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Vinnie Ream: An American Sculptor
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About the BookThis is the remarkable story of a fascinating, talented, nineteenth-century American woman who was able, despite a lack of formal training, to build a successful, if controversial, career as a sculptor. When she was only seventeen years old, she succeeded in prevailing upon her friends in Congress to convince President Lincoln to sit for her and, after his assassination, these friends managed to have a bill passed granting her a contract for the completion of a statue of the late president. The debate on this in the Senate was divisive: Charles Sumner of Massachusetts, the powerful chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, argued that no woman could successfully execute a statue of such importance. But her statue of Lincoln, in Carrara marble, stands in the rotunda of the U.S. Capitol. Her Sequoiah was the first statue of an American Indian to be placed in the Capitol's Statuary Hall, and her colossal statue of Admiral David Farragut is on display in a Washington park. Vinnie Ream was not a feminist, but her story is the story of a woman's remarkable achievement in a world controlled by men, who used money to influence Congress. Vinnie Ream did not have money, but she did have talent, intelligence, beauty and great charm, and she used these qualities in every way she could. She lived in exciting political times, and was involved with many famous men and events. She was in the midst of the controversy over Andrew Johnson's impeachment, and was accused of causing Senator Edmund Ross to cast the deciding vote for Johnson's aquittal. In this little-known slice of Americana, we learn about a woman who was ahead of her time in at least one respect: her tenacity in the pursuit of artistic achievement. It is a story which needs to be told. Reviews"Ream's intellect, artistic talents, indomitable will, seductiveness, and grand ambitions were already evident when she was a teenager newly arrived in Washington, D.C., in 1861. Petite, sparkly, and fearless, Ream decided to become a sculptor in spite of her lack of training. Finding in politics the perfect arena for her temperament and desires, she managed to get President Lincoln to sit for her during his last days. She then enlisted various smitten senators to back her petition for a commission to produce a life-size statue, the first woman contracted by the federal government to produce a major memorial. The target of torrid gossip and vituperative and misogynistic newspaper coverage, Ream worked tirelessly under trying circumstances. No doubt Cooper discovered Ream's incredible story while researching his previous book on William Worth Belknap, President Grant's disgraced secretary of war, and he recounts it with marvelous lucidity. The congressional debates over Ream's commissions have to be read to be believed, and her relationships with an array of powerful men, from Franz Liszt to General William Sherman, are endlessly intriguing. Kudos to Cooper for resurrecting Ream and enriching so vividly the history of women in art."––Booklist |
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