The Indomitable Spirit of Edmonia Lewis

Home > Other > The Indomitable Spirit of Edmonia Lewis > Page 35
The Indomitable Spirit of Edmonia Lewis Page 35

by Harry Henderson


  Cleveland, Cecilia. The Story of a Summer, Or, Journal Leaves from Chappaqua. New York: G. W. Carleton & Co., 1874.

  Cooper, Edward S. Vinnie Ream. An American Sculptor. Chicago: Academy Press, 2004.

  Cortazzo, Emma Cullum, and Katherine Renee Cortazzo. Recollections of a Mother and Daughter. n.p., [1945?].

  Craven, Wayne. Sculpture in America. Newark, Del: University of Delaware Press, 1984.

  Culkin, Kate. Harriet Hosmer. A Cultural Biography. Amherst MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 2010.

  Cushman, Charlotte. Her Letters and Memories of Her Life, edited by Emma Stebbins. Boston: Houghton, Osgood, 1878.

  Dabakis, Melissa. “‘Ain’t I a Woman?’ Anne Whitney, Edmonia Lewis, and the Iconography of Emancipation.” In Seeing High & Low, ed. Patricia Johnson, 84-102. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006.

  ------. “Sculpting Lincoln.” American Art 22 (2008): 79-101.

  NYDG. “The Miscegen Sculptor,” and Pictures of the Day. July 10, 1873.

  Dale, John Thomas. What Ben Beverly Saw at the Great Exposition. Chicago: Centennial Publishing Co., 1876.

  Devine, James Edward. Historic Caughnawaga. Montreal: Messenger Press, 1922.

  Douglass, Frederick. Editorial, “Miss Edmonia Lewis.” NNEra. Sept. 25, 1873.

  Emerson, Ellen Tucker. Letters, edited by E. E. W. Gregg. Kent OH: Kent State University Press, 1982.

  Faithfull, Emily. Three Visits to America. New York: Fowler and Welles Co., 1884.

  Fletcher, Robert S. A History of Oberlin College From Its Foundation through the Civil War. Oberlin OH: Oberlin College, 1943.

  Flotte, Jack. “Edmonia Lewis and the Three Wise Men.” ICA News 6 (Summer/Fall) 2004, item 4. Accessed Nov. 28, 2005. http://www.ica-artconservation.org/.

  Forney, John W. A Centennial Commissioner in Europe. Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1876.

  Gay, Lail. “Edmonia Lewis, the Colored Sculptress." Philadelphia Sunday Mercury. 1876. LS.

  Hanaford, Phebe Ann. Women of the Century. Boston: B. B. Russell, 1877.

  Haverstock, Mary Sayre, et al. Artists in Ohio, 1787-1900. Kent OH: Kent State University Press, 2000.

  Hawthorne, Julian. Hawthorne and His Circle. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1903.

  ------. Nathaniel Hawthorne and His Wife: A Biography. 3rd ed. Boston, James R. Osgood and co., 1885.

  Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The Marble Faun. Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1860.

  ------. Passages from the French and Italian Notebooks. Various editions.

  Holland, Juanita Maria. "Mary Edmonia Lewis's Minnehaha: Gender, Race, and the Indian Maid." Bulletin of the Detroit Institute of Arts 69, no. 1/2 (1995): 26-35.

  Hosmer, Harriet G. Letters and Memories. New York: Moffat Yard and co., 1912.

  Huidekoper, Alfred. Glimpses of Europe in 1851 and 1867-8. Meadville PA: Printed for the Author, 1882.

  Indianapolis (IN) News. “Edmonia Lewis, an Interview.” Nov. 18, 1878.

  Ingram, J. S. The Centennial Exposition, Described and Illustrated. Philadelphia: Hubbard Bros, 1876. , http://fax.libs.uga.edu/text/ceditxt.txt.

  James, Henry. William Wetmore Story and his Friends. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1903.

  Jarves, James Jackson. The Art-Idea. Sculpture, Painting and Architecture in America. New York: Hurd and Houghton, 1864.

  ------. Art Thoughts. New York: Hurd and Houghton, 1869.

  ------. “What American Women Are Doing in Sculpture.” Art Review (Mar. 1871): 3-4.

