Book Reviews
Woman's Art Journal - Fall 1999/Winter 2000 Vol. 20
A Labor of Love: The Life and Art of Vinnie Ream
by Glenn V Sherwood
SunShine Press Publications, Colorado
Reviewed by Charlotte S. Rubinstein
Many significant contributions to the literature ahout women painters and sculptors have come from nontraditional sources.
Because of the marginalized position of women artists, it was not easy for art historians and critics to develop their careers by devoting
long years to research about them; therefore the task, in the early years of the women's movement especially, often fell to researchers
outside the art history establishment.
Glenn Sherwood's book about Vinnie Ream (1847-1914) shows both the advantages and a few of the problems of such nonorthodoxy.
The author, a design engineer and a Ream descendant, is clearly driven by a personal commitment to the pioneering 19th-century sculptor
whose statue of Lincoln in the U.S. Capitol was tbe first major sculpture commission awarded to a woman by the federal government.
Sherwood more than compensates for any shortcomings in art history by his willingness to spend years digging into primary sources and
by his special access to information. His efforts have uncovered mnch material that is useful to scholars of Ream's work and also illuminates
the condition of women of her period.
Like so many women artists (e.g., Anne Whitney [1], Harriet Hosmer, and in our time, Maya Lin), Ream became the object of controversy when
she won the Lincoln commission. In his search for every detail of the circumstances surrounding these events, Sherwood studied newspapers,
magazines, and letters and unearthed copious material from the Congressional Globe, Congressional Record, National Archives, and elsewhere. It
is fascinating to read uncut speeches by members of Congress as they fought over Ream's award. Tbe reader becomes a contemporary
spectator in tbe Senate, listening to the strident voices of such famous men as Charles Sumner and Benjamin Wade, their biases reflecting
the political and economic conflicts following the Civil War and the assassination of Lincoln. Like a camera panning a scene during the filming of
an epic movie, the author's widened view reveals Vinnie Ream as a small intrepid figure buffeted about by larger social forces. [2]
Regional power struggles were at work: the northeastern establishment objected to interlopers from western states (Ream was born in
Wisconsin), and of course sexism was rampant at a time when the suffrage movement was gatbering strength. But Sherwood's abundance
of information sets forth the complexities of the situation. For example, when Andrew Johnson was catapulted into tbe presidency after
Lincoln's assassination, the radical group opposing Johnson's policies attempted to impeacb him. Because Ream and her family were
personal friends of Senator Ross (he was a boarder in the Ream home), she was suspected of influencing him to vote against impeachment
and was accused of being a Confederate sympathizer. The artist was not only subjected to vitriolic verbal attacks; she was temporarily thrown
out of ber studio in the Capitol while working on the full-length clay study of Lincoln, and her model was almost destroyed in an attempt to
remove it from the building. We see clearly that political issues affected opinions about tbe worth of the artist as well as the art work.
Vinnie Ream's gifts in music, writing, and art were revealed early; and Sherwood documents how her family; despite a nomadic and
insecure life on the midwestern frontier, encouraged her to use her talents. Ream not only had the traits necessary to overcome
obstacles, talent, dedication, daring, and energy, as well as tbe more "feminine" characteristics of tact, charm, and diplomacy she
also knew how to promote herself, not hesitating to visit people in high places to plead her case. The account of her trip abroad to
complete her sculpture in marble shows her securing introductions and winning support from leading figures, among them Gustave
Dore in Paris and Franz Liszt and Cardinal Antonelli in Rome. Like today's media stars, she projected an "image." She allowed her
long wavy hair to flow loose and wore picturesque ethnic costumes and jewelry. Detractors accused her of using "women's wiles" to
gain commissioms.
Sadly, Sherwood also reveals that despite prodigious efforts in tbe face of continual attacks and the successful completion of the
Lincoln statue, Ream struggled to obtain work; commissions dried up because of the controversy. She was as notorious in the
South as in the North her father discovered, and he wrote her after a trip to Louisiana: "What have you ever done to cause your
name to be hawked about and mixed up in such a manner? You are made notorious against your will, your name and fame are
bound to outlive you. Just think, when we are all dead and gone, someone will write a novel about you and another will write a play.
