February 22, 2025 • 43 mins
Friend of the show Yves sits down with us to discuss Mary Edmonia Lewis, the first woman sculptor of Black American and Native American heritage to achieve international recognition in this classic episode.
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Annie and Samantha. I'm welcome to stuff
I'll Never told you production of iHeart Radio. And as
this comes out, it is Black History Month, and usually
during Black History Months, we like to bring back a
(00:25):
good female first about a black woman who did something
really cool. And today we're talking about Mary and Mania
Lewis or our Eves is talking about. We're bringing back
an episode that Eves brings to us because she's amazing
who has just a great story and really fascinating, as
with all of these female first episodes, so please enjoy
(00:47):
this classic.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Hey, this is Annie and Samantha.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
I'm welcome to stuff I Never told you production of
iHeart Radio. And it's time for another female first, which
means we are once again joined by the wonderful, fabulous,
great friend of ours.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Eve's Hi, Hi.
Speaker 4 (01:19):
Hi again, it's me again, Yes, hi, yep, it's me again.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
Well, this is our first recording of twenty twenty two.
Speaker 5 (01:33):
Correct together? That feels right? This sounds right right?
Speaker 4 (01:37):
Yeah, I know time is already blurring together this year.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
But how is your your end of year? New Year's Eve?
Speaker 4 (01:45):
It was good, it was pretty uneventful. I didn't really
do anything. I think I slept, No, I think I
was up at midnight and I think I went to
sleep right at midnight on ye, I was like, it's
time to go to sleep. So I was surprised I
even made it a midnight. But yeah, beyond the actual day,
(02:05):
I am happy it's a new year.
Speaker 5 (02:07):
I'm trying for this to be one of those.
Speaker 4 (02:09):
Years where, of course it's a good time to reflect
on the past and the future and all of those things,
but also trying to be less serious about that and
understand that it's something that can happen all year long
as well. So I will say things are different and
they're the same.
Speaker 6 (02:29):
Yes, that feels about right for the last four years,
different but the same.
Speaker 5 (02:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (02:37):
Yeah, it's funny because my new Year's resolution is to
take better care of myself and I have like specifics
about it. But on New Year's Eve, New Year's Day,
I stayed up until five.
Speaker 5 (02:51):
They am playing a video game.
Speaker 7 (02:52):
I played like ten times.
Speaker 5 (02:56):
I'm having like a fifty five percent success rate right now.
I think on the game you mean to atone number.
I don't want to say anything, but you know.
Speaker 6 (03:13):
Nice about it, Like, oh, on the game that you
play four.
Speaker 4 (03:17):
Times ten times? No, no, same, I'm terrible at games.
I'm just messing with you in terrible at video games.
All good, All good, Well for this one.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
I know we've talked before about art and sculpture, but
my question to the group is what it was your favorite?
Like writing discounted, what was your favorite form of I
guess visual art that you've participated in.
Speaker 4 (03:47):
You do you mean things that I've I've myself created
or just like an observer, I was asking for what
you yourself has created, but now I want to know both. No,
it's writing. Writing is like I mean, it's not a
visual art technically per se. I haven't really dabbled in
any of the visual arts painting, sculpture, drawing, none of those.
(04:11):
But I would say that's a good question. I would
say probably painting. And I would say that because that
is the first thing that comes into my mind based
on the emotional, like visceral emotional reactions that I've had
when I'm in spaces with paintings, I think that I'm
I am more drawn to and have stronger emotional reactions
(04:37):
through viewing paintings. But I've also I mean, I've also
had pretty strong reactions to other things as well like
video and sculpture.
Speaker 5 (04:47):
Yeah, yeah, what about you?
Speaker 3 (04:49):
Yeah, I think in one of these past female first
we talked about this, but I the lowest grade I
ever got was an art in high school. Oh, in college,
I got a little grade in something else, but in
high school up until then, that was my lowest grade.
And everything I did the teacher hated. I was thinking
about this other night. She hated every single thing that
(05:12):
I did. But I did like in terms of creation,
I really liked. We did this project once where you
made a portrait of somebody out of materials that you
would find, and I actually really enjoyed that because it
was very textural and to kind of hunt down these
(05:33):
items and think about them in a different way of
how they could reflect because I was trying to create
somebody in a sunset, so I had to find all
those kind of swaths of colors but.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
In these other items. So I really really enjoyed that.
Speaker 3 (05:45):
And I think I'm with you with when I think
about the art that's moved me the most, paintings is
probably visually, uh, and visual arts the one that has
done it. But I like that you brought up video
because that's true, and I feel like that gets left
out of the conversation a lot. Yet I have seen
some just really moving video art. Yeah, but there's space.
(06:07):
Like I'm a I love sculpture as well, and I do.
I enjoyed sculpting, and I used to make a lot
of pottery.
Speaker 5 (06:14):
I just was never very good at it, but I
did enjoy it.
Speaker 4 (06:17):
Yeah, yeah, what about used to Anthad.
Speaker 6 (06:20):
So I am not good at art in general, and
that is not my forte. The only good thing I
could do, I think I've told you about this is
one time I got really into drawing penguins. No reason,
I just did it, and a good friend of mine
and I would make puns out of all these penguins.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
Mmmm.
Speaker 6 (06:37):
That was my favorite thing to do because it was
just like a little circle, a little pointy beak in
the story. And for some reason I really thought I
was doing something with that. Guess what I wasn't. However,
I do love art in itself, and yeah, I'm with you.
When I get to go to a good exhibit and
it really flows and it just like speaks to you.
Speaker 5 (06:56):
There are moments that I'm like, oh wow.
Speaker 6 (06:57):
And of course I love deep colors, so I'm one
of those that did fall into the Monet trap. I'm like, oh, yeah,
I'm digging these colors, and I was like I was
looking at his stuff and like finding his history.
Speaker 5 (07:08):
I was like, okay, yeah, I could definitely.
Speaker 6 (07:09):
Tell he was going blind. I still love it because
he's still with us so much better than I could
ever do in it myself in any way. Like fully,
there so all of those things, but I do love
also finding the fascinating histories behind the different artists.
Speaker 5 (07:24):
They do make me very happy.
Speaker 6 (07:26):
I think that's just in general for like authors too,
which I yes, I believe that's art, but I know
we're not like counting that for this moment. But yeah,
for me, like the cheesy experiences have been happening where
you're really immersed in it. Everybody's kind of been like, oh,
what is this? But I really enjoyed that because for
a minute, you do really think that you're in the
middle of it, and it feels like you're part of
(07:48):
that art for just a second. Of course, again cheesy effects,
and I get why people are like, no, this is awful.
It's so like it's ruining art. But I love that
experience to be immersed in it, to that point of
like seeing it in depth and Philly almost like move
through you.
Speaker 4 (08:04):
I will say that I also really love prints, like
I love works on paper. Yeah, I love works on paper.
And I also love book art. I like that fall
for book art. I think it's so wonderful. It's just
and then then and it just merges, you know, language,
visual language, in the actual form of the book, even
though it doesn't always have to look like a typical
(08:27):
book that we would read.
Speaker 5 (08:28):
But yeah, I love book art as well.
Speaker 4 (08:31):
Yeah, well, now that I'm thinking about it, like I
love comics, comics, and I love film, like I'm a
huge movie person.
Speaker 5 (08:39):
And there's definitely but also.
Speaker 3 (08:44):
I mean there's yeah, there's just so much more we
could include.
Speaker 5 (08:47):
Yeah, it's so much and visual art and expansive it is.
Speaker 4 (08:52):
Yeah, oh wow, my mind, my mind is just expanding
even more.
Speaker 3 (09:00):
But also photography, That's what I was going to say.
I got a lot of photography books for Christmas actually,
and beautiful beautiful. Yeah all right, so we like, we
like art, is what I'm hearing.
Speaker 5 (09:13):
I think he probably knows that by this point.
Speaker 4 (09:17):
Yes, considering we're podcaster, is considering I bring artists all
the time, and they know that we write it and
are involved in the arts in so many different ways. Yes, yes,
but also yeah, I do miss it, so we have
to really and I know we talked about in a
past episode two I miss going to exhibits and museums
and stuff. Right, So with all of that, who did
(09:39):
you bring for us to talk about today?
Speaker 5 (09:41):
Eves?
Speaker 4 (09:42):
Today we're going to talk about Mary Atmonia Lewis. So
I was kind of hesitant to bring her because, you know,
I know that there's a lot out there on her,
not like that's a qualification for not bringing somebody on
the show, Like there is already a lot of information
that exists because of course, just because there's so much
information about her, and she's really popped back up over
(10:04):
the last.
Speaker 5 (10:04):
Decade, like a lot of people.
Speaker 4 (10:05):
I've been talking about her, her works that have been
found in her place in the legacy of artists in
the United States and in the world internationally as well.
But I think she's still a person who's so worthy
of talking about. And I think we've also we might
have brought her name up in the meta Voe Warrick
Fuller episode. She was a sculptor as well, So I
(10:27):
feel like maybe we mentioned her in there, because I
feel like I remember her name coming up then. But
even if we didn't, just you know that she had
Amonia Lewis herself had a bunch of her own inspirations
and also inspired people later who.
