The Indomitable Spirit of Edmonia Lewis (58 page)

[358]
Christopher Busta-Peck, “Hagar (detail),” accessed April 24, 2012, http://www.flickr.com/photos/cbustapeck/422656264/in/set-72157602074432914/

[359]
Callahan, “‘Brother Saul.’”

[360]
Urbino,
American Woman,
229.

NOTES FOR
20. TIMES DARK, OUTLOOK LONESOME – 1868 to 1869

[361]
For example, J. M. Hutchinson, “Letter from Italy,” Evangelical Repository and United Presbyterian Review (Philadelphia
, PA
), Mar., 1870, 576-581.

[362]
Child to Sarah Shaw, [Aug.? 1870], Child MSS 74/1958.

[363]
Boston (MA) Commonwealth, “Edmonia Lewis,” Apr. 24, 1869. The report reappeared in BrDE and Galveston (TX) Daily News.

[364]
Whitney to Home, Feb. 7, 1869, Payne MSS, 758-761, constitutes the most detailed report of Edmonia’s financial crisis of 1868-1869. The agent, Ificelo Ercole, appears in Murray’s Handbook as a translator as well as a banker at Freeborn and Co., an English company with offices near the Spanish Steps. See also Regina Soria, Elihu Vedder (Rutherford, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1970), 66, 69-70.

[365]
NASS, Mar. 6, 1869, announced Forever Free would be auctioned on Mar. 11, minimum bid $400.

[366]
Indianapolis (IN) News, Nov. 18, 1878.

[367]
Whitney to Home, Feb. 7, 1869, Payne MSS, 758-761.

[368]
Whitney to Home, Feb. 7, 1869, Payne MSS, 758-761
.
See also Sherwood,
Hosmer,
117.

NOTES FOR 21. CELEBRITY LOST AND FOUND – 1868 to 1869

[369]
Longfellow, Life, II, 446; III, 127.

[370]
Leach, Bright Particular Star, 340 (chap. 28), referred to the Selwyn Theatre opening.

[371]
Cushman to Peabody, July 23, 1869, Massachusetts Historical Society Library. Cf. Cushman, Her Letters, 229-231. Cushman would make her final voyage Oct. 23, 1870, from Liverpool on the SS Scotia accompanied by Stebbins – no occupation given by either – and Mercer, “servant.” She posted her age as two years older this trip while Stebbins cut hers by ten years.

[372]
Sources about Foley include Whitney to Home, Feb. 7, 1869, Payne MSS, 758-761; Craven,
Sculpture,
331; Tuckerman,
Book,
603-604; BDET, quoted in BL, Nov. 10, 1865; Eleanor Tufts, “Margaret Foley’s Metamorphosis: A Merrimack ‘Female Operative’ in Neo-Classical Rome,”
Arts Magazine,
Jan. 1982, 91-95; National Museums Liverpool. Bust of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/walker/collections/foreign/longfellow_edmonia_lewis.aspx, accessed May 31, 2010; Carleton, Mar. 1867; “A New York paper,” quoted in LRAU, Mar. 1866, 184; Cushman to Peabody, July 23, 1869, Massachusetts Historical Society Library.

[373]
Carleton, Mar. 1867. See also Tuckerman, Book, 603, covered Margaret Foley with a single paragraph after Emma Stebbins and before Edmonia.

[374]
Whitney to Home, Feb. 7, 1869. Cf. A-J, Mar. 1870; Louisianian, May 11, 1874; Willard, Writing Out My Heart, 328-329.

[375]
Longfellow, Life, 127.

[376]
Cf. Timothy Anglin Burgard, “Edmonia Lewis and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow,”
American Art Review
7 (1995): 114-117, who related it to an antique bust of Homer.

[377]
Rev. Samuel Longfellow

[378]
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow,
Evangeline, A Tale of Arcadie
(1847), tells the story of a young woman separated from her lover amid scenes of the forest primeval. See also Tuckerman,
Book,
603-604.

[379]
Urbino,
American Woman,
229: “Her Marriage of Hiawatha is small and handsome; she had sold several; wished she could afford to make Longfellow a present of one.”

[380]
Whitney to Home, Feb. 7, 1869, Payne MSS, 758-761; Malfas, “Art,”
The Spectator,
July 31, 1869, 901-902.

