WEBVTT - Vinnie Ream, Part 2 0:00:01.320 --> 0:00:04.280 Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:13.960 of iHeartRadio. Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly 0:00:14.000 --> 0:00:17.480 Frye and I'm Tracy V. Wilson. Before we get into 0:00:17.560 --> 0:00:19.560 our episode, we have a little bit of business, which 0:00:19.640 --> 0:00:23.720 is to announce a live show. Yeah, very exciting. We 0:00:23.840 --> 0:00:26.360 are going to be at the Eugene and Marilyn Glick 0:00:26.480 --> 0:00:30.320 Indiana History Center. We are working with the Indiana Historical 0:00:30.360 --> 0:00:34.360 Society to do a show for them on Friday, July nineteenth. 0:00:34.560 --> 0:00:36.960 It is going to be an evening show and you 0:00:37.080 --> 0:00:39.760 can come for the show or there is also a 0:00:39.760 --> 0:00:42.279 ticket option where you can come and do a meet 0:00:42.280 --> 0:00:44.120 and greet with us before the show and then go 0:00:44.200 --> 0:00:47.800 to the show. We are very excited. Yeah, I really 0:00:47.840 --> 0:00:50.720 really love the Indiana Historical Society. We did a show 0:00:50.720 --> 0:00:53.519 with them before and we had so much fun. So 0:00:53.560 --> 0:00:56.160 we hope to see you there. If you are interested, 0:00:56.360 --> 0:01:00.840 you can go to www dot Indiana History dot org 0:01:00.920 --> 0:01:03.480 slash events and you want to do that because this 0:01:03.600 --> 0:01:06.319 is a show you need to register for beforehand. So 0:01:06.400 --> 0:01:10.240 again that is Indianahistory dot org slash events, and we 0:01:10.319 --> 0:01:14.039 hope to see you there. So in the first part, 0:01:14.040 --> 0:01:17.399 of this two parter about Vinnie Reim. We talked about 0:01:17.560 --> 0:01:20.640 Vinnie's early life, how she became a sculptor, and the 0:01:20.640 --> 0:01:23.880 way that her life just seemed to be constantly engulfed 0:01:23.959 --> 0:01:27.840 in drama. After her family moved to Washington, DC when 0:01:27.840 --> 0:01:30.520 she was still a teenager, she lobbied for and got 0:01:30.560 --> 0:01:34.080 a commission from Congress to create a memorial statue of 0:01:34.120 --> 0:01:37.560 Abraham Lincoln. Uh. If you didn't listen to part one, 0:01:38.880 --> 0:01:40.920 you might be a little lost here. But more importantly, 0:01:40.920 --> 0:01:42.920 you missed out on a whole lot of juicy drama. 0:01:43.080 --> 0:01:47.560 So Uh's drama. Go back for that. It'll also explain 0:01:47.640 --> 0:01:51.040 some context about how people perceived her. We are picking 0:01:51.080 --> 0:01:54.320 up her story today after she completed the model for 0:01:54.360 --> 0:01:57.800 the Lincoln statue and her next move to go to 0:01:57.840 --> 0:02:01.680 Europe to have it created in marble. The timing of 0:02:01.720 --> 0:02:05.080 any Reem's trip to Italy was somewhat good. She had 0:02:05.120 --> 0:02:08.520 been so raked over the coals in the press and 0:02:08.560 --> 0:02:11.360 in the idle gossip of Washington, DC that it was 0:02:11.400 --> 0:02:15.239 really starting to bother her. Although she was only twenty two, 0:02:15.360 --> 0:02:19.120 she had been made famous and infamous and had way 0:02:19.160 --> 0:02:23.120 more media coverage than even most celebrities were seeing in 0:02:23.200 --> 0:02:27.280 their whole lifetime. When her father traveled to Louisiana as 0:02:27.280 --> 0:02:31.120 she was wrapping up her Lincoln statue, he was startled 0:02:31.120 --> 0:02:34.280 to find that people there were gossiping about his daughter 0:02:34.639 --> 0:02:37.359 just as much as they had been back in Washington. Yeah, 0:02:37.440 --> 0:02:41.880 she was a daily source of article fodder for most papers. 0:02:42.160 --> 0:02:44.760 But before we get to talking about her time abroad, 0:02:45.760 --> 0:02:48.360 we also have to talk about why she had once 0:02:48.400 --> 0:02:51.360 again become central to a scandal. And to do that, 0:02:51.520 --> 0:02:55.320 we actually have to backtrack to yet another contentious scenario 0:02:55.800 --> 0:02:58.280 that played out in the months that Reim was finishing 0:02:58.360 --> 0:03:02.000 her Lincoln model, because Vinnie Reem was at the center 0:03:02.440 --> 0:03:05.880 of the post Lincoln power struggle in the United States. 