Speaker 5 (10:41):
Worked in the field.
Speaker 4 (10:43):
So in terms of her first she was the first
woman of Black American and Native American heritage to achieve
international fame as a sculptor. And yeah, she just had
this huge mythology around her that was built up, and
partially she built up a lot of that on her own,
(11:05):
and then there was a lot of mythologizing that happened
in the press and the people who wrote about her.
Speaker 5 (11:10):
Yeah, So we'll get into some of that later.
Speaker 4 (11:12):
Yeah. I feel like that's a theme in a lot
of these, is the kind of creating of the story
or the myth behind this person and how they were
were not involved, which I kind of appreciate.
Speaker 5 (11:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (11:25):
Yeah. As I was like researching her, the song Yankee
Doodle Dandy was going through my head like over and over.
The phrase born on the fourth of July was just
like going through and through my head because I was
thinking about how she said she was born on the
fourth of July, and that was a running theme for
a lot of people. If they didn't know their birthdate,
(11:46):
they would just say that they were born on the
fourth of July.
Speaker 5 (11:49):
So that was just for some reason. I'm a frain
in my head.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
I know that that's rabie.
Speaker 5 (12:00):
Yeah, I know it's rough, but yeah.
Speaker 4 (12:03):
There is a bunch of conflicting information about her early life,
which is also a running theme. But she's said to
have embellished a lot of things and changed.
Speaker 5 (12:12):
Them over time.
Speaker 4 (12:13):
But like I said, one of those things was that
the date that they get July fourth, eighteen forty four.
So that year wasn't the only year that she ever
said that she was born. In other places say she
was born, but it is kind of the consensus year that.
Speaker 5 (12:27):
It's going with.
Speaker 4 (12:28):
It's the one that's on her gravestone. And that number
is based on her passport application, which apparently also said
that she was four feet tall. So when people described her,
they said she was short, but on her passport application
said she was four feet tall. But yeah, so she
got on her application it said that she was born
on or around July fourth, eighteen forty four, and she
(12:50):
was born in green Bush, New York. So there are
different birthdates, death dates for her mother, and other dates
in her personal history that you'll find. Yeah, I mean,
as we've spoken about before, this is digging into the past.
Whether the records can be murky if he were kept,
it all can be so so difficult and tricky. I
(13:13):
find it interesting that the passport would say on or around.
Speaker 5 (13:17):
It could have kind of like a on or around.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
Honor is somewhere in there.
Speaker 5 (13:39):
And her heritage.
Speaker 4 (13:39):
Her father was black and he was from the West Indies,
and her mother was Ojibway and born in Canada, so
she claimed that her mother, Catherine, was a quote unquote
full blooded Indian, But Catherine's father was a black man
and her mother had Black and Ojibway parents, so her heritage.
(14:01):
At Monia's mother's heritage was mixed as well. Her parents
died when she was young, but she did have a
brother named Samuel, and according to Edmonia, they both had
Native American names as well, his with Sunshine, and at
Monia's she said that her name was Wildfire. But after
(14:21):
she lost her parents, she went to live with her
aunts elsewhere in New York, and her brother soon left
for California, but he did send money back to her
for her education and would continue to support her throughout
her educational years, which is obviously something that helps anybody
a lot, and it did for her that he was
(14:43):
invested in her education. So in New York she went
to a Baptist Abolitionist school and then she went to
Oberlin College in Ohio, which she attended from eighteen fifty
nine to eighteen sixty three. So while she was there,
she board it with the rever friend John keep and
he was a member of the board of trustees and
(15:03):
an abolitionist. Throughout her life she was connected to a
lot of abolitionists. She stayed in places where a lot
of abolitionists were located, and she got a lot of
financial support from them, encouragement from them, press from abolitionists,
and things like that.
Speaker 5 (15:17):
Oberlin College was known for being associated.
Speaker 4 (15:20):
With the movement, and it was known for admitting black
people and women. At the same time, there was a
young ladies department that was split off from the rest
of the college in which Lewis was enrolled, and so
there was still this confinement to women's roles ideologically at
the college. It was said the training that they got
(15:41):
there would help them and teaching and quote unquote duties
of the sphere. So it wasn't so simple. It's just like, oh,
there's this college with this huge reputation of being progressive
and being all about abolitionism.
Speaker 5 (15:54):
At the same time, this was still.
Speaker 4 (15:56):
That period in the United States, and surrounding the college
and in the college itself were still people who didn't
rock with this whole idea of co education and the
reputation that it had. There were plenty of people in
the area who were still anti black, who were still
anti abolitionist, and who were still anti anybody starting to
(16:17):
pot essentially like really sticking to these moral codes according
to what they view of morality.
Speaker 5 (16:25):
Young ladies. I don't know. There's something about having the
young front of it too.
Speaker 3 (16:30):
Yeah wow, But I mean, I know, I've told this
story on the show. Before I was in high school,
I still had to go to homech and it was
four girls at the high school.
Speaker 5 (16:41):
We still had to do that.
Speaker 4 (16:43):
And then I went to a technical school that was
all men until fairly recently, and some of the bathrooms
still just had a sign with women taped over it
because any women's bathrooms they hadn't bothered to like do
any better than that since then. Yeah, yeah, so it's weird.
So many things we talk about. It's weird, like how
(17:05):
far we've come, but also so much of this legacy
still we're still dealing with.
Speaker 5 (17:12):
Yeah, for sure. That's also a running theme.
Speaker 4 (17:15):
So when she was there, she still took classes like algebra, geometry,
and composition, and she took art classes, so she didn't
learn how to draw while she was there, but she
did run into troubles while she was at the college.
So in eighteen sixty two incidents, she served two women
who she was boarding with, two white women specifically who
(17:36):
she was boarding with, mulled wine and then they went out,
they went to, you know, go on a sleigh ride
or something like that, and they accused her of poisoning
them with Spanish fly, which was a substance that has
been considered an afrodisiac in the past. But they claimed
that she poisoned them, And after that she was attacked Atmonia,
(17:59):
was attacked and beaten. Not long after that, she was arrested,
but her trial was delayed, which when it did happen,
it lasted for about six days, from the end of
February to the beginning of March, so she did still
have supporters even though there were clearly people who didn't
(18:22):
rock with her, and Keeps, for one, was one of
her supporters and her attorney also John Mercer Langston, who
helped her win the trial.
Speaker 5 (18:32):
But at the same time, she.
Speaker 4 (18:33):
Was later accused of other crimes, like being accused of
stealing art supplies while attending the school, so they wouldn't
let her register for the last term. And some of
the publications that go back and look at her legacies
that some of the issues that she had, the challenges
that she had while she was there, and her reason
for leaving the school, those parts are absences and kind
(18:56):
of skipped over. So it's really interesting to think about
the things that she herself chose to leave out of
her story when she told it herself, and also the
things that were absent when other.
Speaker 5 (19:07):
People were telling her story.
Speaker 4 (19:08):
And of course that depends on a source and how
much room there isn't a source for a thing, But
you know, it's interesting. And she was forced to leave
Oberlin before she got her degree, and she decided to
move on and pursue art, so she went to Boston
in eighteen sixty four, Keeps wrote a letter of introduction
(19:29):
for her to William Lloyd Garrison, who was an abolitionist
and a journalist.
Speaker 5 (19:33):
Who people might be familiar with.
Speaker 4 (19:35):
It's a pretty big name, and he was able to
connect her with sculptors and writers, and so she began
working under Edward A.
Speaker 5 (19:43):
Brackett, who was also an artist.
Speaker 4 (19:46):
She learned modeling and casting, but they later parted ways
for some unknown reason. There seemed to have been some
sort of conflict there. But that relationship didn't last really long,
but she continued to create art, and in eighteen sixty
three she created a plaster medallion of abolitionist John Brown,
(20:07):
and the next year she also created a marble bust
of Colonel Robert Goldshaw. She sold photographs and plaster casts
of the bus, which those plaster casts she sold at
fifteen dollars each, and she also made busts of the
characters and Henry Wattsworth Longfellows epic poem The Song of Hyawatza.
(20:28):
But you know after a while, travel is a part
of her history. Not long after she was able to
apply for a passport because of all the funds that
she was getting from her work in take a trip
to Italy.
Speaker 5 (20:40):
So she moved to Italy.
Speaker 4 (20:42):
And as many artists did at the time, there was
a huge community of expat artists and sculptors who lived
in Italy. But in the New York Times article in
eighteen seventy eight, she said, quote, I was practically driven
to Rome in order to obtain the opportunity unities for
art culture and to find a social atmosphere where I
(21:04):
was not constantly reminded of my color. The land of
liberty had no room for a colored sculptor. There were
a lot of articles written about her in those abolitionist papers,
which she was also able to be in because of
the connections that she did have. She did interviews with
people and had articles written about her by people like
(21:28):
Elizabeth Peabody and Lydia Maria Child, all these people who
were involved in this press and activist circle in the area.