  Johnson, William Henry. Autobiography. Albany, NY: Argus Co, 1900.

  Kachun, Mitch. “Before the Eyes of All Nations: African-American Identity and Historical Memory at the Centennial Exposition of 1876.” Pennsylvania History 65 (1998): 300-323.

  Karcher, Carolyn L. The First Woman in the Republic. A Critical Biography of Lydia Maria Child. Durham: Duke University Press, 1994.

  L., F. C. [pseud.]. “The Centennial.” New York (NY) Progressive American. Sept. 28, 1876. LS.

  Langston, John Mercer. From the Virginia Plantation to the National Capitol. Hartford CT: American Publishing Company, 1894.

  Leach, Joseph. Bright Particular Star, Life and Times of Charlotte Cushman. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1970. Accessed June 30, 2010. http://www.cardinalbook.com/leach/cushman/iso8859/index.htm.

  Leeson, Michael A., ed. History of Montana 1739–1885. Chicago: Warner, Beers, 1885.

  Leininger-Miller, Theresa. “Edmonia Lewis Marble Sculpture, The Bride Of Spring.” In Fall Americana: Fine and Decorative Art Oct. 12-13, 2007. Lot 644, 196-199. Cincinnati OH: Cowan’s Auctions, Inc., 2007. http://www.cowanauctions.com/auctions/item.aspx?ItemId=49074

  Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth. Life ... with Extracts from His Journals. Boston: Ticknor and co., 1886.

  ------. The Song of Hiawatha. Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1856.

  Miller, Joaquin, ed. An Illustrated History of the State of Montana. Chicago: Lewis Pub. Co., 1894.

  Murray, Freeman Henry Morris. Emancipation and the Freed in American Sculpture: A Study in Interpretation. Washington DC: author, 1916.

  Nelson, Charmaine A. The Color of Stone. Sculpting the Black Female Subject in Nineteenth Century America. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2007.

  Newark (NJ) Daily Advertiser. “An Artistic Presentation.” Dec. 27, 1878

  New York (NY) Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper. “Edmonia Lewis, Sculptor.” Aug. 1, 1868, 316.

  New York (NY) Progressive American. Reprinted in “Edmonia Lewis.” NNEra, Feb. 12, 1874.

  NYT. “Roman Studios.” May 17, 1873.

  -----. “Seeking Equality Abroad.” Dec. 29, 1878.

  -----. Untitled interview. Sept. 25, 1879.

  Oberlin College. General Catalogue 1833-1908. 1909.

  P., A. C. A. [pseud.]. “Notes from Philadelphia.” Athenæum (London, Engl.). July 1, 1876, 16-17; Aug. 12, 1876, 208-209.

  Peabody, Elizabeth Palmer. “Miss Edmonia Lewis’ Works.” Boston (MA) Commonwealth. July 10, 1869.

  Pickle, Peregrine [pseud. George Putnam Upton]. On the Wing. “Edmonia Lewis.” ChT, Aug. 28, 1870.

  Porter, James A. Modern Negro Art, with a new introduction by D. C. Driskell. New York: Howard University Press, 1992.

  Proctor, Nancy E. American Women Sculptors in Rome in the Mid-Nineteenth Century: Feminist and Psychoanalytic Readings of a Displaced Canon. PhD. diss. University of Leeds. 1998. Accessed April 2, 2010. http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/894/1/uk_bl_ethos_494026.pdf.

  Richardson, Marilyn. “Bust of Minnehaha by Edmonia Lewis, African-American Sculptor.” In Fine and Decorative Art, Feb. 7, 2009. Lot 190. Cincinnati: Cowan’s Auctions, 2009.

  ------. “Edmonia Lewis at McGrawville: The Early Education of a Nineteenth-Century Black Woman Artist.” Nineteenth-Century Contexts 22 (2000): 239-256.

  ------. “Edmonia Lewis’ The Death of Cleopatra. Myth and Identity.” International Review of African American Art 12 (1995): 36–52.

  ------. “Friends and Colleagues: Edmonia Lewis and Her Italian Circle.” Sculptors, Painters, and Italy: Italian Influence on Nineteenth-Century American Art. Il Prato, 2009.