Your studio in the Capitol will be a grand tableau.... Bingham and Butler will be in the play and there will be broken statues...and
Thaddeus Stevens will be one of the heroes. (118)
However, the greatest obstacle to her career was, ultimately, her marriage to Navy lieutenant Richard L. Hoxie. The artist was
hard at work on a full-length statue of Admiral Farragut (it remains the bronze center piece of Farragut Square in Washington,
D.C.), when they met. After their marriage, he permitted her to complete Admiral Farragut, unveiled with fanfare in 1881,
but forbade her from carrying out paid commissions thereafter. Relieved of financial burdens for the first time in her adult life
she was also caring for her ailing elderly parents. Ream perhaps at first was glad to give up her work to devote time to her husband
and their child Richard (who died in an institution, possibly a schizophrenic), and to charities. Like a good service wife, she
accompanied her husband to his various posts. After she had a heart attack in 1903, doctors advised Hoxie to permit his wife to resume
her profession. It was deemed necessary to her health. During her last few years, Ream carried out several commissions. She died in
the midst of work on a statue of the Cherokee leader, Sequoyah, which was posthumously completed by' George Zolnay and is
now in the U.S. Capitol.
One can carp about aspects of this book. Sherwood's discussions of the art movements of the day are somewhat unsophisticated, and
his speculations about the spiritual sources of Ream's career are open to challenge. His prose style could use some polishing, and the constant
references to "Vinnie" (sculptor Hiram Powers is referred to as "Powers") are jarring. Sherwood nonetheless has allowed Ream to
emerge as a three-dimensional figure. The book is handsomely produced, and readers will find more documentation and more illustrations than
have appeared in any earlier publication about her. The author has attempted to locate every work and to separate myth from
fact about various aspects of the artist's career. Building on this research, scholars can now undertake a more thorough analysis and
evaluation of Vinnie Ream's oeuvre in relation to the period and the history of American sculpture and its female practitioners.
NOTES
[1] Anne Whitney lost the commission for a statue of Charles Sumner after the judges discovered that she was a woman. Late in life, with
the aid of supporters, she carried out the statue, now located in Harvard Square. Harriet Hosmer, accused of having workmen create her
sculptures, defended herself with a libel suit. Maya Lin was forced to devote two years to a defense against aftacks on her design for the
commission for the Vietnam Veteran's Memorial in Washington, D.C.
[2] For more on the controversy, see Joan Lemp, "Vinnie Ream and Abraham Lincoln," WAJ (F85/W86), 24-29.
Charlotte S. Rubinstein is author of American Women Artists (1982) and American Women Sculptors (1990).
Washington History V11, N2, Fall/Winter 1999-2000
A Labor of Love: The Life & Art of Vinnie Ream
By Glenn V. Sherwood (Hygiene, Colo.: SunShine Press Publications, Inc., 1997),
464 pp., index, append., cloth: $60.
Reviewed by Lucinda P. Janke
Vinnie Ream was one of Washington's most famous nineteenth-century sculptors.
Many of her best-known works remain on prominent display in the city, including her
marble statue of Abraham Lincoln in the Capitol rotunda and her bronze statue of
Admiral David Farragut, the capital's first monument to a naval hero, which dominates
the park bearing his name. Several of her works are in the Smithsonian Institution's
National Museum of American Art, as is her portrait, painted by George P.A. Healy
around 1870. Celebrated as a very young woman for her talent and prolific sculptural
work, she also gained a certain notoriety for her close friendships with several prominent
politicians.
