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Daniel Chester French

May Alcott, The Real Amy, Always in the Real Jo’s Shadow

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May Alcott, the real Amy March in Louisa May Alcott’s semi-autobiographical novel Little Women, struggled all her life to win success as an artist.

She stood on the cusp of fulfilling her dream when she died before turning 40. She had published a travel guide for American women to study art in Europe. And she had beaten out Mary Cassatt for a spot in the Paris Salon.

May Alcott

But May Alcott would always be defined by her oldest sister: first as the least likable March sister, Amy, and second as the younger sister of Jo March, Louisa May Alcott in real lilfe.

May Alcott

Abigail May Alcott was born July 26, 1840 into the eccentric – today we might say ‘progressive’ — Alcott family. Her father, Bronson Alcott, was a hopelessly improvident romantic, passionate about social justice and education. Her mother, Abigail, kept the family financially afloat while advocating women’s rights.

She was Louisa May Alcott’s youngest sister. Named after her mother, her family called her Abba and then Abby. In her 20s, she asked to be called May, and her big sister gave her Little Women character an anagram — Amy.

The vain and self-absorbed Amy “was never so happy as when copying flowers, designing fairies, or illustrating stories with queer specimens of art,” wrote Louisa.

Struggles

The family struggled to survive until Louisa had her blockbuster hit with Little Women. The four Alcott daughters worked as teachers, governesses and servants to support the family, May worked as a teacher at the first Kindergarten founded by Elizabeth Palmer Peabody for a month; later she taught art at the Concord school run by her father’s friend Franklin Sanborn.

Despite her sex and her family’s poverty, she managed to piece together an artistic education. She briefly studied art from three prominent Boston artists: William Rimmer, William Morris Hunt and David Claypoole Johnston.

By 1868, she offered five or six classes in art. Daniel Chester French, who designed the Lincoln Memorial, studied under her.

That year, she illustrated Little Women. But critics panned her work as amateurish and anatomically incorrect. They were right. As a woman, May couldn’t study the human figure. She realized she’d gotten all the art training available in Boston, and dreamed of Europe, with its museums, teachers and opportunities to exhibit in prestigious venue.

may-alcott-illustration

May Alcott’s illustrations for Little Women did not go over well with critics.

Europe

Then May and Louisa got the opportunity to go to Europe as travel companions to a wealthy family friend. May developed the confidence to venture out in foreign cities alone, though she carried a dagger with her.

Toward the end of their trip In London, May Alcott found a watercolor teacher under whom she wanted to study. Louisa, flush with cash from Little Women, paid for her to stay on.

May Alcott returned to Concord to take care of family responsibilities – and allow Louisa to write. But soon she was back in Europe, again, thanks to Louisa’s largesse.

She returned home a second time, and established a free art center in Concord, which won her praise from her mother. “Noble girl,” wrote Abigail Alcott.

May later encouraged women of modest means like herself to travel to Europe to pursue an art career.

Third Trip

She began to come into her own on her third trip to Europe. She wrote a travel guide, released by her sister’s publisher.

Studying Art Abroad, and How to Do It Cheaply, advocated equal opportunity in art training for women.

“Art is so over-talked and over-written at the present time,” May Alcott wrote in her first chapter, “but none of these writers report the actual cost of living, instruction, or rent of studio abroad; or how one in search of such can most easily and economically obtain them, in order to realize the desire of one’s heart.”

Her art had developed beyond the student exercises she produced under her teachers and she began to enjoy some success.

In 1877, the Paris Salon selected a still life she submitted – over the work of Mary Cassatt.

May_Alcott_Nieriker_-_La_Negresse_-_1879

La Negresse by May Alcott Nieriker

May Alcott Nieriker

The next year, at the age of 38, her life took a turn. She married Ernest Nieriker, a 22-year-old Swiss tobacco merchant, and they moved to a Paris suburb. According to Louisa, she seemed so happy her family couldn’t object to her marrying someone 16 years younger.

The next year, the prestigious Paris Salon again accepted her work, the study, La Negresse.

Watercolor of Orchard House by May Alcott

But then she got pregnant, and she died in childbirth at the age of 39 on Dec. 29, 1879. Her husband gave their daughter, Louisa or Lulu, to Aunt Louisa to raise.

