Senin, 07 Desember 2009
Minggu, 27 September 2009
Dolley Madison, War of 1812, & Slaves
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Engraving of Dolley Payne Madison. 1812. Attributed to William Chappell. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress.
Dolley Madison (1768-1849), a North Carolina Quaker born in Guilford County, was the wife of President James Madison. She rejected the somber traditional garb of her religion in favor of high fashion & according to this article from The New York Times, apparently she rejected Quaker ideas about slavery as well.
Dolly Madison, painted by Gilbert Stuart. White House Collection.
The New York Times
Madison and the White House, Through the Memoir of a Slave
By Rachel L. Swarns Published: August 15, 2009
Washington — In 1809, a young boy from a wealthy Virginia estate stepped into President James Madison’s White House and caught the first glimpse of his new home. The East Room was unfinished, he recalled years later in a memoir. Pennsylvania Avenue was unpaved and “always in an awful condition from either mud or dust,” he recounted.
Mr. Jennings was a slave in the White House and became the first person to put his recollections of it into a memoir. “The city was a dreary place,” he continued.
His name was Paul Jennings, and he was an unlikely chronicler of the Madison presidency. When he first walked into the Executive Mansion, he was a 10-year-old slave.
But over the course of his long life, Mr. Jennings witnessed, and perhaps participated in, the rescue of George Washington’s portrait from the White House during the War of 1812 and stood by the former president’s side at his deathbed. He bought his freedom, helped to organize a daring (and unsuccessful) slave escape and became the first person to put his White House recollections into a memoir.
Next week, Mr. Jennings’s story will take center stage when dozens of his descendants gather for a reunion in the White House. Historians say it will be a remarkable moment in the history of the mansion, which was built with slave labor and now houses President Obama, the first black person to hold the office, and his family.
Historians say the visit will highlight the intimate, day-to-day role that enslaved men and women played in the White House, a community that is little known and whose members have long languished in obscurity.
“It really is a story that isn’t well told yet,” said Lonnie G. Bunch, director of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. “It lets people realize just how big a shadow slavery cast on America.”
The White House curator, William G. Allman, said few historical records existed about the black people who lived and worked in the building during its earliest years. Slaves were barred from learning to read and write, and their owners often considered their stories inconsequential.
So the relatively detailed accounting of Mr. Jennings’s life is notable, particularly because he was so closely linked to President Madison and to the portrait of George Washington, which is considered the White House’s most valuable historical object. The portrait, painted by Gilbert Stuart, is the only item currently on display that was also present when the White House opened in 1800. The Jennings family will view the painting during their White House reunion on Aug. 24. The Obamas are expected to be away on vacation that day.
“I don’t think we’ve ever had a family group like this visit before,” Mr. Allman said. “It’s just one of those stories that’s never going to be front and center because the records are very scanty.”
New details about Mr. Jennings’s life and his family have emerged through the research of Beth Taylor, a research associate at Montpelier, the Madison plantation in Virginia. Over the past two years, Ms. Taylor has pored over court records and tracked down and interviewed his descendants, discovering historical documents and the only known photograph of Mr. Jennings.
She also found a rare edition of Mr. Jennings’s recollections, which were released in 1865 under the title “A Colored Man’s Reminiscences of James Madison.” (A white acquaintance of Mr. Jennings collected his reminiscences and got them published.)
In the 19-page memoir, Mr. Jennings, who served as a footman and later a valet to President Madison, recalled the chaotic escape from the White House hours before the British burned the building in 1814.
He described President Madison as a frugal and temperate man who owned only one suit, socialized with Thomas Jefferson and was so careful with his liquor that he probably never “drank a quart of brandy in his whole life.”
Mr. Jennings said he often served and shaved the president and recalled that his master was kind to his slaves. He was 48 when he finally bought his freedom, years after Madison’s death in 1836.
As a free man, Mr. Jennings worked in the government’s pension office, bought property and even helped support the former first lady Dolley Madison with “small sums from my own pocket” when she fell on hard times.
Mr. Jennings, who died in 1874 at age 75, did not discuss his personal difficulties in his memoir, but Ms. Taylor and others say he encountered many hardships. As a slave, he was forced to live apart from his wife and children, who lived on another plantation. And he seems to have chafed under Mrs. Madison’s ownership after her husband died.
Articles in abolitionist newspapers uncovered by researchers at the University of Virginia’s Dolley Madison Digital Edition, an online collection of Mrs. Madison’s correspondence, reported that she treated her slaves poorly. In March 1848, the Liberator newspaper published a letter charging that Mrs. Madison had hired out Mr. Jennings to others and then kept “the last red cent” of his pay, “leaving him to get his clothes by presents, night work, or as he might.”
The letter also said Mrs. Madison had refused to free Mr. Jennings, as her husband had wished. Instead, she sold him to an insurance agent, who in turn sold him to Senator Daniel Webster for $120. (He promptly set Mr. Jennings free and let him work off the debt as a servant in his household.)
Julie Doxsey found the articles under the supervision of Holly Shulman, the editor of the Dolley Madison Digital Edition. They said they believed this might be the reason Mr. Jennings dared to challenge publicly Mrs. Madison’s claim that she saved Washington’s portrait during the War of 1812, a charge that threatened to tarnish her image...
The New York Times' article relies on the first-hand account of Paul Jennings. I think reviewing his direct statements about Dolley Madison, might be helpful in understanding just what his real opinion of the president's wife was, at least in 1865, when he dictated his memoir.
Dolley Madison c 1817, painted by Rembrandt Peale.
A COLORED MAN'S REMINISCENCES OF JAMES MADISON. By Paul Jennings. Published in Brooklyn by George C. Beadle. 1865.
The preface of the book relates, Among the laborers at the Department of the Interior is an intelligent colored man, Paul Jennings, who was born a slave on President Madison's estate, in Montpelier, Va., in 1799. His reputed father was Benj. Jennings, an English trader there; his mother, a slave of Mr. Madison, and the grand-daughter of an Indian. Paul was a "body servant" of Mr. Madison, till his death, and afterwards of Daniel Webster, having purchased his freedom of Mrs. Madison. His character for sobriety, truth, and fidelity, is unquestioned; and as he was a daily witness of interesting events, I have thought some of his recollections were worth writing down in almost his own language.
The memoir begins, When Mr. Madison was chosen President, we came on and moved into the White House; the east room was not finished, and Pennsylvania Avenue was not paved, but was always in an awful condition from either mud or dust. The city was a dreary place...
Before the war of 1812 was declared, there were frequent consultations at the White House as to the expediency of doing it...
After the war had been going on for a couple of years, the people of Washington began to be alarmed for the safety of the city, as the British held Chesapeake Bay with a powerful fleet and army. Every thing seemed to be left to General Armstrong, then Secretary of war, who ridiculed the idea that there was any danger. But, in August, 1814, the enemy had got so near, there could be no doubt of their intentions. Great alarm existed, and some feeble preparations for defence were made...
Well, on the 24th of August, sure enough, the British reached Bladensburg, and the fight began between 11 and 12. Even that very morning General Armstrong assured Mrs. Madison there was no danger. The President, with General Armstrong, General Winder, Colonel Monroe, Richard Rush, Mr. Graham, Tench Ringgold, and Mr. Duvall, rode out on horseback to Bladensburg to see how things looked.
Mrs. Madison ordered dinner to be ready at 3, as usual; I set the table myself, and brought up the ale, cider, and wine, and placed them in the coolers, as all the Cabinet and several military gentlemen and strangers were expected.
While waiting, at just about 3, as Sukey, the house-servant, was lolling out of a chamber window, James Smith, a free colored man who had accompanied Mr. Madison to Bladensburg, gallopped up to the house, waving his hat, and cried out, "Clear out, clear out! General Armstrong has ordered a retreat!"
All then was confusion. Mrs. Madison ordered her carriage, and passing through the dining-room, caught up what silver she could crowd into her old-fashioned reticule, and then jumped into the chariot with her servant girl Sukey, and Daniel Carroll, who took charge of them; Jo. Bolin drove them over to Georgetown Heights; the British were expected in a few minutes.