  Rogers, Millard F., Jr. Randolph Rogers; American Sculptor in Rome. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1971.

  Rubenstein, Charlotte S. American Women Sculptors. Boston: G.K. Hall, 1990.

  Rydell, Robert W. All the World’s a Fair. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984.

  Sampson, John Patterson. “Doing the Centennial.” ChRec. Oct. 19, 1876.

  Savage, Kirk. Standing Soldiers, Kneeling Slaves. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997.

  Schoolcraft, Henry Rowe. Notes on the Iroquois. New York: Bartlett & Welford, 1846.

  Schoolcraft, Henry Rowe, and S. Eastman. Information Respecting the History, Condition and Prospects of the Indian Tribes of the United States. Philadelphia: Lippencott, Grambo & Co., 1853.

  SFC. “A Colored Sculptress.” Sept. 3, 1873.

  ------. “Edmonia Lewis.
” Aug. 26, 1873.

  SFDEB. “Edmonia Lewis.” Aug. 28, 1873.

  ------. “Edmonia Lewis.” Sept. 6, 1873.

  ------. “Statuary at the Art Rooms.” Sept. 8, 1873.

  SFDMC. Statuary and Paintings. Aug. 30, 1873.

  SFEl. “Miss Lewis, the Colored Sculptor.” June 12, 1868.

  ------. “Miss Edmonia Lewis.” Sept. 6, 1873.

  SFPaA. “Miss Edmonia Lewis’ Statuary Exhibition.” Sept. 6, 1873.

  ------. “Our Distinguished Visitor.” Aug. 30, 1873.

  Sherwood, Dolly. Harriet Hosmer, American Sculptor, 1830-1908. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1991.

  Sherwood, Glenn V. A Labor of Love: The Life and Art of Vinnie Ream. Hygiene Co: SunShine Press, 1997.

  SJWM. “Edmonia Lewis.” Sept. 27, 1873.

  St. Louis (MO) Post and Dispatch. “Edmonia Lewis Sculpture Case Before Judge Adams.” Jan. 23, 1879.

  St. Louis (MO) Times-Journal. “Experts in Tombstones.” Jan. 24, 1879.

  Sterling, Dorothy, ed. We Are Your Sisters. New York: Norton, 1984.

  Taft, Lorado. The History of American Sculpture. New York: Macmillan, 1903.

  Thorp, Margaret Farrand. The Literary Sculptors. Durham NC: Duke University Press, 1965.

  Tuckerman, Henry T. Book of the Artists. American Artist Life. New York: G.P. Putnam & Son, 1867.

  USCC. International Exhibition. 1876. Official Catalogue complete in one volume. Rev. ed. Philadelphia: Nagle, 1876.

  Urbino, Levina Buoncuore. An American Woman in Europe. The Journal of Two Years and a Half Sojourn in Germany, Switzerland, France, and Italy. Boston: Lee and Shepard, 1869.

  Wells, Ida B., ed. The Reason Why the Colored American is Not in the World’s Columbian Exposition, reprint introduced by Robert W. Rydell. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1999.

  Willard, Frances E. Writing Out My Heart. Selections from the Journal … 1855-96. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1995.

  Wolfe, Rinna Evelyn. Edmonia Lewis. Wildfire in Marble. Parsippany NJ: Dillon Press, 1998.

  Wreford, Henry. “Lady Artists in Rome,” by H. W. A-J. June 1, 1866, 177-178.

  ------. “A Negro Sculptress,” by H. W. Athenæum (London, Engl.), March 3, 1866, 302.

  ------. The Studios of Rome, by H. W. A-J. May 1, 1870, 141-142.

  Figure 55. Harry Henderson (left) and Romare Bearden

  Harry and Romie first met in the 1940s at a studio that Romie shared with photographer Sam Shaw. Photo: Frank Stewart.

  NOTES

  [1] Suggested cataloging:

  Henderson, Harry Brinton, Jr., (1914-2003)

  The Indomitable Spirit of Edmonia Lewis. A Narrative Biography / Harry Henderson and Albert Henderson.

  Includes illustrations, maps, bibliographical references, list of works.