And as author Kristin pie Buick puts it in her
book that she wrote about Lewis called Child of the Fire,
she said, quote Lewis's image was reshaped largely by the
(21:48):
white women who wrote her into existence, which is something
that I mean, I think we've spoken about before on
the show. When we do female first, it's just like
these are we have to consider the source. Lewis and
Lydia Marie Child, who I just mentioned were at odds.
A lot of the time, Child would suggest ideas to
(22:12):
Louis as to how she should run her career. Because
Louis she was determined and she believed clearly believed in
her work. She wouldn't always wait for commissions for her work.
She would do things like make something and then send
it to the person that she dedicated it to and
then get them to find a buyer if they didn't
buy it. There was a lot of back and forth
(22:34):
in the relationship between the two of them, and I've
found in the comments about her as well. But also
in this relationship there were lots of patronizing attitudes directed
at Atmnia that she should be uplifted just because she
was mixed race. And at the same time, there was
(22:56):
this idea like, oh, while look at what she's doing.
She a mixed race artist who is creating these sculptors,
So she's worthy of being talked about just because of
her race, And this is the thing that exoticizes her
as an artist without just viewing the art itself for
its own qualities and its own merits, But at the
(23:17):
same time that was happening, she was also demeaned and
infantilized because of her race. For instance, Child didn't think
that she was as talented as others portrayed her, and
she thought she was irresponsible when it came to money.
Speaker 5 (23:32):
But like, what would somebody expect since.
Speaker 4 (23:35):
She was black and Native American, Like, of course she
had those qualities of being irresponsible. She didn't learn these things,
she didn't grow up with this kind of civilization. So
it is definitely a lot of nuance in it where
it's like, yes, it's valid to say that she shouldn't
be uplifted just because of her race, you know, we
have to actually look at the qualities of her work.
But of course, wrapped up into all those things were
(23:57):
the complexities of the way that people about black people,
that spoke about Native American people at the time. So
either way, she spent a lot of time in Italy,
spending time in Florence and Rome, and she kept on
creating art. It was said that when she went to Florence,
when she first got there, she went to Florence and
(24:18):
she was set up to stay with an American family,
but they didn't let her in.
Speaker 5 (24:21):
So immediately from her.
Speaker 4 (24:23):
Coming from the United States and getting to Europe, you know,
she was already meeting brick walls essentially. Yeah, so she
didn't meet artists while she was there that she was
connected to, like High Empowers and Thomas Ball and other
expats who were in the country. And she would do
(24:44):
busts and sculptures in the neo classical style. She would
do works after famous Classical and Renaissance sculptures and then
sell them to tourists in Rome. And her work centered
around historical, coole, social, racial, religious, and literary themes. Those
(25:05):
are typically what her works would focus on, and most
of her work was created between eighteen sixty six and
seventy six, but she did quite a few pieces over
the course of her life, although all of those no
longer exists, Like, we don't have visual record of a
lot of those, and they don't they aren't known to
(25:26):
be anywhere in life as well. I feel like I
took a really roundabout way of saying that, Wait.
Speaker 6 (25:34):
Did they get destroyed or just disappeared from record or
do they know what happened?
Speaker 4 (25:38):
No, it's not known what happened with a lot of
her work is just gone. And we'll get to a
story later about one of her biggest pieces that she
did about Cleopatra that had this really circuitous route to
being refound in recent years.
Speaker 5 (25:50):
Teaser.
Speaker 7 (25:51):
Yeah, she carved.
Speaker 4 (26:08):
Her own marble when she was in Italy, which wasn't
a thing that There were a lot of artists who
didn't do that. They would get Italian artists, local Italian
artisans to do the actual carving of the marble, and
what they would do is create the designs and the
plaster works and then the artisans in the area would
(26:30):
carve the marble.
Speaker 5 (26:31):
But she carved her own marble.
Speaker 4 (26:33):
And like I said, you can go through and see
some of her works, but some of the notable ones.
For instance, one was eighteen sixty sevens Forever Free, which
was a sculpture of two free enslaved people who were
depicted like upon receiving the news of emancipation.
Speaker 5 (26:52):
But she was Catholic. It's not clear when she became Catholic.
Speaker 4 (26:57):
There's a good chance that she was Catholic back to childhood,
but a lot of her work was influenced by her Catholicism.
For instance, there was a black couple who commissioned her
to do a sculpture called Virgin at the Cross for
a grave. They didn't like it, and what happened was
they pay her a few installments of I think it
was the four installments that they were supposed to pay
(27:19):
her in but they paid the third one.
Speaker 5 (27:22):
They got it. They didn't like it.
Speaker 4 (27:23):
They didn't want to pay her the fourth part, and
she went to court, won the case and got some
of the money that she asked for in the.
Speaker 5 (27:31):
Settlement was in Italy.
Speaker 4 (27:33):
She did it in Italy, but the couple was from
the United States. She would also go to Catholic fairs
and she would sell works to people at Catholic churches
and well, she would sell works to the Catholic churches
and also the church members. And Pope Pius the ninth
is said to have visited her studio in Rome, but
she didn't go back to the US. From time to
(27:55):
time doing some marketing for her work, and when she
visited Chicago in the eighteen seventies, she sat for a
series of pictures, and there are other photos outside of
that sitting as well of her. But it's really nice
to go look at the pictures and just stare at
them for a minute. I don't know if I'm weird
for doing things like that, but it's nice when you
(28:16):
actually have photos of people actually and also as many
photos as there are of her. Yeah, so I recommend
doing that. You can find them online. But yeah, So
the work that I teased earlier was the Death of Cleopatra.
That's another notable work of hers. She was invited to
participate in the eighteen seventy six Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia.
(28:40):
The event was held to celebrate the hundredth anniversary of
the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
Speaker 5 (28:46):
It was all this like hurrah around the event.
Speaker 4 (28:50):
There were exhibits for technology and art and for the event,
Louis made this really big sculpture, the Death of Cleopatra,
and in it, the Egyptian Queen Cleopatra is portrayed slumped
like laid back in her throne, dead after letting a
snake bite her, as the story goes.
Speaker 5 (29:10):
But it was.
Speaker 4 (29:11):
Different than other neoclassical sculptures of Cleopatra at the time,
which more so held Cleopatra in a different light, romanticized
her a little bit more, put her up on a pedestal,
you know, versus being slumped in a chair, and the
sculpture was praised critically, and it was a popular piece
among the other sculptures that were within that exhibition. But
(29:32):
it wasn't sold at the exposition. It was exhibited in
Chicago not that long afterwards. Then it was put in storage,
Then it was displayed in a saloon. Then it was
acquired by John Condon, who was a racetrack owner, who
put it on top of the grave of his horse
named Cleopatra. It tracks Conden put in the properties ded
(29:58):
that it was never to be moved. But as things go,
development happened, and in the nineteen seventies I think it
went to a storage yard and then a boy scout
troop painted it after finding it outside. So they know
not what they did, I'm sure you know, but it
wasn't great for the sculpture itself. I had already been
(30:20):
outside for so long that you can only imagine what
the damage looked like before.
Speaker 5 (30:27):
I don't know.
Speaker 4 (30:28):
I didn't actually, I don't know if there were pictures
of it before it was restored or not, but those
would be really interesting to see. But in nineteen eighty five,
a member of the Historical Society of Forest Park, which
is a suburb outside of Chicago, acquired the sculpture.
Speaker 5 (30:44):
Lewis was then identified as.
Speaker 4 (30:47):
A sculptor who did it, and by nineteen ninety four
it was in the Smithsonian's permanent collection. So there were
a lot of different people who had their hands and
obviously this was a very fortunate event because things don't
always get found and attributed to the people who they
belonged to, especially if they've just been sitting for so long,
they don't.
Speaker 5 (31:05):
They get destroyed. So this is one of those cases, Samantha.
Speaker 4 (31:08):
You acts like those works were destroyed and we just
don't know what happened to them. This could have been
one of those things where like we didn't know what
happened to them, or it was destroyed. It was, you know,
in the whole process of it being outside in the
elements for so long, but it wasn't because of the
work of a bunch of people like art historian Marilyn Richardson,
bibliographer Dorothy Porter Wesley, and the curator George Kearney, like
(31:30):
helped along the way to get identified, restored and saved.
But this is like, this is one of the really
notable works in her in her history even though she
created a lot, but beyond her Egyptian subjects, Catholic subjects
and the anti slavery ones, she also did people portraits
and busts of people who were her patrons and notable
(31:52):
people like President Elyss's Grant who sat for her, people
like Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass who even met and
hung out with her, and then after that visit she
created the bust. Yeah, so it was a lively career
where she met with so many different people who were
also notable in their time. So she had a lot
(32:13):
of contemporary notability and a success like also in the
way of selling her work, but also in the acclaim
popular as well as critical. But by the eighteen eighties
demand for her work wasn't as high as it was previously,
and by eighteen ninety eight she lived in France.
Speaker 5 (32:35):
In nineteen oh one she was in London, and.
Speaker 4 (32:40):
While she was in Europe people did support her financially
and by connecting her with other people and sending people
to her studio.