Mr. Cutts, her brother-in-law, sent me to a stable on 14th street, for his carriage. People were running in every direction. John Freeman (the colored butler) drove off in the coachee with his wife, child, and servant; also a feather bed lashed on behind the coachee, which was all the furniture saved, except part of the silver and the portrait of Washington (of which I will tell you by-and-by).
I will here mention that although the British were expected every minute, they did not arrive for some hours; in the mean time, a rabble, taking advantage of the confusion, ran all over the White House, and stole lots of silver and whatever they could lay their hands on.
About sundown I walked over to the Georgetown ferry, and found the President and all hands (the gentlemen named before, who acted as a sort of body-guard for him) waiting for the boat. It soon returned, and we all crossed over, and passed up the road about a mile...I walked on to a Methodist minister's, and in the evening, while he was at prayer, I heard a tremendous explosion, and, rushing out, saw that the public buildings, navy yard, ropewalks, &c., were on fire.
1814 White House on Fire. William Strickland, engraver. Library of Congress.
Mrs. Madison slept that night at Mrs. Love's, two or three miles over the river. After leaving that place she called in at a house, and went up stairs. The lady of the house learning who she was, became furious, and went to the stairs and screamed out, "Miss Madison! if that's you, come down and go out! Your husband has got mine out fighting, and d--you, you shan't stay in my house; so get out!"
Mrs. Madison complied, and went to Mrs. Minor's, a few miles further, where she stayed a day or two, and then returned to Washington, where she found Mr. Madison at her brother-in-law's, Richard Cutts, on F street. All the facts about Mrs. M. I learned from her servant Sukey. We moved into the house of Colonel John B. Taylor, corner of 18th street and New York Avenue, where we lived till the news of peace arrived...
It has often been stated in print, that when Mrs. Madison escaped from the White House, she cut out from the frame the large portrait of Washington (now in one of the parlors there), and carried it off. This is totally false. She had no time for doing it. It would have required a ladder to get it down. All she carried off was the silver in her reticule, as the British were thought to be but a few squares off, and were expected every moment.
John Susé (a Frenchman, then door-keeper, and still living) and Magraw, the President's gardener, took it down and sent it off on a wagon, with some large silver urns and such other valuables as could be hastily got hold of. When the British did arrive, they ate up the very dinner, and drank the wines, &c., that I had prepared for the President's party.
When the news of peace arrived, we were crazy with joy. Miss Sally Coles, a cousin of Mrs. Madison, and afterwards wife of Andrew Stevenson, since minister to England, came to the head of the stairs, crying out, "Peace! peace!" ...
1814 A view of the president's house in the city of Washington after the conflagration of the 24th of August 1814. Library of Congress.
Mrs. Madison was a remarkably fine woman. She was beloved by every body in Washington, white and colored. Whenever soldiers marched by, during the war, she always sent out and invited them in to take wine and refreshments, giving them liberally of the best in the house. Madeira wine was better in those days than now, and more freely drank.
Montpelier, Virginia home of James and Dolley Madison, painted by Baroness Hyde Neuville (1750-1849). Musse De Blerancourt, France.
In the last days of her life, before Congress purchased her husband's papers, she was in a state of absolute poverty, and I think sometimes suffered for the necessaries of life. While I was a servant to Mr. Webster, he often sent me to her with a market-basket full of provisions, and told me whenever I saw anything in the house that I thought she was in need of, to take it to her. I often did this, and occasionally gave her small sums from my own pocket, though I had years before bought my freedom of her.
1840s Daguerreotype of Dolley Madison.
Paul Jennings actually purchased his freedom from Daniel Webster by paying off his purchase cost in monthly payments of $8. Webster acquired Jennings from Pollard Webb who in turn bought him from Dolley Madison in 1846, ten years after James Madison's death.
On the 10th of January, 1865, books, coins and autographs belonging to Edward M. Thomas, an African American, for many years Messenger to the House of Representatives, were sold at auction. Among other lots, an autograph of Daniel Webster, containing these words: "I have paid $120 for the freedom of Paul Jennings; he agrees to work out the same at $8 per month, to be furnished with board, clothes, washing."
Photograph of Paul Jennings owned by the Montpelier Foundation.
After paying off his contract with Webster, Jennings became a free man and began working at the Department of the Interior. In 1865, Jennings published, Colored Man’s Reminiscences of James Madison, the first memoir about the White House by one who had lived there. The publication remained obscure for many years, but today it is generally acknowledged as extremely important. It provides details about the city of Washington during the War of 1812 and gives an intimate look at the president's wife at that time and in her later life.
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Portrait of Dolley Madison by John Frances Eugene Prud'homme (1800-1892). Special Collections Department, University of Virginia Library.
Dolly Madison's Account of the British Burning of the White House from an Unfinished & Unsent Letter (which Dolley said she wrote to her sister on the day of the attack.)
Tuesday Augt. 23d. 1814.
Dear Sister
My husband left me yesterday morng. to join Gen. Winder. He enquired anxiously whether I had courage, or firmness to remain in the President's house until his return, on the morrow, or succeeding day, and on my assurance that I had no fear but for him and the success of our army, he left me, beseeching me to take care of myself, and of the cabinet papers, public and private. I have since recd. two despatches from him, written with a pencil; the last is alarming, because he desires I should be ready at a moment's warning to enter my carriage and leave the city; that the enemy seemed stronger than had been reported, and that it might happen that they would reach the city, with intention to destroy it. . . . . I am accordingly ready; I have pressed as many cabinet papers into trunks as to fill one carriage; our private property must be sacrificed, as it is impossible to procure wagons for its transportation. I am determined not to go myself until I see Mr Madison safe, and he can accompany me, as I hear of much hostility towards him, . . . . disaffection stalks around us. . . . My friends and acquaintances are all gone; Even Col. C with his hundred men, who were stationed as a guard in the enclosure . . . . French John (a faithful domestic,) with his usual activity and resolution, offers to spike the cannon at the gate, and to lay a train of powder which would blow up the British, should they enter the house. To the last proposition I positively object, without being able, however, to make him understand why all advantages in war may not be taken.
Wednesday morng., twelve o'clock. Since sunrise I have been turning my spyglass in every direction and watching with unwearied anxiety, hoping to discern the approach of my dear husband and his friends, but, alas, I can descry only groups of military wandering in all directions, as if there was a lack of arms, or of spirit to fight for their own firesides!
Three O'clock. Will you believe it, my Sister? We have had a battle or skirmish near Bladensburg, and I am still here within sound of the cannon! Mr. Madison comes not; may God protect him! Two messengers covered with dust, come to bid me fly; but I wait for him. . . . At this late hour a wagon has been procured, I have had it filled with the plate and most valuable portable articles belonging to the house; whether it will reach its destination; the Bank of Maryland, or fall into the hands of British soldiery, events must determine.
Our kind friend, Mr. Carroll, has come to hasten my departure, and is in a very bad humor with me because I insist on waiting until the large picture of Gen. Washington is secured, and it requires to be unscrewed from the wall. This process was found too tedious for these perilous moments; I have ordered the frame to be broken, and the canvass taken out it is done, and the precious portrait placed in the hands of two gentlemen of New York, for safe keeping. And now, dear sister, I must leave this house, or the retreating army will make me a prisoner in it, by filling up the road I am directed to take. When I shall again write you, or where I shall be tomorrow, I cannot tell!!
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William Elwell painted Dolley Madison's portrait in February 1848. National Portrait Gallery.
Because Dolley Madison was a product of the 18th century, who lived nearly half of the 19th century, I am posting this entry in both blogs. And I will leave the reader to search further for Mrs. Madison's attitudes toward her slaves, especially Paul Jennings, and to solve the puzzle of just who saved George Washington's White House portrait.
1848 Photograph of Dolley Madison & Her Niece Anna Payne.
Much more information is available at the Dolley Madison Project of the University of Virginia.
Dolley Madison's correspondence is now available at The Dolley Madison Digital Edition also sponsored by the University of Virginia.
