WEBVTT - Works of Art 0:00:02.560 --> 0:00:05.760 You're listening to American Shadows, a production of I Heart 0:00:05.880 --> 0:00:19.560 Radio and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Manky. French historian 0:00:19.720 --> 0:00:24.479 Eduard de Lablay had an idea. It was eighteen sixty five, 0:00:24.680 --> 0:00:27.680 the American Civil War was drawing to a close, and 0:00:27.760 --> 0:00:31.280 he wanted France to give the US a gift. He 0:00:31.360 --> 0:00:34.360 decided on a statue that would mark America's hard thought 0:00:34.360 --> 0:00:38.640 democracy and celebrate its centennial. And he didn't propose just 0:00:38.840 --> 0:00:43.680 any statue. His concept would take years to build. Frederic 0:00:43.760 --> 0:00:47.800 Auguste Bartoldi, who shared Labala's vision, was commissioned for the 0:00:47.920 --> 0:00:52.320 monumental task. Bartoldi traveled to America in eighteen seventy one 0:00:52.680 --> 0:00:56.640 and chose Bedloe's Island for the statue's location. Though small, 0:00:56.800 --> 0:00:59.840 its position made it a landmark noticeable to every ship 0:01:00.080 --> 0:01:03.680 entering the harbor. He envisioned the statue greeting all who 0:01:03.800 --> 0:01:07.679 entered the port and thus the nation. The first phase 0:01:07.680 --> 0:01:11.880 of construction began in France in eighteen seventy six. Bartoldi 0:01:12.000 --> 0:01:15.840 created the arm holding the torch first. In eighteen seventy 0:01:15.840 --> 0:01:19.680 eight he finished the head and shoulders. He finally completed 0:01:19.680 --> 0:01:23.480 the statue in eighteen eighty four. While Bartoldi and his 0:01:23.560 --> 0:01:26.080 team in France put the final touches on the statue, 0:01:26.400 --> 0:01:29.640 a crew in the US built the pedestal. In eighteen 0:01:29.680 --> 0:01:32.440 eighty five. All that remained was shipping the Statue of 0:01:32.440 --> 0:01:36.480 Liberty to her new home. Workers disassembled the statue and 0:01:36.600 --> 0:01:40.640 carefully packed it in over two hundred crates. The Zaire, 0:01:40.920 --> 0:01:44.280 a French frigate, arrived in New York that June. The 0:01:44.360 --> 0:01:47.760 laborers got to work erecting the pedestal and the statue. 0:01:48.000 --> 0:01:51.880 On October of eighteen eighty six, President Grover Cleveland stood 0:01:51.880 --> 0:01:54.480 before a crowd of thousands to dedicate the three hundred 0:01:54.480 --> 0:01:58.240 and five foot tall statue. From that moment, Bartoldie's vision 0:01:58.400 --> 0:02:01.560 came to life. The Statue of Liberty greeted everyone who 0:02:01.640 --> 0:02:05.760 entered the harbor. In eighteen ninety two, when Ellis Island opened, 0:02:05.840 --> 0:02:08.880 immigrants viewed the statue as a symbol of freedom, hope, 0:02:09.080 --> 0:02:12.560 and a new way of life. It remained both monument 0:02:12.760 --> 0:02:16.240 and working lighthouse until nineteen thirty three, when the National 0:02:16.280 --> 0:02:19.560 Park Service took over its care and maintenance. Though they 0:02:19.600 --> 0:02:22.560 shut down the lighthouse, the Park Service opened the Statute 0:02:22.560 --> 0:02:26.160 of Visitors The iconic plaque and poem of the New 0:02:26.200 --> 0:02:30.560 Colossus by Emma Lazarus became a favorite photo opportunity for tourists, 0:02:31.200 --> 0:02:34.200 and like the statue itself, the poem, with its famous 0:02:34.240 --> 0:02:38.600 lines welcoming the tired and huddled masses, had its own story. 0:02:38.960 --> 0:02:42.040 New York born Emma and her siblings wanted for nothing. 0:02:42.680 --> 0:02:45.760 Her father owned a successful sugar refinery and provided his 0:02:45.800 --> 0:02:50.200 family with a comfortable lifestyle, and private tutors taught them German, French, 0:02:50.240 --> 0:02:54.160 and Italian, in addition to other subjects. In eighteen sixty six, 0:02:54.320 --> 0:02:57.680 seventeen year old Emma authored her first book, titled Poems 0:02:57.720 --> 0:03:01.560 and Translations. Her father loved her work and published the 0:03:01.560 --> 0:03:04.200 book to support his daughter. Emma sent a copy to 0:03:04.320 --> 0:03:07.720 Ralph Waldo Emerson, and the famous writers shared her father's 0:03:07.760 --> 0:03:11.680 praise and mentored the very talented Emma For several years. 