Women in the 19C United States of America: Portraits by American artist John Trumbull 1756

Wednesday, January 6, 2021

Portraits by American artist John Trumbull 1756–1843

John Trumbull (American artist, 1756 – 1843) Martha Washington. 1793

John Trumbull 1756–1843, American painter, was the son of Gov. Jonathan Trumbull of Connecticut. He served in the Continental Army early in the Revolution as an aide to Washington. He resigned his commission in 1777, to devote himself to painting. In 1780, he went to London to study under Benjamin West. There he was imprisoned on suspicion of treason and finally deported. In 1784, he returned to London, where, at the suggestion of West and with the encouragement of Thomas Jefferson, he began his paintings of national history. Trumbull excelled in small-scale painting, especially of oil miniatures, the best of which were done in the United States between 1789 & 1793. In the latter year, he returned to London as secretary to John Jay & remained for 10 years as one of the commissioners to carry out provisions of the Jay Treaty. He returned to the United States in 1804, where he painted portraits, panoramas, and landscapes, & designed the meetinghouse in Lebanon, Conn. In London from 1808 to 1816, he tried unsuccessfully to establish himself as a portraitist. Returning to New York in 1816, he secured a commission from Congress to decorate the Capitol rotunda. In 1831, he founded the Trumbull Gallery at Yale, one of the earliest art museums in the English-speaking colonies, depositing much of his work there in exchange for an annuity.

John Trumbull (American artist, 1756 – 1843) Governor Jonathan Trumbull Sr and Mrs Trumbull (Faith Robinson) 1783

John Trumbull (American artist, 1756 – 1843) Five Miniatures Framed Together, 1791-93

John Trumbull (American artist, 1756 – 1843) Mr. And Mrs. Thomas Russell 1793

John Trumbull (American artist, 1756 – 1843) Mrs George Codwise (Anna Maria)

John Trumbull (American artist, 1756 – 1843) Mrs. John Barker Church (Angelica Schuyler), Son Philip and Servant

John Trumbull (American artist, 1756 – 1843) Mrs. Isaac Bronson (Anna Olcott)

John Trumbull (American artist, 1756 – 1843) Misses Mary and Hannah Murray.

John Trumbull (American artist, 1756 – 1843) Mrs. John Trumbull (Sarah Hope Harvey, 1774-1824), 1820-1823

John Trumbull (American artist, 1756 – 1843) Sarah Trumbull with a Spaniel

John Trumbull (American artist, 1756 – 1843) Elizabeth Ball Hughes

John Trumbull (American artist, 1756 – 1843) Mrs. John Murray

John Trumbull (American artist, 1756 – 1843) Mrs Charles Carroll Jr. (Harriet Chew)

John Trumbull (American artist, 1756 – 1843) Sarah Elizsabeth Rogers Hopkins

John Trumbull (American artist, 1756 – 1843) Sarah Trumbull on her Deathbed

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.”