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Engraving of Dolley Payne Madison. 1812. Attributed to William Chappell. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress.Dolley Madison (1768-1849), a North Carolina Quaker born in Guilford County, was the wife of President James Madison. She rejected the somber traditional garb of her religion in favor of high fashion & according to this article from The New York Times, apparently she rejected Quaker ideas about slavery as well.
Dolly Madison, painted by Gilbert Stuart. White House Collection.The New York Times
Madison and the White House, Through the Memoir of a Slave
By Rachel L. Swarns Published: August 15, 2009
Washington — In 1809, a young boy from a wealthy Virginia estate stepped into President James Madison’s White House and caught the first glimpse of his new home. The East Room was unfinished, he recalled years later in a memoir. Pennsylvania Avenue was unpaved and “always in an awful condition from either mud or dust,” he recounted.
Mr. Jennings was a slave in the White House and became the first person to put his recollections of it into a memoir. “The city was a dreary place,” he continued.
His name was Paul Jennings, and he was an unlikely chronicler of the Madison presidency. When he first walked into the Executive Mansion, he was a 10-year-old slave.
But over the course of his long life, Mr. Jennings witnessed, and perhaps participated in, the rescue of George Washington’s portrait from the White House during the War of 1812 and stood by the former president’s side at his deathbed. He bought his freedom, helped to organize a daring (and unsuccessful) slave escape and became the first person to put his White House recollections into a memoir.
Next week, Mr. Jennings’s story will take center stage when dozens of his descendants gather for a reunion in the White House. Historians say it will be a remarkable moment in the history of the mansion, which was built with slave labor and now houses President Obama, the first black person to hold the office, and his family.
Historians say the visit will highlight the intimate, day-to-day role that enslaved men and women played in the White House, a community that is little known and whose members have long languished in obscurity.
“It really is a story that isn’t well told yet,” said Lonnie G. Bunch, director of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. “It lets people realize just how big a shadow slavery cast on America.”
The White House curator, William G. Allman, said few historical records existed about the black people who lived and worked in the building during its earliest years. Slaves were barred from learning to read and write, and their owners often considered their stories inconsequential.
So the relatively detailed accounting of Mr. Jennings’s life is notable, particularly because he was so closely linked to President Madison and to the portrait of George Washington, which is considered the White House’s most valuable historical object. The portrait, painted by Gilbert Stuart, is the only item currently on display that was also present when the White House opened in 1800. The Jennings family will view the painting during their White House reunion on Aug. 24. The Obamas are expected to be away on vacation that day.
“I don’t think we’ve ever had a family group like this visit before,” Mr. Allman said. “It’s just one of those stories that’s never going to be front and center because the records are very scanty.”
New details about Mr. Jennings’s life and his family have emerged through the research of Beth Taylor, a research associate at Montpelier, the Madison plantation in Virginia. Over the past two years, Ms. Taylor has pored over court records and tracked down and interviewed his descendants, discovering historical documents and the only known photograph of Mr. Jennings.
She also found a rare edition of Mr. Jennings’s recollections, which were released in 1865 under the title “A Colored Man’s Reminiscences of James Madison.” (A white acquaintance of Mr. Jennings collected his reminiscences and got them published.)
In the 19-page memoir, Mr. Jennings, who served as a footman and later a valet to President Madison, recalled the chaotic escape from the White House hours before the British burned the building in 1814.
He described President Madison as a frugal and temperate man who owned only one suit, socialized with Thomas Jefferson and was so careful with his liquor that he probably never “drank a quart of brandy in his whole life.”
Mr. Jennings said he often served and shaved the president and recalled that his master was kind to his slaves. He was 48 when he finally bought his freedom, years after Madison’s death in 1836.
As a free man, Mr. Jennings worked in the government’s pension office, bought property and even helped support the former first lady Dolley Madison with “small sums from my own pocket” when she fell on hard times.
Mr. Jennings, who died in 1874 at age 75, did not discuss his personal difficulties in his memoir, but Ms. Taylor and others say he encountered many hardships. As a slave, he was forced to live apart from his wife and children, who lived on another plantation. And he seems to have chafed under Mrs. Madison’s ownership after her husband died.
Articles in abolitionist newspapers uncovered by researchers at the University of Virginia’s Dolley Madison Digital Edition, an online collection of Mrs. Madison’s correspondence, reported that she treated her slaves poorly. In March 1848, the Liberator newspaper published a letter charging that Mrs. Madison had hired out Mr. Jennings to others and then kept “the last red cent” of his pay, “leaving him to get his clothes by presents, night work, or as he might.”
The letter also said Mrs. Madison had refused to free Mr. Jennings, as her husband had wished. Instead, she sold him to an insurance agent, who in turn sold him to Senator Daniel Webster for $120. (He promptly set Mr. Jennings free and let him work off the debt as a servant in his household.)
Julie Doxsey found the articles under the supervision of Holly Shulman, the editor of the Dolley Madison Digital Edition. They said they believed this might be the reason Mr. Jennings dared to challenge publicly Mrs. Madison’s claim that she saved Washington’s portrait during the War of 1812, a charge that threatened to tarnish her image...
The New York Times' article relies on the first-hand account of Paul Jennings. I think reviewing his direct statements about Dolley Madison, might be helpful in understanding just what his real opinion of the president's wife was, at least in 1865, when he dictated his memoir.
Dolley Madison c 1817, painted by Rembrandt Peale.A COLORED MAN'S REMINISCENCES OF JAMES MADISON. By Paul Jennings. Published in Brooklyn by George C. Beadle. 1865.
The preface of the book relates, Among the laborers at the Department of the Interior is an intelligent colored man, Paul Jennings, who was born a slave on President Madison's estate, in Montpelier, Va., in 1799. His reputed father was Benj. Jennings, an English trader there; his mother, a slave of Mr. Madison, and the grand-daughter of an Indian. Paul was a "body servant" of Mr. Madison, till his death, and afterwards of Daniel Webster, having purchased his freedom of Mrs. Madison. His character for sobriety, truth, and fidelity, is unquestioned; and as he was a daily witness of interesting events, I have thought some of his recollections were worth writing down in almost his own language.
The memoir begins, When Mr. Madison was chosen President, we came on and moved into the White House; the east room was not finished, and Pennsylvania Avenue was not paved, but was always in an awful condition from either mud or dust. The city was a dreary place...
Before the war of 1812 was declared, there were frequent consultations at the White House as to the expediency of doing it...
After the war had been going on for a couple of years, the people of Washington began to be alarmed for the safety of the city, as the British held Chesapeake Bay with a powerful fleet and army. Every thing seemed to be left to General Armstrong, then Secretary of war, who ridiculed the idea that there was any danger. But, in August, 1814, the enemy had got so near, there could be no doubt of their intentions. Great alarm existed, and some feeble preparations for defence were made...
Well, on the 24th of August, sure enough, the British reached Bladensburg, and the fight began between 11 and 12. Even that very morning General Armstrong assured Mrs. Madison there was no danger. The President, with General Armstrong, General Winder, Colonel Monroe, Richard Rush, Mr. Graham, Tench Ringgold, and Mr. Duvall, rode out on horseback to Bladensburg to see how things looked.
Mrs. Madison ordered dinner to be ready at 3, as usual; I set the table myself, and brought up the ale, cider, and wine, and placed them in the coolers, as all the Cabinet and several military gentlemen and strangers were expected.
While waiting, at just about 3, as Sukey, the house-servant, was lolling out of a chamber window, James Smith, a free colored man who had accompanied Mr. Madison to Bladensburg, gallopped up to the house, waving his hat, and cried out, "Clear out, clear out! General Armstrong has ordered a retreat!"
All then was confusion. Mrs. Madison ordered her carriage, and passing through the dining-room, caught up what silver she could crowd into her old-fashioned reticule, and then jumped into the chariot with her servant girl Sukey, and Daniel Carroll, who took charge of them; Jo. Bolin drove them over to Georgetown Heights; the British were expected in a few minutes.
