Creator |
Heywood, John B., -1870, photographer. |
Contributor |
Hosmer, Harriet Goodhue, 1830-1908 Freedman's National Monument. |
|
Hosmer, Harriet Goodhue, 1830-1908, sculptor. |
|
Rowell, Frank, 1832-1900, publisher. |
|
Hosmer, Harriet Goodhue, 1830-1908, copyright holder. |
Title |
Freedman's National Monument [graphic] / Photographed by Heywood. |
Publisher |
Boston, Mass. : Published by Frank Rowell, 25 Winter Street |
Publisher |
MA. Boston. 1866 |
Date |
1866 |
Physical Description |
1 photograph : albumen on card mount (carte de visite format) ; mount 11 x 6 cm (4 x 2.25 in.) |
Description |
Interior view showing the plaster model for the proposed design of the Freedman's Memorial to Lincoln by expatriate sculptor
Harriet Hosmer when on display in the Boston Athenaeum, likely statuary gallery, in 1866. Shows, from an oblique angle, the
model on top of a draped table and in front of two archways. The model of the Memorial design was composed of mutiple tiers
on the top of which lied a figure of Lincoln in a sarcophagus within an open temple. An edited version of the words of the
Emancipation Proclamation adorned the temple which stood on a base with a frieze designed with thirty-six female allegories
representing the states of the Union during Lincoln's presidency. On the base below the temple was a sculptural cycle of African
American history to that period. Four standing Black male figures on pedestals surrounded the base at each corner. The figures
portrayed included a seminude, enslaved man, with his head down, and his wrists manacled; a soldier in uniform with a forward
gaze and a bayonetted rifle in his hands that was pointed to the ground; an enslaved man who rests on a hoe with his head
bowed down; and a soldier, looking ahead, and holding a gun. On the four outside corners were "Mourning Victories" with their
trumpets reversed. The angle of the image shows a view of the model that includes the Lincoln figure, three of the African
American men figures, and three of the "Mourning Victories."
|
|
Hosmer designed the Memorial in response to a monument project sponsored by the Western Sanitary Commission of St. Louis after
formerly enslaved Charlotte Scott of Marietta, OH pledged $5 for a monument to Abraham Lincoln following his assassination
in 1865. Donations from formerly enslaved persons grew to $20,000 within months of Scott's original donation. Hosmer later
altered the design and an engraving of her new proposal appeared in the Art Journal (London), January 1, 1868. Hosmer's model,
purported to cost over $100,000 to be executed, was never sculpted. After years of competing projects, designs, and sponsoring
agencies, on April 14, 1876, a sculpture by Thomas Ball, "Emancipation," designed without the input of the formerly enslaved
donors was erected in Lincoln Square, Washington, D.C. on an eastern edge of Capitol Hill.
|
Notes |
Title printed on mount. |
|
Date from copyright statement: Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1866, by Harriet G. Hosmer, in the clerk's
office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.
|
|
Harriet Hosmer (1830-1908) was a lesbian, expatriate neoclassical sculptor, who was one of the most famous artists of her
time. Hosmer had her own studio and her work often focused on idealized mythological female figures associated with strength
and courage. Hosmer was also a women's rights activist and an inventor.
|
|
Purchased with the Louise Marshall Kelly fund. |
|
See Kirk Savage, Standing soldiers, kneeling slaves: Race, war, and monument in nineteenth-century America (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1997), p.89-128.
|
Biographical / historical note |
John B. Heywood (d. 1870) operated a photographic studio in Boston circa 1858-circa 1870, when he then appears to have relocated
to Chicago per 1870 census records. He may also be the J.B. Heywood who advertised a photographic studio in New Bern, N.C.
in 1866. Between 1869 and 1870, he is listed in Boston at 25 Winter, the address of photographer and publisher Frank Rowell,
who established a branch of his photographic studio in Chicago in 1867.
|
Subject |
Boston Athenaeum -- Buildings. |
|
Lincoln, Abraham, 1809-1865 -- Monuments. |
|
African Americans -- History. |
|
African American men -- Statues. |
|
Enslaved persons -- Emancipation. |
|
Fund raising. |
|
Models. |
|
Monuments & memorials. |
|
SP3 African American History |
Genre |
Albumen prints -- 1860-1870. |
|
Cartes de visite -- 1860-1870. |
Printer |
Rowell, Frank, 1832-1900, publisher. |
|
Hosmer, Harriet Goodhue, 1830-1908, copyright holder. |
Location |
Library Company of Philadelphia| Print Department| cdv - Heywood - Monuments & statues [P.2022.28.1] |
Accession number |
P.2022.28.1 |