Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio. Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly
Speaker 1: Frye and I'm Tracy V. Wilson. Before we get into
Speaker 1: our episode, we have a little bit of business, which
Speaker 1: is to announce a live show. Yeah, very exciting. We
Speaker 1: are going to be at the Eugene and Marilyn Glick
Speaker 1: Indiana History Center. We are working with the Indiana Historical
Speaker 1: Society to do a show for them on Friday, July nineteenth.
Speaker 1: It is going to be an evening show and you
Speaker 1: can come for the show or there is also a
Speaker 1: ticket option where you can come and do a meet
Speaker 1: and greet with us before the show and then go
Speaker 1: to the show. We are very excited. Yeah, I really
Speaker 1: really love the Indiana Historical Society. We did a show
Speaker 1: with them before and we had so much fun. So
Speaker 1: we hope to see you there. If you are interested,
Speaker 1: you can go to www dot Indiana History dot org
Speaker 1: slash events and you want to do that because this
Speaker 1: is a show you need to register for beforehand. So
Speaker 1: again that is Indianahistory dot org slash events, and we
Speaker 1: hope to see you there. So in the first part,
Speaker 1: of this two parter about Vinnie Reim. We talked about
Speaker 1: Vinnie's early life, how she became a sculptor, and the
Speaker 1: way that her life just seemed to be constantly engulfed
Speaker 1: in drama. After her family moved to Washington, DC when
Speaker 1: she was still a teenager, she lobbied for and got
Speaker 1: a commission from Congress to create a memorial statue of
Speaker 1: Abraham Lincoln. Uh. If you didn't listen to part one,
Speaker 1: you might be a little lost here. But more importantly,
Speaker 1: you missed out on a whole lot of juicy drama.
Speaker 1: So Uh's drama. Go back for that. It'll also explain
Speaker 1: some context about how people perceived her. We are picking
Speaker 1: up her story today after she completed the model for
Speaker 1: the Lincoln statue and her next move to go to
Speaker 1: Europe to have it created in marble. The timing of
Speaker 1: any Reem's trip to Italy was somewhat good. She had
Speaker 1: been so raked over the coals in the press and
Speaker 1: in the idle gossip of Washington, DC that it was
Speaker 1: really starting to bother her. Although she was only twenty two,
Speaker 1: she had been made famous and infamous and had way
Speaker 1: more media coverage than even most celebrities were seeing in
Speaker 1: their whole lifetime. When her father traveled to Louisiana as
Speaker 1: she was wrapping up her Lincoln statue, he was startled
Speaker 1: to find that people there were gossiping about his daughter
Speaker 1: just as much as they had been back in Washington. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she was a daily source of article fodder for most papers.
Speaker 1: But before we get to talking about her time abroad,
Speaker 1: we also have to talk about why she had once
Speaker 1: again become central to a scandal. And to do that,
Speaker 1: we actually have to backtrack to yet another contentious scenario
Speaker 1: that played out in the months that Reim was finishing
Speaker 1: her Lincoln model, because Vinnie Reem was at the center
Speaker 1: of the post Lincoln power struggle in the United States.
Speaker 1: In part one of this episode, we read a quote
Speaker 1: from Vinnie Reem's recollections where she talked about listening to
Speaker 1: all the men, many of them politicians, talk while she worked,
Speaker 1: and she really heard it all. After Andrew Johnson became
Speaker 1: president in the wake of Lincoln's assassination, there were a
Speaker 1: lot of people who thought he was not strong enough
Speaker 1: in that role. Specifically, they thought Johnson was too soft
Speaker 1: on the Confederate States. In an interview in eighteen sixty five,
Speaker 1: Johnson had stated, quote, there is no such thing as reconstruction.
Speaker 1: These states have not gone out of the Union. Therefore
Speaker 1: reconstruction is unnecessary. I do not mean to treat them
Speaker 1: as inco it states, but merely as existing under a
Speaker 1: temporary suspension of their government, provided always they elect loyal men.
