The Indomitable Spirit of Edmonia Lewis

by Harry Henderson

  [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 For a less influential written insult, see also William Hayes Ackland, Unpublished memoirs, Ackland Art Museum, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.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 Thornburg, “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, (SE
N 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, quoted 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.”

  [758] Frederick Douglass, The Life and Writings, edited by Philip S. Foner (New York: International Publishers, 1955): IV: 401.

  [759] Record Group 84, Rome Consulate Italy, Register of Citizens, Dec. 3, 1889-July 9, 1896. Col. Merl M. Moore art history archives at the Smithsonian American Art Museum / National Portrait Gallery Library; Elizabeth Gray, USNARA, Dec. 19, 2007, confirmed the undated entry, which was posted in an alphabetical arrangement that begs the question of what day she visited. Via Ludovisi was a new street not shown on the 1876 Spithöver map. See also Italy: Handbook for Travellers. Second Part: Central Italy and Rome (Leipsic: Karl Baedeker, 1893), 120.

  [760] Amelia B. Edwards, Barbara's History. 2d ed. (London: Hurst and Blackett, 1864), III, 130-133. Cf. Murray’s Handbook (1888), 5.

  [761] Cortazzo, Recollections, 150: letter, Jan. 4, 1891.

  [762] The street is now Via della Conciliazione. Borgo Vecchio and “P. Moroni” appear on the 1876 Spithöver map, but the designation “Palazzo Moroni” has moved several times since then. Cf. Society of the Divine Savior, accessed, June, 12, 2011, http://www.sds.org/

  [763] Edmonia Lewis to Miss McCandless, undated, published in the Indianapolis (IN) Freeman, Apr. 1, 1893. For other mentions of the Wheatley portrait, see New York (NY) Illustrated American, Personals, Mar. 25, 1893, 376; Hallie Q. Brown, “A Discussion of the Same Subject,” in World’s Congress of Representative Women: A Historical Résumé for Popular Circulation, ed. by May Wright Sewall (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1894), II, 724-729; Hezekiah Butterworth, The Patriot Schoolmaster (New York: D. Appleton, 1894), 186. See also Boston (MA) Daily Globe, “Should Have Monument,” Aug. 11, 1894, 5, which noted, “This bust was to be completed in time to be put on exhibition at the World’s fair last year, but through some mistake the order did not reach Miss Lewis in time.” Wheatley died fifty-five years before the invention of photography.

  [764] “Cleopatra by Edmonia Lewis (colored) Italy,” Folder heading: Events. Exhibition. Illinois. Chicago. World’s Columbian Exposition. Sculpture I. Chicago Historical Society. Thanks to George Gurney, Smithsonian American Art Museum, for this.

  [765] American Architect and Building News, “Chicago. The Orange Exhibition.” May 23, 1891, 120:

  In a dusky and dusty corner of the same part of the building is an object to be glanced at casually and wonderingly. It is the Carrara marble ‘Cleopatra’ of the little sculptress Edmonia Lewis. The figure is not by any means a wonderful production, but certainly good enough to deserve a little better treatment than to be hidden in the dust of this particularly dirty locality. The marble is so begrimed that it scarcely is recognizable as marble, the end of the tapering sandal is broken, several fingers and toes are missing, and after a few months more of such usage, there would be a chance for restoration as of a veritable antique. Perhaps the Exposition managers are planning for such a result, and expect to bring the work before the public again, with added worth, though perhaps fewer phalanges, as coming from some recent Egyptian excavations. Chicago will stand, is accustomed in fact, to a good deal of general brag and presumption, but this sort of thing would be a little more than they could bear, as younger people than the oldest inhabitant remember when they paid their extra quarter in the early Exposition days, to look upon the same white queen and to have a chat with her dusky-hued creator, who sat by her side. Her ignominious position among the oranges is not the lowest place to which the mighty has fallen, for at the ‘fat-stock’ show she could be found hustled off among the boxes and stalls. The proud daughter of the Ptolemys seems to be claimed by no one, and one wonders whether even Miss Lewis has lost all interest in her.

  There are certainly many places where she could fill a long-felt want, and once more become quite a ‘leading lady.’ The statue would most assuredly be more appropriate in the Newberry Library than the huge and poor picture of one of our prominent society women, now conspicuous in World's-Fair circles, which graces the walls of the auditorium of that edifice.

  [766] Monumental News, Among the Sculptors, May, 1892, 181. See also ChT, “Disposition of the Building, June 11, 1891, 2.

  [767] Sherwood, Hosmer, 324-327; Culkin, Hosmer, 136-159.

