Women in the 19C United States of America: American Folk Art - Portraits attributed to Zedekiah Belknap 1781-1858

Tuesday, May 19, 2020

American Folk Art - Portraits attributed to Zedekiah Belknap 1781-1858

Zedekiah Belknap (American artist, 1781-1858) Hannah Beaman Thomas (1774-1855), 1836

I am not convinced, that all of these paintings are by the same hand; but they are each attributed to Belknap by one source or another. And I do believe that they are worth taking a look at.

c 1830 Zedekiah Belknap (American artist, 1781-1858) Mrs George Dewey.

Zedekiah Belknap was an itinerant portrait painter born in Auburn, Massachusettees, who grew up and was buried in Weathersfield, Vermont. He was born into a family of farmers and was the only one to attend college, graduating from Dartmouth with a divinity degree in 1807.
1833 Zedekiah Belknap (American artist, 1781-1858) Isobel Mason.

He served as a chaplain in the War of 1812 in Lt. Col Elnathan Sherwin's Regiment from Waterville, Maine. He may have combined circuit preaching with painting portraits of residents of towns & villages in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, and Vermont. He his first known portraits coincide with the year of his Dartmouth graduation, and he continued to paint until at least 1848.

1810 Zedekiah Belknap (American artist, 1781-1858) Lady with a Lace Shawl

1815 Zedekiah Belknap (American artist, 1781-1858) Mrs. Thomas Harrison

1829 Zedekiah Belknap (American artist, 1781-1858) Becky Sherwin Warren

1830 Zedekiah Belknap (American artist, 1781-1858) Rev and Mrs John Maltby, First Congregational Church, Sutton, MA.

1830 Zedekiah Belknap (American artist, 1781-1858) Portrait of a Lady

1830 Zedekiah Belknap (American artist, 1781-1858) Portrait of a Lady.

1830 Zedekiah Belknap (American artist, 1781-1858) Sarah Minot Melville.

Zedekiah Belknap (American artist, 1781-1858) Portrait of a Woman

Zedekiah Belknap (American artist, 1781-1858) Portrait of a Lady

Zedekiah Belknap (American artist, 1781-1858) Portrait of a Woman

Zedekiah Belknap (American artist, 1781-1858) New England Girl Holding Squeek Toy with Cat c 1830

Zedekiah Belknap (American artist, 1781-1858) Elsey Roosevelt Ray

Zedekiah Belknap (American artist, 1781-1858) Portrait of a Woman

Zedekiah Belknap (American artist, 1781-1858) Woman in Red

Zedekiah Belknap (American artist, 1781-1858) Young Woman with a Ruffled Collar

Zedekiah Belknap (American artist, 1781-1858) Girl with Cat

Zedekiah Belknap (American artist, 1781-1858) Woman with Gold Beads

Zedekiah Belknap (American artist, 1781-1858)Two Children with a Basket of Fruit c 1825

Zedekiah Belknap (American artist, 1781-1858) Portrait of a Young Woman

Zedekiah Belknap (American artist, 1781-1858) Child in White with Doll

Zedekiah Belknap (American artist, 1781-1858) Portrait of a Lady

Zedekiah Belknap (American artist, 1781-1858) The Farley Children

Zedekiah Belknap (American artist, 1781-1858) Portrait of a Woman

Zedekiah Belknap (American artist, 1781-1858) Dorman Theodore Warren of Townsend, MA c 1829

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.”