The Indomitable Spirit of Edmonia Lewis (64 page)

[699]
Whitney to Sarah Whitney, Oct. 28, 1867, Whitney MSS.

[700]
William James Stillman,
The Autobiography of a Journalist
(London: Grant Richards, 1902): I, 294. See also 299-300.

[701]
Whitney to Sarah Whitney, Oct. 28, 1867, Whitney MSS.

NOTES FOR 3. SPITE

[702]
SFDEB, Personal Items, Feb. 8, 1872, repeated in
Weekly Salt Lake (UT) Daily Tribune, Folio: a Monthly Journal of Music, Drama, Art and Literature, New Orleans (LA) Picayune, American Missionary,
and SFDEB. See also SFDEB, Personal Items, Apr. 5, 1873; repeated DKJ,
Monroe (WI) Liberal Press.

[703]
Fort Wayne (IN) Daily Gazette,
editorial, June 17, 1870.

[704]
Clark,
Great American Sculptures,
141-142. Cf. Taft,
History,
212, and Thorp,
The Literary Sculptors,
94-95. See also Grace Glueck, “The Woman as Artist,” NYT, Sept. 25, 1977, noted that H. W. Janson’s
History of Art,
widely used as a textbook,
omitted
women artists.

[705]
BDET, From Foreign Files, Feb. 3, 1873. For a less influential written insult, see also William Hayes Ackland, Unpublished memoirs, Ackland Art Museum, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Ackland, after meeting her at the Centennial, drubbed her as looking like a “southern cook” in a handwritten journal. He later downgraded “cook” to “house maid.”

[706]
SFC, Aug. 26, 1873.

[707]
Gay, “Edmonia Lewis.”

[708]
Boston
(MA)
Daily Traveller,
Nov. 17, 1880.

[709]
Cleveland,
Story,
109-110.

[710]
David I. Kertzer, and Dominique Arel,
Census and Identity: The Politics of Race, Ethnicity, and Language in National Censuses
(New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 52-53.

[711]
Kellee Blake, “First in the Path of the Firemen,”
Prologue, Quarterly of the National Archives and Records Administration
28 (1996), 64-81.

[712]
American Phrenological Journal and Life,
Sept. 1873, quoted in ChRec, Sept. Monthlies, Sept. 11, 1873.

[713]
Bristol (PA) Bucks County Gazette,
Apr. 30, 1874; AtlC,
Postville (IA) Review,
and
Daily Advertiser
(London, ON
, Canada
).

NOTES FOR 4. AFTER 1878

[714]
Cortazzo,
Recollections,
204, Feb. 23, 1880.

[715]
Franz Liszt,
The Letters to Olga von Meyendorff, 1871-1886
(Dumbarton Oaks, DC: Trustees for Harvard University, 1979), 232;
Alvise Zorsi, “Ruskin in Venice,”
Cornill Magazine,
XXI, Aug.-Sept., 1906, 250-265, 366-380,
noted Isabel sculpted a portrait bust of English critic and writer John Ruskin in 1877.

[716]
Passenger list,
SS Algeria,
New York, Aug. 12, 1871, recorded “Abby Manning, Voyager” age 59, and “Ann Whitney, Voyager,” age 43. They were actually about 36 and 50, respectively.

[717]
Karcher,
The First Woman,
597.

[718]
Child to Whitney, Nov. 15, 1878, in
Selected Letters,
555.

[719]
Child to Whitney, May 22, 1878, in Child,
Selected Letters,
550-551. Cf. Child to Whitney, 1878, and to Sarah Shaw, 1880, in
Letters
(1883), 247-248, 257; to James Redpath, June 10, 1878, and to Sarah Shaw, 1879, in
Selected Letters,
547-548, 560.

[720]
ChT, City, Sept. 7, 1879; Sept. 14, 1879.

[721]
NYT, Sept. 25, 1879;
Cincinnati (OH) Catholic Telegraph,
Jottings, July 8, 1880;
Boston (MA) Daily Traveller,
Nov. 17, 1880. Good Samaritan Hospital was also called “Sister Anthony’s” after Sister Anthony O’Connell, who had earned fame nursing the wounded during the Civil War.