Mr. Cutts, her brother-in-law, sent me to a stable on 14th street, for his carriage. People were running in every direction. John Freeman (the colored butler) drove off in the coachee with his wife, child, and servant; also a feather bed lashed on behind the coachee, which was all the furniture saved, except part of the silver and the portrait of Washington (of which I will tell you by-and-by).
I will here mention that although the British were expected every minute, they did not arrive for some hours; in the mean time, a rabble, taking advantage of the confusion, ran all over the White House, and stole lots of silver and whatever they could lay their hands on.
About sundown I walked over to the Georgetown ferry, and found the President and all hands (the gentlemen named before, who acted as a sort of body-guard for him) waiting for the boat. It soon returned, and we all crossed over, and passed up the road about a mile...I walked on to a Methodist minister's, and in the evening, while he was at prayer, I heard a tremendous explosion, and, rushing out, saw that the public buildings, navy yard, ropewalks, &c., were on fire.
1814 White House on Fire. William Strickland, engraver. Library of Congress.Mrs. Madison slept that night at Mrs. Love's, two or three miles over the river. After leaving that place she called in at a house, and went up stairs. The lady of the house learning who she was, became furious, and went to the stairs and screamed out, "Miss Madison! if that's you, come down and go out! Your husband has got mine out fighting, and d--you, you shan't stay in my house; so get out!"
Mrs. Madison complied, and went to Mrs. Minor's, a few miles further, where she stayed a day or two, and then returned to Washington, where she found Mr. Madison at her brother-in-law's, Richard Cutts, on F street. All the facts about Mrs. M. I learned from her servant Sukey. We moved into the house of Colonel John B. Taylor, corner of 18th street and New York Avenue, where we lived till the news of peace arrived...
It has often been stated in print, that when Mrs. Madison escaped from the White House, she cut out from the frame the large portrait of Washington (now in one of the parlors there), and carried it off. This is totally false. She had no time for doing it. It would have required a ladder to get it down. All she carried off was the silver in her reticule, as the British were thought to be but a few squares off, and were expected every moment.
John Susé (a Frenchman, then door-keeper, and still living) and Magraw, the President's gardener, took it down and sent it off on a wagon, with some large silver urns and such other valuables as could be hastily got hold of. When the British did arrive, they ate up the very dinner, and drank the wines, &c., that I had prepared for the President's party.
When the news of peace arrived, we were crazy with joy. Miss Sally Coles, a cousin of Mrs. Madison, and afterwards wife of Andrew Stevenson, since minister to England, came to the head of the stairs, crying out, "Peace! peace!" ...
1814 A view of the president's house in the city of Washington after the conflagration of the 24th of August 1814. Library of Congress.Mrs. Madison was a remarkably fine woman. She was beloved by every body in Washington, white and colored. Whenever soldiers marched by, during the war, she always sent out and invited them in to take wine and refreshments, giving them liberally of the best in the house. Madeira wine was better in those days than now, and more freely drank.
Montpelier, Virginia home of James and Dolley Madison, painted by Baroness Hyde Neuville (1750-1849). Musse De Blerancourt, France.In the last days of her life, before Congress purchased her husband's papers, she was in a state of absolute poverty, and I think sometimes suffered for the necessaries of life. While I was a servant to Mr. Webster, he often sent me to her with a market-basket full of provisions, and told me whenever I saw anything in the house that I thought she was in need of, to take it to her. I often did this, and occasionally gave her small sums from my own pocket, though I had years before bought my freedom of her.
1840s Daguerreotype of Dolley Madison.Paul Jennings actually purchased his freedom from Daniel Webster by paying off his purchase cost in monthly payments of $8. Webster acquired Jennings from Pollard Webb who in turn bought him from Dolley Madison in 1846, ten years after James Madison's death.
On the 10th of January, 1865, books, coins and autographs belonging to Edward M. Thomas, an African American, for many years Messenger to the House of Representatives, were sold at auction. Among other lots, an autograph of Daniel Webster, containing these words: "I have paid $120 for the freedom of Paul Jennings; he agrees to work out the same at $8 per month, to be furnished with board, clothes, washing."
Photograph of Paul Jennings owned by the Montpelier Foundation.After paying off his contract with Webster, Jennings became a free man and began working at the Department of the Interior. In 1865, Jennings published, Colored Man’s Reminiscences of James Madison, the first memoir about the White House by one who had lived there. The publication remained obscure for many years, but today it is generally acknowledged as extremely important. It provides details about the city of Washington during the War of 1812 and gives an intimate look at the president's wife at that time and in her later life.
.+Special+Collections+Department,+University+of+Virginia+Library..jpg)
Portrait of Dolley Madison by John Frances Eugene Prud'homme (1800-1892). Special Collections Department, University of Virginia Library.Dolly Madison's Account of the British Burning of the White House from an Unfinished & Unsent Letter (which Dolley said she wrote to her sister on the day of the attack.)
Tuesday Augt. 23d. 1814.
Dear Sister
My husband left me yesterday morng. to join Gen. Winder. He enquired anxiously whether I had courage, or firmness to remain in the President's house until his return, on the morrow, or succeeding day, and on my assurance that I had no fear but for him and the success of our army, he left me, beseeching me to take care of myself, and of the cabinet papers, public and private. I have since recd. two despatches from him, written with a pencil; the last is alarming, because he desires I should be ready at a moment's warning to enter my carriage and leave the city; that the enemy seemed stronger than had been reported, and that it might happen that they would reach the city, with intention to destroy it. . . . . I am accordingly ready; I have pressed as many cabinet papers into trunks as to fill one carriage; our private property must be sacrificed, as it is impossible to procure wagons for its transportation. I am determined not to go myself until I see Mr Madison safe, and he can accompany me, as I hear of much hostility towards him, . . . . disaffection stalks around us. . . . My friends and acquaintances are all gone; Even Col. C with his hundred men, who were stationed as a guard in the enclosure . . . . French John (a faithful domestic,) with his usual activity and resolution, offers to spike the cannon at the gate, and to lay a train of powder which would blow up the British, should they enter the house. To the last proposition I positively object, without being able, however, to make him understand why all advantages in war may not be taken.
Wednesday morng., twelve o'clock. Since sunrise I have been turning my spyglass in every direction and watching with unwearied anxiety, hoping to discern the approach of my dear husband and his friends, but, alas, I can descry only groups of military wandering in all directions, as if there was a lack of arms, or of spirit to fight for their own firesides!
Three O'clock. Will you believe it, my Sister? We have had a battle or skirmish near Bladensburg, and I am still here within sound of the cannon! Mr. Madison comes not; may God protect him! Two messengers covered with dust, come to bid me fly; but I wait for him. . . . At this late hour a wagon has been procured, I have had it filled with the plate and most valuable portable articles belonging to the house; whether it will reach its destination; the Bank of Maryland, or fall into the hands of British soldiery, events must determine.
Our kind friend, Mr. Carroll, has come to hasten my departure, and is in a very bad humor with me because I insist on waiting until the large picture of Gen. Washington is secured, and it requires to be unscrewed from the wall. This process was found too tedious for these perilous moments; I have ordered the frame to be broken, and the canvass taken out it is done, and the precious portrait placed in the hands of two gentlemen of New York, for safe keeping. And now, dear sister, I must leave this house, or the retreating army will make me a prisoner in it, by filling up the road I am directed to take. When I shall again write you, or where I shall be tomorrow, I cannot tell!!
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William Elwell painted Dolley Madison's portrait in February 1848. National Portrait Gallery.Because Dolley Madison was a product of the 18th century, who lived nearly half of the 19th century, I am posting this entry in both blogs. And I will leave the reader to search further for Mrs. Madison's attitudes toward her slaves, especially Paul Jennings, and to solve the puzzle of just who saved George Washington's White House portrait.
1848 Photograph of Dolley Madison & Her Niece Anna Payne.Much more information is available at the Dolley Madison Project of the University of Virginia.
Dolley Madison's correspondence is now available at The Dolley Madison Digital Edition also sponsored by the University of Virginia.
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Selasa, 22 September 2009
CH Manorley Maori
Information about CH Manorley Maori, DOB: 4/25/1902, can be found in The Whippet Archives.