Today, May Alcott is remembered as the model for Amy March, not for her art nor for her advocacy for women’s artists. Most of her art is exhibited at Orchard House, the girls’ childhood home, billed as the Little Women Museum.

This story was updated in 2023.

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Six Revolutionary War Battlefields in New England

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Revolutionary War battlefields abound in New England, where, after all, the whole thing began. The patriots fought the British in every colony before and during the war, and many of the sites remain undeveloped.

Here is our choice for the best six Revolutionary War battlefields in New England, with one in each state.

Fort Griswold, Connecticut

Fort Griswold

Fort Griswold, one of the most infamous Revolutionary War battlefields.

Named after Deputy Gov. Matthew Griswold, the Connecticut Colony built the fort in 1775  in Groton to defend the supply depot at the mouth of the Thames River. The fort also protected privateers operating out of the harbor.

In 1781, the traitor Benedict Arnold led a company of British soldiers in an attack on New London. Meanwhile, another British commander, Edmund Eyre, attacked the fort. The British had the advantage. Arnold knew the angle to attack so the American gun positions couldn’t fire effective shots.

The British forces infamously massacred the American soldiers. After Col. William Ledyard surrendered his sword to the British, they ran him through with it. At the time of surrender, six Americans were dead and 20 wounded. When it was all over, 83 Americans were dead and 36 wounded. Arnold went on to burn New London.

The earthen walls of the fort still stand. The Ebenezer Avery House, which sheltered the wounded after the battle, has been restored on the grounds. A Revolutionary War museum also depicts the era.

For directions to Fort Griswold Battlefield State Park, click here. For information from the Friends of Fort Griswold Battlefield State Park, click here.

Fort George, Maine

Fort George

Fort George, the Revolutionary War battlefield where the Penobscot Expedition ended in ignominy.

Castine, located in Downeast Maine, is one of the oldest European communities in North America. Since the early 1600s, French, Dutch and English colonists have built trading posts, forts, missions and permanent settlements there.

In 1779, the British sent troops to occupy Castine with the hope of establishing a colony called New Ireland. They built a fort and named it after King George III.

Massachusetts, alarmed by the British occupation, sent a combined naval and military expedition to capture the fort that summer. Known as the Penobscot Expedition, it had 19 warships and 24 transports. Though the patriots outnumbered the British, they failed to take Fort George and suffered the worst U.S. naval defeat until Pearl Harbor. Paul Revere, in charge of ordnance, ended up court martialed for cowardice and insubordination. He fought the charges and won his acquittal.

Some of Fort George still remains, as does the British canal built in 1779, gravesites of Revolutionary War soldiers and historic houses, taverns and churches. Castine has marked its many historic sites with signs. (Click here for a map.)

Minute Man State Park, Massachusetts

North Bridge

North Bridge, the granddaddy of all Revolutionary War battlefields.

It doesn’t get much better than Minute Man National Historic Park in Lexington, Lincoln and Concord.

The 970-acre park memorializes the opening battles of the American Revolution – and then some.

Lexington Battle Green, site of the shot heard round the world, belongs to the Town of Lexington. The Buckman Tavern sits on the green, which leads to the five-mile-long Battle Road Trail. Patriot militia skirmished with the British regulars along the trail, now a restored colonial landscape that includes the Hartwell Tavern.

In Concord, Daniel Chester French’s famous Minute Man statue stands by the North Bridge, where the colonial militia shot back at British soldiers in the second battle of the day.

The Wayside also belongs to the park. Authors Amos Bronson Alcott and his daughter Louisa May Alcott, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Margaret Sidney lived there (not all at the same time).

The Town of Lexington owns and maintains Lexington Battle Green, site of the shot heard round the world.

Fort Constitution, N.H.

Fort Constitution and the Portsmouth Harbor Light.

An important skirmish before the war took place in New Castle, N.H.  A handful of British soldiers manned Fort William and Mary there in 1774, when tensions rose between the colonies and England. The stone fort stood at the mouth of the Piscataqua River, guarding access to the harbor and to Kittery, Maine (then Massachusetts).

