Thursday, December 30, 2021

Come On In...

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Edward Lamson Henry (American Painter, 1841-1919) A Philadelphia Doorway 1882
Edward Lamson Henry (1841–1919) was an American genre painter born in Charleston, South Carolina who came to live in New York at an early age. As a painter of early American life, he displays a quaint humour. Henry acquired an extensive collection of antiques, old photos, & assorted Americana, from which he researched his paintings. His wife Frances said that "Nothing annoyed him more than to see a wheel, a bit of architecture etc. carelessly drawn or out of keeping with the time it was supposed to portray.”
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Tuesday, December 28, 2021

Visiting With Those Passing-By

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Edward Lamson Henry (American Painter, 1841-1919) An Informal Call 1895
Edward Lamson Henry (1841–1919) was an American genre painter born in Charleston, South Carolina who came to live in New York at an early age. As a painter of early American life, he displays a quaint humour. Henry acquired an extensive collection of antiques, old photos, & assorted Americana, from which he researched his paintings. His wife Frances said that "Nothing annoyed him more than to see a wheel, a bit of architecture etc. carelessly drawn or out of keeping with the time it was supposed to portray.”
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Sunday, December 26, 2021

Reading at Home

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Edward Lamson Henry (American Painter, 1841-1919) At Home with a Good Book 1872
Edward Lamson Henry (1841–1919) was an American genre painter born in Charleston, South Carolina who came to live in New York at an early age. As a painter of early American life, he displays a quaint humour. Henry acquired an extensive collection of antiques, old photos, & assorted Americana, from which he researched his paintings. His wife Frances said that "Nothing annoyed him more than to see a wheel, a bit of architecture etc. carelessly drawn or out of keeping with the time it was supposed to portray.”
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Friday, December 24, 2021

Watering the Horse

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Edward Lamson Henry (American Painter, 1841-1919) At the Watering Trough 1899
Edward Lamson Henry (1841–1919) was an American genre painter born in Charleston, South Carolina who came to live in New York at an early age. As a painter of early American life, he displays a quaint humour. Henry acquired an extensive collection of antiques, old photos, & assorted Americana, from which he researched his paintings. His wife Frances said that "Nothing annoyed him more than to see a wheel, a bit of architecture etc. carelessly drawn or out of keeping with the time it was supposed to portray.”
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Wednesday, December 22, 2021

Riding in the Carriage

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Edward Lamson Henry (American Painter, 1841-1919) Carriage Ride 1886
Edward Lamson Henry (1841–1919) was an American genre painter born in Charleston, South Carolina who came to live in New York at an early age. As a painter of early American life, he displays a quaint humour. Henry acquired an extensive collection of antiques, old photos, & assorted Americana, from which he researched his paintings. His wife Frances said that "Nothing annoyed him more than to see a wheel, a bit of architecture etc. carelessly drawn or out of keeping with the time it was supposed to portray.”
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Monday, December 20, 2021

Children Resting 1879

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Edward Lamson Henry (American Painter, 1841-1919) Childhood 1879
Edward Lamson Henry (1841–1919) was an American genre painter born in Charleston, South Carolina who came to live in New York at an early age. As a painter of early American life, he displays a quaint humour. Henry acquired an extensive collection of antiques, old photos, & assorted Americana, from which he researched his paintings. His wife Frances said that "Nothing annoyed him more than to see a wheel, a bit of architecture etc. carelessly drawn or out of keeping with the time it was supposed to portray.”
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Saturday, December 18, 2021

Coming Home

.Edward Lamson Henry (American Painter, 1841-1919) Coming Home
Edward Lamson Henry (1841–1919) was an American genre painter born in Charleston, South Carolina who came to live in New York at an early age. As a painter of early American life, he displays a quaint humour. Henry acquired an extensive collection of antiques, old photos, & assorted Americana, from which he researched his paintings. His wife Frances said that "Nothing annoyed him more than to see a wheel, a bit of architecture etc. carelessly drawn or out of keeping with the time it was supposed to portray.”
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Thursday, December 16, 2021