Born in Wisconsin in 1847, Ream came to Washington as a child and lived near the
Capitol on North B Street (Constitution Avenue). Her artistic talent surfaced early, but
it was after a visit to the studio of Clark Mills in the basement of the Capitol, where he was
casting Thomas Crawford's statue of Freedom for the Capitol dome, that she decided
to become a sculptor. In 1863, at the age of 16, she started taking sculpture lessons from
Mills, and her earliest works were done inhis studio.
The pretty, out-going young sculptress was an immediate sensation and was befriended by
many congressmen and other powerful government figures. In 1864 when she decided that she wanted to sculpt a bust
of Lincoln, her influential friends successfully urged the reluctant president to sit for her,
arguing that she was a poor "western" girl of promising talent. The bust was completed
just before his assassination; she was the only sculptor to model him from life. When she
won a congressional commission in 1866 to sculpt a full-length statue of the slain president, she was aided in the competition by
President Andrew Johnson and many members of Congress. Her winning design broke
new ground in an era of neo-classical art by depicting Lincoln realistically, but the award
provoked controversy because she was both the youngest person and the first woman
given an art commission by Congress. Ream was accused again of using feminine wiles
and political connections when she later won the commission for the Farragut statue.
Sherwood's thorough documentation of such allegations offers a glimpse into the
sometimes cutthroat nature of the nineteenth-century art world, particularly as it
intersected with the national political arena. Ream was often subjected to vicious attacks,
including suggestions that she did not really do her own work.
In 1878 Ream married Lieutenant Richard Hoxie, then chief engineer officer for the
District of Columbia, whom she met while casting the Farragut statue at the Navy Yard.
President Ulysses S. Grant, General William T. Sherman, and most of the Senate attended
their wedding. Ream's marriage did not end her career but did slow it down as she began
leading a somewhat conventional Washington social life in their house at 1632 K Street,
N.W. She also left Washington a number of times to accompany her husband to other
postings until his retirement from the Army in 1908 as a brigadier general. When Ream
died in 1914 her husband placed a replica of her marble figure of the Greek poet Sappho
on her tomb in Arlington National Cemetery.
Historians of American art have long recognized Ream's youthful talent through her
major national commissions, but an outline of her entire artistic output and much of her
personal biography are presented in Labor of Love for the first time. Sherwood's book suc-
ceeds both as a readable if lengthy biography of an intriguing personality and as a
competent scholarly compilation. It includes an inventory of Ream's known works, their
locations and sizes, and a discussion of lost works, as well as an extensive bibliography.
The text is supplemented by approximately 200 black-and-white illustrations and a color
plate of Ream's portrait.
Sherwood has done prodigious research, but has not attempted a scholarly synthesis
of the material. Instead, he presents all the information he uncovered and lets the char-
acters speak for themselves, arguing that readers should draw their own conclusions.
At times this is more cumbersome than helpful. The debate in Congress over the commis-
sion for the Lincoln statue, for example, is reprinted in its entirety-30 pages worth.
Despite its significance, the debate might well have been summarized in the text and
possibly reprinted in an appendix. There are as well some signs of a rush to publication
such as minor errors and duplication of the same illustration 13 pages apart. Sherwood
does succeed, however, in providing as complete a picture of Ream's life and career as
possible, given the available documentation, and in recreating the general ambiance of the
time and place where she lived and worked, Victorian Washington.
Lucinda P. Janke is curator of the Kiplinger Washington Collection and a member of the
HSW Board of Trustees.
Washington History, Fall/Winter 1999-2000
The Bloomsbury Review - Volume 19/Issue 3; May/June, 1999, pp 18-19.
A Labor of Love
The Life and Art of Vinnie Ream
GLENN V. SHERWOOD
SunShine Press Publications, $60.00 cloth
ISBN 0-9615743-6-4
P.0. Box 333, Hygiene, CO 80533
The gifted Vinnie Ream called her creation of Abraham Lincoln's statue in the U.S. capitol "A Labor of Love."
Glenn V. Sherwood reveals that these same words "reflected my own personal odyssey in compiling this volume."