0:03:06.639 --> 0:03:09.320 In part one of this episode, we read a quote 0:03:09.320 --> 0:03:12.800 from Vinnie Reem's recollections where she talked about listening to 0:03:12.880 --> 0:03:17.000 all the men, many of them politicians, talk while she worked, 0:03:17.360 --> 0:03:20.960 and she really heard it all. After Andrew Johnson became 0:03:21.040 --> 0:03:23.880 president in the wake of Lincoln's assassination, there were a 0:03:23.960 --> 0:03:27.040 lot of people who thought he was not strong enough 0:03:27.200 --> 0:03:32.080 in that role. Specifically, they thought Johnson was too soft 0:03:32.160 --> 0:03:36.480 on the Confederate States. In an interview in eighteen sixty five, 0:03:36.640 --> 0:03:40.280 Johnson had stated, quote, there is no such thing as reconstruction. 0:03:41.320 --> 0:03:44.440 These states have not gone out of the Union. Therefore 0:03:44.480 --> 0:03:48.320 reconstruction is unnecessary. I do not mean to treat them 0:03:48.400 --> 0:03:51.560 as inco it states, but merely as existing under a 0:03:51.640 --> 0:03:56.600 temporary suspension of their government, provided always they elect loyal men. 0:03:57.280 --> 0:04:01.000 The doctrine of coercion to preserve as and the Union 0:04:01.080 --> 0:04:04.520 has been vindicated by the people. It is the province 0:04:04.560 --> 0:04:07.120 of the executive to see that the will of the 0:04:07.160 --> 0:04:10.280 people is carried out in the rehabilitation of the rebellious 0:04:10.360 --> 0:04:14.000 states once more under the authority, as well as the 0:04:14.040 --> 0:04:17.640 protection of the Union. So a lot of people wanted 0:04:17.640 --> 0:04:21.479 the Confederate States to face serious consequences for the Civil War, 0:04:22.240 --> 0:04:24.719 but Johnson really seemed to believe he was following the 0:04:24.720 --> 0:04:28.560 path that Lincoln wanted a peaceful resolution after the horrible 0:04:28.640 --> 0:04:32.480 toll of war. But in moving to allow Confederate states 0:04:32.520 --> 0:04:36.080 to once again hold elections and send representatives to Washington 0:04:36.320 --> 0:04:41.560 relatively quickly, he fueled a lot of problems. Many Southern states, 0:04:41.600 --> 0:04:43.960 still reeling from the loss of the war, tended to 0:04:44.040 --> 0:04:47.400 vote in representatives that upheld the same ideals that had 0:04:47.440 --> 0:04:50.480 fomented the friction that led to the Civil War, they 0:04:50.560 --> 0:04:53.360 still believed their cause was right. This is something we 0:04:53.520 --> 0:04:56.360 touched on in our December twenty twenty episode on the 0:04:56.400 --> 0:05:01.440 Lost Cause. So then those Congressmen brought back that tension 0:05:01.560 --> 0:05:05.599 to Congress, and this only led to ongoing problems like 0:05:05.720 --> 0:05:09.920 restrictive Jim Crow laws, which made it difficult to impossible 0:05:10.240 --> 0:05:13.440 for formerly enslaved people to actually start their lives of 0:05:13.440 --> 0:05:16.760 freedom in the states that had been part of the Confederacy. 0:05:17.520 --> 0:05:20.840 There is so much more to the events and conflicts 0:05:20.880 --> 0:05:25.680 of Johnson's presidency that is really outside the scope of 0:05:25.720 --> 0:05:29.239 this episode. Here's how it relates to Vinny reim Though, 0:05:29.920 --> 0:05:34.160 Republican Representative Thaddeus Stevens of Pennsylvania, who had been in 0:05:34.200 --> 0:05:38.799 favor of a complete reorganization of the Southern States, initiated 0:05:38.839 --> 0:05:43.279 an impeachment effort against Johnson. As the vote on the 0:05:43.360 --> 0:05:48.200 articles of impeachment loomed, the tide against convicting the president 0:05:48.279 --> 0:05:51.919 and removing him from office started to turn. That was 0:05:51.920 --> 0:05:54.440 something that Stevens, who was very close to the end 0:05:54.480 --> 0:05:57.240 of his life, had been worried about, and the count 0:05:57.400 --> 0:06:01.640 was ultimately determined by a senator from Kansas named Edmund Ross. 0:06:02.240 --> 0:06:05.000 Edmund Ross lived as a border with the Reem family. 