0:03:11.720 --> 0:03:14.840 She wrote more books expressing her opinions on life. In 0:03:14.919 --> 0:03:18.160 eighty three, she donated a sonnet to help raise money 0:03:18.200 --> 0:03:22.799 for the pedestal. The words became synonymous with immigration, yet 0:03:22.840 --> 0:03:25.560 the poem didn't become part of the statue until after 0:03:25.639 --> 0:03:29.440 Emma's death. She died a year after Cleveland's speech, and 0:03:29.800 --> 0:03:34.240 mostly her sonnet was forgotten. The new Colossus wasn't memorialized 0:03:34.320 --> 0:03:37.480 until nineteen o three, when one of Emma's friends pushed 0:03:37.480 --> 0:03:39.800 to make the sonnet a permanent part of the monument. 0:03:40.440 --> 0:03:43.680 While we recall the names behind many famous works of art, 0:03:44.040 --> 0:03:47.960 others remained in the shadows of their creations. This is 0:03:48.000 --> 0:04:00.120 one such story. I'm Lauren Vogelbaum. Welcome to American shadows US. 0:04:00.200 --> 0:04:03.200 What many people born to the lower socioeconomic status at 0:04:03.200 --> 0:04:06.560 the time. We don't know what year and Monia Lewis 0:04:06.680 --> 0:04:11.240 was born. When asked, she gave different responses for different situations. 0:04:11.600 --> 0:04:14.640 It could have been eighteen forty two, eighteen forty four, 0:04:14.840 --> 0:04:18.440 or even eighteen fifty four. What we do know is 0:04:18.480 --> 0:04:22.760 that she was born in New York sometime in July Catherine. 0:04:22.760 --> 0:04:25.920 Her mother was Afro indigenous of the Ojibwe people and 0:04:26.000 --> 0:04:29.400 lived in the Credit River Reserve on Lake Ontario. Her 0:04:29.440 --> 0:04:33.039 father was as mysterious as her birth year. Some believe 0:04:33.080 --> 0:04:37.279 her father was Samuel Lewis, a valet of Afro Haitian heritage. 0:04:37.640 --> 0:04:41.119 Other sources speculate that African and Native American writer Robert 0:04:41.120 --> 0:04:45.120 Benjamin Lewis was her father. Proper birth certificates were rare 0:04:45.160 --> 0:04:47.840 at the time, and none appears to have been recorded 0:04:47.839 --> 0:04:51.280 for her. And Monia had a half brother, Samuel, from 0:04:51.320 --> 0:04:54.600 her father's first marriage, and even though Sam was nine 0:04:54.680 --> 0:04:58.839 years older, the two siblings were inseparable for a while. 0:04:58.920 --> 0:05:02.200 The children enjoyed a perfect family life with loving parents 0:05:02.360 --> 0:05:05.720 and time spent growing up in Greenbush, New York, and 0:05:05.760 --> 0:05:09.400 by the time Edmonia turned nine, however, both parents had died. 0:05:10.080 --> 0:05:12.520 Sam and Agmonia went to live with their mother's sisters 0:05:12.600 --> 0:05:17.680 near Niagara Falls. Despite the tragedy, the children thrived. Edmonia 0:05:17.760 --> 0:05:20.640 continued to make the traditional a jibwei crafts her mother 0:05:20.680 --> 0:05:24.479 had taught her. Tourists loved her artwork, often buying whatever 0:05:24.600 --> 0:05:27.960 Edmonia and her aunt's maide. She ran through the forests 0:05:27.960 --> 0:05:30.400 in the summer with her brother and other local children. 0:05:30.839 --> 0:05:34.360 They fished, swam, and explored the great outdoors, even hunted 0:05:34.400 --> 0:05:37.400 together for the rest of her days. Agmonia recalled this 0:05:37.480 --> 0:05:39.680 part of her childhood as some of the best times 0:05:39.680 --> 0:05:43.760 of her life. But life moved on, and one day 0:05:44.160 --> 0:05:47.000 her brother told her he was leaving. He had caught 0:05:47.040 --> 0:05:51.159 what people called gold fever. Men across the country were 0:05:51.200 --> 0:05:54.240 leaving their families and droves, hoping to strike it rich 0:05:54.360 --> 0:05:57.679 out west. The moment that sparked the gold rush happened 0:05:57.720 --> 0:06:03.120 on January forty eight one. James Wilson Marshall, a carpenter 0:06:03.160 --> 0:06:06.200 from New Jersey, caught a glimpse of something shiny in 0:06:06.200 --> 0:06:09.080 the American River at the base of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. 0:06:09.600 --> 0:06:14.080 He discovered an abundance of gold flakes. Marshall originally moved 0:06:14.120 --> 0:06:16.800 west to work on a sawmill for John Sutter, who 0:06:16.800 --> 0:06:20.039 set up a colony that would later become Sacramento, and 0:06:20.080 --> 0:06:22.240 the men swore each other to secrecy so that the 0:06:22.279 --> 0:06:25.320 gold would be all theirs. A Sutter had already claimed 0:06:25.360 --> 0:06:28.200 quite a bit of land, enslaving hundreds of Native Americans 0:06:28.200 --> 0:06:31.120 who helped colonize the area. The amount of gold the 0:06:31.120 --> 0:06:35.120 men found made it impossible to hide. Soon, gold miners 0:06:35.160 --> 0:06:37.680 from miles around appeared for their steak in the riches. 