[722]
Passenger list,
SS City of Berlin,
New York, June 23 [or 21], 1879.

[723]
NYT, Sept. 25, 1879.

[724]
BDET, Art and Artists, Aug. 8, 1879; excerpted by
Butte (MT) Daily Miner, Cambridge (OH) Jeffersonian, Connellsville (PA) Keystone Courier, Placerville (CA) Mountain Democrat,
etc.

[725]
Leininger-Miller, “Edmonia Lewis Marble Sculpture, The Bride Of Spring.”

[726]
Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic Association,
Fourteenth Exhibition: September and October, 1881,
84: “Owned by Nathan Appleton [Jr.].” Cf. Skinner, Inc., auction July 10, 2010:
European Furniture & Decorative Arts
- Sale 2513 - Lot 452, accessed Aug. 16, 2010, http://www.skinnerinc.com/asp/fullcatalogue.asp?refno=++854151&salelot=2513+++++452+&t=5028139&.

[727]
Charles Eric Lincoln, Lawrence H. Mamiya,
The
Black Church in the African-American Experience
(Chapel Hill: Duke University Press, 1990): 57-58. The word “Zion” distinguished the New York-based church from the AME Church
founded by Bishop Allen
in Philadelphia.

[728]
Carter Godwin Woodson,
History of the Negro Church.
Second Edition (Washington DC: Associated Publishers, 1921): 103: “he is often spoken of by the Zionites as the ablest preacher of his time.”
Decatur (IL) Local Review,
Aug. 14, 1873, quotes the
New York (NY) Advocate:
“In his prime he was a very able preacher, and wielded the largest influence of any minister of his denomination.”

[729]
Emma Lou Tho
r
nburg, “African Americans,”
Encyclopedia of Indianapolis
(Indiana University Press, 1994): 5-14. Cf. African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church
,
About our church, accessed Aug. 15, 2012, http://amez.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=512&Itemid=97
.

[730]
Bishops J. Varick and William Miller.

[731]
Willis Nazery
(
or Nezery
)
.

[732]
Christopher Busta-Peck, Sculptures by Edmonia Lewis - a map detailing the locations of her works, accessed Jan. 26, 2011, http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=111922491849879858588.00000111c25cf3e5408c0&z=3&om=1.

[733]
Tom Baione, American Museum of Natural History, Oct. 29, 2007, indicated the donor was a phrenologist. The “patination” process usually involves a metallic paint that will “age.”

[734]
Connellsville (PA) Keystone Courier,
Ladies’ Column, Jan. 16, 1880.

[735]
Boston
(MA)
Daily Traveller,
Nov. 17, 1880, reprinted by
Washington (DC) People’s Advocate
and excerpted by BrDE.

[736]
Ibid.

[737]
BDET, Sept. 16, 1878: “In Rome she received the blessing of Pius IX, who was kind to her.”

[738]
Compare: “Immediately on leaving Oberlin, when she was seventeen years of age” (i.e., born 1846) with “she was born near Albany, somewhere about 1840.”

[739]
Child died Oct. 20, 1880. Ten months earlier, BDET, Dec. 15, 1879, noted Edmonia’s departure for Europe.

[740]
Child, Selected Letters, xv; Karcher,
The First Woman,
606.

[741]
Child to Sarah Shaw, Apr. 8, 1866, Child MSS 64/1717, which also denounced Edmonia’s
Freed Woman,
called her medallion of Phillips “horridly vulgarized;” ChRec, Mar. 31, 1866, noted Edmonia had produced a bust of Phillips before leaving for Italy, commenting, “We saw last winter one of these, the exact likeness;” Bullard, “Edmonia Lewis,” called her medallion portrait of Phillips “fine.”

[742]
Hartford (CT) Courant,
Boston Correspondence, Mar. 3, 1884. Phillips’ generally poor opinion of sculptors apparently included Whitney, whose portraits Child and Phillips once greatly admired, and Hosmer. Cf. Child to Sarah Shaw, 1879, in
Selected Letters,
560; Wendell Phillips, “Boston Statues,” NYT, Nov. 10, 1879.