Speaker 1: The doctrine of coercion to preserve as and the Union
Speaker 1: has been vindicated by the people. It is the province
Speaker 1: of the executive to see that the will of the
Speaker 1: people is carried out in the rehabilitation of the rebellious
Speaker 1: states once more under the authority, as well as the
Speaker 1: protection of the Union. So a lot of people wanted
Speaker 1: the Confederate States to face serious consequences for the Civil War,
Speaker 1: but Johnson really seemed to believe he was following the
Speaker 1: path that Lincoln wanted a peaceful resolution after the horrible
Speaker 1: toll of war. But in moving to allow Confederate states
Speaker 1: to once again hold elections and send representatives to Washington
Speaker 1: relatively quickly, he fueled a lot of problems. Many Southern states,
Speaker 1: still reeling from the loss of the war, tended to
Speaker 1: vote in representatives that upheld the same ideals that had
Speaker 1: fomented the friction that led to the Civil War, they
Speaker 1: still believed their cause was right. This is something we
Speaker 1: touched on in our December twenty twenty episode on the
Speaker 1: Lost Cause. So then those Congressmen brought back that tension
Speaker 1: to Congress, and this only led to ongoing problems like
Speaker 1: restrictive Jim Crow laws, which made it difficult to impossible
Speaker 1: for formerly enslaved people to actually start their lives of
Speaker 1: freedom in the states that had been part of the Confederacy.
Speaker 1: There is so much more to the events and conflicts
Speaker 1: of Johnson's presidency that is really outside the scope of
Speaker 1: this episode. Here's how it relates to Vinny reim Though,
Speaker 1: Republican Representative Thaddeus Stevens of Pennsylvania, who had been in
Speaker 1: favor of a complete reorganization of the Southern States, initiated
Speaker 1: an impeachment effort against Johnson. As the vote on the
Speaker 1: articles of impeachment loomed, the tide against convicting the president
Speaker 1: and removing him from office started to turn. That was
Speaker 1: something that Stevens, who was very close to the end
Speaker 1: of his life, had been worried about, and the count
Speaker 1: was ultimately determined by a senator from Kansas named Edmund Ross.
Speaker 1: Edmund Ross lived as a border with the Reem family.
Speaker 1: So when Ross cast the vote that meant that Johnson
Speaker 1: would be acquitted, Fingers immediately pointed to Vinnie Reim. She
Speaker 1: was a supporter of Johnson, and she was accused of
Speaker 1: having swayed the Kansas senator's opinion. This also came with
Speaker 1: the usual subtext that she was using her womanly wiles
Speaker 1: to do so. But this catalyzed a very difficult time
Speaker 1: for Reem. She was, as we said, nearing completion on
Speaker 1: her Lincoln model at this time, but her studio was
Speaker 1: abruptly taken from her under the auspices of needing the
Speaker 1: space as a guardroom during all of these debates, but
Speaker 1: people really thought that they were just doing it to
Speaker 1: her as a form of retribution. She ended up having
Speaker 1: to move her work temporarily into a hallway until yet
Speaker 1: another debate and another vote gave her back her workspace.
Speaker 1: So it was on the heels of once again being
Speaker 1: portrayed as a manipulative interloper in US politics, that Reem
Speaker 1: finished the first phase of her commission of that statue
Speaker 1: of Abraham Lincoln and headed to Europe. It was almost
Speaker 1: certainly a welcome opportunity to get out of DC. There's
Speaker 1: a side story about one of Rhem's many admirers, a
Speaker 1: Confederate brigadier general among other things, named Albert Pike, who
Speaker 1: was much older than Vinnie. Pike is a controversial figure
Speaker 1: in his own right, but it appears that he believed
Speaker 1: Vinnie loved him. The two of them were close. He
Speaker 1: was given charge of her two pet doves when she
Speaker 1: left for Europe, but Vinnie and her parents traveled to
Speaker 1: New York with Pike and Illinois Representative Samuel Marshall to
Speaker 1: meet the ship that was going to take the rem
Speaker 1: party across the Atlantic, and Reim's decision to spend some
Speaker 1: amount of time in private with Marshall was greatly upsetting
Speaker 1: to Pike. A letter from Pike to Reeim later said, quote,
Speaker 1: Marshall loves you, but does not worship you as I do.
Speaker 1: Just one more parting scandalous. She left the country and
Speaker 1: suddenly that relationship between Reem and Pike, like a lot
Speaker 1: of her interactions with men, is described very differently depending
Speaker 1: on the source that you look at, ranging from him
Speaker 1: being totally in love with her to being more of
Speaker 1: a grandfather figure, and this is part of why her
Speaker 1: story remains so hard to parse. It's been framed in
Speaker 1: different ways by different biographers based on letters that Pike
Speaker 1: wrote to Vinnie. Though he was clearly in love with
Speaker 1: her and thought they were going to have a life together,
Speaker 1: he wrote to her constantly while she was abroad. Keep
Speaker 1: him in mind. He's gonna come up a little bit
Speaker 1: later on. The Reims route to Rome was not direct.
Speaker 1: After leaving New York on June ninth, eighteen sixty nine,
Speaker 1: they stopped first in Liverpool, and they spent some time
Speaker 1: in London. They next moved on to Paris by the
Speaker 1: end of the month, and there Vinny became close friends
Speaker 1: with General John Charles Fremont and his wife, Jesse Benton Fremont.