  [768] Official Directory of the World's Columbian Exposition, Moses Purnell Handy, editor (Chicago: W. B. Conkey Co., 1893), 1059, listed the vague “Lewis, Edmonia, New York. … Statuettes,” in the Women’s Building, while citing Ream’s “Miriam,” “The West,” and “America,” and Whitney’s “marble bust of Lucy Stone.”

  [769] The others included anti-lynching crusader Ida B. Wells, publisher Ferdinand L. Barnett, and Irvine Garland Penn.

  [770] M. M. Manring, Slave in a Box: The Strange Career of Aunt Jemima (Charlottesville VA: University of Virginia Press, 1998).

  [771] Wells et al., The Reason, 61. This pamphlet discussed exclusions of African-Americans and significant differences about how to deal with this issue. The fair had opened May 1. The pamphlet was not released until Aug. 30.

  [772] NYT, “Work of Colored Women,” June 10, 1893. See also Board of Women Managers for the Exhibit of the State of New York at the World’s Columbian Exposition, 1893, Report (New York: Press of J. J. Little and Co., n. d.), 53; Monroe Alpus Majors, Noted Negro Women (Chicago: Donohue and Henneberry, 1893), 289-294, noted Imogene Howard (younger sister of Adeline, who accompanied Edmonia to Richmond) became a well-known teacher in New York City; BrDE, “Choice Art Exhibit,” Apr. 10, 1893, described African-American art that included Hiawatha and Minnehaha, “among the sculpture work done by Miss Edmonia Lewis of Boston,” asserting “after being exhibited here will be forwarded to Chicago to be displayed among the contributions which Afro-Americans will make to the world fair;”

  [773] ChT, “Is a Noble Figure,” Mar. 18, 1893; reprinted BrDE, Indianapolis (IN) Freeman, Newark (OH) Daily Advocate, Washington Heights (IL) Flaming Sword.

  [774] NYT, Personal, Dec. 21, 1897, repeated Washington (DC) Post, Fort Wayne (IN) News. See also Stone, “Peterson Granite Co.,” Aug. 1899, 268; and “John Brown Monument,” Sept., 365; Granite, “St. Paul, Minn.—The contract,” Oct. 1, 1899, 28.

 
; [775] ChT, “Park Commissioners Almost Pass the Lie at Board Meeting,” July 12, 1900; New York (NY) Evening Post, quoted in North Adams (MA) Transcript, and Trenton (NJ) Times. Correctionville (IA) Sioux Valley News added that the design was conceived by the last of John Brown’s siblings and that Jackson Park was the intended site. Julia Bachrach, Chicago Park District historian, May 23, 2007, indicated no record of a John Brown statue in Washington or Jackson parks.

  [776] I. Garland Penn, “The New Negro at Our Show,” AtlC, July 28, 1895. Other newspapers had already picked up news of the appearance of Edmonia’s Sumner: NYT, Oakland (CA) Tribune, The Anglo-American Times (London, Eng.), New Philadelphia Ohio Democrat, Xenia (OH) Gazette and Torchlight, Newark (OH) Advocate, Lima (OH) Times-Democrat, Waterloo (IA) Courier, Ironwood (MI) News-Record, Warren (PA) Ledger, Coshocton (OH) Democratic Standard, New Philadelphia (OH) Democrat, and Fort Wayne (IN) Gazette.

  [777] ChRec, “The Negro department of the Atlanta Exposition,” Nov. 15, 1894.

  [778] ChRec, “Atlanta Exposition,” Jan. 10, 1895.

  [779] Henry McNeal Turner, “To Colored People,” AtlC, Jan. 13, 1895.

  [780] Black codes were laws meant to limit the rights and liberties of African Americans prior to post-Reconstruction Jim Crow laws.

  [781] Rev. J. W. E. Bowen, quoted in AtlC, “Negro Progress,” Oct. 22, 1895.

  [782] Salt Lake City (UT) Broad Ax, “The Colored Race at Atlanta,” Dec. 7, 1895. See also ChT, “Exhibit of the Negroes,” Nov. 24, 1895; Appletons' Annual Cyclopædia … for the year 1895, s. v. “Exposition, Cotton-States International …The Negro Building.”

  [783] AtlC, “In the Fine Arts Hall,” Nov. 22, 1895. See also Bearden and Henderson, A History, 89.

  [784] Boston (MA) Evening Record, “At Atlanta,” Oct. 14, 1895, continued, “The other piece worthy of the name [Art] is a painting by H. O. Tanner, entitled, ‘Learning to Play the Bagpipes.’ Tanner is in Paris where he has been for several years, and he is said to be doing good work. Whether he has about forgotten that the blood of the African runs through his veins or not the attendant at this exhibit was unable to say.”