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Female Firsts: Mary Edmonia Lewis · Stuff Mom Never Told You

0:05
Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha. I'm notlcome to Steph.
0:07
Speaker 1: I never told you protection. I heart radio and it's
0:19
Speaker 1: time for another female first, which means we are once
0:23
Speaker 1: again joined by the wonderful, fabulous, great friend of ours. Eves. Hi. Hi,
0:30
Speaker 1: Hi again, it's me again. Yes, Hi, yep, it's me again. Well,
0:40
Speaker 1: this is our first recording of correct together. That feels right,
0:47
Speaker 1: that sounds right. Yeah, I know time is already boring
0:51
Speaker 1: together this year, But how is your your end of year?
0:55
Speaker 1: New Year's Eve? It was good. It was pretty uneventful.
0:59
Speaker 1: I didn't really do any thing. I think I slept. No,
1:03
Speaker 1: I think I was up at midnight and I think
1:05
Speaker 1: I want to sleep. Right at midnight, I was like,
1:08
Speaker 1: it's time to go to sleep. Um, So I was
1:13
Speaker 1: surprised I even made it at midnight. But yeah, beyond
1:15
Speaker 1: the actual day, I am happy. It's a new year.
1:18
Speaker 1: I'm trying for this to be one of those years where,
1:21
Speaker 1: of course it's a good time to reflect on the
1:25
Speaker 1: past and the future and all of those things, but
1:27
Speaker 1: also trying to be less serious about that and understand
1:32
Speaker 1: that it's something that can happen all year long as well.
1:35
Speaker 1: So I will say things are different and they're the same. Yes,
1:41
Speaker 1: I feels about right for the last four years. Different
1:44
Speaker 1: but the same. Yeah. Yeah, it's funny because my New
1:51
Speaker 1: Year's resolution is to take better care of myself and
1:55
Speaker 1: I have like specifics about it. But on New Year's Eve,
1:58
Speaker 1: New Year's Day, I stayed up until five. I am
2:02
Speaker 1: playing a video game I played ten times. I'm having
2:07
Speaker 1: like a fifty five per cent success rate right now.
2:10
Speaker 1: I think on the game, you mean success on my
2:17
Speaker 1: resolution to a little number, don't. I don't want to
2:20
Speaker 1: say anything, but you know, nice about it, like, oh,
2:26
Speaker 1: on the game that you play four times ten times?
2:33
Speaker 1: The same. I'm terrible at games. I'm just messing with you.
2:36
Speaker 1: Terrible a video games? All good, All good, Well for
2:41
Speaker 1: this one. I know we've talked before about art and sculpture,
2:46
Speaker 1: but my question to the group is what it was
2:49
Speaker 1: your favorite? Like writing discounted, what was your favorite form?
2:54
Speaker 1: If I guess visual art that you've participated in, do
2:58
Speaker 1: you do you mean things that I've myself created or
3:02
Speaker 1: just like in terms of an observer, I was asking
3:05
Speaker 1: for what you yourself has created, But now I want
3:07
Speaker 1: to hear both. No, it's writing. Writing is like, I mean,
3:11
Speaker 1: it's not a visual art technically per se. I haven't
3:13
Speaker 1: really dabbled in any of the visual arts painting, sculpture, drawing,
3:21
Speaker 1: none of those. But um, I would say that's a
3:25
Speaker 1: good question. I would say probably painting. And I would
3:28
Speaker 1: say that because that is the first thing that comes
3:32
Speaker 1: into my mind based on the emotional, like visceral emotional
3:36
Speaker 1: reactions that I've had when I'm in spaces with paintings. Um,
3:41
Speaker 1: I think that I am more drawn to and have
3:45
Speaker 1: stronger emotional reactions through viewing paintings. But I've also I mean,
3:52
Speaker 1: I've also had pretty strong reactions to other things as well,
3:55
Speaker 1: like video and sculpture. Yeah, what about you? Yeah, I
4:00
Speaker 1: think Um, and one of these past female first we
4:03
Speaker 1: talked about this, but I the lowest grade I ever
4:08
Speaker 1: got was an art in high school. Um, well, in
4:11
Speaker 1: college I got a little regrade in something else, but
4:13
Speaker 1: in high school often until then, that was my lowest grade.
4:16
Speaker 1: And everything I did the teacher hated. I was thinking
4:19
Speaker 1: about this other night. She hated every single thing that
4:23
Speaker 1: I did. But I did like in terms of creation,
4:30
Speaker 1: I really liked. We did this project once where you
4:33
Speaker 1: made a portrait of somebody out of materials that you
4:37
Speaker 1: would find, and actually really enjoyed that because it was
4:40
Speaker 1: very textural and and to kind of hunt down these
4:44
Speaker 1: items and think about them in a different way of
4:46
Speaker 1: how they could reflect because I was trying to create
4:49
Speaker 1: somebody in a sunset, so I had to find all
4:51
Speaker 1: those kind of swabs of colors but in these other items.
4:54
Speaker 1: So I really really enjoyed that. And I think I'm
4:57
Speaker 1: with you with when I think about the art that's
5:00
Speaker 1: moved me the most. Paintings is probably visually and visual
5:05
Speaker 1: arts the one that has done it. But I like
5:07
Speaker 1: that you brought up video because that's true, and I
5:09
Speaker 1: feel like that gets left out of the conversation a lot.
5:12
Speaker 1: And I have seen some just really moving video art
5:17
Speaker 1: but their space. Like I'm a I love sculpture as well,
5:20
Speaker 1: and I do. I enjoyed sculpting and I used to
5:23
Speaker 1: make a lot of pottery. I just was never very
5:26
Speaker 1: good at it, but I did enjoy it. Yeah, what
5:30
Speaker 1: about used to Mantha? So I am not good at
5:33
Speaker 1: art in general, and that is not my forte. The
5:36
Speaker 1: only good thing I could do. I think I've told
5:38
Speaker 1: you about this is one time I got really into
5:40
Speaker 1: drawing penguins no reason, I just did it, and good
5:44
Speaker 1: friend of mine and I would make puns out of
5:46
Speaker 1: all these penguins. That was my favorite thing to do
5:49
Speaker 1: because it was just like a little circle, a little
5:51
Speaker 1: pointy beak in the story. And for some reason I
5:55
Speaker 1: really thought I was doing something with that. Guess what
5:57
Speaker 1: I wasn't. However, I do love art in itself, and yeah,
6:02
Speaker 1: I'm with you. When I get to go to a
6:03
Speaker 1: good exhibit and it really flows and it just like
6:06
Speaker 1: speaks to you. There are moments that I'm like, oh wow.