Speaker 1: Through them, she met Pear Hyacinth, the very famous preacher
Speaker 1: whose real name was Charles Jon Marrie Lausson, who had
Speaker 1: been excommunicated from the Catholic Church after he spoke out
Speaker 1: against the institution and made some incendiary speeches on the
Speaker 1: nature of religion. Vinnie kept very busy in France, including
Speaker 1: taking lessons with French painter Leon Bona and the Luminaries
Speaker 1: that she met in Paris were just a taste of
Speaker 1: what was to come in Europe. She sculpted busts or
Speaker 1: medallions of many of these people, but she also did
Speaker 1: a lot of shopping in Paris, so much so that
Speaker 1: it kind of cut into her money reserves enough that
Speaker 1: she considered altering her travel plans to omit some of
Speaker 1: the cities they were planning to stop in, although she
Speaker 1: did ultimately decide against making changes. Vinnie and her parents
Speaker 1: stayed in Paris until the autumn and then moved on
Speaker 1: to Munich. She was only in Munich for a week,
Speaker 1: but managed to meet and sculpt painter Friedrich Kaulbach before
Speaker 1: heading on to her next destination, which was Florence. Honestly,
Speaker 1: this trip sounds amazing. After a couple of days in
Speaker 1: Tuscany sh she moved on to her next destination, which
Speaker 1: was Rome. The goal was for her Lincoln model to
Speaker 1: be recreated in Carrara Marble. Being in Romant, among other things,
Speaker 1: that she was exposed to other women artists from the
Speaker 1: US who had taken studio space in Rome, including ed
Speaker 1: Monia Lewis who we mentioned in episode one, Emma Strebens,
Speaker 1: and Whitney and Harriet Hosmer. They have their own whole story.
Speaker 1: Vinnie had varying opinions of these women, just put it
Speaker 1: out way. Due to a mix up, Vinnie didn't have
Speaker 1: studio space waiting as she had expected, but once she
Speaker 1: did fine studio space, she fully decorated it and called
Speaker 1: for her Lincoln Model to be delivered there. She also
Speaker 1: displayed the busts she had made in Paris, and she
Speaker 1: kept the studio open as kind of a free range
Speaker 1: salon to visitors. One of her frequent visitors was previous
Speaker 1: podcast subject franz List. At this point in his life,
Speaker 1: Liszt was living in a convent in Rome, and so
Speaker 1: the two of them were able to spend a lot
Speaker 1: of time together. Vinnie described the two of them as
Speaker 1: having an innate understanding of one another from the start.
Speaker 1: Maybe they shared the odd burden of being so romantically
Speaker 1: appealing to a lot of people that their lives were
Speaker 1: often troubled by that, I'd say, also, both of them
Speaker 1: surrounded by scandal constantly, they had some parallels to their lives. Yeah.
Speaker 1: She wrote a description of their first meeting that is
Speaker 1: really charming to me, And I'm gonna read that in
Speaker 1: our behind the scenes on Okay, we will talk about
Speaker 1: Vinnie's time in Rome after we pause for a sponsor break.
Speaker 1: Vinnie was in Rome for several months before an adequate
Speaker 1: piece of marble was found to recreate her Lincoln model.
Speaker 1: There was also paperwork involved in moving the model from
Speaker 1: Rome to Carrera. One of the biographies I read mentioned
Speaker 1: that this legal happening had was something that the Vatican
Speaker 1: had instituted so people weren't carrying important religious relics out
Speaker 1: of the city without it all being documented. But and
Speaker 1: apparently it applied to her model, even though it was
Speaker 1: not that. Once this model was gone from her studio
Speaker 1: and had moved on to Krera, she described feeling very lonely.
Speaker 1: She had also promised a lot of other commissions which
Speaker 1: she worked on in the period where the model was
Speaker 1: out of her hands and being copied by artisans outside
Speaker 1: the city of Rome. She produced a lot of work
Speaker 1: during this time. It is often considered her most artistically
Speaker 1: fruitful period, and part of the reason for her business
Speaker 1: and the fact that she was working so hard was
Speaker 1: that she actually had to round up the money to
Speaker 1: hire and pay marble cutters. She had not received that
Speaker 1: second five thousand dollars payment from the government yet and
Speaker 1: this was going to be a couple thousand dollars to
Speaker 1: like for the marble and get people to cut it.
Speaker 1: So she eventually broke heed alone with two American bankers
Speaker 1: who were in Rome at the time, and offered after
Speaker 1: some haggling and after they all had a brief falling
Speaker 1: out to co sign alone with an Italian bank for her.
