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Breaking the Mold of True Womanhood: Expressions of Feminine

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Breaking the Mold of True Womanhood: Expressions of Feminine © COPYRIGHT by Sarah Hines 2017 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED For Laura Elizabeth BREAKING THE MOLD OF TRUE WOMANHOOD: EXPRESSIONS OF FEMININE AGENCY IN THE SCULPTURAL CAREERS OF HARRIET HOSMER, EDMONIA LEWIS, AND VINNIE REAM BY Sarah Hines ABSTRACT Harriet Hosmer, Edmonia Lewis, and Vinnie Ream were successful female American sculptors active during the second half of the nineteenth century. As women in a traditionally male profession, they carefully negotiated their expressions of feminine propriety and their ambitions carefully. At a time when women were expected to act only within domestic spaces, these three women operated to varying degrees in the public sphere. Although they had to conform to the expectations of their patrons and meet standards of proper feminine decorum, each woman found ways to challenge cultural norms of femininity in their professional spheres and in their work. These three women performed different aspects of ideal femininity, each using it as a tool to create a sort of façade of “True Womanhood,” which often allowed them to continue to function with greater agency, having deflected attention from behavior that was considered too masculine. Consequently, the careers of Hosmer, Lewis, and Ream occupy spaces of tension and contradiction. Their work simultaneously resisted the restrictive conventions of femininity and conformed to standards of feminine propriety. ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank my advisor, Dr. Helen Langa, for her insight and support, and for always pushing me to improve. I would also like to thank Dr. Andrea Pearson and Dr. Kim Butler Wingfield for their encouragement and advice, as well as their genuine interest in this project. I am thankful to Grace Fiacre for her help with editing this thesis, and whose friendship has been essential to me during this project. I am grateful to the entire faculty of the American University Art History department for the opportunity to present part of this project at the 14th Annual Graduate Symposium in the History of Art. I am also indebted to Dr. Renée Ater, at the University of Maryland, who first introduced me to the remarkable artists that are the subject of this thesis and who set me on the path of studying American art, which has proved to be incredibly rewarding. I am further grateful to my parents and my sister whose love, encouragement, and confidence in me have been invaluable throughout my time at American University. Additionally, the community at St. Paul’s Lutheran Church has provided amazing support, as well as a place of respite from the pressures of school and work, without which this project could not have been accomplished. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT .................................................................................................................................... ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ............................................................................................................. iii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS .......................................................................................................... v INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................. 1 CHAPTER 1 CAPTIVITY, RESISTANCE, AND FEMALE EMPOWERMENT: NARRATIVES OF WOMEN’S STRENGTH IN THE WORK OF HARRIET HOSMER ............................................................................................................................ 7 CHAPTER 2 ABOLITIONISM AND AGENCY: REPRESENTATIONS OF BLACK WOMANHOOD BY EDMONIA LEWIS ......................................................... 26 CHAPTER 3 PUBLIC ART AND THE FEMALE SCULPTOR: VINNIE REAM’S MONUMENTS TO CIVIL WAR HEROES .................................................... 44 CONCLUSION ................................................................................................................. 62 ILLUSTRATIONS ....................................................................................................................... 64 BIBLIOGRAPHY ......................................................................................................................... 90 iv LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Figure 1. Harriet Hosmer in Her Studio, n.d. engraving (clipping from an unidentified periodical), The Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University. ............... 64 Figure 2. J.J. Hawes, Portrait of Harriet Hosmer, n.d., carte de visite, Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University. ............................................................................ 65 Figure 3. Hiram Powers, The Greek Slave, modeled 1841-43, carved 1846, marble, National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. ...................................................................................... 66 Figure 4. “The Greek Slave, by Hiram Power [sic],” Illustrated London News, August 9, 1951: 185. .................................................................................................................................... 67 Figure 5. Erastus Dow Palmer, The White Captive, modeled 1857-58, carved 1858-59, marble, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. ........................................................................ 68 Figure 6. Harriet Hosmer, Puck, modeled 1854, carved 1856, marble, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C. .............................................................................................. 69 Figure 7. Harriet Hosmer, Daphne, modeled 1853, carved 1854, marble, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. ............................................................................................................. 70 Figure 8. Harriet Hosmer, Medusa, 1854, marble, Detroit Institute of Arts. ................................ 70 Figure 9. Harriet Hosmer, Zenobia in Chains, 1861, marble, St. Louis Museum of Art. ............ 71 Figure 10. Harriet Hosmer, Beatrice Cenci, 1856, marble, Mercantile Library, St. Louis, Missouri. ........................................................................................................................... 72 Figure 11. Stefano Maderno, St. Cecelia, 1600, marble, Santa Cecelia in Trastevere, Rome. ..... 72 Figure 12. Edmonia Lewis, The Old Arrow Maker and His Daughter, modeled 1866, carved 1872, marble, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C. .......................... 73 Figure 13. Edmonia Lewis, The Marriage of Hiawatha, 1872, marble, Kalamazoo Institute of Arts, Kalamazoo Michigan. .............................................................................................. 73 Figure 14. Hiram Powers, The Greek Slave, carved 1866, marble, Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, NY. ................................................................................................................... 74 Figure 15. Edmonia Lewis, Forever Free, The Morning of Liberty, 1867, marble, Howard University Art Museum. ................................................................................................... 75 Figure 16. Edmonia Lewis, Hagar, carved 1875, marble, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C. Gift of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. ............................................. 76 Figure 17. John Quincy Adams Ward, The Freedman, modeled 1863, cast 1891, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. ........................................................................ 77 v Figure 18. Thomas Ball, The Freedmen’s Memorial, 1875, bronze, Lincoln Park, Washington, D.C. ................................................................................................................................... 77 Figure 19. Edmonia Lewis, The Death of Cleopatra, carved 1876, marble, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C. Gift of the Historical Society of Forest Park, Illinois. .............................................................................................................................. 78 Figure 20. William Wetmore Story, Cleopatra, modeled 1858, carved 1869, marble, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. ........................................................................ 79 Figure 21. Vinnie Ream at work upon her Lincoln bust which rests upon the stand she used in the White House while President Lincoln posed for her, c. 1865, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, Washington, D.C. ........................................................ 80 Figure 22. George Caleb Bingham, Miss Vinnie Ream, 1876, Oil on Canvas, 40 x 30 in., State Historical Society of Missouri, Columbia Missouri. ........................................................ 81 Figure 23. George Caleb Bingham, Portrait of Vinnie Ream Hoxie with a harp, 1876, Oil on Canvas, 41 x 51 in., Wisconsin Historical Society Museum Collection. ......................... 82 Figure 24. Roman statue of Erato, 2nd century C.E., marble, Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen, Denmark ...................................................................................................... 83 Figure 25. Vinnie Ream, Abraham Lincoln, 1871, marble, United States Capitol Building, Washington, D.C. .............................................................................................................. 84 Figure 26. Antonin Mercié, Robert E. Lee, 1890, bronze, Monument Avenue, Richmond, Virginia. ............................................................................................................................ 85 Figure 27. Sarah Fisher Ames, Abraham Lincoln, 1868, marble, Woodmere Art Museum, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. .............................................................................................
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