Senin, 14 September 2009
Women, Tea Parties, & Revolution
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This past weekend, we had tax "Tea Parties" on the mall in Washington, D. C. Lots of men & women marching & carrying placards to announce their opinions. There were miles of traffic jams, as we drove past the capital returning from Virginia to Maryland.
Of course, these tea parties were based on the December 1773 protest, when angry gentlemen of Boston, some costumed as Native Americans, destroyed property of the East India Tea Company on ships in the Boston harbor in protest of British taxation & trade policies.
W.D. Cooper. Boston Tea Party., The History of North America. London E. Newberry, 1789.
The livid English Parliament quickly passed a set of laws to punish the upstart colonials in Massachusetts, closing the Boston port & limiting all British American colonial rights to self-government. Many American colonists up & down the Atlantic called these the “Intolerable Acts” — the final proof that Great Britain intended to destroy their liberty.
After the Boston tea party, gentlemen began meeting in local groups throughout the colonies to lend their support to the rising talk of revolution. (Men were meeting, of course, because women did not vote or hold office in the Britain or her colonies.)
In July 1774, gentlemen of the Cape Fear region, led by transplanted Boston attorney William Hooper (1742-1790), met at Wilmington, North Carolina, calling for a provincial congress & for a congress of all the colonies to respond to Britain. One of the resolutions passed at this meeting stated, "That we will not use nor suffer East India Tea to be used in our Families after the tenth day of September next, and that we will consider all persons in this province not complying with this resolve to be enemies to their Country."
The Edenton Tea Party first became known throughout colonial British America from a London newspaper article reporting the event, which appeared in the Morning Chronicle and London Advertiser in January of 1775.
The newspaper reported that in North Carolina on October 25, 1774, 51 prominent women from the Edenton area gathered at the home of Elizabeth King, with Penelope Barker (1728-1796) presiding, to sign a petition supporting the American cause. It was extremely rare, if not unheard of, for British women, especially colonial women, who had no legal powers, to petition for political change.
At the meeting, Barker reportedly said, “Maybe it has only been men who have protested the king up to now. That only means we women have taken too long to let our voices be heard. We are signing our names to a document, not hiding ourselves behind costumes like the men in Boston did at their tea party. The British will know who we are.”
The Edenton petition doesn’t actually mention tea, but it supports the July Wilmington “resolves” against importing British products such as clothing & tea. Many angry colonists participated in the resistance to Britain through nonimportation, simply refusing to buy goods imported from Britain. Colonials did not have to pay taxes on goods they did not purchase, and the loss of income might persuade British merchants & shippers to support the colonial cause.
The text of the petition by the women gathered in Edenton, North Carolina, on October 25, 1774, reads:
As we cannot be indifferent on any occasion that appears nearly to affect the peace and happiness of our country,
and as it has been thought necessary, for the public good, to enter into several political resolves by a meeting of Members deputed from the whole Province,
it is a duty which we owe, not only to our near and dear connections who have concurred in them, but to ourselves who are essentially interested in their welfare, to do every thing as far as lies in our power to testify our sincere adherence to the same;
and we do therefore accordingly subscribe this paper, as a witness of our fixed intention and solemn determination to do so.
Abagail Charlton, Mary Blount, F. Johnstone, Elizabeth Creacy, Margaret Cathcart, Elizabeth Patterson, Anne Johnstone, Jane Wellwood, Margaret Pearson, Mary Woolard, Penelope Dawson, Sarah Beasley, Jean Blair, Susannah Vail, Grace Clayton, Elizabeth Vail, Frances Hall, Elizabeth Vail, Mary Jones, Mary Creacy, Anne Hall, Mary Creacy, Rebecca Bondfield, Ruth Benbury, Sarah Littlejohn, Sarah Howcott, Penelope Barker, Sarah Hoskins, Elizabeth P. Ormond, Mary Littledle, M. Payne, Sarah Valentine, Elizabeth Johnston, Elizabeth Cricket, Mary Bonner, Elizabeth Green, Lydia Bonner, Mary Ramsay, Sarah Howe, Anne Horniblow, Lydia Bennet, Mary Hunter, Marion Wells, Tresia Cunningham, Anne Anderson, Elizabeth Roberts, Sarah Mathews, Elizabeth Roberts, Anne Haughton, Elizabeth Roberts, Elizabeth Beasly.
From England, in January 1775, 16 year-old Arthur Iredell wrote to his older brother who was a judge based in Edenton, James Iredell (1751-1799), describing the British reaction to the Edenton Tea Party. According to Arthur Iredell, the incident was not taken seriously in England, because it was led by women.
Philip Dawes, A Society of Patriotic Ladies at Edenton in North Carolina. Published in London in 1775.
British journalists & cartoonists depicted the women in a negative light, as bad mothers & loose women. In a satirical cartoon published in London in March of 1775, the North Carolina ladies were drawn as female versions of the much maligned macaroni characters of the period.
Arthur Iredell sarcastically wrote to his brother James, who would later become one of the first associates of the United States Supreme Court, back in North Carolina,
I see by the newspapers the Edenton ladies have signalized themselves by their protest against tea-drinking. The name of Johnston [the maiden name of Mrs. James Iredell] I see among others; are any of my sisters relations patriotic heroines?
Is there a female congress at Edenton, too? I hope not, for we Englishmen are afraid of the male congress, but if the ladies, who have ever since the Amazonian era been esteemed the most formidable enemies: if they, I say, should attack us, the most fatal consequence is to be dreaded.
So dextrous in the handling of a dart, each wound they give is mortal: whilst we, so unhappily formed by nature, the more we strive to conquer them, the more we are conquered.
The Edenton ladies, conscious, I suppose, of this superiority on their side, by a former experience, are willing, I imagine, to crush us into atoms by their omnipotency: the only security on our side to prevent the impending ruin, that I can perceive, is the probability that there are but few places in America which possess so much female artillery as Edenton.
Perhaps because of her husband James Iredell's official position, Hannah Johnston Iredell refrained from signing resolutions supporting the First North Carolina Provincial Congress, which voted to boycott certain British products. However, Hannah's sisters & her sisters-in-law signed the petition.
Not about to be outdone by their neighbors & not at all deterred by the sarcastic English press, the patriotic ladies of Wilmington, North Carolina, held their own “party” in the spring of 1775, actually burning their tea.
Janet Schaw, a visitor from Scotland who had no sympathy for the colonial rebellion, reported the event in her journals, noting that not everyone in Wilmington approved of the protest:
The Ladies have burnt their tea in a solemn procession, but they had delayed however till the sacrifice was not very considerable, as I do not think any one offered above a quarter of a pound. The people in town live decently, and tho’ their houses are not spacious, they are in general very commodious and well furnished.
All the Merchants of any note are British and Irish,and many of them very genteel people. They all disapprove of the present proceedings. Many of them intend quitting the country as fast as their affairs will permit them, but are yet uncertain what steps to take.
But the women patriots had just begun to fight. Purdie's Virginia Gazette reported on May 3, 1775, that women were giving their jewelery to support the Continental Congress like “Roman Females” before them and will “fearless take the field against the ememy” for their glorious cause if their services are needed.
Women began to write letters about the revolutionary cause to their local newspapers. One anonymous women wrote a letter urging her fellow women to sacrifice for the war in Dixon's Virginia Gazette of January 13, 1776. Anne Terrel of Bedford County, Virginia also wrote in the same newspaper to support of the Revolutionary War on September 21, 1776.
During the Revolution more than 20,000 women became army camp followers--cooking, laundering, mending, and acting as nurses for the soldiers. Camp followers received half the food ration, when there was food at all, and minimal compensation. When the British occupied a town, they sometimes brutalized colonial women & their children. Hundreds of women took up arms to serve as soldiers & others served as spies for the colonial army.
Even those women left at home to raise the family & manage the business or the farm helped as they could. One woman passing an evacuated house in Woodbridge, New Jersey, looked in the window & saw a drunken Hessian soldier. She went home, got an old firelock, returned to take the Hessian’s firearms & then walked him about a mile to the patrol guard of the New Jersey regiment to delivered her prisoner. The incident was reported in Dixon's Virginia Gazette on April 18, 1777.