Speaker 1: Once again, she met the most important people of the
Speaker 1: city and was even invited into the private apartments of
Speaker 1: Cardinal Antonelli in the Vatican to see his art collection.
Speaker 1: Antonelli spent a lot of time with Vinnie and her
Speaker 1: parents while they were in Rome. One of the most
Speaker 1: famous non photographic images of Reem was also created during
Speaker 1: this time. She was sculpted and painted by a lot
Speaker 1: of artists in her lifetime, but American portrait painter George
Speaker 1: Peter Alexander Healy was living in Rome at the time,
Speaker 1: and after the two of them became friends, he made
Speaker 1: a portrait of her. She's dressed as a woman from
Speaker 1: the Italian countryside and holding a guitar. We mentioned in
Speaker 1: Part one that Reim had taught herself guitar at an
Speaker 1: earth early age, So while this costume and the portrait
Speaker 1: is really not her style, the guitar was an apt propped.
Speaker 1: That painting is now in the collection of the Smithsonian.
Speaker 1: Throughout her stay in Rome, Vinnie often traveled to Kreera
Speaker 1: to oversee the progress on the Lincoln Marble. This was
Speaker 1: not a small trip today, getting to Krera from Rome
Speaker 1: takes more than four hours by car. She had selected
Speaker 1: the marble works at the end of May eighteen seventy.
Speaker 1: That project was completed in September, so it only took
Speaker 1: a few months for it to be carved. After inspecting it,
Speaker 1: she had it sent to the port city of Livorno,
Speaker 1: which was called Leghorn by English speakers at the time.
Speaker 1: While she had to hasten an exit from Rome due
Speaker 1: to the city being overrun during the Franco Prussian War,
Speaker 1: she and her parents went to Vienna until things had
Speaker 1: settled down, and then they returned to Rome to pack
Speaker 1: their things and their many acquisitions from their year in
Speaker 1: change living abroad and head home. Vinnie did manage to
Speaker 1: fit in. One last European romance was George Brondez, who
Speaker 1: would become a famous Danish critic, but after a little
Speaker 1: more than two weeks the pair had to part. It
Speaker 1: was time to show Washington the statue. When the Lincoln
Speaker 1: statue got to Washington, d C. It was placed in
Speaker 1: the capital rotunda, but it remained covered under a tent.
Speaker 1: The feet of the statue were visible, and they were
Speaker 1: reported on. It was first inspected by the Secretary of
Speaker 1: the Interior, James Delano, who deemed it quote completed to
Speaker 1: my entire satisfaction. While write ups and reviews based on
Speaker 1: the day of that inspection were already in the papers,
Speaker 1: the formal public unveiling took place on the evening of Wednesday,
Speaker 1: January twenty fifth, eighteen seventy one. As the statue was unveiled,
Speaker 1: a band played Hail to the Chief. Based on a
Speaker 1: lot of descriptions, this sounds like a triumphant night. Overall,
Speaker 1: the early reception was very positive, but over time critics
Speaker 1: took a less enthusiastic view of the work. They called
Speaker 1: it the like dull and lifeless. But Vinnie Reim had
Speaker 1: delivered the promised marble statue. Yeah, I think that's one
Speaker 1: of those beauty is in the eye of the beholder moments.
Speaker 1: As we know I mean, many of us have seen
Speaker 1: this statue. I think it's lovely. I couldn't make it.
Speaker 1: But simply by being back in the limelight, Vinnie Reim
Speaker 1: was once again the talk of seemingly every newspaper in
Speaker 1: the country, with wildly polarized writeups about her. Her supporters
Speaker 1: were a bullion and praise her Marble Lincoln as a
Speaker 1: perfect representation of the man in form and attitude. Because
Speaker 1: she had made good on her commission, her detractors couldn't
Speaker 1: claim that they were worried she was too young in
Speaker 1: inexperience to be given such an opportunity, so instead they
Speaker 1: just turned full sale into accusations that she had garnered
Speaker 1: her opportunity through sexual relations with older men who in
Speaker 1: turn did her favors. And in the midst of all
Speaker 1: this post unveiling press, Raim met Charles Francis Hall and
Speaker 1: Emil Bessels, who were preparing for the Polaris expedition to
Speaker 1: the North Pole, on which Hall would die. When we
Speaker 1: talked about this possible love triangle in our episode about Hall,
Speaker 1: the information related to him and ship's doctor Bessels made
Speaker 1: it sound like Bessels may have flown into a rage
Speaker 1: on the journey after learning that Hall and Reim might
Speaker 1: have had some kind of romance. But biographies of Reem
Speaker 1: characterize this love triangle somewhat differently. According to the biography
Speaker 1: Labor of Love, written by Glen V. Sherwood and published
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety seven, quote, during the summer of eighteen
Speaker 1: seventy one, she received letters from doctor Emil Bessels and
Speaker 1: the explorer CF. Hall from Greenland. The men were leading
Speaker 1: an expedition to the North Pole. They hung a picture
Speaker 1: of the Lincoln Statue in Hall's cabin aboard the polaris.
Speaker 1: The men requested Vinie's autograph on two flags and promised
Speaker 1: to name an island after her. That really makes it
Speaker 1: seem like both of these men were friendly with her,
Speaker 1: more like they were a group of acquaintances than having
Speaker 1: like a love triangle. A bit of additional light is
Speaker 1: shed by the two thousand and four biography Vinnie Reem,
Speaker 1: an American sculptor, by Edward S. Cooper. In Cooper's account,
Speaker 1: Reeve dined several times with Hall and Bessels together while
Speaker 1: they were all in New York. Not long after the
Speaker 1: unveiling of the Lincoln statue. Vinnie had decided to leave
Speaker 1: Washington and set up a studio there. Per the Cooper biography, quote,
Speaker 1: Hall enjoyed Vinnie's company, but Bessels became infatuated with her.
Speaker 1: There is also an excerpt of a letter that Bessels
Speaker 1: wrote her in that book that does indeed sound like
Speaker 1: a man infatuated. He mentions, quote thinking of you all
Speaker 1: the time and anticipating the pleasure of seeing you. None
Speaker 1: of this really helped solve the mystery of Charles Francis
Speaker 1: Hall's death, but it does fill in some details. So
Speaker 1: we noted in our earlier episode the theory that Bessels
Speaker 1: was jealous of Hall's relationship with Reem and that that
Speaker 1: may have been what led him to murder. Still no
Speaker 1: obvious evidence, especially when it's also not really clear how
Speaker 1: Vinnie Reem felt about either of these men. But the
Speaker 1: whole of their friendships are romances are just a blip
Speaker 1: in Reim's life. In each of these biographies, I'm talking
Speaker 1: like a couple paragraphs. There's not much about this whole thing.
Speaker 1: She just didn't know them for long at all before
Speaker 1: they left for their expedition. As Vinnie was trying to
Speaker 1: carve out a life for herself in New York. Her
Speaker 1: brother turned up with a problem. During the Civil War,
Speaker 1: he had surrendered to Union troops and had been released
Speaker 1: several weeks later, and then he's alleged to have lived
Speaker 1: with the Choctaw tribe. Then he popped up again in
Speaker 1: eighteen seventy two after being arrested for larceny in Arkansas,
Speaker 1: and he was charged with selling alcohol to Native Americans.
Speaker 1: He was only found guilty on the second charge, but
Speaker 1: the sentence was six months of prison time and one
Speaker 1: thousand dollars fine. He immediately went to his famous sister
Speaker 1: for help, hoping she could leverage some of her political
Speaker 1: contacts to get him out of this jam. She tried
Speaker 1: to get him a pardon, but was not able to Uh.
Speaker 1: This was maybe some proof that her influence was already
Speaker 1: starting to lag. Her Washington Heyday seemed to have peaked
Speaker 1: and fallen already. And she was twenty five. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: young to have lived all of the life we have
Speaker 1: already talked about, right, But her brother Bob's arrest was
Speaker 1: not her only problem. She had a pretty real cash
Speaker 1: flow issue at this time. Her fame was such a
Speaker 1: mixed bag that it seemed to drive away as many
Speaker 1: possible patrons as it attracted, and in some cases, sales
Speaker 1: of the works that she had created, like her sculpture
Speaker 1: of Saffo, fell through. She made the decision to leave
Speaker 1: New York and move back to Washington in the hopes
Speaker 1: that she would have better luck there in a city
Speaker 1: where at least she knew a lot of people, and
Speaker 1: this did work out to some degree. She famously sculpted
Speaker 1: a bust of Custer in eighteen seventy six, not long
Speaker 1: before his death, in the area that would become Montana.
Speaker 1: In eighteen seventy five, Vinnie Reim entered two competitions for
Speaker 1: monument commissions. The first was for a statue of Union
Speaker 1: Major General George Henry Thomas. She did not win, and
Speaker 1: the commission instead went to John Quincy Adams Ward, who
Speaker 1: had a well established career in monument statuary. The second
Speaker 1: competition was for the commission from the US government to
Speaker 1: memorialize Admiral David G. Farragut in bronze. There were a
Speaker 1: lot of prominent names in the mix try to win
Speaker 1: this commission, including William Westmore Story and John Quincy Adams Ward.
Speaker 1: Reems won this time. There had been a bit of
Speaker 1: lobbying again, but it had a more personal tone. Farragut's widow,
Speaker 1: Virginia Dorcas Loyal Farragut, was a fan of Vinnie's work
Speaker 1: and endorsed her as the best candidate, and also helped
Speaker 1: get a lot of prominent and powerful people to do
Speaker 1: the same thing. When the busts of the competitors were
Speaker 1: all displayed together for judging, Vinnie fared better than her
Speaker 1: competitors and was granted this twenty thousand dollars commission. She
Speaker 1: conferred often with Missus Farragut as she worked on this likeness.
Speaker 1: The bronze that was used to cast Farragut was recycled.
Speaker 1: It had been one of the propellers for the admiral's flagship,
Speaker 1: the USS Hartford. Coming up, we will meet the man
Speaker 1: who finally got the much pursued Vinnie reim to settle down,
Speaker 1: and we will dig into their relationship after we pause
Speaker 1: for one more sponsor break. As she was working on
Speaker 1: the Farragut commission, re met Richard Leverage Hawxy through Farragut's son,
Speaker 1: who was named Loyal and Loyal One day brought Hoxey
Speaker 1: who was a first lieutenant in the Army Corps of Engineers,
Speaker 1: to visit while she was working. Hoxy was very handsome
Speaker 1: and he was very tall. His height was a sharp
Speaker 1: contrast to Vinnie's very petite frame. We haven't talked about it,
Speaker 1: but she was a very tiny woman. She was a
Speaker 1: less than five feet tall, and most accounts say she
Speaker 1: never weighed more than about ninety pounds. She was very little,
Speaker 1: and Hoxy was, like so many other men, very taken
Speaker 1: with her. As Vinnie and Richard started to spend a
Speaker 1: great deal of time together, tongue started wagging about a
Speaker 1: romance between the two, and this time they were not wrong.
Speaker 1: But this caused a whole other problem, which was at
Speaker 1: Albert Pike, who we mentioned earlier was nearing seventy was
Speaker 1: still in love with Vinnie, and he started to write
Speaker 1: her some very jealous letters. When Richard proposed around the
Speaker 1: same time Vinnie finished the Farragut Statue, she accepted. The
Speaker 1: engagement was announced in April eighteen seventy eight, and they
Speaker 1: were married the following month. On May twenty eighth, General Sherman,
Speaker 1: and not Vinnie's father, gave the bride away and Richard
Speaker 1: did not choose his best man Vinnie did. It was
Speaker 1: Albert Pike, which, yes, seems like an odd choice favor
Speaker 1: of the narrative that his love for her was more paternal.
Speaker 1: That's maybe not as weird. But he literally wrote her
Speaker 1: letters about how he couldn't bear knowing another man had
Speaker 1: kissed her. So Albert's daughter Lillian and Vinnie's sister Mary
Speaker 1: were the bridesmaids. Yeah, this was a weird one to me.
Speaker 1: We'll talk about him on the Buy the Saints. I
Speaker 1: was like, okay, I like texted my best friend about
Speaker 1: it because I wanted to talk it through and be like,
Speaker 1: I'm not being irrational here. This is very odd. She's like,
Speaker 1: it is completely weird. Great. After their very lavish wedding,
Speaker 1: Vinnie and Richard went to Iowa for two weeks to
Speaker 1: honeymoon on his family's land there, and then back in Washington,
Speaker 1: the pair settled down into a home near Farragut Square.
Speaker 1: It was right by where her completed statue would eventually
Speaker 1: be installed. Vinnie had once again campaigned to get what
Speaker 1: she wanted, which was a commission for her new husband
Speaker 1: that would keep him in Washington, d C. Instead of
Speaker 1: station somewhere else. He was made assistant commissioner in the
Speaker 1: Corps with an office in DC. At this point, Vinnie's
Speaker 1: art career was for a while victim of the social
Speaker 1: standards of the time. Once she got married, she was
Speaker 1: expected to stay home and care for the household and
Speaker 1: her husband and not to have a career. This was
Speaker 1: something that Richard felt was the correct path. She did
Speaker 1: not need money. Richard was quite wealthy. He did not
Speaker 1: see any need for her to work, so after the
Speaker 1: Farragut Statue was dedicated in eighteen eighty one, she stopped
Speaker 1: sculpting really for decades. This wasn't something she just agreed to.