6:08
Speaker 1: And of course I love deep colors, so I'm one
6:11
Speaker 1: of those that did fall into the mona trap. I'm like,
6:14
Speaker 1: oh yeah, I'm digging these colors. And I was like
6:16
Speaker 1: I was looking at his stuff and like finding his history.
6:19
Speaker 1: I was like, okay, yeah, I could definitely tell he
6:20
Speaker 1: was going blind. I still love it because he's still
6:23
Speaker 1: with us so much better than I could ever do
6:25
Speaker 1: in it myself in any way. Like fully, there so
6:30
Speaker 1: all of those things, but I do love also finding
6:32
Speaker 1: the fascinating histories behind the different artists. They do make
6:36
Speaker 1: me very happy. I think that's just in general for
6:38
Speaker 1: like authors to which I yes, I believe that's art,
6:41
Speaker 1: but I know we're not like counting that for this moment.
6:44
Speaker 1: But yeah, for me, like the cheesy experiences have been
6:48
Speaker 1: happening where you're really immersed in it. Everybody's kind of
6:50
Speaker 1: been like, oh, what is this, But like I really
6:52
Speaker 1: enjoyed that because for a minute, you do really think
6:56
Speaker 1: that you're in the middle of it and it feels
6:58
Speaker 1: like you're part of that art for just a second.
7:01
Speaker 1: Of course, again cheesy effects, and I get why people
7:03
Speaker 1: are like, no, this is awful, so like it's ruining art,
7:07
Speaker 1: But I love that experience to be a mars in
7:10
Speaker 1: it to that point of like seeing it in depth
7:12
Speaker 1: and filling it almost like moved through you. I will
7:16
Speaker 1: say that I also really love prints, like I love
7:19
Speaker 1: works on paper. Yeah, I love works on paper. And
7:22
Speaker 1: I also love book art. I like fall for book art.
7:26
Speaker 1: I think it's so wonderful. It's just and then and
7:29
Speaker 1: it just merges you know, language, visual language, in the
7:34
Speaker 1: actual form of the book, even though it doesn't always
7:36
Speaker 1: have to look like a typical book that we would read.
7:39
Speaker 1: But yeah, I love book art as well. Yeah, well,
7:43
Speaker 1: now that I'm thinking about it, Like I love comics, comics,
7:47
Speaker 1: and I love film, like I'm a huge movie person,
7:51
Speaker 1: and there's definitely but also um, I mean there's yeah,
7:56
Speaker 1: there's just so much more we could include visual art
8:01
Speaker 1: and expansive it is. Oh wow, my mind, my mind
8:08
Speaker 1: is just expanding even more. But also photography, That's what
8:12
Speaker 1: I was going to say. I got a lot of
8:14
Speaker 1: photography books for Christmas actually, and beautiful, beautiful. Yeah, all right,
8:20
Speaker 1: so we like, we like art, is what I'm hearing.
8:25
Speaker 1: He probably knows that by this point, Yes, considering where
8:29
Speaker 1: a podcaster is considering, I bring artists all the time,
8:31
Speaker 1: and they know that we write it are involved in
8:34
Speaker 1: the arts in so many different ways. Yes, yes, but
8:39
Speaker 1: also yeah, I do miss it, So we have that really,
8:41
Speaker 1: And I know we talked about in the past episode two.
8:43
Speaker 1: I miss going to exhibits and museums and stuff. So
8:47
Speaker 1: with all of that, who did you bring for us
8:51
Speaker 1: to talk about today? Eves? Today we're going to talk
8:54
Speaker 1: about Mary at Monia Lewis. So I was kind of
8:59
Speaker 1: hesitant to bring her because you know, I know that
9:02
Speaker 1: there's a lot out there on her, not like that's
9:04
Speaker 1: a qualification for not bringing somebody on the show, Like
9:07
Speaker 1: there is already a lot of information that exists because
9:10
Speaker 1: of course, just because there's so much information about her,
9:13
Speaker 1: and she's really popped back up over the last decade,
9:16
Speaker 1: like a lot of people have been talking about her,
9:18
Speaker 1: her works that have been found in her place in
9:20
Speaker 1: the legacy of artists in the United States and in
9:23
Speaker 1: the world internationally as well. But I think she's still
9:27
Speaker 1: a person who is so worthy of talking about. And
9:30
Speaker 1: I think we've also we might have brought her name
9:33
Speaker 1: up in the media vote Work Fuller episode. She was
9:36
Speaker 1: a sculptor as well, So I feel like maybe we
9:39
Speaker 1: mentioned her in there because I feel like I remember
9:41
Speaker 1: her name coming up in But even if we didn't,
9:44
Speaker 1: just you know that she had at Monia Lewis herself
9:48
Speaker 1: had a bunch of her own inspirations and also inspired
9:51
Speaker 1: people later who worked in the field. So in terms
9:56
Speaker 1: of her first she was the first woman of Black
9:59
Speaker 1: America in a Native American heritage to achieve international fame
10:04
Speaker 1: as a sculptor. And yeah, she just had this huge
10:09
Speaker 1: mythology around her that was built up, and partially she
10:13
Speaker 1: built up a lot of that on her own, and
10:16
Speaker 1: then there was a lot of mythologizing that happened in
10:18
Speaker 1: the press and the people who wrote about her. Yeah,
10:21
Speaker 1: so we'll get into some of that later. Yeah, I
10:24
Speaker 1: feel like that's a theme in a lot of these
10:26
Speaker 1: is the kind of creating of the story or the
10:29
Speaker 1: myth behind this person and how they were were not involved,
10:33
Speaker 1: which I kind of appreciate. Yeah, as I was like
10:37
Speaker 1: researching heard this song Yankee Doodle Dandy, was going through
10:40
Speaker 1: my head like over and over. The phrase born on
10:44
Speaker 1: the fourth of July was just like going through and
10:47
Speaker 1: through my head because I was thinking about how she
10:49
Speaker 1: said she was born on the fourth of July, and
10:52
Speaker 1: that was a running theme for a lot of people.