0:06:38.240 --> 0:06:42.320 Sam Brannon, a storekeeper in San Francisco, proudly displayed the 0:06:42.400 --> 0:06:45.920 vial of gold had panned from Sutter's creek. Within weeks, 0:06:45.960 --> 0:06:48.160 most of the men in San Francisco converged on the 0:06:48.200 --> 0:06:51.760 settlement to pan for gold, words spread, bringing in people 0:06:51.839 --> 0:06:55.599 from around the world. In December of eighty eight, President 0:06:55.720 --> 0:07:00.600 James Cape Holp announced the California had gold. California's population 0:07:00.680 --> 0:07:03.440 jumped from twenty thousand to over a hundred thousand the 0:07:03.480 --> 0:07:06.520 following year. Most of those heading to the gold mines 0:07:06.560 --> 0:07:10.560 in eight were men, known as the Forty Niners. The 0:07:10.600 --> 0:07:14.520 men left everything behind, including wives and children. In the 0:07:14.520 --> 0:07:18.480 men's absence, women struggled to keep businesses afloat the farms running, 0:07:18.600 --> 0:07:22.440 and raised children alone. Many of the forty Niners found 0:07:22.480 --> 0:07:25.720 the wealth they saw it holding onto It was another matter. 0:07:26.600 --> 0:07:30.200 Businesses charged extra pushing up the cost of living. Many 0:07:30.280 --> 0:07:33.640 lost their fortunes to gambling, drinking, and time spent in 0:07:33.680 --> 0:07:38.400 brothels that San Francisco storekeeper Sam Brannon never went back 0:07:38.440 --> 0:07:41.640 to seek out more gold. Instead, he bought nearly all 0:07:41.680 --> 0:07:44.640 the local supply of mining equipment, then marked it up 0:07:44.720 --> 0:07:48.200 and sold it to miners. His business model inspired the 0:07:48.240 --> 0:07:53.280 saying during a gold rush cell shovels. While Stutter went bankrupt, 0:07:53.480 --> 0:07:57.880 Brannon became the state's first millionaire. Others also made their fortunes, 0:07:58.080 --> 0:08:09.280 including Edmonia's brother Emuel Lewis. It's unclear why sam took 0:08:09.360 --> 0:08:11.840 Edmonia away from her aunts and left her with one, 0:08:11.920 --> 0:08:16.160 Captain S. R. Mills, But Edmonia fell into a deep depression. 0:08:16.600 --> 0:08:19.720 Her parents were dead, her brother abandoned her, and she 0:08:19.760 --> 0:08:21.760 had been taken away from her aunt's and the place 0:08:21.840 --> 0:08:26.040 she called home. Gone were her forests with animals and trees. 0:08:26.640 --> 0:08:28.960 Gone where the fields where she ran and played with 0:08:29.000 --> 0:08:31.920 other children. She was living with a man she didn't 0:08:31.920 --> 0:08:36.400 know in Manhattan, a crowded, dirty city, and though she 0:08:36.480 --> 0:08:40.240 waited for her brother, he never returned home. Samuel headed 0:08:40.240 --> 0:08:43.280 to San Francisco and opened a barbershop while searching for 0:08:43.400 --> 0:08:46.120 his fortune in gold. He made enough to travel to 0:08:46.160 --> 0:08:49.440 Europe and eventually returned to the States, settling in Idaho. 0:08:50.120 --> 0:08:53.280 His business ventures failed, though, and some of his buildings 0:08:53.320 --> 0:08:58.280 caught fire. He moved Montana and opened another barbershop. Fifteen 0:08:58.320 --> 0:09:01.280 years later, he built a home, married and had a son. 0:09:02.000 --> 0:09:04.480 Though he never returned to see his sister, he sent 0:09:04.559 --> 0:09:08.680 money for her housing, food, and schooling, and after four 0:09:08.760 --> 0:09:11.920 years in Manhattan and Monia left to attend the New 0:09:12.000 --> 0:09:16.000 York Central College Upstate, established in eighteen forty nine. The 0:09:16.040 --> 0:09:20.320 school offered black and white students in education. Higher education 0:09:20.480 --> 0:09:23.240 was rare for black people, much less women at the time. 0:09:23.960 --> 0:09:28.240 The school focused on grammar, reading, math, and geography, while 0:09:28.280 --> 0:09:32.160 the male students took additional science, natural history, and astronomy classes. 0:09:32.360 --> 0:09:36.200 The women learned needlework and knitting. Edmonia studied at the 0:09:36.200 --> 0:09:39.160 school from eighteen fifty six to eighteen fifty seven. In 0:09:39.200 --> 0:09:42.200 eighteen fifty nine, she resumed her studies at Oberlin College 0:09:42.200 --> 0:09:46.400 in Ohio. The founders prided themselves on the school's Christian values. 0:09:47.080 --> 0:09:50.640 Like Central College, they accepted students black and white, men 0:09:50.760 --> 0:09:53.960 and women. The school also became the first in the 0:09:54.000 --> 0:09:58.120 country to offer co ed classes. Though many departments offered 0:09:58.160 --> 0:10:01.880 coed learning, most women's studied in the school's ladies department, 0:10:02.160 --> 0:10:04.880 earning a literary degree at the end of four years. 0:10:05.679 --> 0:10:09.520 Edmonia received a well rounded education, but of all her studies, 0:10:09.559 --> 0:10:13.280 she demonstrated a rare talent in her favorite subject art. 0:10:14.200 --> 0:10:17.040 As a woman of color, Edmonia felt at home there. 0:10:17.600 --> 0:10:20.920 Oberlin had strong ties to the abolitionist movement and took 0:10:20.920 --> 0:10:23.800 part in the underground railroad that helped enslaved people escaped 0:10:23.840 --> 0:10:27.600 to Canada. One reverend John Keep and his wife welcomed 0:10:27.600 --> 0:10:29.880 her into their home, and she lived with them from 0:10:29.920 --> 0:10:33.960 eighteen fifty nine until eighteen sixty three. The community also 0:10:34.000 --> 0:10:37.760 reflected the school's ideals. Both black and white residents lived 0:10:37.760 --> 0:10:41.160 and worked alongside each other. But while the school in 0:10:41.320 --> 0:10:46.000 town seemed progressive and somewhat idyllic, black people, Native Americans, 0:10:46.040 --> 0:10:50.840 and women still lacked equality. Politics and contentions surrounding slavery 0:10:50.920 --> 0:10:55.360 led to arguments and other conflicts. Several classmates participated in 0:10:55.440 --> 0:10:58.760 John Brown's raid at Harper's Ferry. Brown hoped to start 0:10:58.800 --> 0:11:01.720 a rebellion that would result to freedom for all enslaved people. 0:11:02.520 --> 0:11:06.760 While the uprising failed, it sparked conversation. The tensions on 0:11:06.840 --> 0:11:11.760 both sides grew. Oberlin's leaders feared something terrible would eventually happen. 0:11:12.600 --> 0:11:16.040 They were right. The headlines for February eleventh of eighteen 0:11:16.040 --> 0:11:18.760 sixty two read that two women at the college had 0:11:18.760 --> 0:11:23.120 been poisoned and a suspect was in custody. A month earlier, 0:11:23.400 --> 0:11:27.000 Edmonia had joined classmates Maria Miles and Christina Ennis for 0:11:27.080 --> 0:11:30.440 an unschaperoned slave ride with a few young men. All 0:11:30.520 --> 0:11:34.559 enjoyed the rod despite the bitter cold Afterward, Amnia asked 0:11:34.600 --> 0:11:36.640 the other women to join her for a hot drink. 0:11:37.280 --> 0:11:41.640 The women eagerly accepted. Ammonia poured two glasses of spiced 0:11:41.640 --> 0:11:44.600 wine and handed them to the women. The three sat 0:11:44.640 --> 0:11:48.200 and talked until the glasses were empty. Maria and Christina 0:11:48.240 --> 0:11:51.600 bad Edmonia good night and retired to their rooms. Not 0:11:51.760 --> 0:11:56.040 long afterward, the two became violently ill. The school administration 0:11:56.120 --> 0:11:58.280 sent them home to their parents until they recovered. A 0:11:58.280 --> 0:12:02.080 couple of days later, both women accused Agmonia of lacing 0:12:02.080 --> 0:12:05.080 their drinks with the drug popularly known as Spanish fly. 0:12:05.840 --> 0:12:09.880 Though most often historically used as an aphrodisiac in large doses, 0:12:09.960 --> 0:12:14.079 it's a poison. In retrospect, Agmonia realized that asking them 0:12:14.120 --> 0:12:16.960 to join her and not participating in the drinking had 0:12:17.040 --> 0:12:20.920 made her instantly suspect. No matter how much the reverend 0:12:20.920 --> 0:12:25.520 insisted Agmonia was innocent, she was arrested without any evidence. 0:12:25.600 --> 0:12:29.600 The court and jury found Ammonia not guilty. At first, 0:12:29.679 --> 0:12:31.880 she thought life might go on as it had before, 0:12:32.720 --> 0:12:46.960 but that was before the second incident. Agmonia struggled through 0:12:46.960 --> 0:12:49.640 her studies and was preparing for her final paper when 0:12:49.720 --> 0:12:54.200 professor accused her of theft. The subsequent investigation proved she 0:12:54.280 --> 0:12:57.800 had not stolen the missing art supplies, but innocent or not, 0:12:58.120 --> 0:13:01.719 the controversy around Agmonia too much for the school's reputation. 0:13:02.480 --> 0:13:05.120 Oberlin asked her to leave and not return for the 0:13:05.120 --> 0:13:08.760 false semester. She had worked hard, but Edmonia would not 0:13:08.840 --> 0:13:12.760 finish her degree. Determined nonetheless, to make a career from 0:13:12.760 --> 0:13:16.400 her artistic talents, Agmonia moved to Boston with financial help 0:13:16.440 --> 0:13:20.160 from her brother. She mingled with abolitionists and confided that 0:13:20.200 --> 0:13:23.000 she would love to make fine art. She never told 0:13:23.000 --> 0:13:26.040 anyone how she came to leave Oberlin. One day she 0:13:26.080 --> 0:13:28.760 saw a statue of Benjamin Franklin and thought she could 0:13:28.840 --> 0:13:32.560 learn to make statues too. The three male sculpting tutors 0:13:32.559 --> 0:13:36.280 turned her down. Male sculptors usually learned sculpting by taking 0:13:36.320 --> 0:13:40.960 anatomy classes. First women didn't have that luxury. Finally, she 0:13:41.000 --> 0:13:45.560 found Edward Augustus Brackett, who specialized in creating busts. Oh 0:13:45.559 --> 0:13:49.560 With his mentoring, Edmonia began to make and sell claim medallions, 0:13:49.679 --> 0:13:52.840 and prominent Boston women began to commission her. But it 0:13:52.920 --> 0:13:55.600 was her rendition of Robert Shaw that brought her fame. 0:13:56.320 --> 0:13:59.640 A Shaw, a white man hailing from Massachusetts, had headed 0:13:59.640 --> 0:14:02.640 into this of a war with America's first all black regiment. 0:14:03.000 --> 0:14:05.080 He stood by his men when they were ambushed and 0:14:05.240 --> 0:14:09.520 died with them. Confederate soldiers unceremoniously tossed them into a 0:14:09.559 --> 0:14:13.280 mass grave, and Mania made enough money on creating busts 0:14:13.320 --> 0:14:16.319 that she began setting aside money for her ultimate dream 0:14:16.360 --> 0:14:21.040 to move to Europe and find more inspiration for her art. Meanwhile, 0:14:21.160 --> 0:14:24.000 she wanted to help others with the war over, and 0:14:24.160 --> 0:14:27.040 Monia traveled to Richmond to give newly freed black people 0:14:27.160 --> 0:14:31.160 basic educations. By August she had enough money to set sail. 0:14:31.840 --> 0:14:35.920 She chose Florence, Italy, where neoclassical sculpture was popular due 0:14:35.960 --> 0:14:39.080 to the number of marble quarries, and Monia was pleased 0:14:39.080 --> 0:14:43.040 to discover that Italy widely accepted women, artists with color 0:14:43.120 --> 0:14:46.800 and sects were not nearly as controversial. Soon she felt 0:14:46.840 --> 0:14:51.080 right at home with local artists and American expats. In time, 0:14:51.200 --> 0:14:54.560 she traveled to Paris and London for more inspiration before 0:14:54.560 --> 0:14:58.360 returning to Italy and settling in Rome. At the time, 0:14:58.520 --> 0:15:01.880 sculptors often paid stone crafters to help with their statues. 0:15:02.360 --> 0:15:05.800 Admonia locked the resources and did the work herself. She 0:15:05.920 --> 0:15:10.960 created traditional busts of famous and influential people. However, most 0:15:11.000 --> 0:15:14.560 of her work comprised African American and Native American subjects. 0:15:15.280 --> 0:15:19.760 Native American sculptures weren't unheard of, but Admonia's depictions stood out, 0:15:20.200 --> 0:15:22.120 and one of her better known works was a series 0:15:22.120 --> 0:15:26.520 of statues inspired by Henry Wadsworth Longfellows The Song of Hiawatha. 0:15:26.640 --> 0:15:30.680 Admonias versions of Native Americans possessed a more respectful reality 0:15:30.760 --> 0:15:34.840 than the stereotyped and fantasized versions that her fellow artists created. 0:15:35.640 --> 0:15:39.240 She told stories with her sculptures. In one of her works, 0:15:39.320 --> 0:15:42.479 an African American couple has broken free from their shackles. 0:15:43.080 --> 0:15:46.000 The beauty and depth of emotion in her subjects made 0:15:46.000 --> 0:15:49.240 her very successful. In eighteen seventy she returned to the 0:15:49.320 --> 0:15:52.400 United States for a while. She tried to reunite with 0:15:52.400 --> 0:15:56.400 her brother. Though she made several attempts, he never reciprocated 0:15:56.440 --> 0:16:00.000 the effort. In eighteen seventy three, she traveled to San France, 0:16:00.000 --> 0:16:03.080 Cisco for a major art show, praising the West Coast 0:16:03.160 --> 0:16:06.080 for being much more friendly than the East Coast. The 0:16:06.080 --> 0:16:09.720 show wasn't as profitable as she had hoped, and disillusioned, 0:16:09.880 --> 0:16:13.320 she tried seeing her beloved brother once more. When he 0:16:13.320 --> 0:16:17.040 still wouldn't see her, she returned to Europe. Edmonia would 0:16:17.080 --> 0:16:20.760 never see Samuel again. Back in Rome, she created her 0:16:20.800 --> 0:16:26.080 most famous work, inspired by Cleopatra's legendary suicide, and Monia 0:16:26.160 --> 0:16:29.160 chiseled the queen's image slumped back on her throne, a 0:16:29.240 --> 0:16:32.000 smile on her face as venom from a poisonous snake 0:16:32.080 --> 0:16:36.240 took hold. Her message seemed to say that Cleopatra died 0:16:36.280 --> 0:16:39.840 on her own terms as queen. Edmonia first revealed the 0:16:39.880 --> 0:16:44.360 sculpture during the eighteen seventy six Philadelphia Centennial Exposition, and 0:16:44.480 --> 0:16:48.720 judges were astounded. While some viewers considered the dying queen's 0:16:48.760 --> 0:16:53.680 image ghastly and graphic, others praised it as masterful. The 0:16:53.760 --> 0:16:56.440 statue failed to find a buyer when the expo ended, 0:16:56.640 --> 0:16:59.360 and it went into storage, but a Monia returned to Rome. 0:17:00.160 --> 0:17:03.600 She continued to create more sculptures and inspire other artists, 0:17:04.480 --> 0:17:16.920 and then Edmonia disappeared from history almost Ammonia Lewis died 0:17:16.960 --> 0:17:20.960 in London on September seventeenth of nine seven. She never 0:17:21.040 --> 0:17:24.359 married and had no children. In her will, she requested 0:17:24.400 --> 0:17:27.680 two things, a dark walnut casket and for her death 0:17:27.680 --> 0:17:31.120 notice to appear in the British Roman Catholic publication The Tablet. 0:17:31.720 --> 0:17:35.320 Edmonia faded from history until two women dug into her past, 0:17:35.800 --> 0:17:41.520 biographer Marilyn Richardson and ROBERTA. Bobby Reno, historian in East Greenbush, 0:17:41.560 --> 0:17:45.639 New York, where Edmonia grew up, Richardson tracked down at 0:17:45.680 --> 0:17:50.080 Monia's most famous sculpture, the Death of Cleopatra. It wasn't easy. 0:17:50.800 --> 0:17:54.840 Edmonia left the sculpture in Philadelphia. Richardson first tracked a 0:17:54.920 --> 0:17:59.399 twist saloon in Chicago. After that, it marked a racehorse's 0:17:59.440 --> 0:18:03.119 grave a track. The racetrack eventually fell out of favor 0:18:03.160 --> 0:18:06.159 and was sold to become a golf course. The Cleopatra, 0:18:06.359 --> 0:18:09.359 still on her throne, stood vigil over the changes that 0:18:09.520 --> 0:18:12.200 came and went. The golf course gave way to a 0:18:12.280 --> 0:18:15.240 munition site, which later became a center for bulk mail. 0:18:15.720 --> 0:18:19.080 Through all sorts of weather, neglect and abuse, andedmonious work 0:18:19.119 --> 0:18:22.840 of art. Endured boy scouts attempted to cover the graffiti 0:18:22.880 --> 0:18:26.520 with paint. But finally the sculpture found its way to 0:18:26.640 --> 0:18:29.840 a mall. From there, Richardson managed to find it in 0:18:29.840 --> 0:18:33.600 a storage room. The Forest Park Historical Society rescued the 0:18:33.600 --> 0:18:37.120 sculpture in the nineteen eighties. Ten years later they donated 0:18:37.160 --> 0:18:40.680 it to the Smithsonian. Along the Way another sculpture surface 0:18:40.840 --> 0:18:44.879 of two sleeping infants, simply called Night. Along the Way 0:18:44.920 --> 0:18:49.240 another sculpture surface of two sleeping infants called simply Night. 0:18:50.280 --> 0:18:52.520 The Baltimore Museum of Art purchased the piece at a 0:18:52.520 --> 0:18:55.679 Southeby's auction for a hundred and thirty thousand, seven hundred 0:18:55.720 --> 0:18:59.040 and twenty dollars. Other pieces were sent to the Howard 0:18:59.119 --> 0:19:02.880 University Gallery of Art, the Metropolitan Museum, and the Detroit 0:19:02.920 --> 0:19:07.240 Institute of Arts. The historian Bobby Reno was a devoted 0:19:07.280 --> 0:19:10.920 fan of Ammonia's, though she knew very little about her life, 0:19:11.440 --> 0:19:15.320 In fairness, no one did. Dedicated to finding out more 0:19:15.359 --> 0:19:19.440 about this former Greenbush resident, Reno began searching for Admonia's 0:19:19.440 --> 0:19:23.359 grave site. Eventually, it was found under an unmarked slab. 0:19:24.200 --> 0:19:27.040 Reno restored the grave site and added a simple marker 0:19:27.320 --> 0:19:31.920 per Admonious Will. But Reno and Richardson weren't finished. They 0:19:31.920 --> 0:19:34.760 wanted to do one more thing in honor of Ammonia. 