CARVALHO’S JOURNEY A One-Hour Documentary Film

Solomon Nunes Carvalho, Self-portrait Daguerreotype, 1850

Proposal for a PBS documentary film about the life and times of Solomon Nunes Carvalho, 19th Century Jewish-American artist, photographer, explorer, and inventor.

DOWN LOW PICTURES LLC 55 Washington St, Suite 630 Brooklyn, NY 11201 Tel: (718) 624-5033 Fax: (718) 624-5034 American Jews no longer thought in terms of defined limitations but rather as Americans whose minds and opportunities knew no boundaries and could expand with . A new Jew was being formed. When presented with the opportunity, the American Jew, even if a recent immigrant, reached for the Golden ring and went through the "Golden Door." -Jerry Klinger

…My heart beat with fervent anxiety, and whilst I felt happy, and free from the usual care and trouble, I still could not master the nervous debility which seized me while surveying the grand and majestic works of . I was far way from the comforts of my home. A deep sigh of longing for the society of man wrested itself from my breast. Shall I return, and not accomplish the object of my journey? No, I will onward, and trust to the Great Spirit… -Solomon Nunes Carvalho Incidents of Travel and Adventure in the Far West, 1854

A faded daguerreotype of Native American lodges sits in the Library of Congress, one of the oldest existing photographs of the American West. It is presumed to be the work of Solomon Nunes Carvalho, an artist and daguerreotypist who accompanied explorer John C. Fremont on his fifth and final expedition to the West in 1853. How Carvalho came to this most illustrious and dangerous of positions and how it affected him for the rest of his life is the subject of our story.

The tale of Solomon Nunes Carvalho is one of the greatest untold stories in American Jewish history. Born in Charleston, in 1815, Carvalho was an observant Jew who made extraordinary contributions to American history and culture – a man whose talent and ingenuity vaulted him to the highest ranks of the country’s practitioners of art and science - yet who remained firmly rooted in his devotion to his own community and beliefs.

Carvalho’s Journey is a one-hour documentary film for PBS that examines the 19th century Jewish- through the lens of one extraordinary man’s eclectic and exemplary life. A Sephardic Jew of Spanish- Portuguese descent, Solomon Nunes Carvalho hailed from Charleston but lived at various times in , and New York, and traveled widely across the country. Fueled by artistic talent, adventurous spirit, commitment to community, and an unquenchable curiosity about the natural and spiritual worlds, Carvalho cut a wide swatch across the major cultural, intellectual, and historical currents of the 19th century.

Carvalho’s professional accomplishments – as a successful painter, pioneering daguerreotypist, explorer, inventor, and published memoirist – were matched only by his personal ones, as a community-minded Jew, a founder of Jewish organizations in numerous American cities, and a leading participant in many of the pressing religious and

Carvalho’s Journey, proposal for a documentary film 2 intellectual issues of his day. Carvalho was a product of a singular period in American and Jewish history, when the young country was full of creativity, industry, and independent spirit, and its small community of Jews was figuring out how to fit into the larger culture while still maintaining its unique religious identity.

THE FILM

Produced for broadcast on PBS, exhibition at film festivals, and for wide educational and DVD distribution, Carvalho’s Journey will tell the little-known story of Carvalho’s life and works, centering on his daring and exhilarating journey across the continent as the official photographer of John C. Fremont’s 1853 expedition, a journey which almost cost him his life. Drawing extensively from Carvalho’s best- selling memoir, Incidents of Travel and Adventure in the Far West, the film will be both an introduction to and an examination of Carvalho’s amazing life story, as well as an incisive and penetrating look at the Jewish-American experience of the mid-19th century. The film will utilize interviews, narration, voiceover recordings, original music, period paintings and photographs, dramatic landscape cinematography, and Carvalho’s own paintings and daguerreotypes to weave a complex and visually stunning narrative presentation of the story.

In addition to his adventures in the West, the film will explore the story of Carvalho’s early life and education, his youthful wanderings which took him to sea and abroad, his experimentation with the earliest forms of photography (he is almost certainly the first Jewish American photographer), his late career as a successful inventor and elder statesman, and, especially, his career as a successful portrait and landscape painter in studios he established in Charleston, Philadelphia, and Baltimore. Considered by many to be the first Jewish American to make his living solely as an artist, Carvalho specialized in portraiture but was also devoted to creating historical and Biblical narrative paintings.