Speaker 5 (32:49):
But she died in London.
Speaker 4 (32:51):
In nineteen oh seven and in her will she called
herself a spinster and a sculptor. But yeah, she was
buried in an un marked grave at Saint Mary's Roman
Catholic Cemetery. So after this long life, with this legacy
that was marked in its own time, she was still
buried in unmarked grave. But a historian in town where
(33:14):
she was born did set up a fundraiser to create
a marker for her for her grave, which she only
got about five years ago, so not long ago at all.
But fortunately people are still invested in making sure that
her history is known and finding out more about her.
So a lot of her work is still on view
(33:34):
in places like Boston, d C. And Alabama. But then
there's a lot that we don't have anymore, but you know,
you can still go see it in person, so that
is that is a good thing, you know that there
is so accessible in person and also online. Yes, yes,
there's some really really amazing pictures online, and that.
Speaker 5 (33:58):
Is quite quite the same story.
Speaker 4 (34:00):
Very well traveled person and kind of yeah, connecting to
all these people from the time, and to call yourself
a spinster and you will to call yourself a spinster.
That sounds like a story, it does, doesn't it. And
I'm glad that. I mean, it's a shame that there
(34:20):
was an unmarked grave in the first place.
Speaker 2 (34:22):
But I'm glad that.
Speaker 4 (34:25):
People were dedicated and determined to change that even though
it was so recent.
Speaker 6 (34:31):
So I'm guessing someone was able to keep up with
her grave knowing where she was the entire time, because
that's a long space of time to have an unmarked grave,
to be like, hey, and this is her headstone.
Speaker 5 (34:43):
Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Speaker 4 (34:45):
It had to be tracked down, which I think is
some of the work that the historian I mentioned earlier,
Marilyn Richardson did.
Speaker 5 (34:51):
Yeah, but it's one of.
Speaker 4 (34:53):
Those things that clearly has to have a lot of
work put into it because it's not that easy to find,
especially it being in London, right.
Speaker 5 (35:00):
Yeah, right, like the level of the travel in itself.
Speaker 6 (35:03):
But in my head, so that Cleopatra marble statue was
over three thousand pounds, and I guess she did it
there in Philadelphia, is what I'm imagining.
Speaker 5 (35:12):
Is that correct? That's a good question.
Speaker 4 (35:14):
I don't know if it was transported from Europe to
the United States, because I know that it stayed in
the United States because they didn't want to transport it
back to Europe.
Speaker 5 (35:24):
Right. Yeah.
Speaker 6 (35:25):
That's like all of these works because when we were
talking about even the piece that they did that they
didn't like, that the couple didn't like. In the US,
all of this back and forth travel, she was noted
to be that good that people were willing to commission
from overseas during a time where exporting things was not an.
Speaker 5 (35:42):
Easy feet True. Yeah, a lot of her stuff she
did send back overseas, right.
Speaker 6 (35:47):
Her popularity, her talent, and that traveled in such a way.
And yeah, it feels like a slap in the face
to have her place in an un marred grave when
she was so well liked and so well known that
they were willing to do this for her work. But
yet and still because I'm like, like, I'm just trying
to imagine the practicality. Maybe I'm just too literal. Well,
(36:09):
I'm like, wow, who has the money to do this?
Who has some money to go back and forth oversea
for marbled sculpture, which I'm sure took her a lot
of time, But yet she still has a lot of pieces.
Once again, because we know so much has been destroyed,
but yeah, there's still evidence of other work out there.
Speaker 3 (36:27):
Yeah, I desperately want to see as tragic as it is,
the boy Scouts paint chob of this statue. I'm glad
it was restored, but I've got to admit there's a
I want to see this.
Speaker 6 (36:42):
Surely there's a picture of that.
Speaker 4 (36:44):
I wonder if the job that they did was like
trying to be conservationists, like if they were if they
were patent or if they were trying to be more
reportive and painted colors.
Speaker 3 (36:55):
Yeah, and now that I think about the statuar subject
in general, I'm like, this is interesting.
Speaker 8 (37:02):
Yeah, yeah, I'm trying to figure out this conversation of
like this makes sense instead of just cleaning it off
or washing it off, which I've seen them do like
keeping headstones, cleans historical sites cleaned, to actually paint it,
Like who gave them permission to do this?
Speaker 6 (37:18):
And I understand this for a horse, but obviously this
person whoever did this really loved this horse enough to
get this again three thousand pounds statue to be its headstone. Like,
I'm very shocked, and I have a lot of questions.
Speaker 5 (37:35):
I have a lot of questions. Yeah, what did the
transport job from wherever else it was look like that?
Speaker 4 (37:39):
Because I think that was still in the Chicago area,
so it didn't have to move far to get from
the place it was before to the place where the
horse was the horse's grave was, but it still had
to be transported in some ways. So it's like, you
gotta it did a lot, but it was saying something
how drawn he was to to it to the Clopatrick.
(38:02):
But wow, I mean, what a horse it had to have,
an amazing horse.
Speaker 5 (38:16):
I love it right now.
Speaker 4 (38:17):
I think we should all get busts of ourselves.
Speaker 5 (38:21):
Oh, I totally want I would. I would love that
one day when I can afford it. Let's look at
our budget.
Speaker 3 (38:32):
I'm both scared and excited. Kind of my general view
on life anyway.
Speaker 6 (38:39):
So wow, right, but yeah, going back to her accomplishments,
it is amazing. Like I said, like I'm really racking
my brain and processing just what she went through, how
much she went through, the continued fight that she had
to have, that she had to leave a whole country
in order to find peace to work rather than anything else,
(39:01):
and it still took so long to get there, and
then being able to do it and then still get
notoriety from the place she wasn't welcomed essentially, and then
to this. But it is an amazing life and honestly
I didn't know too much about her, Like I heard
the name in the story, and yeah, I don't know
why my brain has just latched onto everything being a movie.
Speaker 5 (39:24):
But yeah, this feels like I'm sure there is one
is there one I don't know about her?
Speaker 6 (39:28):
I feel like it should be epic, Like just her
doing these creations is probably a good at least a
fifteen minute YouTube of like a yeah, you know pace
together of what she's doing.
Speaker 5 (39:39):
There's definitely no biopic.
Speaker 4 (39:44):
We got the ideas, well, you got the ideas, and
we're here for support right.
Speaker 6 (39:52):
Now.
Speaker 5 (39:52):
I think that'd be great.
Speaker 3 (39:53):
I'm imagining like you'll see s Grant, like just the
image of him sitting there and getting the bust made.
Speaker 2 (40:02):
There's a lot very visually interesting.
Speaker 4 (40:05):
I think also a lot to play with if we're
thinking about this in dramatization, for because of how much
she embellished, and because you already kind of have license
to do a lot of creation within her story. If
you were doing something more dramatized and fictionalized because of
the own embellishment that she did of her own story,
I feel like, well, let me not put any projecting
(40:26):
anything onto her. But it's already a part of her story.
Speaker 6 (40:29):
Fictionalization is I mean her trial alone from the college,
that would be like a tense moment, all right, I'm
gonna stop, but like a moment of like seeing her
go fighting through these cases.
Speaker 5 (40:42):
Mm hmm. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (40:43):
And there is a lot more context, for instance, in
the book that I mentioned by Kristin pie Buick about
her role in her the significance of her being black
and Native American and the Haitian history that all of
that wrapped up into her story and how she dealt
with that as an artist and how ripe that was
(41:04):
for people contemporary people, So how ripe that exoticization, the
draw of that and being able to talk about that
in their commentary on her, but also in scholarship about
her as well, just being able to look back at
her story and say, oh, this is this is part
of her story, so this identity is this why she
(41:27):
did this? So there's a lot of a lot more
context and you can definitely go deeper into that part
of her story as well.
Speaker 3 (41:34):
Yes, yes, And we always appreciate you bringing these stories
to us, Eves and doing it with such grace and
nuance because they are very complex.
Speaker 6 (41:44):
Thank you.
Speaker 4 (41:44):
Yeah, yeah, we love, We love having you and seeing
you in this digital way. At least once a month
we both get our spinty budget on some bust.
Speaker 5 (41:58):
Commissioned.
Speaker 2 (42:01):
In the meantime, where can the listeners find you? Eves?
Speaker 4 (42:05):
You can find me on many more episodes on this
very here podcast I'm talking about other female first. Also,
you can find me online at Evejeffcoat dot com or
on Instagram at not Apologizing, on Twitter at Eve's Jeffcoat
and other podcasts as well.
Speaker 3 (42:26):
Yes, she's out and about online and you should definitely
check out all the stuff Eves is doing if you
haven't already, And thank you once again Eve's for joining us.
If you would like to contact us, listeners, you can
or emails Stepfandia mom Stuff at iHeartMedia dot com. You
can find us on Twitter at mom Stuff podcast or
on Instagram a stuff I've never told you. Thanks as
always to our super producer Christina, Thank you and thanks
(42:49):
to you for listening stuffhe ever told you.
Speaker 2 (42:50):
Protection of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 3 (42:51):
For more podcasts on my heart Radio, visit the iHeart
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows.