0:06:05.640 --> 0:06:08.159 So when Ross cast the vote that meant that Johnson 0:06:08.160 --> 0:06:13.279 would be acquitted, Fingers immediately pointed to Vinnie Reim. She 0:06:13.560 --> 0:06:16.200 was a supporter of Johnson, and she was accused of 0:06:16.240 --> 0:06:20.680 having swayed the Kansas senator's opinion. This also came with 0:06:20.720 --> 0:06:23.839 the usual subtext that she was using her womanly wiles 0:06:23.880 --> 0:06:27.560 to do so. But this catalyzed a very difficult time 0:06:27.600 --> 0:06:30.479 for Reem. She was, as we said, nearing completion on 0:06:30.520 --> 0:06:33.440 her Lincoln model at this time, but her studio was 0:06:33.480 --> 0:06:36.560 abruptly taken from her under the auspices of needing the 0:06:36.600 --> 0:06:39.960 space as a guardroom during all of these debates, but 0:06:40.000 --> 0:06:42.440 people really thought that they were just doing it to 0:06:42.480 --> 0:06:45.560 her as a form of retribution. She ended up having 0:06:45.600 --> 0:06:49.160 to move her work temporarily into a hallway until yet 0:06:49.240 --> 0:06:52.440 another debate and another vote gave her back her workspace. 0:06:53.320 --> 0:06:55.960 So it was on the heels of once again being 0:06:56.040 --> 0:07:00.839 portrayed as a manipulative interloper in US politics, that Reem 0:07:00.880 --> 0:07:05.120 finished the first phase of her commission of that statue 0:07:05.200 --> 0:07:09.440 of Abraham Lincoln and headed to Europe. It was almost 0:07:09.480 --> 0:07:13.640 certainly a welcome opportunity to get out of DC. There's 0:07:13.680 --> 0:07:16.880 a side story about one of Rhem's many admirers, a 0:07:17.040 --> 0:07:21.360 Confederate brigadier general among other things, named Albert Pike, who 0:07:21.440 --> 0:07:25.040 was much older than Vinnie. Pike is a controversial figure 0:07:25.080 --> 0:07:27.640 in his own right, but it appears that he believed 0:07:27.720 --> 0:07:30.560 Vinnie loved him. The two of them were close. He 0:07:30.680 --> 0:07:33.400 was given charge of her two pet doves when she 0:07:33.520 --> 0:07:37.240 left for Europe, but Vinnie and her parents traveled to 0:07:37.320 --> 0:07:40.720 New York with Pike and Illinois Representative Samuel Marshall to 0:07:40.800 --> 0:07:42.920 meet the ship that was going to take the rem 0:07:42.960 --> 0:07:46.400 party across the Atlantic, and Reim's decision to spend some 0:07:46.520 --> 0:07:50.480 amount of time in private with Marshall was greatly upsetting 0:07:50.480 --> 0:07:54.560 to Pike. A letter from Pike to Reeim later said, quote, 0:07:54.600 --> 0:07:57.480 Marshall loves you, but does not worship you as I do. 0:07:58.600 --> 0:08:02.040 Just one more parting scandalous. She left the country and 0:08:02.080 --> 0:08:05.120 suddenly that relationship between Reem and Pike, like a lot 0:08:05.160 --> 0:08:09.080 of her interactions with men, is described very differently depending 0:08:09.120 --> 0:08:12.080 on the source that you look at, ranging from him 0:08:12.080 --> 0:08:14.800 being totally in love with her to being more of 0:08:14.840 --> 0:08:17.760 a grandfather figure, and this is part of why her 0:08:17.800 --> 0:08:20.560 story remains so hard to parse. It's been framed in 0:08:20.600 --> 0:08:25.080 different ways by different biographers based on letters that Pike 0:08:25.120 --> 0:08:27.640 wrote to Vinnie. Though he was clearly in love with 0:08:27.680 --> 0:08:30.160 her and thought they were going to have a life together, 0:08:30.560 --> 0:08:33.760 he wrote to her constantly while she was abroad. Keep 0:08:33.800 --> 0:08:35.600 him in mind. He's gonna come up a little bit 0:08:35.679 --> 0:08:39.680 later on. The Reims route to Rome was not direct. 0:08:40.000 --> 0:08:42.960 After leaving New York on June ninth, eighteen sixty nine, 0:08:43.320 --> 0:08:46.000 they stopped first in Liverpool, and they spent some time 0:08:46.000 --> 0:08:49.319 in London. They next moved on to Paris by the 0:08:49.400 --> 0:08:52.240 end of the month, and there Vinny became close friends 0:08:52.240 --> 0:08:56.520 with General John Charles Fremont and his wife, Jesse Benton Fremont. 