The film will be produced and directed by Steve Rivo, an award-winning documentary filmmaker who has worked as a producer of a number of historical documentary films made for public television (see bio below). The film will principally draw on the book Photo Odyssey: Solomon Carvalho’s Remarkable Western Adventure, (Houghten Mifflin, 2000) by Arlene Hirschfelder, and will also feature the work of Robert Shlaer, a present-day daguerreotypist who retraced Carvalho’s journey for his book Sights Once Seen (University of New Mexico, 2000). The film is sponsored by the National Center for Jewish Film, a non-profit distributor, motion picture archive, and resource center, with the largest, most diverse collection of Jewish-themed film in the world.

Carvalho’s Journey, proposal for a documentary film 3 THE STORY

At the time of Fremont’s expedition in 1853, Solomon Carvalho, then 38 years old, was a successful artist, businessman and active member of the Jewish community with a wife and three children. Some years earlier, Carvalho had gained prominence for his role in the debate over Orthodox versus Reform Judaism, which had begun in Charleston during the 1820’s. Carvalho’s father, David, helped found the first Reform congregation in the U.S., but surprisingly, Solomon held fast to Orthodoxy and actively tried to promote and advocate for traditional Jewish practice. In the Jewish newspaper The Occident, he wrote, “Religion must signify itself in our actions in life, ay, it must embrace the whole sphere of our activities and affections.” Yet he saw little conflict in his devotion to religious practice and faith and his full participation in secular culture and endeavors. So when the famed explorer John C. Fremont announced that he was commissioning a photographic and artistic record of his fifth and final expedition in search of a railroad route to the Pacific ocean, Carvalho, who had recently begun practicing the new art of daguerreotyping, jumped at the chance to join Fremont.

Carvalho was selected to document the journey, and along the way, he kept an extraordinary journal. His writings resulted in a book-length account, which when published in 1857, made him a minor celebrity. The journal is an insightful, heartfelt, and harrowing account of the Fremont expedition, and it provides an unusually rich and detailed foundation for a documentary portrait of daily life on the dangerous westward trail. Carvalho related the dramatic adventures of the group’s 2400 mile, five-month journey from New York City to Parowan, Utah, which included a disastrous attempt to cross the Rocky Mountains in the deep freeze of winter. Traveling by stagecoach, steamer, pony, mule and by foot, Carvalho and his fellow explorers faced tremendous obstacles, including grass fires, frigid winds, drenching rainstorms, and driving snow, but they also discovered astonishing vistas and the stunning terrain of the unexplored middle American West. As an urbane Jewish city dweller, Carvalho took great pleasure in detailing his experiences and poking fun at himself while learning to ride a horse and saddle a mule, hunt buffalo, and live off the land. He described the difficulty of hauling his cumbersome gear and making daguerreotypes in waist-deep snowdrifts, and, perhaps most challengingly, trying to maintain his commitment to Judaism while adapting to the food (horsemeat was a staple) and the extremely challenging conditions. By turns amusing, absorbing, and startling, the book’s narrative begins as a story of a promising and educational journey and becomes a life-or-death odyssey of near starvation, freezing limbs, and tragedy before the group reaches safety among the Mormons of Utah.

Carvalho’s Journey, proposal for a documentary film 4 Carvalho’s life was dramatically transformed by the experience. The breathtaking landscapes of the American West energized his spiritual and creative pursuits, but the trip also offered Carvalho unique possibilities for cultural interactions that he never could have dreamed of while living in Charleston or Baltimore. His experiences with the American Indian guides in his group (from the Lenape tribe) and other members of the Cheyenne and Ute he encountered, as well as an historic encounter with Mormon leader Brigham Young, broadly widened his view of the world – and were unique for a Jew of his generation. Young, one of the most fascinating characters of the 19th century, assisted in Carvalho’s rescue from near death and facilitated his rehabilitation in Salt Lake City, where the two enjoyed wide-ranging conversations about their respective religious convictions.

After the expedition and a brief stay in Los Angeles, where he opened an art studio and helped the tiny Jewish community establish a Hebrew Benevolent Society, Carvalho returned east, carrying the influences of his western journey with him. He continued painting and making photographs, but now focused on landscapes, and he played an active role in numerous Jewish communities, helping to found synagogues and Hebrew schools, serving on numerous boards, and directing efforts to fight anti-Semitism. In Baltimore, Philadelphia, and eventually New York – where he lived out the rest of his life – Carvalho wrote about and participated in local and national dialogues about Jewish affairs, politics, education, and art. In 1869, after he developed cataracts and became unable to paint, Carvalho resumed work on an old invention, a steam-heating apparatus, which earned him three patents, a Medal of Excellence from the American Institute, and greater financial success than his painting studios, allowing him to live comfortably until his death in 1897 at the age of 82.