10:55
Speaker 1: They didn't know their birthday, they would just to say
10:58
Speaker 1: that they were born on the fourth of Lie. So
11:01
Speaker 1: that was just for stuff, believe in. I'm afraid in
11:04
Speaker 1: my head, I know that that's yeah, I know it's rough,
11:13
Speaker 1: but yeah. There is a bunch of conflicting information about
11:17
Speaker 1: her early life, which is also a running theme. But
11:20
Speaker 1: she's said to have and bellished a lot of things
11:23
Speaker 1: and changed them over time. But like I said, one
11:25
Speaker 1: of those things was that the date that they get
11:27
Speaker 1: July fourth, eighteen forty four, So that year wasn't the
11:31
Speaker 1: only year that she ever said that she was born.
11:33
Speaker 1: In other places say she was born, but it is
11:36
Speaker 1: kind of the consensus year that it's gone with. It
11:39
Speaker 1: is the one that's on her gravestone. And that number
11:42
Speaker 1: is based on her passport application, which apparently also said
11:46
Speaker 1: that she was four feet tall. So when people described her,
11:49
Speaker 1: they said she was short, but on her passport applications
11:51
Speaker 1: that she was four feet tall. But um, yeah, so
11:54
Speaker 1: she got on her application and said that she was
11:57
Speaker 1: born on or around July fourth, eighteen forty four, and
12:01
Speaker 1: she was born in Greenblish, New York. So they are
12:05
Speaker 1: different birthdates, death dates for her mother, and other dates
12:10
Speaker 1: recorded in her personal history that you'll find. Yeah. I mean,
12:15
Speaker 1: as we've spoken about before, this is digging into the past.
12:18
Speaker 1: Whether records can be murky, if they were kept at all,
12:21
Speaker 1: could be so so difficult and tricky. I find it
12:24
Speaker 1: interesting that that passport would say on or around you
12:28
Speaker 1: could have kind of like a or around. Honor is
12:32
Speaker 1: somewhere in there. And her heritage her father was black
12:51
Speaker 1: and he was from the West Indies, and her mother
12:54
Speaker 1: was Ojibway and born in Canada. So she claimed that
12:59
Speaker 1: her mother, Catherine, was a quote unquote full blooded Indian,
13:03
Speaker 1: but Catherine's father was a black man and her mother
13:08
Speaker 1: had black and Ojibwe parents, so that her heritage. Ammonia's
13:13
Speaker 1: mother's heritage was mixed as well. Her parents died when
13:17
Speaker 1: she was young, but she did have a brother named Samuel,
13:22
Speaker 1: and according to Ammonia, they both had Native American names
13:26
Speaker 1: as well. His was Sunshine and Ammonia's she said that
13:30
Speaker 1: her name was Wildfire. But after she lost her parents,
13:35
Speaker 1: she went to live with her aunts elsewhere in New
13:37
Speaker 1: York and her brother soon left for California, but he
13:43
Speaker 1: did send money back to her for her education and
13:46
Speaker 1: would continue to support her throughout her educational years, which
13:49
Speaker 1: is obviously something that helps anybody a lot, and it
13:52
Speaker 1: did for her um that he was invested in her education.
13:56
Speaker 1: So in New York she went to Baptist Abolitionist school
14:00
Speaker 1: and then she went to Oberlin College in Ohio, which
14:04
Speaker 1: she attended from eighteen fifty nine to eighteen sixty three.
14:08
Speaker 1: So while she was there, she boarded with the Reverend
14:11
Speaker 1: John keep and he was a member of the board
14:13
Speaker 1: of trustees and an abolitionist. Throughout her life, she was
14:16
Speaker 1: connected to a lot of abolitionists. She stayed in places
14:19
Speaker 1: where a lot of abolitionists were located, and she got
14:22
Speaker 1: a lot of financial support from them, encouragement from them,
14:26
Speaker 1: press from abolitionists, and things like that. Oberlin College was
14:30
Speaker 1: known for being associated with the movement, and it was
14:33
Speaker 1: known for admitting black people and women. At the same time,
14:38
Speaker 1: there was a young ladies department that was split off
14:41
Speaker 1: from the rest of the college, in which Lewis was enrolled,
14:45
Speaker 1: and so there was still this confinement to women's roles.
14:48
Speaker 1: Ideologically at the college, it was set the training that
14:51
Speaker 1: they got there would help them and teaching and quote
14:54
Speaker 1: unquote duties of the sphere. So it wasn't so simple.
14:58
Speaker 1: It's just like, oh, there's is college with this huge
15:01
Speaker 1: reputation of being progressive and being all about abolitionism. At
15:05
Speaker 1: the same time, this was still that period in the
15:08
Speaker 1: United States and surrounding the college and in the college itself.
15:13
Speaker 1: We're still people who didn't rock with this whole idea
15:16
Speaker 1: of co education. Then the reputation that it had um
15:20
Speaker 1: there were plenty of people in the area who are
15:22
Speaker 1: still anti black, who were still anti abolitionist, and who
15:26
Speaker 1: are still anti anybody starting the pot essentially um like
15:29
Speaker 1: really sticking to these moral codes according to what they
15:33
Speaker 1: view of morality. Young ladies. I don't know. There's something
15:38
Speaker 1: about having the young front of it to wow. But
15:44
Speaker 1: I mean, I know I've told this story on the show.
15:46
Speaker 1: Before I was in high school, I still had to
15:49
Speaker 1: go to homeck and it was four girls at the
15:52
Speaker 1: high school. We still had to do that. And then
15:54
Speaker 1: I went to a technical school that was all men
15:57
Speaker 1: until fairly recently, and of the bathrooms still just had
16:01
Speaker 1: a sign with women taped over it. Any women's bathrooms.