[381]
A-J, Mar. 1870. Not all critics agreed. For example, Jarves, “What American Women Are Doing in Sculpture:” “The bust of Longfellow, by [Edmonia Lewis] only serves to confirm the opinion already expressed, of the general inaptitude of women to succeed in this branch of art.”

[382]
Peabody, ChReg [1869], quoted in Hanaford,
Women of the Century,
264-266.

NOTES FOR 22. BUTE

[383]
Thomas Mozley, Apr. 20, 1869, in
Letters from Rome on the Occasion of the Œcumenical Council, 1869-1870
(London: Longmans, Green, 1891), II, 378-379; first printed in
Times
(London, England), “Easter at Rome,” Apr. 26, 1870, excerpted by
Manchester Times
(Manchester, England),
Bristol Mercury
(Bristol, England); Henry Wreford, “Archæology and Art at Rome,”
Athenæum,
Apr. 23, 1870, 554-555. See also Bullard, “Edmonia Lewis,” NYDG, July 10, 1873, etc. Easter 1869 was March 28.

[384]
Catherine Armet, Bute archivist, telephone conversation with Harry Henderson, June 29, 1979, letter July 5, 1979; Lynsey Naim, Bute archivist, Feb. 11, 2011. The altarpiece purchased by Bute was reportedly placed in his home, Mount Stuart. It may have been destroyed in an 1877 fire that damaged part of this huge building. There is no surviving documentation of it or of any reference to Edmonia.

[385]
Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield, was born of Sephardic Jewish parents but baptized in the Church of England. He finished writing
Lothair
in 1870.

[386]
Consular Relations between the United States and the Papal States. Instructions and Despatches,
ed. by L. F. Stock. (Washington DC: American Catholic Historical Assn., 1945), 342: “Fees Received … 532. [Apr.] 30, [1869] “Miss Lewis, Passport. $5.” Posting her age as 23, she arrived New York June 1, 1869, aboard Cunard’s
SS Tripoli
from Liverpool.

NOTES FOR 23. BACK IN THE USA

[387]
NASS, July 10, 1869.

[388]
Freedmen’s Record,
Apr. 1866.

[389]
Fields, Osgood and Co.
(
successor to Ticknor and Fields). See also ChRec, Personal, July 31, 1869
.

[390]
NYT, July 8, 1869, and
New Bedford (MA) Daily Mercury,
July 8, 1869; repeated in BrDE, ChRec,
Boston (MA) Telegram
. See also
Boston (MA) Commonwealth
quoted in NASS, July 17, 1869.

[391]
Whitney to Sarah Whitney, Dec. 12, 1869, Whitney MSS. There is no account of other visits to her mother’s people, although many of her travels took her near Niagara Falls and Albany. Whitney’s letter refers to aunt in the singular, but the NYDG interview refers to “Indian aunts” and
Indianapolis (IN) News
refers to Indian aunts and uncles” of her childhood. Some excerpts of NYDG specify “two aunts.” The word “aunt” can be, of course, an honorific applied to family friends.

[392]
Child, letter to the editor, BL, Feb. 19, 1864.

[393]
Indianapolis (IN) News,
Nov. 18, 1878.

[394]
Whitney, Dec. 12, 1869. The term “squaw,” reported by Whitney, could have been intentionally scornful – or not. The U. S. census, 1870, confirms Edmonia’s brother shared quarters with a mulatto woman from Kentucky, Lizzie Williams, age 33, who kept a restaurant.

[395]
BrDE, Miscellaneous Items, Aug. 16, 1869. Two weeks later,
Revolution
attributed the story to the World.
Baltimore (MD) Sun,
News in Brief, Aug 11, 1869, noted her arrival in Cleveland.

[396]
Galveston (TX) Daily News,
“Miss Lewis,” Sept. 17, 1869. NASS, Sept. 25, 1869, expanded the story.

[397]
Silas Francis Marean Chatard grew up in Baltimore and earned a medical degree at Mount St. Mary’s College. He became the rector of the North American College in Rome (which trains American priests) by 1868. In 1878, the Church ordained him a Bishop and sent him to Vincennes, Indiana.

[398]
Indianapolis (IN) News,
Nov. 18, 1878.