0:19:35.320 --> 0:19:39.320 In Reno sent a request to Oberlin College to write 0:19:39.320 --> 0:19:42.800 a wrong. The college took their request to grant Aedmonia 0:19:42.880 --> 0:19:47.080 Lewis an honorary degree before a committee. Meanwhile, Reno lobbied 0:19:47.119 --> 0:19:53.240 for more public recognition. On January, Ammonia appeared on a 0:19:53.359 --> 0:19:58.000 U S postage stamp honoring her talent and heritage. In April, 0:19:58.280 --> 0:20:01.480 the college finally got back to re Now the committee 0:20:01.480 --> 0:20:05.120 would not grant the request for an honorary degree. Instead, 0:20:05.240 --> 0:20:07.760 Oberlin decided to give it Monia Lewis the full degree 0:20:07.840 --> 0:20:10.280 she had nearly completed a hundred and sixty years ago. 0:20:11.080 --> 0:20:16.040 On June five, Oberlin President Carmen Ambar stood before the 0:20:16.040 --> 0:20:20.520 graduating class and awarded Edmonia Lewis her degree in Ladies Courses. 0:20:20.960 --> 0:20:26.280 Posthumous and Monia, who her aunts and family sometimes called Wildfire, 0:20:26.640 --> 0:20:29.800 had finally received the recognition she had earned all those 0:20:29.880 --> 0:20:35.120 years ago. There's more to this story. Stick around after 0:20:35.160 --> 0:20:46.000 this brief sponsor break to hear all about it. In nine, 0:20:46.200 --> 0:20:49.080 the good times of the Roaring twenties came to a halt. 0:20:49.720 --> 0:20:53.560 The New York stock market crashed, People lost their life savings. 0:20:54.000 --> 0:20:58.760 Businesses failed, leaving what in four workers unemployed. Many had 0:20:58.760 --> 0:21:02.000 to stand in long breadline for rations to feed their families. 0:21:02.520 --> 0:21:06.000 For those struggling to survive, it seemed that no one cared. 0:21:06.480 --> 0:21:11.360 Banks defaulted on mortgages and evicted families. President Hoover believed 0:21:11.359 --> 0:21:13.520 that dead all get through it if people just helped 0:21:13.520 --> 0:21:19.160 one another. Families moved in together. Philanthropy increased with food drives. 0:21:19.480 --> 0:21:22.240 Communities came together to help farmers through a sort of 0:21:22.280 --> 0:21:25.240 collective action that's come to be known as penny auctions. 0:21:26.000 --> 0:21:29.159 After foreclosures, they bid on the houses, farming equipment, and 0:21:29.200 --> 0:21:32.600 livestock the banks had seized for only pennies and returned 0:21:32.680 --> 0:21:35.639 them to the farmers who had supplied their food. But 0:21:35.720 --> 0:21:38.800 it wasn't enough. Neighbors often had no more to give 0:21:38.880 --> 0:21:43.280 than those in need. Without anything left to share, Americans 0:21:43.320 --> 0:21:47.320 turned to the government for assistance, but Hoover remained unmoved. 0:21:47.680 --> 0:21:50.600 Americans who had once lived in apartments and houses now 0:21:50.640 --> 0:21:53.720 lived in makeshift huts made of cardboard, tar, paper, or 0:21:53.840 --> 0:21:57.640 other discarded supplies. Some dug holes in the ground and 0:21:57.840 --> 0:21:59.879 used whatever might count as a roof to keep the 0:22:00.000 --> 0:22:02.760 a now, others took up residence inside water mains and 0:22:02.840 --> 0:22:07.960 under bridges. The settlements became known as Hooverville's. The residents 0:22:08.000 --> 0:22:11.359 referred to the newspapers they used as blankets as Hoover blankets. 0:22:11.800 --> 0:22:15.600 Empty pockets turned inside out were called Hoover flags. When 0:22:15.640 --> 0:22:18.119 people wore out the soles in their shoes, they placed 0:22:18.160 --> 0:22:21.719 Hoover leather, which amounted to pieces of cardboard, into their shoes. 0:22:22.760 --> 0:22:25.240 It's easy to see that the President's reluctance to help 0:22:25.280 --> 0:22:30.080 Americans didn't win him many fans. Typically, Americans looked down 0:22:30.160 --> 0:22:33.760 on those seeking handouts. People thought taking state welfare was 0:22:33.800 --> 0:22:37.000 shameful unless it was someone they knew who had fallen 0:22:37.000 --> 0:22:39.800 on hard times. The general sentiment was that people on 0:22:39.840 --> 0:22:44.159 welfare did little to nothing to help themselves. Droughts in 0:22:44.200 --> 0:22:47.960 the Plain States made the situation worse. Without water, crops, 0:22:48.040 --> 0:22:52.600 animals and people died. Some government officials insisted the situation 0:22:52.680 --> 0:22:55.040 was hardly as dyer as people made it out to be. 0:22:55.640 --> 0:22:59.080 If they didn't see it, then it didn't exist. But 0:22:59.240 --> 0:23:02.359 a group of bographers was about to change that. In 0:23:02.440 --> 0:23:05.879 March of nineteen thirty six, Dorothea Lange passed a sign 0:23:05.960 --> 0:23:10.360 the Long Road in California. Sensing a story, she turned around. 