16:07
Speaker 1: They had bothered to do anything, do any better than
16:10
Speaker 1: that since then. Yeah, yeah, so it's weird. So many
16:14
Speaker 1: things we talked about. It's weird, like how far we've come,
16:17
Speaker 1: but also so much of this legacy still we're still
16:22
Speaker 1: dealing with. Yeah, for sure. That's also a running theme.
16:26
Speaker 1: So when she was there, she still took classes like algebra, geometry,
16:31
Speaker 1: and composition, and she took art classes, so she didn't
16:34
Speaker 1: learn how to draw while she was there. But she
16:38
Speaker 1: did run into troubles while she was at the college.
16:40
Speaker 1: So in uh two incidents, she served two women who
16:45
Speaker 1: she was boarding with, two white women specifically who she
16:48
Speaker 1: was born with mulled wine, and then they went out,
16:51
Speaker 1: they went to you know, go go on a sleigh
16:55
Speaker 1: ride or something like that, and they accused her of
16:58
Speaker 1: poisoning them with Danish fly, which was a substance that
17:02
Speaker 1: has been considered an afrodisiac in the past, and but
17:06
Speaker 1: they claimed that she poisoned them, and after that she
17:09
Speaker 1: was attacked. Pemmonia was attacked and be in Not long
17:12
Speaker 1: after that she was arrested, but her trial was delayed,
17:17
Speaker 1: which when it did happen, it lasted for about six
17:21
Speaker 1: days from the end of February to the beginning of March.
17:25
Speaker 1: So she did still have supporters, even though there were
17:30
Speaker 1: clearly people who didn't rock with her, and Keeps for one,
17:36
Speaker 1: was one of her supporters and her attorney also John
17:39
Speaker 1: Mercer Langston, who helped her win the trial. But at
17:44
Speaker 1: the same time, she was later accused of other crimes
17:46
Speaker 1: like being accused of stealing art supplies while attending the
17:50
Speaker 1: school so they wouldn't let her register for the last term.
17:55
Speaker 1: And some of the publications that go back and look
17:57
Speaker 1: at her legacies that some of the issues that she had,
18:01
Speaker 1: the challenges that she had while she was there, and
18:03
Speaker 1: her reason for leaving the school, those parts her absences
18:07
Speaker 1: and kind of skipped over. So it's really interesting to
18:09
Speaker 1: think about the things that she herself chose to leave
18:13
Speaker 1: out of her story when she told it herself, and
18:15
Speaker 1: also the things that were absent when other people were
18:18
Speaker 1: telling her story. And of course that depends on a
18:22
Speaker 1: source and how much room there isn't a source for
18:24
Speaker 1: a thing, But you know, it's interesting, and she was.
18:28
Speaker 1: So she was forced to leave Oberlin before she got
18:30
Speaker 1: her degree, and she decided to move on and pursue art.
18:35
Speaker 1: So she went to Boston in eighteen sixty four. Keeps
18:38
Speaker 1: wrote a letter of introduction for her to William Lloyd Garrison,
18:42
Speaker 1: who was an abolitionist and a journalist who people might
18:45
Speaker 1: be familiar with. It's a pretty big name. And he
18:48
Speaker 1: was able to connect her with sculptors and writers, and
18:51
Speaker 1: so she began working under Edward A. Brackett, who was
18:56
Speaker 1: also an artist. She learned modeling and casting, but they
19:01
Speaker 1: later parted ways for some unknown reason. There there seemed
19:05
Speaker 1: to have been some sort of conflict there, but that
19:07
Speaker 1: relationship didn't last really long, but she continued to create art,
19:11
Speaker 1: and in eighteen sixty three she created a plaster medallion
19:16
Speaker 1: of abolitionist John Brown, and the next year she also
19:20
Speaker 1: created a marble bust of Colonel Robert Gould Shaw. She
19:23
Speaker 1: sold photographs and plaster cast of the bus, which those
19:27
Speaker 1: plaster cast she sold at fifteen dollars each, and she
19:31
Speaker 1: also made bust of the characters and Henry Watsworth Longfellow's
19:36
Speaker 1: epic poem The Song of Hiawatsa. But you know, after
19:41
Speaker 1: a while, travel is a part of her history. Um.
19:43
Speaker 1: Not long after she was able to apply for a
19:46
Speaker 1: passport because of all the funds that she was getting
19:49
Speaker 1: from her work, and take a ship to Italy. So
19:52
Speaker 1: she moved to Italy, and as many artists did at
19:56
Speaker 1: the time, there was a huge community of expat artists,
20:00
Speaker 1: um and sculptors who lived in Italy. But in the
20:04
Speaker 1: New York Times article in eighteen seventy eight, she said
20:07
Speaker 1: quote I was practically driven to Rome in order to
20:10
Speaker 1: obtain the opportunities for art culture and to find a
20:13
Speaker 1: social atmosphere where I was not constantly reminded of my color.
20:18
Speaker 1: The land of liberty had no room for a colored sculptor.
20:22
Speaker 1: There were a lot of articles written about her in
20:26
Speaker 1: those abolitionist papers, which she was also able to be
20:30
Speaker 1: in because of the connections that she did have. She
20:32
Speaker 1: did interviews with people and had articles written by about
20:37
Speaker 1: her by people like Elizabeth Peabody and Lydia Maria Child,
20:42
Speaker 1: all these people who were involved in this press and
20:45
Speaker 1: activist circle in the area. And as author Kristen pie
20:50
Speaker 1: Buick puts it in her book that she wrote about
20:53
Speaker 1: Louis called Child of the Fire, she said, quote Lewis's
20:57
Speaker 1: image was reshaped largely by the white women men who
21:00
Speaker 1: wrote her into existence, which is something that I mean
21:05
Speaker 1: we I think we've spoken about before on the show
21:09
Speaker 1: when we do female first, it's just like these are
21:12
Speaker 1: we have to consider consider the source. Louis and Lydia
21:16
Speaker 1: Maria Child, who I just mentioned, were at odds. A
21:18
Speaker 1: lot of the time, Child would suggest ideas to Louis
21:24
Speaker 1: as to how she should run her career. Because Louis
21:29
Speaker 1: she was determined and she believed clearly believed in her work.