[399]
Wreford, “Studios of Rome;”
Baltimore (MD) Sun,
“Statue by Colored Woman,” Apr. 23, 1908, 7. See also St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church, Baltimore. A Short History, accessed June 25, 2010, http://www.josephite.com/parish/md/sfx/page2.html; Oblate Sisters of Providence. History, accessed June 25, 2010, http://www.oblatesisters.com/History.html
.

[400]
BDET, Oct. 18, 1869; Oct. 19, 1869. Cf.
Boston (MA) Advertiser,
quoted in NASS, Nov. 20, 1869; and Peabody, ChReg [1869], quoted in Hanaford,
Women of the Century,
264-266 (errs in the date).

[401]
Child to Sarah Shaw, [Aug.? 1870], Child MSS 74/1958.

[402]
Richmond (VA) Dispatch,
“Has Able Speakers,” May 18, 1900: “In Coburn Hall … is a marble bust of Mr. Leonard Grimes, made by the famous negro sculptress, Edmonia Lewis, now of Rome.”

[403]
George Makepeace Towle,
American Society
(London: Chapman and Hall, 1870), II, 9.

[404]
Whitney to Sarah Whitney, Dec. 12, 1869, Whitney MSS. Caroline Wells Healey Dall wrote
College, the Market, and the Court; Or, Woman's Relation to Education, Labor, and Law
(1867). The photo of Edmonia’s plaster bust of Col. Shaw (Figure 5) survives in the Dall-Healy Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society.

[405]
Whitney to Sarah Whitney, Jan. 20, 1870, Whitney MSS.

[406]
Payne MSS, 856.

[407]
Harriot Kezia Hunt, will dated Oct. 4, 1871, filed Jan. 6, 1875, Massachusetts Archives at Columbia Point, Boston, MA
.

[408]
Bullard, “Edmonia Lewis
.
”

[409]
SFDEB, Aug. 28, 1873:

the figures designed and executed by her for the Hunt monument in Mount Auburn, added much to her fame in this country. One is a female over a vase of flowers, as if engaged in botanical studies; the other a female with book in hand, the two typical of the thirst for knowledge of Dr. Harriet K. Hunt and her sister.

See also SFDMC, Aug. 30, 1873. Meg L. Winslow, curator, Mount Auburn Cemetery, Aug. 23, 2007, advises the “preservation staff gently wash the statue periodically and remove organic growth such as moss and lichen. Over the years, the statue has been pointed and maintained…. We are proposing to design a protective cover….” Meg L. Winslow, Nov. 19, 2007, indicates the reference describes “bas reliefs that were once located on the pedestal below the statue.” Only one relief, a seated woman reaching for a container, survives. For more photographic views, see also Bearden and Henderson,
A History,
71, and Christopher Busta-Peck, Hygeia, accessed March 25, 2009, http://www.flickr.com/photos/cbustapeck/419300858/in/set-72157602074335938/.

[410]
Cushman, Hosmer, Longfellow, Sumner, Joseph Story, Whitney, and Manning are among those buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery.

NOTES FOR 24. VINNIE REAM

[411]
Unless indicated otherwise, references to Vinnie Ream’s life come from Cooper,
Vinnie Ream;
Dabakis, “Sculpting Lincoln;” Sherwood,
Labor of Love;
Washington Star,
quoted in “Vinnie Ream,” LRAU, Aug. 1867, 156-158.

[412]
Wreford, “Studios of Rome:” “The Americans will gain no small amount of credit if, of their superfluous wealth, they bestow a little in encouraging the two ladies just mentioned;” James,
William Wetmore Story,
I, 258: “One of the sisterhood … was a negress … another was a ‘gifted’ child … who shook saucy curls in the lobbies of the Capitol and extorted from susceptible senators commissions for national monuments. The world was good-natured to them—dropped them even good-naturedly, and it is not in our fond perspective that they must show of aught else than artless.” See also
Court Journal
(London, Engl.) quoted in
Newark (NJ) Daily Advertiser,
Oct. 12, 1871.

[413]
Rogers,
Randolph Rogers,
114-116. Henry Kirke Brown made the first Lincoln memorial statue to be dedicated, a bronze unveiled in Brooklyn NY about the time Ream and her family arrived in Italy.

[414]
Mark Twain, letter to the editor,
Chicago Republican,
Feb. 19, 1868.