Comfortably traversing many of the competing dualities that shape American life, Carvalho was a modern 19th century “Renaissance man” – an artist and scientist, a family man and adventurer, a secular intellectual and traditional Jew with faith in both God and the material world. Carvalho’s insistence on maintaining his deep Jewish faith within the context of an increasingly modernizing American world foreshadows many of the conflicts Jews – and other minorities – met with at the dawn of the 20th century and beyond. In Carvalho, as one writer has argued, we can recognize a “trailblazing phenomenon” and the beginnings of the truly modern Jewish-American.

Carvalho’s Journey, proposal for a documentary film 5 DISTRIBUTION

Carvalho’s Journey is being produced for national television broadcast on PBS, for screening at film festivals, for DVD and educational distribution, and possibly for a limited theatrical release in selected markets. In early 2008, MPT ( Public Television) agreed to serve as the film’s presenting station to PBS, to distribute the film nationally, and to provide in-kind production services and creative oversight.

A PBS national broadcast gives the film the potential to reach nearly every American household. The film’s PBS broadcast will be accompanied by marketing and publicity campaigns orchestrated by MPT that include off and on-air promotion, advertising, press releases, television reviews, and newspaper and magazine articles in publications related to film, art & photography, Jewish life and American history. The wide appeal of the subject matter and little- known aspect of story has drawn early interest from writers from national magazines, and indicate that the film’s release will be widely covered in the media.

Additionally, Jewish film festivals are a significant and growing means of distribution, and serve to create excellent press opportunities, in addition to bringing Jewish films to disparate audiences in the far reaches of the U.S. and around the world. There are over 50 active Jewish Film Festivals including noted ones in San Francisco, New York, Boston, Jerusalem, Toronto, Vancouver, Washington D.C., London, Miami and other places. The producers have already received inquiries from directors of the Sephardic Jewish Film Festival, held annually in New York, and the New York Jewish Film festival, both of which expressed interest in screening the film upon its completion. Because the subject matter of Carvalho’s Journey is quite unique for a Jewish film (American Jewish and Sephardic history), the producers have been assured that the film will have a busy life on the Jewish Festival “circuit.”

In educational markets, the film has already been picked up for distribution by the National Center for Jewish Film (also the project’s Fiscal Sponsor). NCJF, a non-profit organization, is the largest distributor of Jewish-themed film and video material in the world, and has over 25 years experience distributing hundreds of films to schools, libraries and community centers all across North America, as well as experience creating successful outreach programs and teachers’ guides to accompany films in the classroom. Last year, the Center provided 35mm and 16mm films and professional-grade video rentals to theaters, film festivals, educators, libraries, museums, universities, and community centers in such places as Stockholm, Hong Kong, Vienna, Beijing, Rio de Janeiro, Barcelona, Berlin, Juno, and Krakow, and at the Jerusalem Film Festival (for the 19th consecutive year), the Palm Springs International Film Festival, Lincoln Center and Film Forum in New York, and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.

When Carvalho’s Journey is complete, the producers plan to work diligently to raise additional funds to travel with the film and create as much opportunity as possible to participate in community outreach screenings and discussions.

Carvalho’s Journey, proposal for a documentary film 6 THE FILMMAKERS

Producer/Director Steve Rivo

Steve Rivo is an award-winning documentary film and television producer and the founder of Down Low Pictures. He has produced, directed or written documentaries for PBS, Court TV, VH1 and independently. Selected credits include co-producer of the Emmy and DuPont award-winning, multi- part PBS series New York: A Documentary Film (directed by Ric Burns), producer of two of Burns’ films for the PBS series American Experience: Eugene O’Neill (2006, Emmy Award) and (2002, Emmy award), director and producer of numerous documentaries for Court TV including Tragedy in Telluride (2008, Telly Award) Heartshot (2004, Telly Award), A Deadly Campaign (2003, Telly Award), Mad Scientist (2007) and the limited documentary series High Stakes with Ben Mezrich (2005). Steve has also produced and directed documentary projects for non-profit organizations including , the American Institute of Architects, and the Center for Online Judaic Studies.

Director of Photography David A. Ford

Over the last decade David has worked on countless commercial, narrative and documentary films. As cameraman, some credits include the Emmy-winning PBS documentaries New York: A Documentary Film, and Divided Highways, as well as biographies of Eugene O’Neill, Alexander Calder, and Richard Rogers. David has also shot for New York Times Television, TLC, A&E, MTV, Court TV and many other producers and networks. David recently Executive Produced and shot GidyUp! On The Rodeo Circuit for Logo/MTV. His lighting designs can be seen in four feature-length Independent films. David teaches Cinematography in the Columbia University Graduate Film Department.

