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SMNTY Classics: Mary Edmonia Lewis · Stuff Mom Never Told You

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