Speaker 1: She did pursue other commissions after Farragut, but they all
Speaker 1: kind of sputtered out. Meanwhile, her husband told her very
Speaker 1: frankly that her behavior often embarrassed him, and he worried
Speaker 1: that her bad press would impede his career. Vinnie and
Speaker 1: Richard had a son, Richard Riemhaxi, on June sixth, eighteen
Speaker 1: eighty three. The years that followed were very difficult for her.
Speaker 1: Many of the people that she had known in Washington
Speaker 1: had died. The circle of her influence shranked to almost nothingness,
Speaker 1: and then Richard was transferred first to Alabama, a move
Speaker 1: she dreaded and was deeply saddened by, and then to
Speaker 1: Pittsburgh and eventually to Portland, Maine. And then her son
Speaker 1: was seriously injured at the age of six when another
Speaker 1: child shot him in the head with an air rifle.
Speaker 1: He had a pellet lodged in his skull, and though
Speaker 1: there was a slim chance that an operation could remove it,
Speaker 1: that operation would have been highly risky, and Vinnie and
Speaker 1: Richard decided against the surgery, and their son was developmentally disabled.
Speaker 1: Then Vinnie had about of what she called heart trouble.
Speaker 1: This appears to have been a heart attack. She also
Speaker 1: had kidney issues. Her doctors diagnosed her with suppression of feeling.
Speaker 1: Wanting to work all of those years and not being
Speaker 1: able to had caused her a great deal of sadness
Speaker 1: and stress, and this seemed to manifest in a decline
Speaker 1: in her physical health. Richard was frightened by this incident
Speaker 1: and had part of their home converted into a studio
Speaker 1: and told her she could start working again. She did
Speaker 1: want to work, but she did not want to participate
Speaker 1: in any more competitions. It seems like she knew like one,
Speaker 1: she was too established to feel like she should have
Speaker 1: to do that. In two. That whole thing came with
Speaker 1: its own stress and all the lobbying that had to
Speaker 1: be done. So she came up with an interesting approach
Speaker 1: to finding new work. She found out which states did
Speaker 1: not have representation in the capital Statuary Hall, and then
Speaker 1: she started asking politicians from those states if they would
Speaker 1: like one. She first approached Iowa. This made sense because
Speaker 1: Richard's family was from there, and in nineteen oh seven
Speaker 1: she was given a contract to create a sculpture of
Speaker 1: Samuel Kirkwood, former governor of Iowa. She similarly reached out
Speaker 1: to Oklahoma about possibly creating a statue of Sequoia, who's
Speaker 1: credited with inventing the Cherokee alphabet. Reim had made a
Speaker 1: bust of Sequoia decades earlier, and managed to get another
Speaker 1: contract with Oklahoma, this time to make a full size
Speaker 1: statue starting in nineteen twelve. She was still working on
Speaker 1: this in the fall of nineteen fourteen when she collapsed
Speaker 1: while preparing to travel from Iowa to Washington. That happened
Speaker 1: in September, and Richard rushed her to Washington DC for treatment.
Speaker 1: She had chronic nephritis and died on November twentieth. She
Speaker 1: was sixty seven. Vinnie Reim was buried in Arlington Cemetery
Speaker 1: under a bronze casting of her Sappho sculpture. Her Sequoia
Speaker 1: statue was finished by another artist, George Jay Zulnay, and
Speaker 1: it was installed in Statuary Hall, where her sculpture of
Speaker 1: Kirkwood is also housed. Reem's Lincoln Statue, the first full
Speaker 1: size sculpture of him ever created, remains in the Capitol
Speaker 1: Building rotunda to this day. Richard remarried and his son
Speaker 1: with Vinnie was placed in a sanatorium. In the years
Speaker 1: after Vinnie's death, her husband also donated Vinnie's papers and
Speaker 1: remained works to various museums. Yes, that is how we
Speaker 1: have the that portrait of her that had been made
Speaker 1: when she was in Rome. Heally had sent it to
Speaker 1: her and then Hoxy donated it to the Smithsonian, and
Speaker 1: that's how they have it. Basically everywhere, almost everywhere I
Speaker 1: looked at like stuff that had been you know, her
Speaker 1: papers or whatever it always said, like donated by Richard Doxy,
Speaker 1: right no matter where it was. She lived so much
Speaker 1: life I feel like if you are a fan of
Speaker 1: Vinny Reim, we've left stuff out. There's no way not to.
Speaker 1: She was the busiest bee on the planet and all
Speaker 1: up in everybody's business. So she just was part of
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff. But she was also a pretty
Speaker 1: impressive artist. I personally do not understand all of the
Speaker 1: criticisms of her work. I think her work is lovely,
Speaker 1: So what do I know? But I do have listener mail. Okay,
Speaker 1: this is from our listener, Rebecca, who writes a little again.