The resulting biography of this young sculptor is not only an exhaustive study of the artist's life and the historic
figures associated with her, but an in-depth review of the political significance of the era.
Labeled "child genius" and prairie Cinderella," Vinnie Ream was ahead of her time in many ways. It's hard to
imagine a girl of 18, more than a century ago, receiving a commission from the U.S. government to create a statue
of the president. To be the youngest artist and first woman to achieve this honor is extraordinary.
Ream's talents were as varied as the subjects she immortalized in clay and marble. From her first poems and
prose, published in newspapers at age 11, to her crowning achievement of the Lincoln statue in 1871, she created
statuettes, busts, and portraits of such prominent people as Admiral Farragut, William Seward, Robert E. Lee,
Ulysses S. Grant, Susan B. Anthony, Horace Greeley, Frederick Douglass, and George A. Custer.
Despite her poor background and meager education, she loved music, which she both composed and performed,
as well as poetry.
Her poem "Lincoln," written after her statue
was unveiled, contains these stirring lines:
"O, Lincoln, prophet, hero, friend!
You clasped the hands so long estranged,
You healed the wounds--you broke the chains,
You honored all our silent slain."
When she first met the great man and told him of her background, she recalled:
"And so it was, the great heart which vanity could not unlock opened with the sympathy
that recalled to him his own youth."
One newspaper described her Lincoln statue:
"He stands at his full height, the head bending forward, the face looking downward, as if
surveying the Emancipation Proclamation held in his right hand. A long circular cloak--a modern cloak-- covers the right shoulder and arm, falling off
the left, and caught by the forearm and held by the left hand."
An interviewer asked why she hadn't presented the president "in a heroic attitude with shoulders thrown
back, with head more erect and his arm more elevated, as he gave to the world the proclamation of freedom?"
Her answer was, "Because I never saw him in that attitude. On the contrary, I often found him tilted back in
his chair with his feet encased in a pair of slip-shod slippers resting on a table, about on a level with his head."
Despite her obvious qualifications and the late president's approval, there was much controversy about granting
her the commission. In a chapter titled The Great Debate, senators' descriptions varied from "a young girl of poor parentage, struggling
with misfortune, ... she manifests great taste and great powers of art, and in the short experience which she has
had she has developed wonderful powers in that line"
to opposing opinions, which declared,
"this candidate is not competent to produce the work which you propose
to order. You might as well place her on the staff of General Grant, or put General Grant aside and place her
on horseback in his stead. She cannot do it."
Even after the contract was eventually awarded and payment of $10,000 was agreed upon, no money was given
to begin the work--a heavy financial burden for the young artist. As Sherwood explains in an early chapter:
"The U.S. Capitol would seem like an enviable niche for a portrait artist. But politics can be a strange
business and Vinnie Ream was soon to find herself in one of the strangest episodes in American politics."
It was the time of impeachment proceedings brought by Republicans against the Democratic president,
Andrew Johnson, in February 1868, and several senators opposing his conviction held secret meetings in
her small Washington studio.
Senators weren't Vinnie's only supporters. One of her earliest admirers was a mixedblood Cherokee, who
wrote her love poetry. A famous Confederate general made her a Mason, to the consternation of his fellow
lodge members, and several poets of the era wrote romantic verse, some of which she set to music. She
supposedly received a proposal of marriage by mail from the Mormon leader Brigham Young. After completing
a bust of Franz Liszt, it is believed he dedicated a musical piece to her; and later wrote the music for
her wedding to Richard Hoxie in 1878.
If the book at times seems overburdened with minutiae--entire chapters are devoted to word-by-word debates
in Congress--Sherwood explains:
"This has been done deliberately to let the his torical characters speak for themselves and
to allow readers to interpret the original material from their own experience."
His enthusiasm and passion for his famous ancestor--he is related to the Ream family
through both parents--has produced a sympathetic scrapbook of the woman and the era,
crowded with pictures of Vinnie at all ages. Illustrations of her work and models,
sketches, letters, and invitations fill the pages, along with photographs of historical figures.