21:32
Speaker 1: She wouldn't always wait for commissions for her work. She
21:35
Speaker 1: would do things like make something and then send it
21:37
Speaker 1: to the person that she dedicated it to and then
21:40
Speaker 1: get them to find a buyer if they didn't buy it.
21:43
Speaker 1: There was a lot of back and forth in the
21:45
Speaker 1: relationship between the two of them, and I've found in
21:49
Speaker 1: the comments about her as well. But also in this relationship,
21:52
Speaker 1: there were lots of patronizing attitudes directed at Ammonia that
22:00
Speaker 1: she should be uplifted just because she was mixed race. Um.
22:04
Speaker 1: And at the same time, there was this idea like, oh, wow,
22:09
Speaker 1: look at what she's doing. She's a mixed race artist
22:12
Speaker 1: who is creating these sculptures, So she's worthy of being
22:17
Speaker 1: talked about just because of her race, and this is
22:19
Speaker 1: the thing that exoticizes her as an artist, without just
22:24
Speaker 1: viewing the art itself for its own qualities and its
22:26
Speaker 1: own merits. But at the same time that was happening,
22:30
Speaker 1: she was also demeaned and infantilized because of her race.
22:34
Speaker 1: For instance, child didn't think that she was as talented
22:38
Speaker 1: as others portrayed her, and she thought she was irresponsible
22:42
Speaker 1: when it came to money, But like, what would somebody
22:45
Speaker 1: expect since she was black and Native American, Like, of
22:48
Speaker 1: course she had those qualities of being irresponsible. She didn't
22:51
Speaker 1: learn these things, she didn't grow up with this kind
22:53
Speaker 1: of civilization. So it is definitely a lot of nuance
22:56
Speaker 1: in it where it's like, yes, it's valid to say
22:59
Speaker 1: that she shouldn't be uplifted just because of her race.
23:03
Speaker 1: You know, we have to actually look at the qualities
23:05
Speaker 1: of her work. But of course wrapped up into all
23:08
Speaker 1: those things where the complexities of the way that people
23:10
Speaker 1: spoke about black people and spoke about Native American people
23:14
Speaker 1: at the time. So either way, she spent a lot
23:17
Speaker 1: of time in Italy, spending time in Florence and Rome,
23:22
Speaker 1: and she kept on creating art. It was said that
23:25
Speaker 1: when she went to Florence when she when she first
23:28
Speaker 1: got there, she went to Florence since she was set
23:29
Speaker 1: up to stay with an American family, but they didn't
23:32
Speaker 1: let her in. So immediately from her coming from the
23:35
Speaker 1: United States and getting to Europe, you know, she was
23:39
Speaker 1: already meeting brick walls essentially. Yeah, so she didn't meet
23:43
Speaker 1: artists while she was there. Um that she was connected
23:46
Speaker 1: to like Hiram Powers and Thomas Balls and other expats
23:50
Speaker 1: who were in the country. And she would do bus
23:56
Speaker 1: and sculptures and the neo classical style. You would do
24:00
Speaker 1: works after famous Classical and Renaissance sculptures and then sell
24:05
Speaker 1: them to tourists in Rome, and her work centered around historical, social, racial, religious,
24:15
Speaker 1: and literary themes. Those are typically what her works would
24:19
Speaker 1: focus on, and most of her work was created between
24:22
Speaker 1: eighteen sixty six and seventy six, but she did she
24:25
Speaker 1: did quite a few pieces over the course of her life,
24:29
Speaker 1: although all of those no longer exists, Like, we don't
24:33
Speaker 1: have visual record of a lot of those, and they
24:36
Speaker 1: don't they aren't known to be anywhere in life as well.
24:41
Speaker 1: I feel like that's a really roundabout way of saying
24:43
Speaker 1: that they get destroyed or just disappeared from record, or
24:48
Speaker 1: or do they know what happened. No, it's not known
24:50
Speaker 1: what happened with a lot of her work is just gone.
24:53
Speaker 1: And we'll get to the story later about one of
24:55
Speaker 1: her biggest pieces that she did about Cleopatra that had
24:57
Speaker 1: this really circuitous route to being refound in recent years. Teaser. Yeah. Yeah.
25:18
Speaker 1: She carved her own marble when she was in Italy,
25:21
Speaker 1: which wasn't a thing that um there were a lot
25:24
Speaker 1: of artists who didn't do that. They would get Italian artists,
25:30
Speaker 1: local Italian artisans to do the actual carving of the marble,
25:34
Speaker 1: and what they would do is create the designs and
25:36
Speaker 1: the plaster works and then the artisans in the area
25:41
Speaker 1: would carve the marble. But she carved her own marble.
25:45
Speaker 1: And like I said, you can go through and see
25:47
Speaker 1: some of her works like but some of the notable ones.
25:49
Speaker 1: For instance, one was eighteen sixty seven's Forever Free, which
25:53
Speaker 1: was a sculpture of two freed enslaved people who were
25:57
Speaker 1: depicted like upon received the news of emancipation. But she
26:04
Speaker 1: was Catholic. It's not clear when she became Catholic. There's
26:08
Speaker 1: a good chance that she was Catholic back to childhood,
26:11
Speaker 1: but a lot of her work was influenced by her Catholicism.
26:14
Speaker 1: For instance, there was a black couple who commissioned her
26:19
Speaker 1: to do a sculpture called Version at the Cross for
26:21
Speaker 1: a grave. They didn't like it, and and what happened
26:25
Speaker 1: was they pay her a few installments of I think
26:27
Speaker 1: it was a four installments that they were supposed to
26:30
Speaker 1: pay her in but they paid the third one. They
26:33
Speaker 1: got it. They didn't like it. They didn't want to
26:35
Speaker 1: pay her the fourth part, and she went to court,
26:39
Speaker 1: won the case and got some of the money that
26:41
Speaker 1: she asked for in the settlement. In Italy. She she
26:45
Speaker 1: did in Italy, but the couple was from the United States.