As the war progressed, women began collecting & contributing funds to equip local troops, where their kinfolk & neighbors were serving. The light horsemen of General Nelson of the Virginia Cavalry received just such donations according to Purdie's Virginia Gazette of June 12, 1778.
After the successful war, most male landowners could vote in the new republic. Women were granted the right to vote in the United States of America in 1920.
.
This past weekend, we had tax "Tea Parties" on the mall in Washington, D. C. Lots of men & women marching & carrying placards to announce their opinions. There were miles of traffic jams, as we drove past the capital returning from Virginia to Maryland.
Of course, these tea parties were based on the December 1773 protest, when angry gentlemen of Boston, some costumed as Native Americans, destroyed property of the East India Tea Company on ships in the Boston harbor in protest of British taxation & trade policies.
W.D. Cooper. Boston Tea Party., The History of North America. London E. Newberry, 1789.The livid English Parliament quickly passed a set of laws to punish the upstart colonials in Massachusetts, closing the Boston port & limiting all British American colonial rights to self-government. Many American colonists up & down the Atlantic called these the “Intolerable Acts” — the final proof that Great Britain intended to destroy their liberty.
After the Boston tea party, gentlemen began meeting in local groups throughout the colonies to lend their support to the rising talk of revolution. (Men were meeting, of course, because women did not vote or hold office in the Britain or her colonies.)
In July 1774, gentlemen of the Cape Fear region, led by transplanted Boston attorney William Hooper (1742-1790), met at Wilmington, North Carolina, calling for a provincial congress & for a congress of all the colonies to respond to Britain. One of the resolutions passed at this meeting stated, "That we will not use nor suffer East India Tea to be used in our Families after the tenth day of September next, and that we will consider all persons in this province not complying with this resolve to be enemies to their Country."
The Edenton Tea Party first became known throughout colonial British America from a London newspaper article reporting the event, which appeared in the Morning Chronicle and London Advertiser in January of 1775.
The newspaper reported that in North Carolina on October 25, 1774, 51 prominent women from the Edenton area gathered at the home of Elizabeth King, with Penelope Barker (1728-1796) presiding, to sign a petition supporting the American cause. It was extremely rare, if not unheard of, for British women, especially colonial women, who had no legal powers, to petition for political change.
At the meeting, Barker reportedly said, “Maybe it has only been men who have protested the king up to now. That only means we women have taken too long to let our voices be heard. We are signing our names to a document, not hiding ourselves behind costumes like the men in Boston did at their tea party. The British will know who we are.”
The Edenton petition doesn’t actually mention tea, but it supports the July Wilmington “resolves” against importing British products such as clothing & tea. Many angry colonists participated in the resistance to Britain through nonimportation, simply refusing to buy goods imported from Britain. Colonials did not have to pay taxes on goods they did not purchase, and the loss of income might persuade British merchants & shippers to support the colonial cause.
The text of the petition by the women gathered in Edenton, North Carolina, on October 25, 1774, reads:
As we cannot be indifferent on any occasion that appears nearly to affect the peace and happiness of our country,
and as it has been thought necessary, for the public good, to enter into several political resolves by a meeting of Members deputed from the whole Province,
it is a duty which we owe, not only to our near and dear connections who have concurred in them, but to ourselves who are essentially interested in their welfare, to do every thing as far as lies in our power to testify our sincere adherence to the same;
and we do therefore accordingly subscribe this paper, as a witness of our fixed intention and solemn determination to do so.
Abagail Charlton, Mary Blount, F. Johnstone, Elizabeth Creacy, Margaret Cathcart, Elizabeth Patterson, Anne Johnstone, Jane Wellwood, Margaret Pearson, Mary Woolard, Penelope Dawson, Sarah Beasley, Jean Blair, Susannah Vail, Grace Clayton, Elizabeth Vail, Frances Hall, Elizabeth Vail, Mary Jones, Mary Creacy, Anne Hall, Mary Creacy, Rebecca Bondfield, Ruth Benbury, Sarah Littlejohn, Sarah Howcott, Penelope Barker, Sarah Hoskins, Elizabeth P. Ormond, Mary Littledle, M. Payne, Sarah Valentine, Elizabeth Johnston, Elizabeth Cricket, Mary Bonner, Elizabeth Green, Lydia Bonner, Mary Ramsay, Sarah Howe, Anne Horniblow, Lydia Bennet, Mary Hunter, Marion Wells, Tresia Cunningham, Anne Anderson, Elizabeth Roberts, Sarah Mathews, Elizabeth Roberts, Anne Haughton, Elizabeth Roberts, Elizabeth Beasly.
From England, in January 1775, 16 year-old Arthur Iredell wrote to his older brother who was a judge based in Edenton, James Iredell (1751-1799), describing the British reaction to the Edenton Tea Party. According to Arthur Iredell, the incident was not taken seriously in England, because it was led by women.
Philip Dawes, A Society of Patriotic Ladies at Edenton in North Carolina. Published in London in 1775.British journalists & cartoonists depicted the women in a negative light, as bad mothers & loose women. In a satirical cartoon published in London in March of 1775, the North Carolina ladies were drawn as female versions of the much maligned macaroni characters of the period.
Arthur Iredell sarcastically wrote to his brother James, who would later become one of the first associates of the United States Supreme Court, back in North Carolina,
I see by the newspapers the Edenton ladies have signalized themselves by their protest against tea-drinking. The name of Johnston [the maiden name of Mrs. James Iredell] I see among others; are any of my sisters relations patriotic heroines?
Is there a female congress at Edenton, too? I hope not, for we Englishmen are afraid of the male congress, but if the ladies, who have ever since the Amazonian era been esteemed the most formidable enemies: if they, I say, should attack us, the most fatal consequence is to be dreaded.
So dextrous in the handling of a dart, each wound they give is mortal: whilst we, so unhappily formed by nature, the more we strive to conquer them, the more we are conquered.
The Edenton ladies, conscious, I suppose, of this superiority on their side, by a former experience, are willing, I imagine, to crush us into atoms by their omnipotency: the only security on our side to prevent the impending ruin, that I can perceive, is the probability that there are but few places in America which possess so much female artillery as Edenton.
Perhaps because of her husband James Iredell's official position, Hannah Johnston Iredell refrained from signing resolutions supporting the First North Carolina Provincial Congress, which voted to boycott certain British products. However, Hannah's sisters & her sisters-in-law signed the petition.
Not about to be outdone by their neighbors & not at all deterred by the sarcastic English press, the patriotic ladies of Wilmington, North Carolina, held their own “party” in the spring of 1775, actually burning their tea.
Janet Schaw, a visitor from Scotland who had no sympathy for the colonial rebellion, reported the event in her journals, noting that not everyone in Wilmington approved of the protest:
The Ladies have burnt their tea in a solemn procession, but they had delayed however till the sacrifice was not very considerable, as I do not think any one offered above a quarter of a pound. The people in town live decently, and tho’ their houses are not spacious, they are in general very commodious and well furnished.
All the Merchants of any note are British and Irish,and many of them very genteel people. They all disapprove of the present proceedings. Many of them intend quitting the country as fast as their affairs will permit them, but are yet uncertain what steps to take.
But the women patriots had just begun to fight. Purdie's Virginia Gazette reported on May 3, 1775, that women were giving their jewelery to support the Continental Congress like “Roman Females” before them and will “fearless take the field against the ememy” for their glorious cause if their services are needed.
Women began to write letters about the revolutionary cause to their local newspapers. One anonymous women wrote a letter urging her fellow women to sacrifice for the war in Dixon's Virginia Gazette of January 13, 1776. Anne Terrel of Bedford County, Virginia also wrote in the same newspaper to support of the Revolutionary War on September 21, 1776.
During the Revolution more than 20,000 women became army camp followers--cooking, laundering, mending, and acting as nurses for the soldiers. Camp followers received half the food ration, when there was food at all, and minimal compensation. When the British occupied a town, they sometimes brutalized colonial women & their children. Hundreds of women took up arms to serve as soldiers & others served as spies for the colonial army.