It is impossible to ignore the comparison between Vinnie Ream and Maya Lin, a
young Yale student who created the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington,
D.C. Both were young women, competing against well-known and respected artists,
who were forced to defend their work in Washington before antagonistic judges. It's
enlightening to learn that in a 1909 speech, Vinnie Ream stated that "Women have at
last burst their bonds" and said that women could have both a family life and professional
careers, an idea ahead of its time.
Surprisingly, the book does not end with Vinnie's death in 1914. A long list of tributes
to her is listed in an epilogue, followed by an appendix chronicling her contributions to
19th-century culture:
"The art of Vinnie Ream and the notoriety of naturalism in portraiture. Her Lincoln
statue influenced later sculptures of Lincoln and helped start a trend that would be taken
into the twentieth century by sculptors like Daniel Chester French."
Sherwood has even included an Unsolved Mysteries section, which probes
questions raised about her work, the Ream family, and her role in the Andrew Johnson
impeachment trial.
The author's admiration for this extraordinary woman is evident. His final sentence
expresses his feelings eloquently: "Vinnie's presence and the spirit of Lincoln, may have been enough to radically change American history."
REVIEWER: Barbara Weston, a freelance writer living in Miami, FL, writes poetry, short fiction, features,
and reviews.
Civil War Book News: A REVIEW
TITLE: Labor of Love: The Life and Art of Vinnie Ream
AUTHOR: Glenn V. Sherwood
APPEAL: The first extended and extensively illustrated biography of this
noted and controversial Civil War era artist
QUOTES: "She knew Lincoln had little interest in mock heroics and she
thought the statue should capture the president in a distinctive, yet
natural American mode. While Horatio Greenough's statue of Washington was
highly regarded by some esoteric art critics, it had clearly been a failure
from a political standpoint. Vinnie wisely began by creating a likeness of
Lincoln that gained the acceptance of people who knew the man. An honest
portrait was needed that conveyed the essence of the president, but it also
needed to contain an element of the ideal. For a 19-year-old girl, it
seemed an impossible undertaking, and many people thought so, but Vinnie
approached her work as a sacred trust. The question remained unanswered and
hauntingly prevalent. Could Vinnie Ream, the upstart from the West, succeed
where many venerable artists had failed - and create a truly enduring
statue of Lincoln, the revered patriarch of the era?"
PRO: The fascinating story of a pathbreaking artist who knew many of the key figures of the
Civil War and who won bitterly contested Civil War memorial commissions
during Reconstruction. Lavishly illustrated and sourced, this is also a
compellingly well written narrative. A nice mix of American art history and
post-CW politics, this is a physically impressive volume that is a credit
to the publisher. Thoroughly satisfying.
CON: The passages reproducing Congressional debate and VR's petition break
the narrative flow.
REVIEWER: Dimitri Rotov.
Lincolniana, by Frank J. Williams, literary editor
Arts:
A Labor of Love: The Life of Vinnie Ream by Glenn V. Sherwood is obviously a labor of
love by the author. This beautifully illustrated and well-written book about the
young sculptor who carved the statue of Lincoln that is in the U.S. Capitol is
available from: SunShine Press Publications, P.O Box 333, Hygiene, CO 80533
[pp68-69, Lincoln Herald, Summer 1999]
Lincoln Memorial University Press
1234 Cumberland Gap Parkway
Harrogate, TN 53453
Exhibits and Collections
Lincoln From Life: As the Artists Saw Him. The first exhibition to bring together
important paintings and sculpture for which Abraham Lincoln posed from life,
opened at the Lincoln Museum in Fort Wayne on April 24. The show runs through October
17. Some 50 works of art are on view including life masks, busts, portraits,
sketches and the photographs that artists and sculptors used as models to help them
capture Lincoln's features. Award-winning actor Sam Waterston, who portrayed Lincoln
in the TV mini-series Gore Vidal's Lincoln and in the New York stage revival of Abe
Lincoln in Illinois, gave an opening night address and performance. Harold Holzer, who
was guest curator, also presented a paper, with slides, on opening night. The opening
events will soon air on C-SPAN, which will also broadcast a gallery tour with Brian
Lamb and Harold Holzer. CBS Sunday Morning will also air a future segment on the show.
