![]() ![]() For the first time, people could acquire multiple images of their own likeness, or those of their friends and family at minimal cost. Known as cartes de visite, or “calling cards” in French, the small prints gained enormous popularity in the United States during the 1860 presidential election just prior to the start of the Civil War. The current exhibition displays modern prints that were made from the original negatives, each measuring about 2.5 x 4.5 inches.Įnglish-born actress Laura Keene (1820/26-1873) was performing in the play at Ford's Theatre on the night that John Wilkes Booth shot Abraham Lincoln.Īmerican soprano Clara Louise Kellogg (1842-1916) was triumphant with her performance as Marguerite in Charles Gounod's opera, "Faust." Shumard hand-picked the subjects from the Frederick Hill Meserve Collection, an archive of more than 5,400 negatives produced in Mathew Brady's studio, which the museum acquired in 1981. “One of the specialties of the Portrait Gallery is using the images in its collections to convey the stories of these fascinating people-some of them very well-known, and others less familiar, but whose stories are certainly worth knowing.” “There’s so much history that we’re not always aware of,” says Shumard. Harriet Lane (1830-1903), the niece of President James Buchanan, assumed the role of First Lady and took a lively interest in the cultural arts of the Capital City. Frémont, and took an active role in his campaign for president in 1856. Jessie Benton Fremont (1824-1902) was a staunch defender of her husband, the explorer John C. ![]() The show illustrates the variety of spheres that women occupied and influenced during this tense time in America’s past. Allen, Kate Bateman and Laura Keene, performers like singer Clara Louise Kellogg and pianist Teresa Carreño to First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln and Queen Emma of Hawaii. In a new exhibition, titled “ Storied Women of the Civil War Era,” and on view at the National Portrait Gallery, the image of Cushman, dressed in military uniform, is joined by those of 13 other women, with occupations ranging from actresses like Mrs. “Since the days of the Maid of Saragossa, no woman has ever lived who has so completely come up to the ideal of a heroine, as Miss Pauline Cushman.” “The career of the subject of this work, the beautiful and accomplished Miss Pauline Cushman, or ‘Major’ Cushman, as she is entitled to be called…is one so varied by patriotic incident and stirring adventure, that the ear of young or old can never become satiated by its recital,” states the Life of Pauline Cushman: Celebrated Union Spy and Scout, a biography written by one of Cushman’s acquaintances in 1865. Working as a spy for the Union Army, Louisville is also where the facts of Cushman’s story become entangled with myth as dramatic accounts of her exploits are later romanticized. She was “not necessarily of the first rank,” says the Smithsonian’s Ann Shumard, senior curator of photographs at the National Portrait Gallery. Louisville is where Cushman’s story becomes history, but not as an actress. Leaving her two children behind with her in-laws, Cushman relocated to Louisville, a Union-controlled hotbed of contention, to try her hand at acting in Wood’s Theater. (Like much of Cushman’s story, the specifics of her husband’s death are unclear, with reported causes varying from dysentery to a head injury). There, she met her first husband, who joined the Union army as a musician, but tragically died in 1862. Her name is Pauline Cushman, an actress turned Civil War spy whose story dances between the boundary dividing history and fiction.īorn Harriet Wood in 1833, Cushman changed her name when she moved to New York City to pursue acting at age 18. In a photograph no bigger than a playing card, a woman dressed in military costume cradles a sword, staring confidently beyond the frame.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |