| Famous Alumni | |
- Joel Abromson (Class of 1960) – served as state senator of Maine
- Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain (Class of 1852) – colonel in command of 20th Maine Infantry, defended Little Round Top at Gettysburg, received Congressional Medal of Honor, served four terms as governor of Maine, served as Bowdoin's president 1871–1883.
- Kenneth Chenault (Class of 1973) – served as the CEO of American Express, helped bring AmEx back from the brink
- William S. Cohen (Class of 1962) – served as U.S. senator from Maine before becoming secretary of defense for President Bill Clinton
- Paul H. Douglas (Class of 1913) – served as U.S. senator from Illinois
- Reed Hastings (Class of 1983) – founder of Netflix
- Nathaniel Hawthorne (Class of 1825) – author of "Fanshawe," "The Scarlet Letter," and "The House of Seven Gables"
- Oliver Otis Howard (Class of 1850) – Civil War hero and founder of Howard University, served as Howard University's first president from 1869 to 1874; Bowdoin's residence hall, Howard Hall, is named in his honor.
- Alfred C. Kinsey (Class of 1916) – wrote "Sexual Behavior in the Human Male" and "Sexual Behavior in the Human Female" in 1953; Kinsey's research is still considered the largest and most significant study of human sexuality.
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (Class of 1825) – professor of modern languages at Bowdoin from 1829 to 1835, arguably the most popular literary figure in 19th-century America
- Donald B. MacMillan (Class of 1898) – led one of Peary's support teams; MacMillan went on to lead more than two dozen expeditions to the Arctic, often enlisting Bowdoin College students as members of his scientific crew.
- George Mitchell (Class of 1954) – served as U.S. senator from Maine from 1980 to 1995; from 1995 to 2000, he served as special adviser to President Bill Clinton and the secretary of state for economic initiatives in Ireland.
- Robert E. Peary (Class of 1877) – reached the North Pole in 1909; Peary returned to the United States a national hero and was promoted to the rank of rear admiral.
- Franklin Pierce (Class of 1824) – 14th president of the United States of America
- Sumner T. Pike (Class of 1913) – served as president of the Atomic Energy Commission
- John Brown Russwurm (Class of 1826) – Bowdoin's first black graduate and the third black man to graduate from an American college; he went on to become co-founder and co-editor of the country's first black newspaper, Freedom's Journal.
- Joan Benoit Samuelson (Class of 1979) – won gold medal in the first women's Olympic marathon, held in Los Angeles in 1984
- Calvin Stowe (Class of 1824) – married to Harriet Beecher Stowe, who wrote "Uncle Tom's Cabin" in his study while he was living in Appleton Hall
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