organizations. A former president of the California State Board of Education, Hastings is also an advocate for charter schools.

Nathaniel Hawthorne was an American novelist and short story writer. His works often focus on history, morality, and religion.

Alfred Charles Kinsey was an American sexologist, biologist, and professor of entomology and zoology who, in 1947, founded the Institute for Sex Research at Indiana University, now known as the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction. He is best known for writing Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (1948) and Sexual Behavior in the Human Female (1953),...

Franklin Pierce was the 14th president of the United States, serving from 1853 to 1857. A northern Democrat who believed that the abolitionist movement was a fundamental threat to national unity, he alienated anti-slavery groups by signing the Kansas–Nebraska Act and enforcing the Fugitive Slave Act. Conflict between North and South continued after Pierce's presidency, and, following Abraham Lincoln's victory...

Cyrus Hamlin was an attorney, politician, and general from Hampden, Maine, who served in the Union Army during the American Civil War.

William Pierce Frye was an American politician from Maine. A member of the Republican Party, Frye spent most of his political career as a legislator, serving in the Maine House of Representatives and then U.S. House of Representatives, before being elected to the U.S. Senate, where he served for 30 years before dying in office. Frye was a member of...

Freelan Oscar Stanley was an American inventor, entrepreneur, hotelier, and architect. He made his fortune in the manufacture of photographic plates but is best remembered as the co-founder, with his brother Francis Edgar Stanley, of the Stanley Motor Carriage Company which built steam-powered automobiles until 1920. He also built and operated the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado.

William Sebastian Cohen is an American lawyer, author, and politician from the U.S. state of Maine. A Republican, Cohen served as both a member of the United States House of Representatives (1973–1979) and Senate (1979–1997), and as Secretary of Defense (1997–2001) under Democratic President Bill Clinton.

Douglas Richards Kennedy was an American actor who appeared in more than 190 films from 1935 to 1973.

Oliver Otis Howard was a career United States Army officer and a Union general in the Civil War. As a brigade commander in the Army of the Potomac, Howard lost his right arm while leading his men against Confederate forces at the Battle of Fair Oaks/Seven Pines in June 1862, an action which later earned him the Medal of Honor....

John Fremont Hill was an American businessman and politician. He served in a number of positions in Maine government, including as the 45th governor of Maine from 1901 to 1905.

Zohran Kwame Mamdani is an American politician who has served as the 112th mayor of New York City since January 2026. A member of the Democratic Party and the Democratic Socialists of America, Mamdani served from 2021 to 2025 as a member of the New York State Assembly for the 36th district, representing Astoria, Queens.

Joan Benoit Samuelson, née Joan Benoit, is an American marathon runner who was the first women's Olympic Games marathon champion, winning the gold medal at the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. She held the fastest time for an American woman at the Chicago Marathon for 32 years after winning the race in 1985. Her time at the Boston Marathon...

Anthony Doerr is an American author of novels and short stories. He gained widespread recognition for his 2014 novel All the Light We Cannot See, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

Kristina "Tina" Satter is an American playwright and theater director based in New York City. She is the founder and artistic director of the theater company Half Straddle, which formed in 2008 and received an Obie Award grant in 2013. Satter won a Guggenheim in 2020. Satter was described by Ben Brantley of the New York Times as "a genre-and-gender-bending,...

Patrick Leo Meehan is a former American Republican Party politician and federal prosecutor from Pennsylvania who represented parts of Delaware, Chester, Montgomery, Berks, and Lancaster counties in the United States House of Representatives from 2011 until his resignation in 2018. He succeeded Democrat Joe Sestak, who ran unsuccessfully for the United States Senate.

Thomas E. Allen is an American college football coach who is the defensive coordinator at Clemson University. He previously served as the head coach at Indiana from 2017 to 2023, and was the defensive coordinator at Penn State for the 2024 season. He was named the 2020 Big Ten Coach of the Year and AFCA Coach of the Year.

Eugenio Gabriel "Gabby" Lopez III is a Filipino-American businessman who was the CEO (1993–2013), chairman (1997–2018) and chairman emeritus (2018–2020) of ABS-CBN Corporation, the largest entertainment and media conglomerate in the Philippines.

Peter Richard Hayes is a British diplomat. He was formerly the Commissioner of the British Indian Ocean Territory and the British Antarctic Territory.