Speaker 1: I'm again, So I just listened to the April twenty
Speaker 1: twenty three episode on Eponymous Drinks. I'm close in age
Speaker 1: to you both, but I grew up in a very
Speaker 1: different part of the country Hudson Valley, New York, which
Speaker 1: city people think is upstate, but the rest of the
Speaker 1: state does not. So I always find it interesting when
Speaker 1: we have very different experiences of things. I do not
Speaker 1: remember my first Shirley Temple. By the time my childhood
Speaker 1: memories begin, it was already a well established tradition that
Speaker 1: when we went out to eat at the fancy place,
Speaker 1: a sit down Chinese Polymnesian restaurant, my brother would get
Speaker 1: a brown cow and I would get a Shirley Temple,
Speaker 1: but where we went it was always made with ginger ale.
Speaker 1: Until your podcast, I did not even know there was
Speaker 1: a lemon lime soda version. When we made them at home,
Speaker 1: where we generally did not have grenadine, we would use
Speaker 1: the Marischino cherry liquid in place of the grenadine. I
Speaker 1: also apparently completely missed the negronw spagliato thing, having never
Speaker 1: heard of one before this podcast. Part of me is like,
Speaker 1: thank your lucky stars, just because it got so contentious.
Speaker 1: Maybe if you're on like Bartender two. I am, however,
Speaker 1: a big fan of Negroni. I was surprised to hear
Speaker 1: the cocktail queen Holly is not a fan, so I'm
Speaker 1: not the queen. I'm just a mere peasant in cocktail land,
Speaker 1: but I sure love them. Is not a fan, especially
Speaker 1: having heard her wax rapsodic about bitters. I was only
Speaker 1: introduced to campari relatively recently at a tasting five to
Speaker 1: six years ago, and started looking up cocktails made with it,
Speaker 1: and of course found the Negroni. I listened to the
Speaker 1: episode on my way to a spa retreat with my BFF,
Speaker 1: who first introduced me to your podcast about ten years ago,
Speaker 1: so of course I had to get a Negronie. Their
Speaker 1: version is called not Your Father's Negrony, and replaced the
Speaker 1: regular gin with rose gin and added a sprinkle of
Speaker 1: rose petals. The rose was very forefront, then it mellowed
Speaker 1: to the spices of the campari. Okay, this version I
Speaker 1: would probably have, and I think I'm gonna try that.
Speaker 1: By the way, my thought on the name Nigroni is
Speaker 1: that it's possible that the drink was named after General
Speaker 1: Pascal Olivier de Negroni. Point out there is a timeline
Speaker 1: issue with him creating the drink, but it doesn't seem
Speaker 1: beyond possibility that a stronger version of an existing drink
Speaker 1: could be named after a military hero. But really, we'll
Speaker 1: probably never know. Hope Aul is well attached. Is a
Speaker 1: rare picture of my monsters cuddled together. Although Jack and
Speaker 1: Charlie have been together since they were six and eighteen
Speaker 1: months old, respectively, they don't often snuggle with each other.
Speaker 1: They are twelve and thirteen pounds of trouble and more trouble,
Speaker 1: but I love them anyway. I hope all is well,
Speaker 1: and keep up with the wonderful work. Okay, I love all
Speaker 1: of this. First of all, this is a great idea
Speaker 1: for a negronie. Actually, I love rose flavored everything, especially
Speaker 1: in cocktails, so I'm one hundred percent gonna infuse some
Speaker 1: gin with roses and see if I can make something
Speaker 1: close to this. Second, these kiddies are real cute. They
Speaker 1: look orange. It's a little bit dim in the picture,
Speaker 1: but they both look like you know, creamsicle babies, which
Speaker 1: probably means that they are goofballs, and I hope they
Speaker 1: are because I love an orange tabby. They are the nuttiest,
Speaker 1: cuddliest goof feest cats usually. I love it if you
Speaker 1: would like to write to us and share your thoughts
Speaker 1: on drinks or history or drink history, and share your
Speaker 1: pictures of animals any animals will do. We would love
Speaker 1: to hear them or read them. I guess that address
Speaker 1: is History Podcast at iHeartRadio dot com. You can also
Speaker 1: find us on social media as missed in History and
Speaker 1: if you listen to the podcast and haven't subscribed yet,
Speaker 1: very easy to do in the iHeartRadio app or anywhere
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows. Stuff you Missed in
Speaker 1: History Class is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts
Speaker 1: from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.