0:08:56.920 --> 0:09:00.559 Through them, she met Pear Hyacinth, the very famous preacher 0:09:00.760 --> 0:09:03.959 whose real name was Charles Jon Marrie Lausson, who had 0:09:03.960 --> 0:09:07.160 been excommunicated from the Catholic Church after he spoke out 0:09:07.200 --> 0:09:10.760 against the institution and made some incendiary speeches on the 0:09:10.840 --> 0:09:15.240 nature of religion. Vinnie kept very busy in France, including 0:09:15.280 --> 0:09:19.000 taking lessons with French painter Leon Bona and the Luminaries 0:09:19.000 --> 0:09:21.200 that she met in Paris were just a taste of 0:09:21.200 --> 0:09:24.480 what was to come in Europe. She sculpted busts or 0:09:24.520 --> 0:09:27.480 medallions of many of these people, but she also did 0:09:27.960 --> 0:09:30.680 a lot of shopping in Paris, so much so that 0:09:30.760 --> 0:09:33.640 it kind of cut into her money reserves enough that 0:09:33.720 --> 0:09:36.680 she considered altering her travel plans to omit some of 0:09:36.679 --> 0:09:39.040 the cities they were planning to stop in, although she 0:09:39.120 --> 0:09:43.240 did ultimately decide against making changes. Vinnie and her parents 0:09:43.360 --> 0:09:45.800 stayed in Paris until the autumn and then moved on 0:09:45.880 --> 0:09:48.600 to Munich. She was only in Munich for a week, 0:09:48.640 --> 0:09:52.040 but managed to meet and sculpt painter Friedrich Kaulbach before 0:09:52.080 --> 0:09:56.320 heading on to her next destination, which was Florence. Honestly, 0:09:56.400 --> 0:09:59.320 this trip sounds amazing. After a couple of days in 0:09:59.400 --> 0:10:02.040 Tuscany sh she moved on to her next destination, which 0:10:02.160 --> 0:10:05.800 was Rome. The goal was for her Lincoln model to 0:10:05.880 --> 0:10:10.839 be recreated in Carrara Marble. Being in Romant, among other things, 0:10:10.840 --> 0:10:13.600 that she was exposed to other women artists from the 0:10:13.720 --> 0:10:17.160 US who had taken studio space in Rome, including ed 0:10:17.240 --> 0:10:20.479 Monia Lewis who we mentioned in episode one, Emma Strebens, 0:10:20.600 --> 0:10:25.280 and Whitney and Harriet Hosmer. They have their own whole story. 0:10:26.520 --> 0:10:30.040 Vinnie had varying opinions of these women, just put it 0:10:30.080 --> 0:10:34.840 out way. Due to a mix up, Vinnie didn't have 0:10:34.920 --> 0:10:38.560 studio space waiting as she had expected, but once she 0:10:38.640 --> 0:10:42.480 did fine studio space, she fully decorated it and called 0:10:42.520 --> 0:10:45.720 for her Lincoln Model to be delivered there. She also 0:10:45.800 --> 0:10:49.040 displayed the busts she had made in Paris, and she 0:10:49.120 --> 0:10:51.520 kept the studio open as kind of a free range 0:10:51.559 --> 0:10:55.719 salon to visitors. One of her frequent visitors was previous 0:10:55.880 --> 0:11:00.240 podcast subject franz List. At this point in his life, 0:11:00.000 --> 0:11:03.120 Liszt was living in a convent in Rome, and so 0:11:03.160 --> 0:11:04.679 the two of them were able to spend a lot 0:11:04.679 --> 0:11:07.920 of time together. Vinnie described the two of them as 0:11:07.960 --> 0:11:11.559 having an innate understanding of one another from the start. 0:11:12.160 --> 0:11:15.520 Maybe they shared the odd burden of being so romantically 0:11:15.520 --> 0:11:17.920 appealing to a lot of people that their lives were 0:11:17.920 --> 0:11:23.360 often troubled by that, I'd say, also, both of them 0:11:23.520 --> 0:11:28.400 surrounded by scandal constantly, they had some parallels to their lives. Yeah. 0:11:28.760 --> 0:11:31.160 She wrote a description of their first meeting that is 0:11:31.200 --> 0:11:33.360 really charming to me, And I'm gonna read that in 0:11:33.440 --> 0:11:38.360 our behind the scenes on Okay, we will talk about 0:11:38.400 --> 0:11:41.800 Vinnie's time in Rome after we pause for a sponsor break. 0:11:51.360 --> 0:11:54.240 Vinnie was in Rome for several months before an adequate 0:11:54.280 --> 0:11:57.360 piece of marble was found to recreate her Lincoln model. 