  1. Mary Edmonia Lewis, 1844-1907. 2. Sculptors – United States – Biography. 3. Women sculptors – United States – Biography. 4. Expatriate sculptors – Italy – Rome – Biography. 5. Afro-American art. 6. Afro-American artists – Biography.

  I. Henderson, Albert (Kossack), 1938- II. Title

  ISBN 978-1-58863-451-1 (PDF electronic book)

  ISBN 978-1-58863-452-8 (EPUB electronic book)

  730.92

  NB237 L487

  NOTES FOR INTRODUCTION

  [2] See also Albert and Joseph Henderson, “Romare Bearden and Harry B. Henderson, Jr.,” 100 Fine Works on Paper, Swann, public sale 2049, Sept. 15, 2005, opp. Item 64; Harry Henderson, biography, http://harryhenderson.com/bio.

  [3] Veronica Chambers, book review, Los Angeles (CA) Times Book Review, Jan. 2, 1994, and Barbara Chase-Riboud, book review, African American Review 30 (Spring, 1996), 115-116, both described A History as a “ landmark work.” See also Ruth Fine, The Art of Romare Bearden (Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art / Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 2003), 188-189, who termed it “an invaluable reference.”

  [4] Bearden and Henderson, A History, 54-77, 485-489, covers Edmonia Lewis and offers a number of illustrations not duplicated here.

  NOTES FOR PROLOGUE

  [5] “Colored” was the most common usage found in print with our subject.

  [6] We found evidence Edmonia returned to America in 1869, 1870, 1872, 1873, 1875, 1876, 1878, 1879, 1898, and possibly 1886 and 1899.

  [7] SFC, Aug. 26, 1873.

  [8] See Lydia Maria Child [hereafter “Child”], letter to the editor, New York (NY) Independent, Apr. 5, 1866; Sampson, “Doing the Centennial.”

  [9] The reforms included the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution banning slavery (ratified 1865); the Fourteenth guaranteeing citizenship, due process, equal protection of law, and representative government (1868); and the Fifteenth prohibiting the use of race in determining who could vote (1870).

  [10] Murray, Emancipation, 20-23.

  [11] Passenger list, SS Ville de Paris (French Line), which arrived in New York July 1, 1875, from Le Havre. The word of choice at the time, “emigrants” (rather than “immigrants”), emphasized foreign origins.

  [12] Fletcher, A History, II, 553. Unless indicated otherwise, historical details about the College come from this work, James Harris Fairchild, Oberlin: Its Origin, Progress, and Results (Oberlin: Shankland and Harmon, 1860), the U. S. Census, or Oberlin College, General Catalogue (1909). Of the village’s 2,915 people, twenty-five per cent were colored, the highest proportion of any northern city or settlement. Three to four percent of the student body were colored.

  [13] Oberlin College Archives. Edmonia attended Oberlin College’s preparatory course 1859 to 1860 and continued with the ladies’ course 1860 to 1863, including optional winter courses to study algebra, botany, composition, and rhetoric when the College was officially closed. She did not complete the 1863 term.

  [14] Anne Whitney [hereafter “Whitney”] to Adeline M. Manning, Aug. 9, 1864, Payne MSS: 511-512.

  [15] Leeson, History of Montana, 254, 1141; Miller, An Illustrated History, 374-376; Bozeman (MT) Courier, Apr. 6, 1896. Unless otherwise indicated, biographical details of Edmonia’s brother come from these three sources and the U. S. census.

  [16] Suggesting members of the Lewis family continued living in Newark, a New Jersey death certificate dated Dec. 19, 1882, recorded “Hannah M. Lewis” age 4 years, 10 months, colored, born in Newark, father black teamster Henry F. Lewis, and wife Cinderella.

  [17] Rayford W. Logan, Haiti and the Dominican Republic (New York: Oxford University Press, 1968), 13, indicated “a small number of Negroes … came in from the United States [1819-1844].”