Waiting for the Ferry

.Edward Lamson Henry (American Painter, 1841-1919) Waiting for the Ferry
Edward Lamson Henry (1841–1919) was an American genre painter born in Charleston, South Carolina who came to live in New York at an early age. As a painter of early American life, he displays a quaint humour. Henry acquired an extensive collection of antiques, old photos, & assorted Americana, from which he researched his paintings. His wife Frances said that "Nothing annoyed him more than to see a wheel, a bit of architecture etc. carelessly drawn or out of keeping with the time it was supposed to portray.”
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Wednesday, December 8, 2021

Sitting in the Parlor

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Edward Lamson Henry (American Painter, 1841-1919) Parlor on Brooklyn Heights of Mr and Mrs John Ballard 1872

Edward Lamson Henry (1841–1919) was an American genre painter born in Charleston, South Carolina who came to live in New York at an early age. As a painter of early American life, he displays a quaint humour. Henry acquired an extensive collection of antiques, old photos, & assorted Americana, from which he researched his paintings. His wife Frances said that "Nothing annoyed him more than to see a wheel, a bit of architecture etc. carelessly drawn or out of keeping with the time it was supposed to portray.”
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Monday, December 6, 2021

Paintings of Women by John Vanderlyn (American Neoclassical Painter, 1775-1852)

.John Vanderlyn (American Neoclassical Painter, 1775-1852) Mary Scott Swan 1815
John Vanderlyn (American Neoclassical Painter, 1775-1852) Sarah Russell Church 1800
John Vanderlyn (American Neoclassical Painter, 1775-1852) Theodosia Burr
Theodosia Burr Alston was the daughter of Aaron Burr. She was educated at home by her father & was able to write fluently in Greek & Latin, as well as French & English. Aaron Burr was ahead of his time in believing that a young woman should be given the opportunity to receive the same education as a man.

When Theodosia was 17 years old, & her father was about to become Vice President under Thomas Jefferson, (both had received the same number of votes in the electoral college while running for president), Theodosia married Joseph Alston, the governor of South Carolina. They honeymooned at Niagra Falls, the first known American couple to do so. Their son, Aaron Burr Alston ("Gampy"), was born in the following year.

John Vanderlyn (American Neoclassical Painter, 1775-1852) Mother and Son 1800

John Vanderlyn (American Neoclassical Painter, 1775-1852) Mrs Marinus Willett and Her Son Marinus Jr 1802
John Vanderlyn (American Neoclassical Painter, 1775-1852) Elizabeth Maria Church 1799
John Vanderlyn (American Neoclassical Painter, 1775-1852) Theodosia Burr Alston
John Vanderlyn (American Neoclassical Painter, 1775-1852) Mary Ellis Bell (Mrs Isaac Bell) 1827John Vanderlyn (American Neoclassical Painter, 1775-1852) Mrs. Daniel Strobel, Jr. (Anna Church Strobel) and Her Son George, ca. 1799

John Vanderlyn (American Neoclassical Painter, 1775-1852) was born at Kingston, New York. He was employed by a print-seller in New York, and was first instructed in art by Archibald Robinson (1765–1835), a Scotsman who was afterwards one of the directors of the American Academy of the Fine Arts. He went to Philadelphia, where he spent time in the studio of Gilbert Stuart and copied some of Stuart's portraits, including one of Aaron Burr, who placed him under Gilbert Stuart as a pupil.

In 1796, Aaron Burr sent Vanderlyn to Paris, where he studied for 5 years. He returned to the United States in 1801 and lived in the home of Burr, then the Vice President, where he painted the well-known likeness of Burr and his daughter.
John Vanderlyn (American Neoclassical Painter, 1775-1852) Self Portrait.

Saturday, December 4, 2021

How 19C Black Women Fought for Civil War Pensions & Benefits

Harriet Tubman   Library of Congress

In a time when military pensions were a large part of the federal budget, Black women faced unique challenges in securing compensation.

History.com By Becky Little Nov 16, 2021

Many of the Black women who applied to the Bureau of Pensions asked for benefits based on their husband or father’s service; but Black women also performed military service during the Civil War, & could make claims for pensions of their own. One of these women was Harriet Tubman, who applied for a pension based on her wartime service as a nurse, cook, spy, scout & first woman in U.S. history to lead a military raid.