0:11:57.840 --> 0:12:00.679 There was also paperwork involved in moving the model from 0:12:00.800 --> 0:12:04.480 Rome to Carrera. One of the biographies I read mentioned 0:12:04.480 --> 0:12:08.720 that this legal happening had was something that the Vatican 0:12:08.760 --> 0:12:13.600 had instituted so people weren't carrying important religious relics out 0:12:13.600 --> 0:12:18.280 of the city without it all being documented. But and 0:12:18.320 --> 0:12:20.240 apparently it applied to her model, even though it was 0:12:20.280 --> 0:12:23.280 not that. Once this model was gone from her studio 0:12:23.360 --> 0:12:26.920 and had moved on to Krera, she described feeling very lonely. 0:12:27.800 --> 0:12:30.200 She had also promised a lot of other commissions which 0:12:30.200 --> 0:12:32.040 she worked on in the period where the model was 0:12:32.080 --> 0:12:35.120 out of her hands and being copied by artisans outside 0:12:35.160 --> 0:12:38.400 the city of Rome. She produced a lot of work 0:12:38.440 --> 0:12:41.119 during this time. It is often considered her most artistically 0:12:41.160 --> 0:12:45.760 fruitful period, and part of the reason for her business 0:12:45.800 --> 0:12:48.040 and the fact that she was working so hard was 0:12:48.040 --> 0:12:50.120 that she actually had to round up the money to 0:12:50.280 --> 0:12:53.920 hire and pay marble cutters. She had not received that 0:12:53.960 --> 0:12:57.640 second five thousand dollars payment from the government yet and 0:12:57.679 --> 0:12:59.600 this was going to be a couple thousand dollars to 0:12:59.720 --> 0:13:01.560 like for the marble and get people to cut it. 0:13:01.679 --> 0:13:04.760 So she eventually broke heed alone with two American bankers 0:13:04.800 --> 0:13:07.840 who were in Rome at the time, and offered after 0:13:07.880 --> 0:13:10.560 some haggling and after they all had a brief falling 0:13:11.000 --> 0:13:14.400 out to co sign alone with an Italian bank for her. 0:13:15.240 --> 0:13:17.679 Once again, she met the most important people of the 0:13:17.679 --> 0:13:21.360 city and was even invited into the private apartments of 0:13:21.440 --> 0:13:24.800 Cardinal Antonelli in the Vatican to see his art collection. 0:13:25.640 --> 0:13:28.240 Antonelli spent a lot of time with Vinnie and her 0:13:28.240 --> 0:13:31.079 parents while they were in Rome. One of the most 0:13:31.120 --> 0:13:35.559 famous non photographic images of Reem was also created during 0:13:35.600 --> 0:13:38.959 this time. She was sculpted and painted by a lot 0:13:39.040 --> 0:13:43.440 of artists in her lifetime, but American portrait painter George 0:13:43.480 --> 0:13:46.960 Peter Alexander Healy was living in Rome at the time, 0:13:47.360 --> 0:13:49.880 and after the two of them became friends, he made 0:13:49.920 --> 0:13:53.120 a portrait of her. She's dressed as a woman from 0:13:53.160 --> 0:13:57.160 the Italian countryside and holding a guitar. We mentioned in 0:13:57.200 --> 0:13:59.800 Part one that Reim had taught herself guitar at an 0:13:59.840 --> 0:14:03.120 earth early age, So while this costume and the portrait 0:14:03.240 --> 0:14:06.920 is really not her style, the guitar was an apt propped. 0:14:07.679 --> 0:14:10.080 That painting is now in the collection of the Smithsonian. 0:14:10.840 --> 0:14:14.080 Throughout her stay in Rome, Vinnie often traveled to Kreera 0:14:14.120 --> 0:14:17.560 to oversee the progress on the Lincoln Marble. This was 0:14:17.600 --> 0:14:20.200 not a small trip today, getting to Krera from Rome 0:14:20.280 --> 0:14:23.760 takes more than four hours by car. She had selected 0:14:23.800 --> 0:14:26.520 the marble works at the end of May eighteen seventy. 