Speaker 6 (43:03):
Ye
Hey, this is Annie and Samantha. I'm welcome to stuff
I'll Never told you production of iHeart Radio. And as
this comes out, it is Black History Month, and usually
during Black History Months, we like to bring back a
(00:25):
good female first about a black woman who did something
really cool. And today we're talking about Mary and Mania
Lewis or our Eves is talking about. We're bringing back
an episode that Eves brings to us because she's amazing
who has just a great story and really fascinating, as
with all of these female first episodes, so please enjoy
(00:47):
this classic.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Hey, this is Annie and Samantha.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
I'm welcome to stuff I Never told you production of
iHeart Radio. And it's time for another female first, which
means we are once again joined by the wonderful, fabulous,
great friend of ours.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Eve's Hi, Hi.
Speaker 4 (01:19):
Hi again, it's me again, Yes, hi, yep, it's me again.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
Well, this is our first recording of twenty twenty two.
Speaker 5 (01:33):
Correct together? That feels right? This sounds right right?
Speaker 4 (01:37):
Yeah, I know time is already blurring together this year.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
But how is your your end of year? New Year's Eve?
Speaker 4 (01:45):
It was good, it was pretty uneventful. I didn't really
do anything. I think I slept, No, I think I
was up at midnight and I think I went to
sleep right at midnight on ye, I was like, it's
time to go to sleep. So I was surprised I
even made it a midnight. But yeah, beyond the actual day,
(02:05):
I am happy it's a new year.
Speaker 5 (02:07):
I'm trying for this to be one of those.
Speaker 4 (02:09):
Years where, of course it's a good time to reflect
on the past and the future and all of those things,
but also trying to be less serious about that and
understand that it's something that can happen all year long
as well. So I will say things are different and
they're the same.
Speaker 6 (02:29):
Yes, that feels about right for the last four years,
different but the same.
Speaker 5 (02:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (02:37):
Yeah, it's funny because my new Year's resolution is to
take better care of myself and I have like specifics
about it. But on New Year's Eve, New Year's Day,
I stayed up until five.
Speaker 5 (02:51):
They am playing a video game.
Speaker 7 (02:52):
I played like ten times.
Speaker 5 (02:56):
I'm having like a fifty five percent success rate right now.
I think on the game you mean to atone number.
I don't want to say anything, but you know.
Speaker 6 (03:13):
Nice about it, Like, oh, on the game that you
play four.
Speaker 4 (03:17):
Times ten times? No, no, same, I'm terrible at games.
I'm just messing with you in terrible at video games.
All good, All good, Well for this one.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
I know we've talked before about art and sculpture, but
my question to the group is what it was your favorite?
Like writing discounted, what was your favorite form of I
guess visual art that you've participated in.
Speaker 4 (03:47):
You do you mean things that I've I've myself created
or just like an observer, I was asking for what
you yourself has created, but now I want to know both. No,
it's writing. Writing is like I mean, it's not a
visual art technically per se. I haven't really dabbled in
any of the visual arts painting, sculpture, drawing, none of those.
(04:11):
But I would say that's a good question. I would
say probably painting. And I would say that because that
is the first thing that comes into my mind based
on the emotional, like visceral emotional reactions that I've had
when I'm in spaces with paintings, I think that I'm
I am more drawn to and have stronger emotional reactions
(04:37):
through viewing paintings. But I've also I mean, I've also
had pretty strong reactions to other things as well like
video and sculpture.
Speaker 5 (04:47):
Yeah, yeah, what about you?
Speaker 3 (04:49):
Yeah, I think in one of these past female first
we talked about this, but I the lowest grade I
ever got was an art in high school. Oh, in college,
I got a little grade in something else, but in
high school up until then, that was my lowest grade.
And everything I did the teacher hated. I was thinking
about this other night. She hated every single thing that
(05:12):
I did. But I did like in terms of creation,
I really liked. We did this project once where you
made a portrait of somebody out of materials that you
would find, and I actually really enjoyed that because it
was very textural and to kind of hunt down these
(05:33):
items and think about them in a different way of
how they could reflect because I was trying to create
somebody in a sunset, so I had to find all
those kind of swaths of colors but.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
In these other items. So I really really enjoyed that.
Speaker 3 (05:45):
And I think I'm with you with when I think
about the art that's moved me the most, paintings is
probably visually, uh, and visual arts the one that has
done it. But I like that you brought up video
because that's true, and I feel like that gets left
out of the conversation a lot. Yet I have seen
some just really moving video art. Yeah, but there's space.
(06:07):
Like I'm a I love sculpture as well, and I do.
I enjoyed sculpting, and I used to make a lot
of pottery.
Speaker 5 (06:14):
I just was never very good at it, but I
did enjoy it.
Speaker 4 (06:17):
Yeah, yeah, what about used to Anthad.
Speaker 6 (06:20):
So I am not good at art in general, and
that is not my forte. The only good thing I
could do, I think I've told you about this is
one time I got really into drawing penguins. No reason,
I just did it, and a good friend of mine
and I would make puns out of all these penguins.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
Mmmm.
Speaker 6 (06:37):
That was my favorite thing to do because it was
just like a little circle, a little pointy beak in
the story. And for some reason I really thought I
was doing something with that. Guess what I wasn't. However,
I do love art in itself, and yeah, I'm with you.
When I get to go to a good exhibit and
it really flows and it just like speaks to you.
Speaker 5 (06:56):
There are moments that I'm like, oh wow.
Speaker 6 (06:57):
And of course I love deep colors, so I'm one
of those that did fall into the Monet trap. I'm like, oh, yeah,
I'm digging these colors, and I was like I was
looking at his stuff and like finding his history.
Speaker 5 (07:08):
I was like, okay, yeah, I could definitely.
Speaker 6 (07:09):
Tell he was going blind. I still love it because
he's still with us so much better than I could
ever do in it myself in any way. Like fully,
there so all of those things, but I do love
also finding the fascinating histories behind the different artists.
Speaker 5 (07:24):
They do make me very happy.
Speaker 6 (07:26):
I think that's just in general for like authors too,
which I yes, I believe that's art, but I know
we're not like counting that for this moment. But yeah,
for me, like the cheesy experiences have been happening where
you're really immersed in it. Everybody's kind of been like, oh,
what is this? But I really enjoyed that because for
a minute, you do really think that you're in the
middle of it, and it feels like you're part of
(07:48):
that art for just a second. Of course, again cheesy effects,
and I get why people are like, no, this is awful.
It's so like it's ruining art. But I love that
experience to be immersed in it, to that point of
like seeing it in depth and Philly almost like move
through you.
Speaker 4 (08:04):
I will say that I also really love prints, like
I love works on paper. Yeah, I love works on paper.
And I also love book art. I like that fall
for book art. I think it's so wonderful. It's just
and then then and it just merges, you know, language,
visual language, in the actual form of the book, even
though it doesn't always have to look like a typical
(08:27):
book that we would read.
Speaker 5 (08:28):
But yeah, I love book art as well.
Speaker 4 (08:31):
Yeah, well, now that I'm thinking about it, like I
love comics, comics, and I love film, like I'm a
huge movie person.
Speaker 5 (08:39):
And there's definitely but also.
Speaker 3 (08:44):
I mean there's yeah, there's just so much more we
could include.
Speaker 5 (08:47):
Yeah, it's so much and visual art and expansive it is.
Speaker 4 (08:52):
Yeah, oh wow, my mind, my mind is just expanding
even more.
Speaker 3 (09:00):
But also photography, That's what I was going to say.
I got a lot of photography books for Christmas actually,
and beautiful beautiful. Yeah all right, so we like, we
like art, is what I'm hearing.
Speaker 5 (09:13):
I think he probably knows that by this point.
Speaker 4 (09:17):
Yes, considering we're podcaster, is considering I bring artists all
the time, and they know that we write it and
are involved in the arts in so many different ways. Yes, yes,
but also yeah, I do miss it, so we have
to really and I know we talked about in a
past episode two I miss going to exhibits and museums
and stuff. Right, So with all of that, who did
(09:39):
you bring for us to talk about today?
Speaker 5 (09:41):
Eves?
Speaker 4 (09:42):
Today we're going to talk about Mary Atmonia Lewis. So
I was kind of hesitant to bring her because, you know,
I know that there's a lot out there on her,
not like that's a qualification for not bringing somebody on
the show, Like there is already a lot of information
that exists because of course, just because there's so much
information about her, and she's really popped back up over
(10:04):
the last.
Speaker 5 (10:04):
Decade, like a lot of people.
Speaker 4 (10:05):
I've been talking about her, her works that have been
found in her place in the legacy of artists in
the United States and in the world internationally as well.
But I think she's still a person who's so worthy
of talking about. And I think we've also we might
have brought her name up in the meta Voe Warrick
Fuller episode. She was a sculptor as well, So I
(10:27):
feel like maybe we mentioned her in there, because I
feel like I remember her name coming up then. But
even if we didn't, just you know that she had
Amonia Lewis herself had a bunch of her own inspirations
and also inspired people later who.
