The May 2, 1907, Peterboro Transcript included the text of a speech given March 24 by Howard Mansfield at the second dinner of the MacDowell Association of New York City, in which he said, “The union of genius with the highest ideals made Edward MacDowell more than a great composer and a great artist, more than a poet and a teacher; it made him a leader.”
He also announced that within the previous week, the Edward MacDowell Memorial Association had been formed, and that on the same day, the deed to Edward and Marian MacDowell’s Peterboro home was delivered to the association so that it “shall be the center of interest to artists working in varied fields” – what we now know as the MacDowell artist residency program.