0:14:27.080 --> 0:14:29.880 That project was completed in September, so it only took 0:14:29.880 --> 0:14:33.240 a few months for it to be carved. After inspecting it, 0:14:33.360 --> 0:14:35.680 she had it sent to the port city of Livorno, 0:14:35.800 --> 0:14:38.360 which was called Leghorn by English speakers at the time. 0:14:38.720 --> 0:14:41.440 While she had to hasten an exit from Rome due 0:14:41.440 --> 0:14:44.360 to the city being overrun during the Franco Prussian War, 0:14:45.240 --> 0:14:47.680 she and her parents went to Vienna until things had 0:14:47.720 --> 0:14:50.280 settled down, and then they returned to Rome to pack 0:14:50.320 --> 0:14:53.440 their things and their many acquisitions from their year in 0:14:53.560 --> 0:14:58.000 change living abroad and head home. Vinnie did manage to 0:14:58.000 --> 0:15:01.440 fit in. One last European romance was George Brondez, who 0:15:01.480 --> 0:15:04.440 would become a famous Danish critic, but after a little 0:15:04.440 --> 0:15:06.760 more than two weeks the pair had to part. It 0:15:06.800 --> 0:15:11.120 was time to show Washington the statue. When the Lincoln 0:15:11.160 --> 0:15:13.880 statue got to Washington, d C. It was placed in 0:15:13.920 --> 0:15:17.200 the capital rotunda, but it remained covered under a tent. 0:15:18.000 --> 0:15:20.640 The feet of the statue were visible, and they were 0:15:20.680 --> 0:15:24.040 reported on. It was first inspected by the Secretary of 0:15:24.080 --> 0:15:28.360 the Interior, James Delano, who deemed it quote completed to 0:15:28.480 --> 0:15:32.760 my entire satisfaction. While write ups and reviews based on 0:15:32.840 --> 0:15:35.840 the day of that inspection were already in the papers, 0:15:36.080 --> 0:15:40.160 the formal public unveiling took place on the evening of Wednesday, 0:15:40.280 --> 0:15:45.600 January twenty fifth, eighteen seventy one. As the statue was unveiled, 0:15:45.760 --> 0:15:48.960 a band played Hail to the Chief. Based on a 0:15:48.960 --> 0:15:52.280 lot of descriptions, this sounds like a triumphant night. Overall, 0:15:53.040 --> 0:15:56.880 the early reception was very positive, but over time critics 0:15:56.920 --> 0:15:59.760 took a less enthusiastic view of the work. They called 0:15:59.760 --> 0:16:04.520 it the like dull and lifeless. But Vinnie Reim had 0:16:04.600 --> 0:16:08.280 delivered the promised marble statue. Yeah, I think that's one 0:16:08.280 --> 0:16:10.480 of those beauty is in the eye of the beholder moments. 0:16:10.520 --> 0:16:12.440 As we know I mean, many of us have seen 0:16:12.480 --> 0:16:15.440 this statue. I think it's lovely. I couldn't make it. 0:16:16.600 --> 0:16:19.560 But simply by being back in the limelight, Vinnie Reim 0:16:19.720 --> 0:16:22.800 was once again the talk of seemingly every newspaper in 0:16:22.840 --> 0:16:27.480 the country, with wildly polarized writeups about her. Her supporters 0:16:27.520 --> 0:16:29.960 were a bullion and praise her Marble Lincoln as a 0:16:30.000 --> 0:16:34.400 perfect representation of the man in form and attitude. Because 0:16:34.440 --> 0:16:36.960 she had made good on her commission, her detractors couldn't 0:16:37.000 --> 0:16:38.840 claim that they were worried she was too young in 0:16:38.920 --> 0:16:42.840 inexperience to be given such an opportunity, so instead they 0:16:42.920 --> 0:16:45.960 just turned full sale into accusations that she had garnered 0:16:46.000 --> 0:16:49.520 her opportunity through sexual relations with older men who in 0:16:49.560 --> 0:16:53.200 turn did her favors. And in the midst of all 0:16:53.200 --> 0:16:57.640 this post unveiling press, Raim met Charles Francis Hall and 0:16:57.800 --> 0:17:01.240 Emil Bessels, who were preparing for the Polaris expedition to 0:17:01.280 --> 0:17:05.399 the North Pole, on which Hall would die. When we 0:17:05.480 --> 0:17:08.920 talked about this possible love triangle in our episode about Hall, 0:17:09.680 --> 0:17:13.080 the information related to him and ship's doctor Bessels made 0:17:13.119 --> 0:17:16.040 it sound like Bessels may have flown into a rage 0:17:16.119 --> 0:17:19.240 on the journey after learning that Hall and Reim might 0:17:19.240 --> 0:17:22.920 have had some kind of romance. But biographies of Reem 0:17:23.080 --> 0:17:27.600 characterize this love triangle somewhat differently. According to the biography 0:17:27.720 --> 0:17:30.880 Labor of Love, written by Glen V. Sherwood and published 0:17:30.880 --> 0:17:34.399 in nineteen ninety seven, quote, during the summer of eighteen 0:17:34.480 --> 0:17:38.200 seventy one, she received letters from doctor Emil Bessels and 0:17:38.400 --> 0:17:42.399 the explorer CF. Hall from Greenland. The men were leading 0:17:42.440 --> 0:17:45.800 an expedition to the North Pole. They hung a picture 0:17:45.880 --> 0:17:49.119 of the Lincoln Statue in Hall's cabin aboard the polaris. 