Paul Revere rode to Portsmouth in December to warn patriots that British troops might seize powder and guns at the fort. A raiding party of 400 men then stormed the fort. They subdued the six soldiers inside and took the gunpowder, muskets and cannon.

The fort, renamed Fort Constitution, now belongs to the State of New Hampshire. The Portsmouth Harbor Lighthouse stands inside the fort.

Fort Constitution Historic Site is a great spot for a picnic. For more information click here.

Quaker Hill, R.I.

The most famous Rhode Island battle of the American Revolution is called the Battle of Rhode Island or the Battle of Quaker Hill. By August 1778, the British had occupied Newport, on Aquidneck Island, for almost two years. That month, Continental Army troops led by Gen. John Sullivan sailed from Tiverton to Portsmouth and set up a siege on Aquidneck. They planned to drive the British soldiers back to Newport and then recapture the town with the help of French naval forces.

But a hurricane prevented the French naval commander, Count d’Estaing, from attacking the 6,000 entrenched British soldiers. D’Estaing instead sailed his fleet to Boston for repairs. The patriots then tried to withdraw, but the British attacked them in Portsmouth in a valley among three hills. The Americans retreated to Tiverton without a single soldier killed. The 1st Rhode Island Regiment, comprised of African- and Native-American soldiers, took part in the action.

The 365 acres of the battlefield had no structures on them at the time of the conflict, but since then 36 houses and a barn have been built.

At the intersection of Route 2 and West Main, the state chapter of the NAACP put up a marker to commemorate the 1st Rhode Island’s role in the battle. And a granite memorial stone marks the Battle of Rhode Island on the corner of Union Street and Route 138 in Portsmouth.

A site of another skirmish is nearby. On the night of July 11, 1777, Col. William Barton and about three dozen infantrymen sailed from Tiverton to Middletown and captured British general Richard Prescott in his bed.

Prescott was occupying a farm owned by a Loyalist, despite warnings of inadequate security. That farm, now known as Prescott Farm, was restored with the help of heiress Doris Duke. The public can now visit.  Visitors can tour the house where Barton captured Prescott, a windmill, a country store, a guardhouse and a historical vegetable garden. For more information, click here.

Hubbardton Battlefield, Vermont

Hubbardtown Battlefield

Vermont’s only Revolutionary War battlefield, in Hubbardton.

The Hubbardton Battlefield in Hubbardton is the site of the only Revolutionary War battle fought entirely in Vermont (or what would become Vermont). (The Battle of Bennington was actually fought in New York state.) It’s also one of the best preserved battlefields in America.

The battle started on July 7, 1777, when British forces caught up with the American rear guard of the forces retreating after they withdrew from Fort Ticonderoga. The Americans, led by Seth Warner, fought with discipline and inflicted heavy casualties on the British. Though they lost the battle, they halted the British and prevented them from pursuing the main American army.

The battlefield itself and the small museum that explains it lie off the beaten path, but they feature stunning views of the Vermont landscape. It’s off Exit 5 on Route 4, between Rutland and New York state.

Click here for more information.

Photos: Portsmouth Harbor Lighthouse and Fort Constitution By Kenneth Dupont – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=62728239. Fort Griswold Battlefield State Park by By Staxringold via English Wikipedia. Fort George earthworks and cannon by Jerrye and Roy Klotz via Wikipedia. Old North Bridge By Daderot at en.wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5942756. This story about Revolutionary War battlefields was updated in 2022. 

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The Unknown Kid Who Created the Concord Minute Man

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In 1873 an unknown, 23-year-old college dropout got the commission to create a monument to the Minute Man who let go of his plow to fight at North Bridge in Concord, Mass., on April 19, 1775.

The Minute Man

The Minute Man

The 100th anniversary of the shot heard ‘round the world was only two years away. The citizens of Concord wanted to honor the farmers and tradesmen who battled professional British soldiers.

So they decided to award the commission to Daniel Chester French, who had never executed a full-size statue. They had their reasons. His father was well-connected in town, and he had taken art lessons from Louisa May Alcott’s artistic little sister May. She vouched for his talent.

Connections

Daniel Chester French, 1902.

Daniel Chester French, 1902.