[743]
Baltimore (MD) Sun,
“A Work from a Colored Sculptor,” Feb. 26, 1883, was excerpted in WoJ, NYT, ChRec,
Otago Witness
(NZ),
Red Dragon
(Wales),
Helena (MT) Independent, Bismarck (ND) Tribune, Cleveland (OH) Gazette
and other newspapers.
See also
Baltimore (MD) Sun,
“A Bas-Relief by a Colored Artist,” Mar 30, 1883, 4; Calbraith Bourn Perry,
Twelve Years among the Colored People
(New York: J. Pott & co., 1884), 83-84. The work was lost in a fire. A photograph of the panel was identified in 2011 by researcher Holly Solano and posted at http://edmonialewis.com/adoration_of_the_magi.htm.

[744 ] note eliminated

[745] note eliminated

[746]
B. O. Duncan, “Report By Consul Of Naples,” in
Reports of Committees of the Senate, 48th Congr, 1st Sess.
[1883-'84.] (Washington: Gov’t Printing Office, 1884:), 203-204; NYT, “Duty on Foreign Works of Art,” Mar. 6, 1884; Kimberly Orcutt, “Buy American?”
American Art
16 (2002): 82-91.

[747]
BDET, “Artists Speak Again,” June 5, 1883, cites a petition dated Apr. 30, 1883; Senate Misc. document no. 28, 48th Congress, 1st session, 1886. Cf. Rogers, Randolph Rogers, 150 and Mary E. Phillips,
Reminiscences of William Wetmore Story
(Chicago: Rand McNally, 1897), 233-238, cite a petition dated June 15, 1885, which would have been directed at the 49th Congress, March 1885-March 1887; and Hosmer,
Letters,
375-377, wrote, “Three times within my recollection have the American artists in Rome presented petitions to Congress praying that all tax upon foreign art be removed.” We found the first (Dec. 1, 1883) with 36 signatures and two others (June 15, and Dec. 15, 1885) with 30.

[748]
U. S. Senate, Record Group 46, Records of the U.S. Senate, 48th Congress, Committee on the Library, Petitions and Memorials, (SEN 48A-H14.2, USNARA), “Views gathered from members of the Society of American Artists, from other prominent artists in the different cities of the U.S., from the art journals of the U.S., and from American artists who are at present abroad.”

[749]
Other women signed the petitions, including sculptors Louise Lawson, Alma J. Boyer, and Luella M. Varney.

[750]
Weeksville is an historic area within the Bedford-Stuyvesant area of Brooklyn, NY. See also New York City Dept. of Parks and Recreation. Weeksville Playground, accessed Nov. 11, 2009, http://www.nycgovparks.org/parks/B093/
.

[751]
The orphanage was at 1550 Dean St.

[752]
BrDE, “Rev. W.F. Johnson’s Testimonial,” June 25, 1886.

[753]
Living artists listed included Ives, Simmons, and Story father and sons. Martin Millmore died in 1883 and Florence Freeman in 1876.

[754]
Cleveland
(OH)
Gazette,
item, July 23, 1887. S. Russell Forbes,
Rambles in Rome
(1887), 351, listed Edmonia’s studio at 70 Via Babuino, quite close to Via Margutta.

[755]
NYT, Art and Artists Abroad. “The Return of Miss Louise Lawson. She is the Only American Sculptress in Italy,” Oct. 18, 1887,
quote
d
Miss Lawson.

[756]
Hartswick,
Gardens of Sallust,
25-30.

[757]
Frederick Douglass Diary, Jan. 19-31, Feb. 11, 1887, FDP, Images 23-27, 33 See also Dorothy Burnett Porter, “The Remonds of Salem, Massachusetts,”
Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society
95 (1985): 259-295; Sterling,
We are Your Sisters,
175-180. Sarah Remond was the seventh daughter of John and Nancy Remond, who moved their family to Newport RI in 1835 to escape discrimination
in
Salem, MA
.
Her brother, Charles Lenox Remond, had been an effective ally of Frederick Douglass. See also Frederick Douglass to son Lewis, Feb. 11, 1887, Library of Congress. MSS Div. Reel No. 1: “The Remonds are now, like me, to be remembered with old people — but I suppose they, like myself, can hardly realize it.”