Even those women left at home to raise the family & manage the business or the farm helped as they could. One woman passing an evacuated house in Woodbridge, New Jersey, looked in the window & saw a drunken Hessian soldier. She went home, got an old firelock, returned to take the Hessian’s firearms & then walked him about a mile to the patrol guard of the New Jersey regiment to delivered her prisoner. The incident was reported in Dixon's Virginia Gazette on April 18, 1777.
As the war progressed, women began collecting & contributing funds to equip local troops, where their kinfolk & neighbors were serving. The light horsemen of General Nelson of the Virginia Cavalry received just such donations according to Purdie's Virginia Gazette of June 12, 1778.
After the successful war, most male landowners could vote in the new republic. Women were granted the right to vote in the United States of America in 1920.
.
Senin, 01 Juni 2009
London Prints Printmakers & Macaroni
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Between 1760 and 1800, enterprising London engravers & printmakers produced and marketed hundreds of mezzotint prints aimed at the growing popular market (comprised mostly of the urban middling sort) who were hungry for affordable prints.
Often these mezzotints, also called drolls, were humorous or satirical and were almost always created in a small 10 x 14 inch format which could be easily and cheaply framed. They were advertised in contemporary print catalogues and easily fit into a print shop display window or into a portfolio case. A traditional mezzotint print would sell for about 8 shillings. A colored droll would be only 2 shillings, and these mezzotints uncolored would cost 1 shilling.
One of the targets of mezzotint satire was a macaroni (or earlier maccaroni), which in mid-18th-century England referred to a fashionable fellow who dressed & spoke in an outlandishly affected manner. The term pejoratively referred to a man who exceeded the ordinary bounds of fashion in terms of clothing, dining, speech, & entertainment.
Young Englishmen who had traveled to Italy on the Grand Tour often adopted the Italian word maccherone — a boorish fool in Italian — and called anything that seemed fashionable "very macaroni."
In 1764 Horace Walpole mentioned “The Maccaroni Club (which is composed of all the travelled young men who wear long curls and spying-glasses).” A writer in the Oxford Magazine wrote in 1770, “There is indeed a kind of animal, neither male nor female, a thing of the neuter gender, lately started up amongst us. It is called Macaroni. It talks without meaning, it smiles without pleasantry, it eats without appetite, it rides without exercise, it wenches without passion.”
The song “Yankee Doodle,” popular during the American Revolutionary War, mentions a man who "stuck a feather in his hat and called it macaroni." The terms dandy (from the song) and fop also referred to fancy, fashionable gentlemen. At least 2 of the mezzotints focusing on macaronis depict well-dressed young men declaring their undying love to rather homely older women for their money.
Engravers & printsellers Mary & Matthew Darly in the fashionable west End of London sold sets of satirical "macaroni" caricature prints, between 1771 & 1773. Because of its location & merchandise, the Darly print shop became known as "The Macaroni Print-Shop."
Detail. M. Darly, Macaroni Dressing Room, London, June 26, 1772.
The austerity, anger, & abridged trade of the American Revolution dampened the desire for these mezzotints during the late 1770-80s on both sides of the Atlantic. By the 1790s, the leading droll printsellers, Robert Sayer (1725-1794) and Carington Bowles (1724-1793), were handing their businesses and stock over to others.
By 1800, the enthusiasm for the mezzotint droll was exhausted, soon to be replaced by other emerging engraving techniques, such as stipple and aquatint, as the media favored for the popular print market. Lithography was invented by Alois Senefelder (1771-1834) in Germany around 1798. In 1811, Senefelder published The Invention of Lithography, which was soon translated into English, French, & Italian, and the popularity of the technique soared.
Spectators at a Print Shop. Carington Bowles. London. 1774. New York Public Library. (This depiction is a detail from a lecture slide. Do not copy or reproduce. Contact the library for an accurate image.)
The Marcaroni Print Shop (The shop of Mary & Matthew Darly). Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. (This depiction is a detail from a lecture slide. Reproduction at allposters.com. Contact CWF for an accurate image.)
++promotional+print.jpg)
London Print Shop of William Humphrey (c.1740-c.1810). Promotional Print. (This depiction is from a lecture slide. Do not copy or reproduce.)
Courtship for Money. Carington Bowles, London 1772. New York Public Library. (This depiction is a detail from a lecture slide. Do not copy or reproduce. Contact the library for an accurate image.)
Courtship for Money. Philip Dawe Fecit. for John Bowles, London. 1772. New York Public Library. (This depiction is a detail from a lecture slide. Do not copy or reproduce. Contact the library for an accurate image.)
.
Between 1760 and 1800, enterprising London engravers & printmakers produced and marketed hundreds of mezzotint prints aimed at the growing popular market (comprised mostly of the urban middling sort) who were hungry for affordable prints.
Often these mezzotints, also called drolls, were humorous or satirical and were almost always created in a small 10 x 14 inch format which could be easily and cheaply framed. They were advertised in contemporary print catalogues and easily fit into a print shop display window or into a portfolio case. A traditional mezzotint print would sell for about 8 shillings. A colored droll would be only 2 shillings, and these mezzotints uncolored would cost 1 shilling.
One of the targets of mezzotint satire was a macaroni (or earlier maccaroni), which in mid-18th-century England referred to a fashionable fellow who dressed & spoke in an outlandishly affected manner. The term pejoratively referred to a man who exceeded the ordinary bounds of fashion in terms of clothing, dining, speech, & entertainment.
Young Englishmen who had traveled to Italy on the Grand Tour often adopted the Italian word maccherone — a boorish fool in Italian — and called anything that seemed fashionable "very macaroni."
In 1764 Horace Walpole mentioned “The Maccaroni Club (which is composed of all the travelled young men who wear long curls and spying-glasses).” A writer in the Oxford Magazine wrote in 1770, “There is indeed a kind of animal, neither male nor female, a thing of the neuter gender, lately started up amongst us. It is called Macaroni. It talks without meaning, it smiles without pleasantry, it eats without appetite, it rides without exercise, it wenches without passion.”
The song “Yankee Doodle,” popular during the American Revolutionary War, mentions a man who "stuck a feather in his hat and called it macaroni." The terms dandy (from the song) and fop also referred to fancy, fashionable gentlemen. At least 2 of the mezzotints focusing on macaronis depict well-dressed young men declaring their undying love to rather homely older women for their money.
Engravers & printsellers Mary & Matthew Darly in the fashionable west End of London sold sets of satirical "macaroni" caricature prints, between 1771 & 1773. Because of its location & merchandise, the Darly print shop became known as "The Macaroni Print-Shop."
Detail. M. Darly, Macaroni Dressing Room, London, June 26, 1772.The austerity, anger, & abridged trade of the American Revolution dampened the desire for these mezzotints during the late 1770-80s on both sides of the Atlantic. By the 1790s, the leading droll printsellers, Robert Sayer (1725-1794) and Carington Bowles (1724-1793), were handing their businesses and stock over to others.
By 1800, the enthusiasm for the mezzotint droll was exhausted, soon to be replaced by other emerging engraving techniques, such as stipple and aquatint, as the media favored for the popular print market. Lithography was invented by Alois Senefelder (1771-1834) in Germany around 1798. In 1811, Senefelder published The Invention of Lithography, which was soon translated into English, French, & Italian, and the popularity of the technique soared.
Spectators at a Print Shop. Carington Bowles. London. 1774. New York Public Library. (This depiction is a detail from a lecture slide. Do not copy or reproduce. Contact the library for an accurate image.)The Marcaroni Print Shop (The shop of Mary & Matthew Darly). Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. (This depiction is a detail from a lecture slide. Reproduction at allposters.com. Contact CWF for an accurate image.)London Print Shop of William Humphrey (c.1740-c.1810). Promotional Print. (This depiction is from a lecture slide. Do not copy or reproduce.) Courtship for Money. Carington Bowles, London 1772. New York Public Library. (This depiction is a detail from a lecture slide. Do not copy or reproduce. Contact the library for an accurate image.)Courtship for Money. Philip Dawe Fecit. for John Bowles, London. 1772. New York Public Library. (This depiction is a detail from a lecture slide. Do not copy or reproduce. Contact the library for an accurate image.).
