"[Rufus Porter] pioneered and made outstanding contriubtions in the field of American art, and in science and journalism as well... Porter worked steadily at the trade of itinerant artist from 1815 to around 1840... Porter had established a mobile one-man factory for original portraiture and interior decoration... [Following 1825] Porter devoted himself chiefly to mural painting. In the 1840s he published and edited the New York Mehanic, kAmerican Mechanic and Scientific American. The latter, which he founded in 1845, was one of teh most important journals of its time, as it is today"--from p. 3, 4, 7.
Here is the long awaited update of research on the Rufus Porter Landscape Mural School, greatly expanding the knowledge and understanding of this uniquely American folk art field of the 1820s to 1840s. The text provides detailed documentation never seen before in print. The book takes the reader on a virtual tour of Porter School murals in the New England states, presenting and analyzing more than 400 colorful images, which will provide inspiration for historians, researchers, designers, and painters alike. It offers evidence regarding the attribution of these mostly unsigned works, and encourages readers to apply that evidence in reaching their own conclusions. In addition, there is a section concerning the preservation of historic murals and various challenges and threats to such preservation. Finally, the book offers a "how-to" section that interprets Porter's original published mural painting instructions in terms of modern equipment, materials, and supplies.
In Scientific Americans, Susan Branson explores the place of science and technology in American efforts to achieve cultural independence from Europe and America's nation building in the early republic and antebellum eras. This engaging tour of scientific education and practices among ordinary citizens charts the development of nationalism and national identity alongside roads, rails, and machines. Scientific Americans shows how informal scientific education provided by almanacs, public lectures, and demonstrations, along with the financial encouragement of early scientific societies, generated an enthusiasm for the application of science and technology to civic, commercial, and domestic improvements. Not only that: Americans were excited, awed, and intrigued with the practicality of inventions. Bringing together scientific research and popular wonder, Branson charts how everything from mechanical clocks to steam engines informed the creation and expansion of the American nation. From the Exhibition of the Industry of All Nations to the fate of the Amistad captives, Scientific Americans shows how the promotion and celebration of discoveries, inventions, and technologies articulated Americans' earliest ambitions, as well as prejudices, throughout the first American century.
Many of the events that took place along the Oregon Trail are well known--the perils the Applegate family faced as they rafted down the raging Columbia River, the plight of the Donner Party as they found themselves snowbound and starving at Truckee Lake. But do you know the whole story? It Happened on the Oregon Trail reveals the stories of these well-known events as well as many lesser-known happenings, providing insights about the adventurous emigrants who, beginning in the 1840s, headed west in covered wagons in search of a better life. The hardships and the joys of the 2000-mile journey across plains, mountains, and deserts come alive in this entertaining and informative book.
"Many well-known artists, including Thomas Eakins and Winslow Homer, and lesser-known artists like Harriet Hosmer are closely examined, as is the art world of the time. In addition to discussing the free movement of American visual culture between 'high' and 'low', Barbara Groseclose interweaves nineteenth-century art criticism with current art history, to create a fascinating insight into the changing interpretations of American art of this period."--BOOK JACKET.
Before the foundation of academies of art in London in 1758 and Philadelphia in 1805, most individuals who were to emerge as artists trained in workshops of varying degrees of relevance. Easel painters began their careers apprenticed to carriage, house, sign or ship painters, whilst a few were placed with those who made pictures. Sculptors emerged from a training as ornamental plasterers or carvers. Of the many other trades in a position to offer an appropriate background were ‘limning’, staining, engraving, surveying, chasing and die-sinking. In addition, plumbers gained the right to use oil painting and, for plasterers, the application of distemper was an extension of their trade. Central to the theme of this book is the notion that, for those who were to become either painters or sculptor, a training in a trade met their practical needs. This ‘training’ was of an altogether different nature to an ‘education’ in an art school. In the past, prospective artists were offered, by means of apprenticeships, an empirical rather than a theoretical understanding of their ultimate vocation. James Ayres provides a lively account of the inter-relationship between art and trade in the late seventeenth to early nineteenth centuries, in both Britain and North America. He demonstrates with numerous, illustrated examples, the many cross-overs in the ‘art and mystery’ of artistic training, and, to modern eyes, the sometimes incongruous relationships between the various trades that contributed to the blossoming of many artistic careers, including some of the most illustrious names of the ‘long’ eighteenth century.
In 1768, Jacob Kimball moved to the shores of Long Lake in North Bridgton, building a store and providing boat service from Standish, at the southern end of Sebago Lake. Jacob Stevens soon followed, building a sawmill and gristmill on what became Stevens Brook in the center village. Ten power sites on this short brook ran lumber, textile, and other mills, as well as a tannery. Bridgton became the area's commercial center as retail stores and businesses sprang up to support the many mill workers and farm families. The first train on the narrow-gauge Bridgton and Saco River Railroad chugged into town in January 1883. Tourists and artists soon discovered Bridgton, and today the town remains a diverse mix of creative, hardworking people.