26:48
Speaker 1: She would also go to Catholic fairs and she would
26:52
Speaker 1: sale works to people at Catholic churches and well, she
26:56
Speaker 1: would still works to the Catholic churches and also the
26:58
Speaker 1: church members and Pope Pius the ninth instead to have
27:02
Speaker 1: visited her studio in Rome, but she didn't go back
27:05
Speaker 1: to the U s. From time to time, um, doing
27:07
Speaker 1: some marketing for her work. And when she visited Chicago
27:11
Speaker 1: in the eighteen seventies, she sat for a series of pictures,
27:15
Speaker 1: and there are other photos outside of that sitting as
27:17
Speaker 1: well of her. But um, it's really nice to go
27:20
Speaker 1: look at the pictures and just stare at for a minute.
27:23
Speaker 1: I don't know if I'm weird for doing things like that,
27:25
Speaker 1: but it's nice when you actually have photos of people
27:28
Speaker 1: and actually and also as many photos as there are
27:31
Speaker 1: of her. Yeah, so I recommend doing that. You can
27:34
Speaker 1: find them online. But yeah, So the work that I
27:39
Speaker 1: teased earlier was the Death of Cleopatra. That's another notable
27:42
Speaker 1: work of hers. She was invited to participate in the
27:46
Speaker 1: eighteen seventy six Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. The event was
27:52
Speaker 1: held to celebrate the hundredth anniversary of the signing of
27:55
Speaker 1: the Declaration of Independence. It was all this like hurrah.
28:00
Speaker 1: Around the event, there were exhibits for technology and art,
28:05
Speaker 1: and for the event, Louis made the this really big sculpture,
28:09
Speaker 1: The Death of Cleopatra, and in it, the Egyptian Queen
28:13
Speaker 1: Cleopatra is portrayed slumped like laid back in her throne,
28:17
Speaker 1: dead after letting a snake bite her, as the story goes.
28:21
Speaker 1: But it was different than other neoclassical sculptures of Cleopatra
28:26
Speaker 1: at the time, which more so held Cleopatra in a
28:28
Speaker 1: different light, romanticized her a little bit more about her
28:31
Speaker 1: up on a pedestal, you know, versus being slumped in
28:33
Speaker 1: a chair. And the sculpture was praised critically and it
28:37
Speaker 1: was a popular piece among the other sculptures that were
28:41
Speaker 1: within the exhibition, But it wasn't sold at the exposition.
28:46
Speaker 1: It was exhibited in Chicago not that long afterwards. Then
28:50
Speaker 1: it was put in storage, Then it was displayed in
28:53
Speaker 1: a saloon. Then it was acquired by John Condon, who
28:57
Speaker 1: was a racetrack owner, who put it on top of
29:00
Speaker 1: the grave of his horse named Cleopatra. Tracks un didn't
29:07
Speaker 1: put in the properties d that it was never to
29:10
Speaker 1: be moved, but as things go, development happened, and um,
29:14
Speaker 1: in the nineteen seventies, I think it went to a
29:17
Speaker 1: storageyard and then a boy Scout troop painted it after
29:22
Speaker 1: finding it outside. So they know not what they did,
29:25
Speaker 1: I'm sure you know, but it wasn't great for the
29:29
Speaker 1: sculpture itself had already been outside for so long that
29:33
Speaker 1: you can only imagine what the damage looked like before.
29:38
Speaker 1: I don't know, I didn't actually, I don't know if
29:41
Speaker 1: there were pictures of it before it was restored or not,
29:43
Speaker 1: but that those would be really interesting to see. But
29:46
Speaker 1: in a member of the Historical Society of Forest Park,
29:51
Speaker 1: which is a suburb outside of Chicago, acquired the sculpture.
29:55
Speaker 1: Louis was then identified as a sculptor who did it
30:00
Speaker 1: in was in the Smithsonian's permanent collection. Um, so there
30:05
Speaker 1: were a lot of different people who had their hands
30:06
Speaker 1: and obviously this was a very fortunate event because things
30:10
Speaker 1: don't always get found and attributed to the people who
30:12
Speaker 1: they belonged to, especially if they've just been sitting for
30:15
Speaker 1: so long they don't they get destroyed. So this is
30:18
Speaker 1: one of those cases. Samanthew, you act, so like those
30:20
Speaker 1: works were destroyed or we just don't know what happened
30:22
Speaker 1: to them. This could have been one of those things
30:24
Speaker 1: where like we didn't know what happened to them or
30:27
Speaker 1: it was destroyed. It was, you know, in the whole
30:29
Speaker 1: process of it being outside in the elements for so long,
30:32
Speaker 1: But it wasn't because of the work of a bunch
30:34
Speaker 1: of people like art historian Marilyn Richardson, bibliographer Dorothy Porter Wesley,
30:39
Speaker 1: and the curator George Kearney, like helped along the way
30:42
Speaker 1: to get identified, restored and saved. But this is like,
30:46
Speaker 1: this is one of the really notable works in her
30:48
Speaker 1: in her history even though she created a lot, but
30:51
Speaker 1: beyond her Egyptian subjects, Catholic subjects, and the anti slavery ones,
30:56
Speaker 1: she also did people portraits and busts of people who
31:01
Speaker 1: were her patrons and notable people like President Ulys's Grant
31:05
Speaker 1: who sat for her, people like Abraham Lincoln and Frederick
31:09
Speaker 1: Douglas who even met and hung out with her, and
31:12
Speaker 1: then after that visit she created the bust. Yeah, so
31:16
Speaker 1: it was a lively career where she met with so
31:20
Speaker 1: many different people who were also notable in their time.
31:23
Speaker 1: So she had a lot of contemporary notability and success
31:30
Speaker 1: like also in the way of selling her work, but
31:34
Speaker 1: also in the acclaim, so the popular as well as critical.
31:38
Speaker 1: But by the eighties demand for her work wasn't as
31:40
Speaker 1: high as it was previously, and by she lived in France.