London Prints Rural Women
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Love in a Village. Carrington Bowles, London, 1784. The Lewis Walpole Library, Yale Univeristy. This library is located in Farmington, Connecticut. (This depiction is a detail from a lecture slide. Do not copy or reproduce. Contact Yale for an accurate image.)
Rural Life. Robert Sayer and J. Bennett. London 1782. The Lewis Walpole Library. Yale University. This library is located in Farmington, Connecticut. (This depiction is a detail from a lecture slide. Do not copy or reproduce. Contact Yale for an accurate image.)
Rural Life Spinning Yarn Philip Mercier Pinxt. C. Corbutt fecit.. Robt Sayer, 1760s London, Yale Center for British Art. (This depiction is a detail from a lecture slide. Do not copy or reproduce. Contact Yale for an accurate image.)
Market Lass. Robert Dighton. Laurie and Whittle, London. 1794. Yale Center for British Art. (This depiction is a detail from a lecture slide. Do not copy or reproduce. Contact Yale for an accurate image.)
Jockey and Jenny. Carington Bowles. London. 1782. The Lewis Walpole Library. Yale University. This library is located in Farmington, Connecticut. (This depiction is a detail from a lecture slide. Do not copy or reproduce. Contact Yale for an accurate image.)
.
Enterprising London printmakers published hundreds of popular & satirical mezzotints between 1760 and 1800, many of which quickly found their way to the British American colonies and later to the new republic.
These prints were sometimes called drolls, were usually 10' by 14' and were relatively inexpensive. They could be used in homes or in taverns. Many of these prints give a glimpse into the everyday life of women in the larger British world which is seldom found in more formal art.
The Tenant's Daughter. Haines and Son, London. 1798. Yale Center for British Art, Yale University. This depiction is a detail from a lecture slide. Do not copy or reproduce. Contact Yale for an accurate image.)
These prints were sometimes called drolls, were usually 10' by 14' and were relatively inexpensive. They could be used in homes or in taverns. Many of these prints give a glimpse into the everyday life of women in the larger British world which is seldom found in more formal art.
The Tenant's Daughter. Haines and Son, London. 1798. Yale Center for British Art, Yale University. This depiction is a detail from a lecture slide. Do not copy or reproduce. Contact Yale for an accurate image.)
Love in a Village. Carrington Bowles, London, 1784. The Lewis Walpole Library, Yale Univeristy. This library is located in Farmington, Connecticut. (This depiction is a detail from a lecture slide. Do not copy or reproduce. Contact Yale for an accurate image.)
Rural Life. Robert Sayer and J. Bennett. London 1782. The Lewis Walpole Library. Yale University. This library is located in Farmington, Connecticut. (This depiction is a detail from a lecture slide. Do not copy or reproduce. Contact Yale for an accurate image.)
Rural Life Spinning Yarn Philip Mercier Pinxt. C. Corbutt fecit.. Robt Sayer, 1760s London, Yale Center for British Art. (This depiction is a detail from a lecture slide. Do not copy or reproduce. Contact Yale for an accurate image.)
Market Lass. Robert Dighton. Laurie and Whittle, London. 1794. Yale Center for British Art. (This depiction is a detail from a lecture slide. Do not copy or reproduce. Contact Yale for an accurate image.)
Jockey and Jenny. Carington Bowles. London. 1782. The Lewis Walpole Library. Yale University. This library is located in Farmington, Connecticut. (This depiction is a detail from a lecture slide. Do not copy or reproduce. Contact Yale for an accurate image.).
Minggu, 31 Mei 2009
London Prints Domestic Chores
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London printmakers published hundreds of popular & satirical mezzotints between 1760 and 1800, many of which quickly found their way to the British American colonies and later to the new republic.
These prints give a glimpse into the everyday life of women in the larger British world which is seldom found in more formal art.
The Landlord's Daughter. Haines and Son, London. 1798. Yale Center for British Art, Yale University. (This depiction is a detail from a lecture slide. Do not copy or reproduce. Contact Yale for an accurate image.)
Camp Laundry. Robert Sayer & J. Bennett. London 1782. Metropolitan Museum of Art. (This depiction is a detail from a lecture slide. Do not copy or reproduce. Contact the Met for an accurate image.)
Lacemaking. John Fairburn. London. 1795. Harry Elkins Widener Collection, Houghton Library fo the Harvard College Library. (This depiction is a detail from a lecture slide. Do not copy or reproduce. Contact the library for an accurate image.)
Lady Working Tambour The Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University. This library is located in Farmington, Connecticut. (This depiction is a detail from a lecture slide. Do not copy or reproduce. Contact the library for an accurate image.)
Ironing Henry Morland Henry Morland Pinxt. Philip Dawe Fecit. Carrington Bowles. London. 1769. The Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University. This library is located in Farmington, Connecticut. (This depiction is a detail from a lecture slide. Do not copy or reproduce. Contact the library for an accurate image.)
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March (Lady Holding Sewing). R. Dighton. Carrington Bowles. London. 1784. The Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University. This library is located in Farmington, Connecticut. (This depiction is a detail from a lecture slide. Do not copy or reproduce. Contact the library for an accurate image.)
Soaping Linnen. Henry Morland Pinxt. Philip Dawe Fecit. Carrington Bowles. London. 1769. The Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University. This library is located in Farmington, Connecticut. (This depiction is a detail from a lecture slide. Do not copy or reproduce. Contact the library for an accurate image.)
The Fair Seamstress. Heilman pinxt J. Watson fecit. for John Bowles, London. 1760s. The Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University. This library is located in Farmington, Connecticut. (This depiction is a detail from a lecture slide. Do not copy or reproduce. Contact the library for an accurate image.)
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London printmakers published hundreds of popular & satirical mezzotints between 1760 and 1800, many of which quickly found their way to the British American colonies and later to the new republic.
These prints give a glimpse into the everyday life of women in the larger British world which is seldom found in more formal art.
The Landlord's Daughter. Haines and Son, London. 1798. Yale Center for British Art, Yale University. (This depiction is a detail from a lecture slide. Do not copy or reproduce. Contact Yale for an accurate image.)
Camp Laundry. Robert Sayer & J. Bennett. London 1782. Metropolitan Museum of Art. (This depiction is a detail from a lecture slide. Do not copy or reproduce. Contact the Met for an accurate image.)
Lacemaking. John Fairburn. London. 1795. Harry Elkins Widener Collection, Houghton Library fo the Harvard College Library. (This depiction is a detail from a lecture slide. Do not copy or reproduce. Contact the library for an accurate image.)
Lady Working Tambour The Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University. This library is located in Farmington, Connecticut. (This depiction is a detail from a lecture slide. Do not copy or reproduce. Contact the library for an accurate image.)
Ironing Henry Morland Henry Morland Pinxt. Philip Dawe Fecit. Carrington Bowles. London. 1769. The Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University. This library is located in Farmington, Connecticut. (This depiction is a detail from a lecture slide. Do not copy or reproduce. Contact the library for an accurate image.).+R.+Dighton.+Carrington+Bowles.+London.+1784.+The+Lewis+Walpole+Library,+Yale+University..jpg)
March (Lady Holding Sewing). R. Dighton. Carrington Bowles. London. 1784. The Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University. This library is located in Farmington, Connecticut. (This depiction is a detail from a lecture slide. Do not copy or reproduce. Contact the library for an accurate image.)
Soaping Linnen. Henry Morland Pinxt. Philip Dawe Fecit. Carrington Bowles. London. 1769. The Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University. This library is located in Farmington, Connecticut. (This depiction is a detail from a lecture slide. Do not copy or reproduce. Contact the library for an accurate image.)
The Fair Seamstress. Heilman pinxt J. Watson fecit. for John Bowles, London. 1760s. The Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University. This library is located in Farmington, Connecticut. (This depiction is a detail from a lecture slide. Do not copy or reproduce. Contact the library for an accurate image.)
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