Daniel Chester French was born April 20, 1850 in Exeter, N.H., the scion of an old and well-to-do New England family. His father, Henry Flagg French was a lawyer, judge and, later, assistant U.S. Treasury Secretary. He was also an avid horticulturist who wrote a book about farm drainage and served as the first president of the Massachusetts Agricultural College (now University of Massachusetts) at Amherst.

In 1867, Henry Flagg French moved his family to Concord, Mass., where he befriended two neighbors: philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson and writer Louisa May Alcott. Young Daniel didn’t care for school. He preferred to explore the outdoors with his good friend William Brewster, later a famed ornithologist. He liked to make figures of animals from wood, gypsum and even turnips.

Another neighbor, May Alcott, Louisa’s sister, was an artist as well as the model for Amy in Little Women. Impressed by young Daniel Chester French’s work, she encouraged him to keep at it. She also gave him drawing lessons, modeling clay and sculptor’s tools.

The Minute Man

French dropped out of MIT after a year, having flunked algebra, chemistry and physics. He then moved to New York to study with two famous artists, John Quincy Adams Ward and William Rimmer. He didn’t like city life, though, and returned home to Concord.

At 20, he arrived just in time. He was asked to submit a model for a statue of a Minute Man to commemorate the centennial of the Battles of Concord and Lexington. He got the commission in 1873, but it was an unusual one. Instead of receiving a fee, he would be reimbursed for his studio, tools and materials.

The Boston Athenaeum and the neighbors supplied models. French studied a plaster cast of the classic Roman statue Apollo Belvedere at the Athenaeum for his composition. He studied his neighbors for facial expression and realistic detail. The neighbors also supplied him with antique Minute Man clothing and a Colonial musket, powder horn and plow.

The Ames Foundry in Chicopee, Mass., cast the sculpture in bronze from confiscated Civil War cannons. They pronounced it the best casting they’d ever done. It was called ‘one of the strongest, most spirited pieces of work ever made by so young an artist.’

The statue was an instant hit. It still stands today by the Old North Bridge where 500 militiamen defeated three companies of British troops.

More Commissions

Helped by his father’s position at the Treasury, French received commissions for works on government buildings over the next 14 years. His career got a jumpstart in 1893 when he sculpted the giant Statue of the Republic for the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. He topped off his career with his masterpiece, the Lincoln Memorial.

Some of French’s works around New England include:

Equestrian statue of Joseph Hooker

Featured image: Minute_Man_Statue_Lexington_Massachusetts.jpg: w:User:Daderotderivative work: Hohum (talk) – Minute_Man_Statue_Lexington_Massachusetts.jpg, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=9425447. Perkins Memorial By Marc29th (talk); cropped by Beyond My Ken (talk) – I (Marc29th (talk)) created this work entirely by myself., GFDL, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=16474836. This story was updated in 2022.

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Lincoln Memorial: A New England Prodigy’s Masterpiece

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The Lincoln Memorial was the work of a New Englander with connections to the right people. That’s not to say Daniel Chester French wasn’t a great sculptor–or that his powerful and sensitive Lincoln Memorial isn’t one of the greatest sculptures in America. But it is fitting for Washington’s most beloved monument to owe its existence to a skillful networker.

Daniel Chester French, 1902.

Daniel Chester French, 1902.

Daniel Chester French was born in 1850 in Exeter, N.H., the scion of an old and well-to-do New England family. His father, Henry Flagg French, a lawyer, served as a judge and, later, assistant U.S. Treasury Secretary. He also pursued horticulture, wrote a book about farm drainage and served as the first president of the Massachusetts Agricultural College (now University of Massachusetts) at Amherst.

In 1867, Henry Flagg French moved his family to Concord, Mass., where he befriended two neighbors: philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson and writer Louisa May Alcott. Young Daniel didn’t care for school, preferring to explore the outdoors with his good friend William Brewster, later a famed ornithologist. He liked to make figures of animals from wood, gypsum and even turnips.

Another neighbor, May Alcott, Louisa’s sister, was an artist as well as the model for Amy in Little Women. She encouraged Daniel to keep at it and gave him drawing lessons, modeling clay and sculptor’s tools.