31:46
Speaker 1: In nineteen o one she was in London, and while
31:51
Speaker 1: she was in Europe people did support her financially and
31:56
Speaker 1: by connecting her with other people and sending people to
31:58
Speaker 1: her studio. But she died in London in seven and
32:04
Speaker 1: in her will she she called herself a spinster and
32:07
Speaker 1: a sculptor. But yeah, she was buried in an unmarked
32:11
Speaker 1: grave at St Mary's Roman Catholic Cemetery. Okay, so after
32:17
Speaker 1: this long life, with this legacy that was marked in
32:20
Speaker 1: its own time, she was still buried in unmarked grave.
32:23
Speaker 1: But a historian in town where she was born did
32:26
Speaker 1: set up a fundraiser to create a marker for her
32:29
Speaker 1: for her grave, which she only got about five years ago,
32:34
Speaker 1: so not not long ago at all. But fortunately people
32:38
Speaker 1: are still invested in making sure that her history is
32:41
Speaker 1: known and finding out more about her, so a lot
32:44
Speaker 1: of her work is still on view in places like Boston,
32:47
Speaker 1: d c and Alabama. But then there's a lot that
32:50
Speaker 1: we don't have anymore, but you know, you can still
32:53
Speaker 1: go see it in person, so that is that is
32:58
Speaker 1: a good thing, you know, that it is so accessible
33:01
Speaker 1: in person and also online. Yes, yes, there's some really
33:05
Speaker 1: really amazing pictures online, and that is quite quite the story,
33:11
Speaker 1: very well traveled person um and kind of yeah, connecting
33:15
Speaker 1: to all these people from the time, and to call
33:20
Speaker 1: yourself a spinster in your will, to call yourself a spinster.
33:24
Speaker 1: That sounds like a story, it does, doesn't it. And
33:28
Speaker 1: I'm glad that. I mean, it's a shame that there
33:31
Speaker 1: was an unmarked grave in the first place, but I'm
33:34
Speaker 1: glad that people were dedicated and determined to change that
33:41
Speaker 1: even though it was so recent. So I'm guessing someone
33:44
Speaker 1: was able to keep up with her grave, knowing where
33:46
Speaker 1: she was the entire time, because that's a long space
33:49
Speaker 1: of time to have a mark grave, to be like,
33:52
Speaker 1: hey and this is her headstone. Yeah, yeah, for sure,
33:56
Speaker 1: it had to be tracked down, which I think is
33:57
Speaker 1: some of the work that the historian I mentioned earlier,
34:00
Speaker 1: Marilyn Richardson did. Yeah, but it's one of those things
34:04
Speaker 1: that clearly has to have a lot of work put
34:06
Speaker 1: into it because it's not that easy to find, especially
34:08
Speaker 1: at being in London, right, Right, like the level of
34:13
Speaker 1: the travel in itself, but in my head, so that
34:15
Speaker 1: clear Patra marble statue was over three thousand pounds, and
34:20
Speaker 1: I guess she did it there in Philadelphia's what I'm imagining,
34:24
Speaker 1: Is that correct? That's a good question. I don't know
34:25
Speaker 1: if it was transported from Europe to the United States,
34:29
Speaker 1: because I know that it stayed in the United States
34:31
Speaker 1: because they didn't want to transport it back to Europe. Right.
34:36
Speaker 1: That's like all of these works, because when we were
34:38
Speaker 1: talking about even the piece that they did that they
34:41
Speaker 1: didn't like, that the couple didn't like in the u
34:42
Speaker 1: s all of this back and forth travel. She was
34:46
Speaker 1: noted to be that good that people were willing to
34:48
Speaker 1: commission from overseas during a time where exporting things was
34:52
Speaker 1: not an easy feat. Yeah, a lot of her stuff
34:56
Speaker 1: she did send back overseas. Right, Her popularity, her tee
35:00
Speaker 1: it in that traveled in such a way, and yeah,
35:02
Speaker 1: it feels like a slap in the face to have
35:04
Speaker 1: her placing and marred grave when she was so well
35:08
Speaker 1: liked and so well known that they were willing to
35:11
Speaker 1: do this for her work, but yet still because I'm like, like,
35:16
Speaker 1: I'm just trying to imagine the practicality. Maybe I'm just
35:19
Speaker 1: too literal, Well, like, wow, who has the money to
35:22
Speaker 1: do this? Who has to go back and forth overseas
35:26
Speaker 1: for Marvel sculpture, which I'm sure took her a lot
35:29
Speaker 1: of time, But yet she still has a lot of pieces.
35:31
Speaker 1: Once again, because we know so much have been destroyed,
35:35
Speaker 1: but yeah, there's still evidence of other work out there. Yeah,
35:39
Speaker 1: I desperately want to see, as tragic as it is,
35:43
Speaker 1: the Boy Scouts paint chab of this statue. I'm glad
35:46
Speaker 1: it was restored, but I've got to admit there's I
35:52
Speaker 1: want to see this. Surely there's a picture of that.
35:56
Speaker 1: I wonder if the job that they did was like
35:59
Speaker 1: trying to conservationist, like if they were if they were
36:01
Speaker 1: painting white, or if they were trying to be more
36:03
Speaker 1: reportive and painted colors. Yeah, and now that I think
36:08
Speaker 1: about the standards subject in general, I'm like, this is interesting. Yeah,
36:16
Speaker 1: I'm trying to figure out this conversation of like this
36:18
Speaker 1: makes sense instead of just cleaning it off or washing
36:21
Speaker 1: it off, which I've seen them do like keeping headstones,
36:24
Speaker 1: cleans historical sites, cleaned to actually painted, Like who gave
36:28
Speaker 1: them permission to do this? And I understand it's for
36:30
Speaker 1: a horse, but obviously this person whoever did this really
36:35
Speaker 1: loved this horse enough to get this again three thousand
36:39
Speaker 1: pounds statue to be its headstone. Like, I'm very shocked,
36:44
Speaker 1: and I have a lot of questions, have a lot
36:46
Speaker 1: of questions. Yeah, what did the transport job from wherever else?