  [18] Unless indicated otherwise, references to Edmonia’s childhood appear in the following sources: Child, letter to the editor, BL, Feb. 19, 1864; Child, “A Chat;” Child, “Edmonia Lewis;” Wreford, “A Negro Sculptress;” Wreford, “Lady Artists in Rome;” Boston (MA) Post; HELBAA; Bullard, “Edmonia Lewis;” NYDG, July 10, 1873; SFC, Aug. 26, 1873; Gay, “Edmonia Lewis;” Indianapolis (IN) News, Nov. 18, 1878; NYT, Dec. 29, 1878; NYT, Sept. 25, 1879; Boston (MA) Daily Traveller, Nov. 17, 1880; Faithfull, Three Visits, 293-94.

  [19] Record of Attendance, Conduct, and Grades of Students in the NYCC, 1854-1858. Lamont Memorial Free Library, McGraw, New York. See also Richardson, “Edmonia Lewis at McGrawville;” Cortland (NY) Standard, “New York Central College,” Mar. 1, 1915; NYCC Association, Annual Reports, New York State Library; Syracuse (NY) Daily Star, “New York Central College,” Aug. 3, 1849; L. F. Litwack, North of Slavery; the Negro in the Free States, 1790-1860 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961), 141; Ralph Varney Harlow, Gerrit Smith, Philanthropist and Reformer (New York: Henry Holt, 1939), 231; McGraw Central School District, History, accessed July 1, 2010, http://www.mcgrawschools.org/teacherpage3.cfm?teacher=817. NYCC was sponsored by the American Baptist Free Mission Society (which had separated from the American Baptist denomination). Its supporters included Oberlin College backers William Lloyd Garrison, Horace Greeley, Frederick Douglass, Gerrit Smith, and Henry Ward Beecher.

  [20] HELBA
A. Cf. New York. State Education Dept, Iroquoian and Algonquian Indians: A Historical Perspective and Resource Guide (Albany, NY: University of the State of New York, 1985), 10.

  [21] H. W. [Henry Wreford] “A Negro Sculptress,” Athenæum 2001, Mar. 3, 1866, p. 302. See also HELBAA. Cf. New York Central College register of students from 1854 – 1858, Courtesy of Mary Kimberly, village historian, Village of McGraw NY.

  [22] Bearden and Henderson, A History, 54. The authors had information suggesting that Edmonia descended from a colored man named Lewis who married a daughter of the Mike family in the Chippewa community. The 1851 Canadian census, provided by professor Donald B. Smith, University of Calgary, June 12, 1996, listed the daughters of John and Caty Mike, Jane and Catherine, as ages 15 and 6, respectively, too young to have borne a child in 1844.

  [23] U. S. census, 1860, 1870, 1880, 1900. Edmonia’s brother gave census takers a variety of birthplaces: New Jersey, Bermuda, and eventually the more truthful yet vague West Indies. He cited West Indies again in his brief histories published in 1885 and 1894. Only in his 1896 obituary and the census of 1900 do we find mention of Haiti. See also Tim Matthewson, “Jefferson and the Nonrecognition of Haiti,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 140 (1996): 22-48; Thomas O. Ott, The Haitian Revolution, 1789-1804 (Knoxville, Tenn.: University of Tennessee Press, 1973).

  [24] The term is found in Evangeline: A Tale of Arcadie (1847) and The Song of Hiawatha (1855).

  [25] Cleveland, Story, 109-110. Edmonia’s baptism, which could not be confirmed by Archivio Storico del Vicariato in Rome, must have taken place outside Rome.

  [26] Catholic Encyclopedia (New York: Robert Appleton co., 1907-1914), s. v. “Chippewa Indians,” accessed July 7, 2010, http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03690a.htm. The western Jesuit missions to the Catholic Chippewa of Wisconsin and Michigan’s upper peninsula were, we believe, too remote and too early to be relevant. By the time of Edmonia’s birth, the Michigan/Wisconsin Jesuits had long since turned their missions over to other Catholic priests and departed the area. Edmonia’s childhood tales made one reference to that area. A lone interview mentions Michigan: Boston (MA) Post, quoted in Philadelphia (PA) Daily Evening Bulletin, “American Artists in Rome,” Mar. 9, 1867. Not supported by any other source, the writer may have assumed she lived in Michigan based on her connection with Longfellow’s poem. See also Devine, Historic Caughnawaga, 61-62, 151-153, 244-247. Schoolcraft, Notes on the Iroquois, 29, 44- 221.

 

‹ Prev