Women in the 19C United States of America: New York painter James Henry Cafferty (1819

Monday, December 9, 2019

New York painter James Henry Cafferty (1819–1869)

James Henry Cafferty (American artist, 1819–1869) Preparing to Fish

James Cafferty, one of the 7 children of an Albany tailor, was in New York by 1839, working as a sign painter. In 1841, he began 2 years of study in New York's National Academy school's antique class. His work was shown in a National Academy annual exhibition in 1843. That same year he was elected vice-president of the newly founded New-York Sketch Club. During the 1840s and 1850s, Cafferty worked as a portrait, landscape, & genre painter. He also did book illustrations. For a period during these years he supplemented his income by selling artists' supplies. The American Art-Union purchased many of his landscapes for its annual lotteries, & he was a consistent exhibitor in Academy annuals, showing portraits & an occasional landscape through the 1850s. During the last decade of his life, still lifes - especially fish & game subjects - dominated his work.

James Henry Cafferty (American artist, 1819–1869) A Young Girl

James Henry Cafferty (American artist, 1819–1869) Midday Rest

James Henry Cafferty (American artist, 1819–1869) The Sidewalks of New York

James Henry Cafferty (American artist, 1819–1869) News of the Day 1860

James Henry Cafferty (American artist, 1819–1869) Newsboy selling the New York Herald 1857

James Henry Cafferty (American artist, 1819–1869) Portrait of Robert Fulton, 1852

About this blog

In colonial America, men were considered superior to woman in all ways. In a strict patriarchal hierarchy, men controlled not only wealth & political power but also how their children were raised, religious questions, & all matters of right & wrong.

In the early part of the 19Cy, however, many Americans experienced a revolution in gender. The doctrine of “separate spheres” maintained that woman’s sphere was the world of privacy, family, & morality while man’s sphere was the public world -– economic striving, political maneuvering, & social competition. But women were interested in equality.

In 1848, New York passed the Married Woman’s Property Act. Now a woman wasn’t automatically liable for her husband’s debts; she could enter contracts on her own; she could collect rents or receive an inheritance in her own right; she could file a lawsuit on her own behalf. She became for economic purposes, an individual. By 1900, every state has passed legislation modeled after this, granting married women some control over their property and earnings.

In 1870 after the Civi War, the 15th Amendment was ratified, saying, “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” African-Americans could vote, but women could not.

But it was not until 1920, that the 19th Amendment was ratified granting women the right to vote. “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.”