[p69, Lincoln Herald, Summer 1999]
(NOTE: The C-SPAN program aired on June 25
and the CBS segment aired on July 4.
The ordering information for the C-SPAN
tape of the program is given below.
The programs included a segment on Vinnie
Ream and her statue of Lincoln - GVS)
Interview
Abraham Lincoln Portrait Exhibit
Lincoln Museum
Fort Wayne, Indiana (United States)
ID: 125519 - 06/25/1999 - 0:47 - $29.95
Holzer, Harold, Director, Metropolitan Museum of Art
History
Longmont man sheds light on 19th-century sculptor
By Silvia Pettem
Almost everyone would recognize the life-size marble statue of
Abraham Lincoln in the rotunda of the United States Capitol
Building in Washington, D.C. Yet few have heard of Vinnie Ream,
its sculptor of more than a century ago.
Longtime Longmont resident Glenn Sherwood has just completed "A
Labor of Love, The Life and Art of Vinnie Ream."
"Being related to the Ream family through both of my parents, I
had often heard stories of this legendary ancestor," said Sher
wood. "When I grew older, I did more research."
A writer for the Smithsonian Museum called Ream "the most promi
nent American woman sculptor of the 19th century." Yet the pretty
young woman with long dark curls was largely neglected by the
history books. Now, after years of archival research, Sherwood
gives Ream the recognition he feels she had been denied.
Ream was born in 1847 in Wisconsin Territory, then considered
part of "the West." It was said that the local Native Americans
recognized her talent and taught her to draw and paint. After
being educated in Columbia, Mo., Ream moved with her family to
Washington, D.C., at the start of the Civil War. She showed a
remarkable ability to work with clay and was tutored by an accom
plished sculptor.
President Lincoln posed for Ream when she was a struggling teen
age artist. At age 18, she was the youngest sculptor and the
first woman ever to receive a federal commission for a statue.
Ream remembered Lincoln as a "man of unfathomable sorrow."
Lincoln was assassinated before the clay sculpture was completed,
but Ream acquired his clothing and measured it in order to accu
rately finish her work. The Lincoln statue was rendered in marble
in Rome and unveiled in Washington, D.C., in 1871.
Critics accustomed to the ideal likeness of the neoclassical
school attacked her style. They claimed that "men did her work"
and called her a "fraud" and a "humbug." Eventually, the criti
cism died out when her work became popular and was accepted by
the public.
Besides Lincoln, Ream sculpted more than 100 statues, busts and
medallions, many of them of major military and political figures
of the time. These included Admiral David Farragut and General
George Armstrong Custer.
Ream's art fell into obscurity following her marriage to Civil
War veteran Richard Hoxie and the subsequent birth of their son.
As a military wife, she was permitted to work for love but not
for money. Just before her death in 1914, she sculpted Sequoyah,
an Indian chief in the Oklahoma Territory. Sequoyah is now in
Statuary Hall, also in the United States Capitol Building.
Besides her art, Ream was a musician who sang to wounded soldiers
and worked at war-relief concerts. Sherwood is an engineering
technician at the National Institute of Standards Technology in
Boulder and a member of the Longmont Symphony. "She and I share a
lot of common interests," said Sherwood. "Writing is a bridge
between the present and the past."
"A Labor of Love" is available in bookstores and from Sunshine
Press Publications Inc., of Hygiene. Call Sunshine Press at (303)
772-3556 or visit their Web site, www.Sunshinepress.com.
Sylvia Pettem is a Boulder County Colorado historian.
Boulder Planet, Volume II, Issue 18: Nov. 5 - 11, 1997