0:23:10.920 --> 0:23:14.760 The handmade sign read pe Pickers Camp. Lange worked as 0:23:14.760 --> 0:23:18.480 a photographer for the Farm Security Administration. Her job was 0:23:18.520 --> 0:23:21.600 to help raise awareness of the American farmer's plight. She 0:23:21.640 --> 0:23:23.919 grabbed her camera equipment and got out of the car. 0:23:24.240 --> 0:23:27.120 The thin, disheveled woman and her children were friendly enough. 0:23:27.960 --> 0:23:30.080 The woman told Lange that she and her children had 0:23:30.119 --> 0:23:33.240 been living on vegetables from a nearby field and whatever 0:23:33.320 --> 0:23:36.440 birds the children managed to catch. A thirty two year 0:23:36.440 --> 0:23:40.400 old Florence Owens. Thompson and her seven children allowed Lange 0:23:40.440 --> 0:23:43.879 to take several photos, including a close up of Thompson's 0:23:43.920 --> 0:23:48.680 tired and desperate face. This was the face of rural America. 0:23:49.480 --> 0:23:53.080 Thompson's portrait came to represent the Great Depression and made 0:23:53.160 --> 0:23:56.840 Lange one of America's top photographers. She had always loved art, 0:23:56.960 --> 0:24:00.800 but especially photography. In nineteen four teen, she had worked 0:24:00.800 --> 0:24:05.520 for the famous Pictorialist movement photographer Arnold Genta. In nineteen seventeen, 0:24:05.600 --> 0:24:08.720 she had studied at the Clarence H. White School of Photography. 0:24:08.880 --> 0:24:12.280 After graduation in nineteen nineteen, she had opened a portrait studio. 0:24:12.920 --> 0:24:17.000 Lang's gift for photography had captured the Farm Security Administration's attention. 0:24:17.880 --> 0:24:21.480 They asked if she and other photographers, predominantly men, could 0:24:21.560 --> 0:24:24.679 document the effects the Great Depression had had on America. 0:24:24.800 --> 0:24:28.199 Between nineteen thirty five and nineteen forty four, Lange and 0:24:28.200 --> 0:24:32.040 the others took eighty thousand photographs of struggling Americans and 0:24:32.040 --> 0:24:35.840 the drought bridden dust Bowl migrant mother. The portrait Lang 0:24:35.920 --> 0:24:40.440 took of Florence and her children spread across the nation. Florence, 0:24:40.480 --> 0:24:43.840 an indigenous woman, had lost her husband in nineteen thirty one. 0:24:44.600 --> 0:24:47.080 Since then she had worked in the fields for minimal 0:24:47.119 --> 0:24:51.200 pay and scraps. Americans called Florence the Madonna of the 0:24:51.280 --> 0:24:55.000 dust Bowl. Without a word, she had described the plight 0:24:55.119 --> 0:24:59.600 of rural farmers. Lange took more heartbreaking photos of malnourished 0:24:59.640 --> 0:25:03.399 children in breadlines and farm workers from all kinds of backgrounds, 0:25:03.560 --> 0:25:07.760 hunched over crops and sparse fields. Her photography captured the 0:25:07.800 --> 0:25:12.520 moments where Americans, regardless of heritage or upbringing, shared compassion. 0:25:13.200 --> 0:25:15.560 Lang went on to say that she strove to create 0:25:15.640 --> 0:25:20.240 photos that created social change. The day after Lang's photo 0:25:20.280 --> 0:25:23.040 of Florence and her children appeared in the San Francisco News. 0:25:23.720 --> 0:25:28.000 The state Relief Administration arrived with food rations. In nineteen forty, 0:25:28.240 --> 0:25:30.919 Lang became the first woman to be awarded a Guggenheim 0:25:30.960 --> 0:25:34.320 Fellowship Grant for her exceptional talent and creativity in the arts. 0:25:35.280 --> 0:25:40.680 Like edmonious Statue of Cleopatra, Lang's art reflected reality. Lang 0:25:40.760 --> 0:25:44.879 died in ninety five, though she is not forgotten. She 0:25:44.960 --> 0:25:48.560 inspired a host of photographers to prioritize humanity in their 0:25:48.600 --> 0:25:59.440 photos and influenced the development of documentary photography. American Shadows 0:25:59.480 --> 0:26:03.000