​​Tubman spent decades appealing to the government to compensate her for her military service & pay her a pension. After the death of her second husband, veteran Nelson Davis, in 1888, she also applied for survivor benefits based on his service, & began receiving $8 a month in 1892. 

In 1899, Congress passed a bill increasing the bureau’s payments to Tubman to $20 in consideration of her contributions as a nurse—though not, Congress made clear, for her service as a spy, scout & military raid leader. It was a partial recognition of her service, 34 years after the fact.

Over two million soldiers enlisted in the Union Army during the U.S. Civil War. When it ended, the United States had many more veterans & surviving dependents than it had ever had before. In the decades that followed, military pensions became a major part of the federal budget, accounting for 37 percent of the budget by 1894. 

Despite the enormous growth in payments to veterans & their relatives after the Civil War, securing compensation could be an arduous process that required significant time & resources. The legacy of slavery made that process especially challenging for Black women applying for benefits. 

Widows of Civil War soldiers could begin applying to the Bureau of Pensions during the war, & one of the first major obstacles for Black women who had survived slavery was the bureau's marriage requirement. Women needed to prove they had been married to their deceased husbands to receive survivor benefits. However, because enslaved men & women hadn’t been legally able to marry, the Bureau of Pensions didn’t initially recognize their unions.

In 1864, the government began retroactively recognizing these marriages, but there were still other factors that made it difficult to start the process. Some veterans & families didn’t know they were eligible for pensions or benefits in the first place. Pensioners were required to provide multiple records, from military service documents to marriage certificates to medical exams. Access to attorneys who could help applicants navigate the complex system was a barrier for many formerly enslaved families, as was literacy, since antebellum laws had punished enslaved people for learning to read or write.

“In addition to the sort of application obstacles, [these women were] also facing ideas about what constitutes a worthy widow,” says Brandi Clay Brimmer, a professor of African, African American & Diaspora Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill & author of Claiming Union Widowhood: Race, Respectability, & Poverty in the Post-Emancipation South.

“There’s almost an immediate suspicion that formerly enslaved people’s families are not legitimate, they are not nuclear, that women are…claiming benefits for children that were not the soldiers',” she says. 

Even if Black women did succeed in receiving benefits, Brimmer says “it was equally difficult to maintain their standing on the roll.” The Bureau of Pensions could & did remove women’s benefits if they earned paid wages outside of the home, if they remarried or if the bureau suspected them of engaging in behavior it viewed as inappropriate.

This was the case with Patience Buck, whose husband, George K. Buck, suffered a severe head injury during the war that contributed to his death in 1871. Patience Buck first applied for benefits in 1879, & had to apply multiple times before the bureau approved her application in 1890 (the bureau had argued that her husband’s death was unrelated to his war injury). However, the bureau later cut off her benefits based on rumors that she was a prostitute. These rumors were false, but were enough to deprive her of her benefits.

In addition to critiquing an applicant's own actions, the Bureau of Pensions might hold her husband’s actions against her if it learned that her husband had had an affair, says Holly Pinheiro, Jr., a history professor at Furman University & author of The Families’ Civil War: Black Soldiers & the Fight for Racial Justice.

“The federal government, through the Pension Bureau, is basically going to war with Black families to make them prove that they’re legitimate, that they’re worthy of a pension,” he says.

Thursday, December 2, 2021

Etiquette for American Ladies 1840 - Consent for an Introduction


Etiquette for Ladies: With Hints on the Preservation, Improvement, and Display of Female Beauty. Published by Lea and Blanchard, Philadelphia. 1838-1840

In the introduction of one gentleman to another, great prudence and caution must be used by the really polite man; but in the introduction of ladies to each other, and to gentlemen, infinitely more care is necessary, as a lady cannot shake off an improper acquaintance with the same facility as a gentleman can do, and their character is much easier affected by apparent contact with the worthless and the dissipated.

It is incumbent, therefore, on ladies to avoid all proffers of introductions, unless from those on whom, from relationship or other causes, they can place the most implicit confidence.

As a general rule, ladies may always at once accord to any offers of introduction that may proceed from a father, mother, husband, sister, or brother; those from intimate cousins and tried friends are also to be considered favourably, although not to be entitled to the same implicit reliance as the former.

No person of correct feeling will make an introduction to a lady, without having first apprized her of it, and obtained her consent.
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