Speaker 5 (10:41):
Worked in the field.
Speaker 4 (10:43):
So in terms of her first she was the first
woman of Black American and Native American heritage to achieve
international fame as a sculptor. And yeah, she just had
this huge mythology around her that was built up, and
partially she built up a lot of that on her own,
(11:05):
and then there was a lot of mythologizing that happened
in the press and the people who wrote about her.
Speaker 5 (11:10):
Yeah, So we'll get into some of that later.
Speaker 4 (11:12):
Yeah. I feel like that's a theme in a lot
of these, is the kind of creating of the story
or the myth behind this person and how they were
were not involved, which I kind of appreciate.
Speaker 5 (11:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (11:25):
Yeah. As I was like researching her, the song Yankee
Doodle Dandy was going through my head like over and over.
The phrase born on the fourth of July was just
like going through and through my head because I was
thinking about how she said she was born on the
fourth of July, and that was a running theme for
a lot of people. If they didn't know their birthdate,
(11:46):
they would just say that they were born on the
fourth of July.
Speaker 5 (11:49):
So that was just for some reason. I'm a frain
in my head.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
I know that that's rabie.
Speaker 5 (12:00):
Yeah, I know it's rough, but yeah.
Speaker 4 (12:03):
There is a bunch of conflicting information about her early life,
which is also a running theme. But she's said to
have embellished a lot of things and changed.
Speaker 5 (12:12):
Them over time.
Speaker 4 (12:13):
But like I said, one of those things was that
the date that they get July fourth, eighteen forty four.
So that year wasn't the only year that she ever
said that she was born. In other places say she
was born, but it is kind of the consensus year that.
Speaker 5 (12:27):
It's going with.
Speaker 4 (12:28):
It's the one that's on her gravestone. And that number
is based on her passport application, which apparently also said
that she was four feet tall. So when people described her,
they said she was short, but on her passport application
said she was four feet tall. But yeah, so she
got on her application it said that she was born
on or around July fourth, eighteen forty four, and she
(12:50):
was born in green Bush, New York. So there are
different birthdates, death dates for her mother, and other dates
in her personal history that you'll find. Yeah, I mean,
as we've spoken about before, this is digging into the past.
Whether the records can be murky if he were kept,
it all can be so so difficult and tricky. I
(13:13):
find it interesting that the passport would say on or around.
Speaker 5 (13:17):
It could have kind of like a on or around.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
Honor is somewhere in there.
Speaker 5 (13:39):
And her heritage.
Speaker 4 (13:39):
Her father was black and he was from the West Indies,
and her mother was Ojibway and born in Canada, so
she claimed that her mother, Catherine, was a quote unquote
full blooded Indian, But Catherine's father was a black man
and her mother had Black and Ojibway parents, so her heritage.
(14:01):
At Monia's mother's heritage was mixed as well. Her parents
died when she was young, but she did have a
brother named Samuel, and according to Edmonia, they both had
Native American names as well, his with Sunshine, and at
Monia's she said that her name was Wildfire. But after
(14:21):
she lost her parents, she went to live with her
aunts elsewhere in New York, and her brother soon left
for California, but he did send money back to her
for her education and would continue to support her throughout
her educational years, which is obviously something that helps anybody
a lot, and it did for her that he was
(14:43):
invested in her education. So in New York she went
to a Baptist Abolitionist school and then she went to
Oberlin College in Ohio, which she attended from eighteen fifty
nine to eighteen sixty three. So while she was there,
she board it with the rever friend John keep and
he was a member of the board of trustees and
(15:03):
an abolitionist. Throughout her life she was connected to a
lot of abolitionists. She stayed in places where a lot
of abolitionists were located, and she got a lot of
financial support from them, encouragement from them, press from abolitionists,
and things like that.
Speaker 5 (15:17):
Oberlin College was known for being associated.
Speaker 4 (15:20):
With the movement, and it was known for admitting black
people and women. At the same time, there was a
young ladies department that was split off from the rest
of the college in which Lewis was enrolled, and so
there was still this confinement to women's roles ideologically at
the college. It was said the training that they got
(15:41):
there would help them and teaching and quote unquote duties
of the sphere. So it wasn't so simple. It's just like, oh,
there's this college with this huge reputation of being progressive
and being all about abolitionism.
Speaker 5 (15:54):
At the same time, this was still.
Speaker 4 (15:56):
That period in the United States, and surrounding the college
and in the college itself were still people who didn't
rock with this whole idea of co education and the
reputation that it had. There were plenty of people in
the area who were still anti black, who were still
anti abolitionist, and who were still anti anybody starting to
(16:17):
pot essentially like really sticking to these moral codes according
to what they view of morality.
Speaker 5 (16:25):
Young ladies. I don't know. There's something about having the
young front of it too.
Speaker 3 (16:30):
Yeah wow, But I mean, I know, I've told this
story on the show. Before I was in high school,
I still had to go to homech and it was
four girls at the high school.
Speaker 5 (16:41):
We still had to do that.
Speaker 4 (16:43):
And then I went to a technical school that was
all men until fairly recently, and some of the bathrooms
still just had a sign with women taped over it
because any women's bathrooms they hadn't bothered to like do
any better than that since then. Yeah, yeah, so it's weird.
So many things we talk about. It's weird, like how
(17:05):
far we've come, but also so much of this legacy
still we're still dealing with.
Speaker 5 (17:12):
Yeah, for sure. That's also a running theme.
Speaker 4 (17:15):
So when she was there, she still took classes like algebra, geometry,
and composition, and she took art classes, so she didn't
learn how to draw while she was there, but she
did run into troubles while she was at the college.
So in eighteen sixty two incidents, she served two women
who she was boarding with, two white women specifically who
(17:36):
she was boarding with, mulled wine and then they went out,
they went to, you know, go on a sleigh ride
or something like that, and they accused her of poisoning
them with Spanish fly, which was a substance that has
been considered an afrodisiac in the past. But they claimed
that she poisoned them, And after that she was attacked Atmonia,
(17:59):
was attacked and beaten. Not long after that, she was arrested,
but her trial was delayed, which when it did happen,
it lasted for about six days, from the end of
February to the beginning of March, so she did still
have supporters even though there were clearly people who didn't
(18:22):
rock with her, and Keeps, for one, was one of
her supporters and her attorney also John Mercer Langston, who
helped her win the trial.
Speaker 5 (18:32):
But at the same time, she.
Speaker 4 (18:33):
Was later accused of other crimes, like being accused of
stealing art supplies while attending the school, so they wouldn't
let her register for the last term. And some of
the publications that go back and look at her legacies
that some of the issues that she had, the challenges
that she had while she was there, and her reason
for leaving the school, those parts are absences and kind
(18:56):
of skipped over. So it's really interesting to think about
the things that she herself chose to leave out of
her story when she told it herself, and also the
things that were absent when other.
Speaker 5 (19:07):
People were telling her story.
Speaker 4 (19:08):
And of course that depends on a source and how
much room there isn't a source for a thing, But
you know, it's interesting. And she was forced to leave
Oberlin before she got her degree, and she decided to
move on and pursue art, so she went to Boston
in eighteen sixty four, Keeps wrote a letter of introduction
(19:29):
for her to William Lloyd Garrison, who was an abolitionist
and a journalist.
Speaker 5 (19:33):
Who people might be familiar with.
Speaker 4 (19:35):
It's a pretty big name, and he was able to
connect her with sculptors and writers, and so she began
working under Edward A.
Speaker 5 (19:43):
Brackett, who was also an artist.
Speaker 4 (19:46):
She learned modeling and casting, but they later parted ways
for some unknown reason. There seemed to have been some
sort of conflict there. But that relationship didn't last really long,
but she continued to create art, and in eighteen sixty
three she created a plaster medallion of abolitionist John Brown,
(20:07):
and the next year she also created a marble bust
of Colonel Robert Goldshaw. She sold photographs and plaster casts
of the bus, which those plaster casts she sold at
fifteen dollars each, and she also made busts of the
characters and Henry Wattsworth Longfellows epic poem The Song of Hyawatza.
(20:28):
But you know after a while, travel is a part
of her history. Not long after she was able to
apply for a passport because of all the funds that
she was getting from her work in take a trip
to Italy.
Speaker 5 (20:40):
So she moved to Italy.
Speaker 4 (20:42):
And as many artists did at the time, there was
a huge community of expat artists and sculptors who lived
in Italy. But in the New York Times article in
eighteen seventy eight, she said, quote, I was practically driven
to Rome in order to obtain the opportunity unities for
art culture and to find a social atmosphere where I
(21:04):
was not constantly reminded of my color. The land of
liberty had no room for a colored sculptor. There were
a lot of articles written about her in those abolitionist papers,
which she was also able to be in because of
the connections that she did have. She did interviews with
people and had articles written about her by people like
(21:28):
Elizabeth Peabody and Lydia Maria Child, all these people who
were involved in this press and activist circle in the area.