36:50
Speaker 1: It was? Looked like that because I think that was
36:51
Speaker 1: still in the Chicago area, so we didn't have to
36:54
Speaker 1: move forward to get from the place it was before
36:56
Speaker 1: too the place where the horse was the horse's grave was,
37:01
Speaker 1: but it still had to be transported in some way.
37:05
Speaker 1: So it's like, you gotta you did a lot. But
37:07
Speaker 1: it was saying something that how drawn he was too
37:11
Speaker 1: to it to the patrick. But wow, I mean what
37:15
Speaker 1: a horse it had to have. Amazing horse, the horse.
37:27
Speaker 1: I love it. Right now. I think we should all
37:29
Speaker 1: get um bust of ourselves. I totally want I would.
37:35
Speaker 1: I would love that one day, let's look at our budget.
37:43
Speaker 1: I'm both scared and excited. It's kind of my general
37:49
Speaker 1: view on life anyway. So wow, right, But yeah, going
37:55
Speaker 1: back to her accomplishments, it is amazing. Like I said, like,
37:58
Speaker 1: I'm really racking my brain and processing just what she
38:03
Speaker 1: went through, how much she went through, the continued fight
38:06
Speaker 1: that she had to have, that she had to leave
38:08
Speaker 1: a whole country in order to find peace to work
38:11
Speaker 1: rather than anything else, and it still took so long
38:14
Speaker 1: to get there, and then being able to do it
38:17
Speaker 1: and then still get notoriety from the place that she
38:20
Speaker 1: wasn't welcomed essentially, and then to this. But it is
38:24
Speaker 1: an amazing life. And honestly, I didn't know too much
38:26
Speaker 1: about her, like I've heard the name in the story. Uh,
38:30
Speaker 1: and yeah, I don't know why my brain has just
38:32
Speaker 1: latched onto everything being in a movie. But yeah, this
38:35
Speaker 1: feels like I'm sure there is one. Is there a one?
38:37
Speaker 1: I don't know about her a lot. I don't think
38:39
Speaker 1: I feel like it should be epic, Like just her
38:42
Speaker 1: doing these creations is probably a good at least of
38:44
Speaker 1: fifteen minute YouTube of like a you know, paste together
38:49
Speaker 1: of what she's doing. There's definitely no biopic. We got
38:56
Speaker 1: the ideas, you got the ideas, and we're here for
38:59
Speaker 1: support right now. I think that'd be great I'm imagine
39:04
Speaker 1: like you'll see you as Grant, like just the image
39:09
Speaker 1: of him sitting there and getting the bust made. There's
39:14
Speaker 1: a lot of very visually interesting I think, also a
39:17
Speaker 1: lot to play with if we're thinking about this in dramatization,
39:21
Speaker 1: for because of how much she embellished, and because you
39:24
Speaker 1: already kind of have license to do a lot of
39:26
Speaker 1: creation within her story. If you were doing something more
39:29
Speaker 1: dramatized and fictionalized because of the own embellishment that she
39:33
Speaker 1: did of her own story, I feel like, well, let
39:36
Speaker 1: me not put any projective thing onto her. But it's
39:38
Speaker 1: already a part of her story. Fictionalization is I mean
39:42
Speaker 1: her trial alone from the college, that would be like
39:46
Speaker 1: a tense moment, all right, I'm gonna stop, but like
39:50
Speaker 1: moment of like seeing her fighting through these cases. Yeah.
39:54
Speaker 1: And there is a lot more context, for instance, in
39:57
Speaker 1: the book that I mentioned by Kristin Piepuick about her
40:01
Speaker 1: role in her the significance of her being black and
40:04
Speaker 1: Native American and the Haitian history that all of that
40:09
Speaker 1: wrapped up into her story and how she dealt with
40:12
Speaker 1: that as an artist, and how how ripe that was
40:15
Speaker 1: for people contemporary people, So how ripe, that exoticization, the
40:20
Speaker 1: drawal of that, and being able to talk about that
40:23
Speaker 1: in their commentary on her, but also in scholarship about
40:28
Speaker 1: her as well, just being able to look back at
40:32
Speaker 1: her story and say, oh, this is this is a
40:35
Speaker 1: part of her story, so this identity, is this why
40:38
Speaker 1: she did this? Um So there's a lot of a
40:41
Speaker 1: lot more context and you can definitely go deeper into
40:43
Speaker 1: that part of her story as well. Yes, yes, and
40:47
Speaker 1: we always appreciate you bringing these stories to us, Eaves,
40:49
Speaker 1: and doing it with such grace and nuvance because they
40:53
Speaker 1: are very complex. Yeah, yeah, we love. We love having
40:58
Speaker 1: you and seeing you in this digital way at least
41:02
Speaker 1: once a month both get our sminty budget on some bust.
41:12
Speaker 1: In the meantime, where can the listeners find you? Ease?
41:17
Speaker 1: You can find me on many more episodes on this
41:20
Speaker 1: very here podcast I'm talking about other female first. Also,
41:24
Speaker 1: you can find me online at us jeff cot dot
41:26
Speaker 1: com or on Instagram at not Apologizing, on Twitter at
41:30
Speaker 1: Eaves Jeff Cote, and other podcasts as well. Yes, she's
41:38
Speaker 1: out and about online and you should definitely check out
41:41
Speaker 1: all the stuff Eaves is doing if you haven't already
41:44
Speaker 1: and thank you once again Eves for joining us. If
41:47
Speaker 1: you would like to contact us listeners, you can or
41:50
Speaker 1: emails Stephanie you mom Stuff at i heeartnet dot com.
41:52
Speaker 1: You can find us on Twitter at mom Stuff podcast
41:54
Speaker 1: or Instagram Stuff We Never Told You. Thanks as always
41:57
Speaker 1: to our super producer Christina, thank you and see you
42:00
Speaker 1: for listening Stuff I Never Told You his prediction to
42:02
Speaker 1: iHeart Radio. For more podcast in my Heart Radio, visit
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Speaker 1: the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcast or where you listen
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