MacDowell was founded in 1907 by composer Edward MacDowell and pianist Marian MacDowell, his wife. It was the first artist colony in the United States.

The mission of MacDowell is to nurture the arts by offering creative individuals of the highest talent an inspiring environment in which they can produce enduring works of the imagination.

At its founding, MacDowell was an experiment with no precedent. It stands now having provided crucial time and space to more than 6,000 artists, including such notable names as Leonard Bernstein, Thornton Wilder, Aaron Copland, Milton Avery, James Baldwin, Spalding Gray, and many more.

In 1997, MacDowell was honored with the National Medal of Arts — the highest award given by the United States to artists or arts patrons — for “nurturing and inspiring many of this century’s finest artists” and offering them “the opportunity to work within a dynamic community of their peers, where creative excellence is the standard.” In 2007, MacDowell celebrated its Centennial with a yearlong celebration of the freedom to create.