MacDowell Colony Names its Library in Honor of James Baldwin

The MacDowell Colony will name its library for author and MacDowell Fellow James Baldwin on November 4 in a public ceremony, marking the first time a national arts organization will dedicate a building in his name. The move honors Baldwin’s work and continued impact on the public imagination as a novelist, poet, activist, essayist, playwright, social critic, and cultural leader. Award-winning poet, essayist, and MacDowell Fellow Kevin Young, the director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture—where Baldwin’s archive of personal papers are kept—and poetry editor of the New Yorker, as well as educator, writer, and MacDowell Fellow Florence Ladd, currently an overseer of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, are scheduled to speak at the event.

Housing more than 15,000 books, recordings, musical scores, films, and visual works created by MacDowell Fellows, the James Baldwin Library offers an extraordinary resource and connects artists across MacDowell’s 111-year history. The Library will be dedicated during a public ceremony on Sunday, November 4th, at 11 a.m. at MacDowell in Peterborough, N.H. In conjunction with the naming of the library, MacDowell is launching a Baldwin Initiative that will raise fellowship funds to sustain the program and remove financial barriers to becoming an artist.