The Minute Man

With the help of family friends such as Alcott and Emerson, French hit on the right career path. He dropped out of MIT after a year, having flunked algebra, chemistry and physics. Then he moved to New York to study with two famous artists, John Quincy Adams Ward and William Rimmer. But he didn’t like city life and returned home to Concord at age 20.

He arrived just in time. A committee had formed to commission a statue of a Minute Man to commemorate the centennial of the Battle of Concord and Lexington. The committee gave French the commission in 1873. But instead of paying him a fee, the committee would reimburse for his studio, tools and materials.

His neighbors supplied him with antique Minute Man clothing and a Colonial musket, powder horn and plow. The statue was instantly popular. It still stands today by the Old North Bridge where 500 militiamen defeated three companies of British troops.

Workers install the Lincoln Statue at the Lincoln Memorial

Workers install the Lincoln Statue at the Lincoln Memorial

Friends Help

Helped by his father’s position at the Treasury, French received commissions for works on government buildings over the next 14 years. His career got a jump start in 1893 when he sculpted the giant Statue of the Republic for the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. He worked on preparations for the Exposition with architect Henry Bacon of McKim, Mead & White, one of the preeminent firms of the day.

French and Bacon formed a lifelong friendship and partnered in a number of artistic endeavors. When French and his wife Mary bought an 80-acre farm in Stockbridge, Bacon who designed a new studio, house and garage. The Frenches also landscaped formal gardens and added a tennis court, calling the estate Chesterwood, after the New Hampshire town where French’s grandparents lived. You can visit Chesterwood today.

Bacon was also chosen to design the neoclassical temple that would contain a large sculpture of Abraham Lincoln. He, in turn, chose Daniel Chester French to sculpt that statue.

The Lincoln Memorial

Construction of the Lincoln Memorial Building had already started when French went to Washington to work out the plans for the sculpture. He and Bacon decided on a height of 19 feet. They also decided Lincoln should sit — otherwise people couldn’t see his face.

Beginning in 1915, French made large plaster models of the statue, using Matthew Brady photos for reference. He also used a life mask of Lincoln by Leonard Volk. He aimed, he said, “to convey the mental and physical strength of the great President and his confidence in his ability to carry the thing through to a successful finish.”

French in his studio

By 1918 it was time to start work on the real thing. French chose renowned marble cutters, the Piccirilli Brothers, to sculpt the statue in their New York studio. For two years, the Piccirilli brothers worked from French’s model to carve 28 blocks of marble quarried from Georgia. French helped out, hammering and chiseling his own touches onto the stone. Finally in December 1920, the blocks of marble were ready to be shipped to Washington to be assembled.

The silent, brooding Lincoln who presides over the banks of the Potomac has perhaps become more than French dared hope:  a shrine to the ideal of tolerance and reconciliation. Marian Anderson sang “God Bless America” in front of it in 1939 after the Daughters of the American Revolution forbade her to sing at Constitution Hall because of the color of her skin. Martin Luther King, Jr., chose to deliver his “I Have A Dream” speech there in 1968. It is the place where millions of tourists come every year to connect with a sacred icon of their own history.

Dedication

On Memorial Day in 1922, Robert Todd Lincoln, the president’s only surviving son, attended the dedication of the Lincoln Memorial. At 78, he needed help to climb the steps to his place of honor at the base of the statue. William Taft, chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, and President Warren G. Harding joined him.

Taft, who headed the commission to build the Lincoln Memorial, presented it to President Warren G. Harding, who accepted it on behalf of the American people. Fifty thousand people attended the ceremony.

In 1929, the 79-year-old Daniel Chester French and his daughter Margaret French Cresson visited the memorial. He said to her, “Margaret, I’d like to see what this will look like a thousand years from now.” One can only wonder what he would have thought if he could have seen it just 94 years later.

What’s More…

Some of French’s works around New England include

Lincoln Memorial undergoing cleaning in 1991

Lincoln Memorial undergoing cleaning in 1991

This story was updated inn 2022. Thanks to two books for this post,  So Fine a Prospect: Historic New England Gardens by Alan Emmet and No Better Hope by Brent Ashabranner.

Image of Lincoln Memorial (color): By Jeff Kubina – Lincoln Memorial, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3497205.

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