Associate Producer Dan Lewis

Dan Lewis has worked as associate producer at Down Low Pictures since 2005 on all company productions including Mad Scientist, Family Betrayal and Tragedy in Telluride (all for Court TV). Dan began his career as an intern and production assistant at Moxie Firecracker Productions where he worked many projects including Girlhood, Pandemic: Facing AIDS, A Boy’s Life and The Nazi Officer’s Wife. He was then a production assistant for Social Media Productions on The Fight for the PBS series American Experience, and an associate producer and videographer with Documania Films on The Voices of Civil Rights for The History Channel. At KPI Telelvion he associate produced A&E Network’s Biography Series, and programs for OLN Network and TLC.

Fiscal Sponsor The National Center for Jewish Film

The National Center for Jewish Film -- a unique non-profit motion picture archive, distributor, and resource center -- houses the largest, most comprehensive collection of Jewish-themed film and video in the world. The ongoing mission of NCJF is to collect, restore, preserve, catalogue, and exhibit films with artistic and educational value relevant to the Jewish experience and to disseminate these materials to the widest possible audience. NCJF is a 501c3 non-profit institution located at Brandeis University in Waltham, MA

Carvalho’s Journey, proposal for a documentary film 7 BOARD OF ADVISORS The project has assembled a distinguished board of advisors drawn from academia, the art world and film to advise the production.

Elizabeth Kessin Berman Author and curator of 1989 Maryland Jewish Historical Society exhibit on Solomon Carvalho.

Ric Burns Documentary Filmmaker and director of numerous PBS films including artist biographies Andy Warhol (2006), Eugene O’Neill (2006) and Ansel Adams (2002).

Daniel J. Czitrom Professor of American History and Culture, Mt. Holyoke College; Specialist in 19th century urban history.

Arlene Hirschfelder Curator, educator and award-winning author of over two dozen books including Photo Odyssey: Solomon Carvalho’s Remarkable Western Adventure 1853-54.

Ava F. Kahn Author of Jewish Life in the American West, and author of the introduction to new version of Carvalho’s Incidents of Travel and Adventure in the Far West.

David Oestreicher Leading authority on the Lenape (Delaware) and related tribes; Curator, writer and scholar of Anthropology and Hebraic Studies.

Sharon Pucker Rivo Co-Founder and Executive Director of National Center for Jewish Film; Adjunct Associate Professor in the Near Eastern and Judaic Studies Department at Brandeis University.

Dale Rosengarten Curator of the Jewish Heritage Collection at the College of Charleston; editor of A Portion of the People: Three Hundred Years of Southern Jewish Life.

Jonathan Sarna Braun Professor of American Jewish History, Brandeis University; Author and leading scholar of American Jewish History.

Eileen Hallet Stone Oral historian, author and scholar specializing in Jews in Utah.

Robert Shlaer Author and photographer of Sights Once Seen: Daguerreotyping Fremont’s Last Expedition through the Rockies; Professional daguerreotypist and scholar.

Carvalho’s Journey, proposal for a documentary film 8 INTERVIEWS Conducted Arlene Hirschfelder, writer and curator Eileen Hallet Stone, writer Robert Shlaer, author and daguerreotypist Martha Sandweiss, Professor of American Studies, Amherst College John Mack Faragher, Professor of History, Yale University

Planned Elizabeth Kessin Berman, former curator, Jewish Museum of Maryland Ava F. Kahn, Professor of Jewish History Jonathan Sarna, Professor of History, Brandeis University Joan Sturhahn and Jonathan Ffrench, relatives of Solomon Carvalho Patricia Nelson Limerick, scholar Dale Rosengarten, curator, College of Charleston

FILMING LOCATIONS New York Baltimore Charleston, S.C. Kansas City, MO (Westport) Bent’s Fort Historic Site, La Junta, CO Salt Lake City Goblin Valley and Capitol Reef State Parks, Utah Parowan, Utah Cimarron Ridge Colorado

Carvalho’s Journey, proposal for a documentary film 9 FOR MORE INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT

Steve Rivo Producer/director Down Low Pictures LLC 55 Washington St, Suite 630 Brooklyn, NY 11201 718-624-5033 [email protected]

All contributions to support the production of Carvalho’s Journey are tax-deductible

Carvalho’s Journey, proposal for a documentary film 10