0:17:49.600 --> 0:17:53.280 The men requested Vinie's autograph on two flags and promised 0:17:53.320 --> 0:17:57.439 to name an island after her. That really makes it 0:17:57.480 --> 0:17:59.880 seem like both of these men were friendly with her, 0:18:00.400 --> 0:18:03.240 more like they were a group of acquaintances than having 0:18:03.400 --> 0:18:06.840 like a love triangle. A bit of additional light is 0:18:06.920 --> 0:18:09.880 shed by the two thousand and four biography Vinnie Reem, 0:18:09.880 --> 0:18:13.920 an American sculptor, by Edward S. Cooper. In Cooper's account, 0:18:14.040 --> 0:18:17.720 Reeve dined several times with Hall and Bessels together while 0:18:17.720 --> 0:18:20.359 they were all in New York. Not long after the 0:18:20.440 --> 0:18:23.200 unveiling of the Lincoln statue. Vinnie had decided to leave 0:18:23.359 --> 0:18:27.959 Washington and set up a studio there. Per the Cooper biography, quote, 0:18:28.000 --> 0:18:31.960 Hall enjoyed Vinnie's company, but Bessels became infatuated with her. 0:18:32.760 --> 0:18:35.160 There is also an excerpt of a letter that Bessels 0:18:35.160 --> 0:18:38.000 wrote her in that book that does indeed sound like 0:18:38.040 --> 0:18:41.560 a man infatuated. He mentions, quote thinking of you all 0:18:41.600 --> 0:18:45.640 the time and anticipating the pleasure of seeing you. None 0:18:45.680 --> 0:18:48.280 of this really helped solve the mystery of Charles Francis 0:18:48.280 --> 0:18:51.240 Hall's death, but it does fill in some details. So 0:18:51.320 --> 0:18:54.560 we noted in our earlier episode the theory that Bessels 0:18:54.600 --> 0:18:57.439 was jealous of Hall's relationship with Reem and that that 0:18:57.600 --> 0:19:01.240 may have been what led him to murder. Still no 0:19:01.520 --> 0:19:04.480 obvious evidence, especially when it's also not really clear how 0:19:04.560 --> 0:19:07.760 Vinnie Reem felt about either of these men. But the 0:19:07.800 --> 0:19:11.719 whole of their friendships are romances are just a blip 0:19:11.760 --> 0:19:14.639 in Reim's life. In each of these biographies, I'm talking 0:19:14.680 --> 0:19:17.880 like a couple paragraphs. There's not much about this whole thing. 0:19:18.400 --> 0:19:20.720 She just didn't know them for long at all before 0:19:20.760 --> 0:19:24.119 they left for their expedition. As Vinnie was trying to 0:19:24.160 --> 0:19:26.359 carve out a life for herself in New York. Her 0:19:26.400 --> 0:19:30.200 brother turned up with a problem. During the Civil War, 0:19:30.440 --> 0:19:33.640 he had surrendered to Union troops and had been released 0:19:33.680 --> 0:19:36.800 several weeks later, and then he's alleged to have lived 0:19:36.840 --> 0:19:39.680 with the Choctaw tribe. Then he popped up again in 0:19:39.720 --> 0:19:43.879 eighteen seventy two after being arrested for larceny in Arkansas, 0:19:44.680 --> 0:19:47.959 and he was charged with selling alcohol to Native Americans. 0:19:48.800 --> 0:19:51.080 He was only found guilty on the second charge, but 0:19:51.240 --> 0:19:53.719 the sentence was six months of prison time and one 0:19:53.720 --> 0:19:57.720 thousand dollars fine. He immediately went to his famous sister 0:19:57.840 --> 0:20:00.760 for help, hoping she could leverage some of her political 0:20:00.760 --> 0:20:04.320 contacts to get him out of this jam. She tried 0:20:04.359 --> 0:20:07.560 to get him a pardon, but was not able to Uh. 0:20:07.880 --> 0:20:10.920 This was maybe some proof that her influence was already 0:20:10.920 --> 0:20:15.040 starting to lag. Her Washington Heyday seemed to have peaked 0:20:15.080 --> 0:20:19.000 and fallen already. And she was twenty five. Yeah, so 0:20:19.160 --> 0:20:20.919 young to have lived all of the life we have 0:20:20.960 --> 0:20:25.480 already talked about, right, But her brother Bob's arrest was 0:20:25.520 --> 0:20:28.200 not her only problem. She had a pretty real cash 0:20:28.200 --> 0:20:31.320 flow issue at this time. Her fame was such a 0:20:31.359 --> 0:20:33.720 mixed bag that it seemed to drive