And as author Kristin pie Buick puts it in her
book that she wrote about Lewis called Child of the Fire,
she said, quote Lewis's image was reshaped largely by the
(21:48):
white women who wrote her into existence, which is something
that I mean, I think we've spoken about before on
the show. When we do female first, it's just like
these are we have to consider the source. Lewis and
Lydia Marie Child, who I just mentioned were at odds.
A lot of the time, Child would suggest ideas to
(22:12):
Louis as to how she should run her career. Because
Louis she was determined and she believed clearly believed in
her work. She wouldn't always wait for commissions for her work.
She would do things like make something and then send
it to the person that she dedicated it to and
then get them to find a buyer if they didn't
buy it. There was a lot of back and forth
(22:34):
in the relationship between the two of them, and I've
found in the comments about her as well. But also
in this relationship there were lots of patronizing attitudes directed
at Atmnia that she should be uplifted just because she
was mixed race. And at the same time, there was
(22:56):
this idea like, oh, while look at what she's doing.
She a mixed race artist who is creating these sculptors,
So she's worthy of being talked about just because of
her race, And this is the thing that exoticizes her
as an artist without just viewing the art itself for
its own qualities and its own merits, But at the
(23:17):
same time that was happening, she was also demeaned and
infantilized because of her race. For instance, Child didn't think
that she was as talented as others portrayed her, and
she thought she was irresponsible when it came to money.
Speaker 5 (23:32):
But like, what would somebody expect since.
Speaker 4 (23:35):
She was black and Native American, Like, of course she
had those qualities of being irresponsible. She didn't learn these things,
she didn't grow up with this kind of civilization. So
it is definitely a lot of nuance in it where
it's like, yes, it's valid to say that she shouldn't
be uplifted just because of her race, you know, we
have to actually look at the qualities of her work.
But of course, wrapped up into all those things were
(23:57):
the complexities of the way that people about black people,
that spoke about Native American people at the time. So
either way, she spent a lot of time in Italy,
spending time in Florence and Rome, and she kept on
creating art. It was said that when she went to Florence,
when she first got there, she went to Florence and
(24:18):
she was set up to stay with an American family,
but they didn't let her in.
Speaker 5 (24:21):
So immediately from her.
Speaker 4 (24:23):
Coming from the United States and getting to Europe, you know,
she was already meeting brick walls essentially. Yeah, so she
didn't meet artists while she was there that she was
connected to, like High Empowers and Thomas Ball and other
expats who were in the country. And she would do
(24:44):
busts and sculptures in the neo classical style. She would
do works after famous Classical and Renaissance sculptures and then
sell them to tourists in Rome. And her work centered
around historical, coole, social, racial, religious, and literary themes. Those
(25:05):
are typically what her works would focus on, and most
of her work was created between eighteen sixty six and
seventy six, but she did quite a few pieces over
the course of her life, although all of those no
longer exists, Like, we don't have visual record of a
lot of those, and they don't they aren't known to
(25:26):
be anywhere in life as well. I feel like I
took a really roundabout way of saying that, Wait.
Speaker 6 (25:34):
Did they get destroyed or just disappeared from record or
do they know what happened?
Speaker 4 (25:38):
No, it's not known what happened with a lot of
her work is just gone. And we'll get to a
story later about one of her biggest pieces that she
did about Cleopatra that had this really circuitous route to
being refound in recent years.
Speaker 5 (25:50):
Teaser.
Speaker 7 (25:51):
Yeah, she carved.
Speaker 4 (26:08):
Her own marble when she was in Italy, which wasn't
a thing that There were a lot of artists who
didn't do that. They would get Italian artists, local Italian
artisans to do the actual carving of the marble, and
what they would do is create the designs and the
plaster works and then the artisans in the area would
(26:30):
carve the marble.
Speaker 5 (26:31):
But she carved her own marble.
Speaker 4 (26:33):
And like I said, you can go through and see
some of her works, but some of the notable ones.
For instance, one was eighteen sixty sevens Forever Free, which
was a sculpture of two free enslaved people who were
depicted like upon receiving the news of emancipation.
Speaker 5 (26:52):
But she was Catholic. It's not clear when she became Catholic.
Speaker 4 (26:57):
There's a good chance that she was Catholic back to childhood,
but a lot of her work was influenced by her Catholicism.
For instance, there was a black couple who commissioned her
to do a sculpture called Virgin at the Cross for
a grave. They didn't like it, and what happened was
they pay her a few installments of I think it
was the four installments that they were supposed to pay
(27:19):
her in but they paid the third one.
Speaker 5 (27:22):
They got it. They didn't like it.
Speaker 4 (27:23):
They didn't want to pay her the fourth part, and
she went to court, won the case and got some
of the money that she asked for in the.
Speaker 5 (27:31):
Settlement was in Italy.
Speaker 4 (27:33):
She did it in Italy, but the couple was from
the United States. She would also go to Catholic fairs
and she would sell works to people at Catholic churches
and well, she would sell works to the Catholic churches
and also the church members. And Pope Pius the ninth
is said to have visited her studio in Rome, but
she didn't go back to the US. From time to
(27:55):
time doing some marketing for her work, and when she
visited Chicago in the eighteen seventies, she sat for a
series of pictures, and there are other photos outside of
that sitting as well of her. But it's really nice
to go look at the pictures and just stare at
them for a minute. I don't know if I'm weird
for doing things like that, but it's nice when you
(28:16):
actually have photos of people actually and also as many
photos as there are of her. Yeah, so I recommend
doing that. You can find them online. But yeah, So
the work that I teased earlier was the Death of Cleopatra.
That's another notable work of hers. She was invited to
participate in the eighteen seventy six Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia.
(28:40):
The event was held to celebrate the hundredth anniversary of
the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
Speaker 5 (28:46):
It was all this like hurrah around the event.
Speaker 4 (28:50):
There were exhibits for technology and art and for the event,
Louis made this really big sculpture, the Death of Cleopatra,
and in it, the Egyptian Queen Cleopatra is portrayed slumped
like laid back in her throne, dead after letting a
snake bite her, as the story goes.
Speaker 5 (29:10):
But it was.
Speaker 4 (29:11):
Different than other neoclassical sculptures of Cleopatra at the time,
which more so held Cleopatra in a different light, romanticized
her a little bit more, put her up on a pedestal,
you know, versus being slumped in a chair, and the
sculpture was praised critically, and it was a popular piece
among the other sculptures that were within that exhibition. But
(29:32):
it wasn't sold at the exposition. It was exhibited in
Chicago not that long afterwards. Then it was put in storage,
Then it was displayed in a saloon. Then it was
acquired by John Condon, who was a racetrack owner, who
put it on top of the grave of his horse
named Cleopatra. It tracks Conden put in the properties ded
(29:58):
that it was never to be moved. But as things go,
development happened, and in the nineteen seventies I think it
went to a storage yard and then a boy scout
troop painted it after finding it outside. So they know
not what they did, I'm sure you know, but it
wasn't great for the sculpture itself. I had already been
(30:20):
outside for so long that you can only imagine what
the damage looked like before.
Speaker 5 (30:27):
I don't know.
Speaker 4 (30:28):
I didn't actually, I don't know if there were pictures
of it before it was restored or not, but those
would be really interesting to see. But in nineteen eighty five,
a member of the Historical Society of Forest Park, which
is a suburb outside of Chicago, acquired the sculpture.
Speaker 5 (30:44):
Lewis was then identified as.
Speaker 4 (30:47):
A sculptor who did it, and by nineteen ninety four
it was in the Smithsonian's permanent collection. So there were
a lot of different people who had their hands and
obviously this was a very fortunate event because things don't
always get found and attributed to the people who they
belonged to, especially if they've just been sitting for so long,
they don't.
Speaker 5 (31:05):
They get destroyed. So this is one of those cases, Samantha.
Speaker 4 (31:08):
You acts like those works were destroyed and we just
don't know what happened to them. This could have been
one of those things where like we didn't know what
happened to them, or it was destroyed. It was, you know,
in the whole process of it being outside in the
elements for so long, but it wasn't because of the
work of a bunch of people like art historian Marilyn Richardson,
bibliographer Dorothy Porter Wesley, and the curator George Kearney, like
(31:30):
helped along the way to get identified, restored and saved.
But this is like, this is one of the really
notable works in her in her history even though she
created a lot, but beyond her Egyptian subjects, Catholic subjects
and the anti slavery ones, she also did people portraits
and busts of people who were her patrons and notable
(31:52):
people like President Elyss's Grant who sat for her, people
like Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass who even met and
hung out with her, and then after that visit she
created the bust. Yeah, so it was a lively career
where she met with so many different people who were
also notable in their time. So she had a lot
(32:13):
of contemporary notability and a success like also in the
way of selling her work, but also in the acclaim
popular as well as critical. But by the eighteen eighties
demand for her work wasn't as high as it was previously,
and by eighteen ninety eight she lived in France.
Speaker 5 (32:35):
In nineteen oh one she was in London, and.
Speaker 4 (32:40):
While she was in Europe people did support her financially
and by connecting her with other people and sending people
to her studio.
Speaker 5 (32:49):
But she died in London.
Speaker 4 (32:51):
In nineteen oh seven and in her will she called
herself a spinster and a sculptor. But yeah, she was
buried in an un marked grave at Saint Mary's Roman
Catholic Cemetery. So after this long life, with this legacy
that was marked in its own time, she was still
buried in unmarked grave. But a historian in town where
(33:14):
she was born did set up a fundraiser to create
a marker for her for her grave, which she only
got about five years ago, so not long ago at all.
But fortunately people are still invested in making sure that
her history is known and finding out more about her.
So a lot of her work is still on view
(33:34):
in places like Boston, d C. And Alabama. But then
there's a lot that we don't have anymore, but you know,
you can still go see it in person, so that
is that is a good thing, you know that there
is so accessible in person and also online. Yes, yes,
there's some really really amazing pictures online, and that.
Speaker 5 (33:58):
Is quite quite the same story.
Speaker 4 (34:00):
Very well traveled person and kind of yeah, connecting to
all these people from the time, and to call yourself
a spinster and you will to call yourself a spinster.
That sounds like a story, it does, doesn't it. And
I'm glad that. I mean, it's a shame that there
(34:20):
was an unmarked grave in the first place.
Speaker 2 (34:22):
But I'm glad that.
Speaker 4 (34:25):
People were dedicated and determined to change that even though
it was so recent.
Speaker 6 (34:31):
So I'm guessing someone was able to keep up with
her grave knowing where she was the entire time, because
that's a long space of time to have an unmarked grave,
to be like, hey, and this is her headstone.
Speaker 5 (34:43):
Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Speaker 4 (34:45):
It had to be tracked down, which I think is
some of the work that the historian I mentioned earlier,
Marilyn Richardson did.
Speaker 5 (34:51):
Yeah, but it's one of.
Speaker 4 (34:53):
Those things that clearly has to have a lot of
work put into it because it's not that easy to find,
especially it being in London, right.
Speaker 5 (35:00):
Yeah, right, like the level of the travel in itself.
Speaker 6 (35:03):
But in my head, so that Cleopatra marble statue was
over three thousand pounds, and I guess she did it
there in Philadelphia, is what I'm imagining.
Speaker 5 (35:12):
Is that correct? That's a good question.
Speaker 4 (35:14):
I don't know if it was transported from Europe to
the United States, because I know that it stayed in
the United States because they didn't want to transport it
back to Europe.
Speaker 5 (35:24):
Right. Yeah.
Speaker 6 (35:25):
That's like all of these works because when we were
talking about even the piece that they did that they
didn't like, that the couple didn't like. In the US,
all of this back and forth travel, she was noted
to be that good that people were willing to commission
from overseas during a time where exporting things was not an.
Speaker 5 (35:42):
Easy feet True. Yeah, a lot of her stuff she
did send back overseas, right.
Speaker 6 (35:47):
Her popularity, her talent, and that traveled in such a way.
And yeah, it feels like a slap in the face
to have her place in an un marred grave when
she was so well liked and so well known that
they were willing to do this for her work. But
yet and still because I'm like, like, I'm just trying
to imagine the practicality. Maybe I'm just too literal. Well,
(36:09):
I'm like, wow, who has the money to do this?
Who has some money to go back and forth oversea
for marbled sculpture, which I'm sure took her a lot
of time, But yet she still has a lot of pieces.
Once again, because we know so much has been destroyed,
but yeah, there's still evidence of other work out there.
Speaker 3 (36:27):
Yeah, I desperately want to see as tragic as it is,
the boy Scouts paint chob of this statue. I'm glad
it was restored, but I've got to admit there's a
I want to see this.
Speaker 6 (36:42):
Surely there's a picture of that.
Speaker 4 (36:44):
I wonder if the job that they did was like
trying to be conservationists, like if they were if they
were patent or if they were trying to be more
reportive and painted colors.
Speaker 3 (36:55):
Yeah, and now that I think about the statuar subject
in general, I'm like, this is interesting.
Speaker 8 (37:02):
Yeah, yeah, I'm trying to figure out this conversation of
like this makes sense instead of just cleaning it off
or washing it off, which I've seen them do like
keeping headstones, cleans historical sites cleaned, to actually paint it,
Like who gave them permission to do this?
Speaker 6 (37:18):
And I understand this for a horse, but obviously this
person whoever did this really loved this horse enough to
get this again three thousand pounds statue to be its headstone. Like,
I'm very shocked, and I have a lot of questions.
Speaker 5 (37:35):
I have a lot of questions. Yeah, what did the
transport job from wherever else it was look like that?
Speaker 4 (37:39):
Because I think that was still in the Chicago area,
so it didn't have to move far to get from
the place it was before to the place where the
horse was the horse's grave was, but it still had
to be transported in some ways. So it's like, you
gotta it did a lot, but it was saying something
how drawn he was to to it to the Clopatrick.
(38:02):
But wow, I mean, what a horse it had to have,
an amazing horse.
Speaker 5 (38:16):
I love it right now.
Speaker 4 (38:17):
I think we should all get busts of ourselves.
Speaker 5 (38:21):
Oh, I totally want I would. I would love that
one day when I can afford it. Let's look at
our budget.
Speaker 3 (38:32):
I'm both scared and excited. Kind of my general view
on life anyway.
Speaker 6 (38:39):
So wow, right, but yeah, going back to her accomplishments,
it is amazing. Like I said, like I'm really racking
my brain and processing just what she went through, how
much she went through, the continued fight that she had
to have, that she had to leave a whole country
in order to find peace to work rather than anything else,
(39:01):
and it still took so long to get there, and
then being able to do it and then still get
notoriety from the place she wasn't welcomed essentially, and then
to this. But it is an amazing life and honestly
I didn't know too much about her, Like I heard
the name in the story, and yeah, I don't know
why my brain has just latched onto everything being a movie.
Speaker 5 (39:24):
But yeah, this feels like I'm sure there is one
is there one I don't know about her?
Speaker 6 (39:28):
I feel like it should be epic, Like just her
doing these creations is probably a good at least a
fifteen minute YouTube of like a yeah, you know pace
together of what she's doing.
Speaker 5 (39:39):
There's definitely no biopic.
Speaker 4 (39:44):
We got the ideas, well, you got the ideas, and
we're here for support right.
Speaker 6 (39:52):
Now.
Speaker 5 (39:52):
I think that'd be great.
Speaker 3 (39:53):
I'm imagining like you'll see s Grant, like just the
image of him sitting there and getting the bust made.
Speaker 2 (40:02):
There's a lot very visually interesting.
Speaker 4 (40:05):
I think also a lot to play with if we're
thinking about this in dramatization, for because of how much
she embellished, and because you already kind of have license
to do a lot of creation within her story. If
you were doing something more dramatized and fictionalized because of
the own embellishment that she did of her own story,
I feel like, well, let me not put any projecting
(40:26):
anything onto her. But it's already a part of her story.
Speaker 6 (40:29):
Fictionalization is I mean her trial alone from the college,
that would be like a tense moment, all right, I'm
gonna stop, but like a moment of like seeing her
go fighting through these cases.
Speaker 5 (40:42):
Mm hmm. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (40:43):
And there is a lot more context, for instance, in
the book that I mentioned by Kristin pie Buick about
her role in her the significance of her being black
and Native American and the Haitian history that all of
that wrapped up into her story and how she dealt
with that as an artist and how ripe that was
(41:04):
for people contemporary people, So how ripe that exoticization, the
draw of that and being able to talk about that
in their commentary on her, but also in scholarship about
her as well, just being able to look back at
her story and say, oh, this is this is part
of her story, so this identity is this why she
(41:27):
did this? So there's a lot of a lot more
context and you can definitely go deeper into that part
of her story as well.
Speaker 3 (41:34):
Yes, yes, And we always appreciate you bringing these stories
to us, Eves and doing it with such grace and
nuance because they are very complex.
Speaker 6 (41:44):
Thank you.
Speaker 4 (41:44):
Yeah, yeah, we love, We love having you and seeing
you in this digital way. At least once a month
we both get our spinty budget on some bust.
Speaker 5 (41:58):
Commissioned.
Speaker 2 (42:01):
In the meantime, where can the listeners find you? Eves?
Speaker 4 (42:05):
You can find me on many more episodes on this
very here podcast I'm talking about other female first. Also,
you can find me online at Evejeffcoat dot com or
on Instagram at not Apologizing, on Twitter at Eve's Jeffcoat
and other podcasts as well.
Speaker 3 (42:26):
Yes, she's out and about online and you should definitely
check out all the stuff Eves is doing if you
haven't already, And thank you once again Eve's for joining us.
If you would like to contact us, listeners, you can
or emails Stepfandia mom Stuff at iHeartMedia dot com. You
can find us on Twitter at mom Stuff podcast or
on Instagram a stuff I've never told you. Thanks as
always to our super producer Christina, Thank you and thanks
(42:49):
to you for listening stuffhe ever told you.
Speaker 2 (42:50):
Protection of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 3 (42:51):
For more podcasts on my heart Radio, visit the iHeart
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows.
Speaker 6 (43:03):
Ye
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