away as many 0:20:33.760 --> 0:20:37.720 possible patrons as it attracted, and in some cases, sales 0:20:37.760 --> 0:20:40.040 of the works that she had created, like her sculpture 0:20:40.080 --> 0:20:43.800 of Saffo, fell through. She made the decision to leave 0:20:43.840 --> 0:20:46.119 New York and move back to Washington in the hopes 0:20:46.119 --> 0:20:48.040 that she would have better luck there in a city 0:20:48.040 --> 0:20:50.800 where at least she knew a lot of people, and 0:20:50.840 --> 0:20:54.000 this did work out to some degree. She famously sculpted 0:20:54.000 --> 0:20:57.120 a bust of Custer in eighteen seventy six, not long 0:20:57.160 --> 0:20:59.960 before his death, in the area that would become Montana. 0:21:00.760 --> 0:21:04.639 In eighteen seventy five, Vinnie Reim entered two competitions for 0:21:04.880 --> 0:21:08.879 monument commissions. The first was for a statue of Union 0:21:09.000 --> 0:21:13.159 Major General George Henry Thomas. She did not win, and 0:21:13.240 --> 0:21:16.640 the commission instead went to John Quincy Adams Ward, who 0:21:16.840 --> 0:21:21.200 had a well established career in monument statuary. The second 0:21:21.200 --> 0:21:24.119 competition was for the commission from the US government to 0:21:24.200 --> 0:21:28.680 memorialize Admiral David G. Farragut in bronze. There were a 0:21:28.760 --> 0:21:31.000 lot of prominent names in the mix try to win 0:21:31.040 --> 0:21:36.040 this commission, including William Westmore Story and John Quincy Adams Ward. 0:21:36.920 --> 0:21:40.280 Reems won this time. There had been a bit of 0:21:40.400 --> 0:21:45.040 lobbying again, but it had a more personal tone. Farragut's widow, 0:21:45.119 --> 0:21:48.800 Virginia Dorcas Loyal Farragut, was a fan of Vinnie's work 0:21:48.840 --> 0:21:52.280 and endorsed her as the best candidate, and also helped 0:21:52.320 --> 0:21:54.600 get a lot of prominent and powerful people to do 0:21:54.640 --> 0:21:58.040 the same thing. When the busts of the competitors were 0:21:58.040 --> 0:22:01.880 all displayed together for judging, Vinnie fared better than her 0:22:01.880 --> 0:22:06.080 competitors and was granted this twenty thousand dollars commission. She 0:22:06.359 --> 0:22:10.040 conferred often with Missus Farragut as she worked on this likeness. 0:22:10.720 --> 0:22:13.760 The bronze that was used to cast Farragut was recycled. 0:22:14.040 --> 0:22:17.320 It had been one of the propellers for the admiral's flagship, 0:22:17.400 --> 0:22:20.960 the USS Hartford. Coming up, we will meet the man 0:22:21.000 --> 0:22:24.760 who finally got the much pursued Vinnie reim to settle down, 0:22:25.160 --> 0:22:27.600 and we will dig into their relationship after we pause 0:22:27.680 --> 0:22:39.800 for one more sponsor break. As she was working on 0:22:39.840 --> 0:22:44.200 the Farragut commission, re met Richard Leverage Hawxy through Farragut's son, 0:22:44.520 --> 0:22:47.600 who was named Loyal and Loyal One day brought Hoxey 0:22:47.680 --> 0:22:50.320 who was a first lieutenant in the Army Corps of Engineers, 0:22:50.720 --> 0:22:54.160 to visit while she was working. Hoxy was very handsome 0:22:54.200 --> 0:22:57.000 and he was very tall. His height was a sharp 0:22:57.040 --> 0:23:00.000 contrast to Vinnie's very petite frame. We haven't talked about it, 0:23:00.080 --> 0:23:01.879 but she was a very tiny woman. She was a 0:23:02.640 --> 0:23:05.320 less than five feet tall, and most accounts say she 0:23:05.400 --> 0:23:07.879 never weighed more than about ninety pounds. She was very little, 0:23:08.800 --> 0:23:12.600 and Hoxy was, like so many other men, very taken 0:23:12.640 --> 0:23:16.000 with her. As Vinnie and Richard started to spend a 0:23:16.040 --> 0:23:19.199 great deal of time together, tongue started wagging about a 0:23:19.280 --> 0:23:22.359 romance between the two, and this time they were not wrong. 0:23:23.280 --> 0:23:25.560 But this caused a whole other problem, which was at 0:23:25.600 --> 0:23:29.600 Albert Pike, who we mentioned earlier was nearing seventy was 0:23:29.640 --> 0:23:32.200 still in love with Vinnie, and he started to write 0:23:32.240 --> 0:23:36.200