Chronology

Biography - Chronology

1840?

Born Mary E. Lewis -- exact birth date is not known.

1847-1856

Mother, a Chippewa artisan, and Father, an African American from Haiti, died. Boarded and sent to private day school.

1856-1858

Attends New York Central College, a radical center of abolitionism and coeducation in McGraw, New York.

1859

Enters Oberlin College, Oberlin Ohio, also a radical center of equality and anti-slavery.

1862

January: Accused of poisoning white coeds with Spanish Fly. Racial tensions flare.

About February 14: Savagely assaulted.

February 26: Exonerated by judicial hearing.

September: Signs her earliest known surviving work, a drawing of a statue, "Edmonia Lewis."

1863

[January: Emancipation Proclamation declares slaves in rebelling states to be forever free.]

February: Accused of stealing brushes and paints, then accused of stealing a picture frame.

Oberlin College denies Edmonia her final term and graduation.

Meets Frederick Douglass who advises her to go east.

Proceeds to Boston with letters of introduction to William Lloyd Garrison.

Encouraged by abolitionist sculptor William Brackett; takes a space in the Studio Building.

Produces medallions of John Brown and other celebrated abolitionists.

May: Colonel Robert Gould Shaw parades black troops through Boston on their way to war.

[July: Colonel Shaw is martyred with his troops as they charge Fort Wagner.].

1864

Meets Lydia Maria Child, a feminist and founder of the New England abolition movement. Child begins to publicize Edmonia's talent.

August: Anne Whitney and others help Edmonia with her bust of Colonel Shaw.

October: Shows her bust of Colonel Shaw to Child and Maria Chapman.

November: Sculptor Harriet Hosmer sees Shaw bust; calls it “modelled finely.”

Memorializes Sergeant William H. Carney of the 54th Massachusetts Regiment with a statuette.

Sells 100 copies of Shaw bust.

December: Anna Q. Waterston publishes a poem about Edmonia and her bust of Shaw.

1865

January: Shaw bust promoted by Child in The National Anti-Slavery Standard and The Liberator.

February: Makes a bust of Maria Weston Chapman.

[April: Civil War ends.]

July: Heads to Richmond, Va., to teach freed slaves for a month.

August: Sails for Europe with commissions for marble copies of busts of Shaw, Abraham Lincoln, Horace Mann, and others.

September: Encouraged by America's most famous sculptor, Hiram Powers, and others in Florence, Italy.

[December: Ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment bans slavery throughout the United States.]

1866

January: Moves to Rome, Italy.

February: Gets historic studio once occupied by the famous neoclassical sculptor Antonio Canova; Introduced to actress Charlotte Cushman who introduces her to her circle of feminist artists -- later called "strange sisterhood" and "white marmorian flock" by Henry James.

February: First emancipation statue by an African American, the Freedwoman and Her Child.

March: Featured in English periodicals, Art-Journal and Athenæum.

Summer: Begins The Morning of Liberty, later called Forever Free. Produces Preghiera, a figure later incorporated into Forever Free.

Opens showroom on Via della Frezza.

Sculpts the Old Arrow-Maker and His Daughter (Wooing of Hiawatha), Hiawatha, Minnehaha, and the Marriage of Hiawatha.

1867

May: Cushman decides to raise funds to donate Wooing of Hiawatha to the Boston YMCA.

Praised in Tuckerman’s Book of the Artists.

September or October: Bust of Dioclesian Lewis exhibited at A. A. Childs in Boston.

December: Boston YMCA finally accepts the Wooing of Hiawatha.

1868

Sends Forever Free to abolitionist Samuel Sewall in Boston.

February: Reveals her religious affiliation to Whitney.

Child scolds Edmonia for putting Forever Free into marble without a commission; eventually ends her support.

Models Hagar in the Wilderness.

May: Writes to Boston, asking what became of money for Forever Free.

August: Frank Leslie’s Illustrated News pictures Edmonia and the Old Arrowmaker and His Daughter (Wooing of Hiawatha).

Fall: Makes bust of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

1869

February: Marquis of Bute, one of the richest men in the world, makes first of many large purchases.

July: Honored by the Freedmen's Union in Boston; helps raise funds to donate Forever Free and Longfellow.

Sells Wedding of Hiawatha to feminist Laura Curtis Bullard.

August: Visits her aunts near Niagara Falls. Denied accommadations in upstate New York and forced to seek shelter overnight.

August: Offers a Madonna to Saint Francis Xavier Church in Baltimore.

November: Honored in Boston at the presentation of Forever Free to Rev. Leonard Grimes, a leading black abolitionist.

1870

Sits for portrait by Isabel Cholmeley.

Visits Franz Liszt, creates medallion portrait.

Dr. Harriot K. Hunt commissions Hygeia for her grave in Mount Auburn Cemetery.

August: Exhibits Hagar in the Wilderness in Chicago and advertises herself as "The Young and Gifted Colored Sculptor."

Sits for photographic portraits by photographer Henry Rocher.

1871

Listed in John Murray's Handbook of Rome and Its Environs, as one of "the most celebrated artists of Rome."

Medallion of Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Sends life-size statue of John Brown to Union League Club of New York City.

1872

Spring: Wins a gold medal for Asleep and a certificate of excellence for Love Caught in a Trap at the International Exposition of Paintings and Sculpture. Academy of Arts and Sciences, Naples.

Modeled Poor Cupid.

September / October: visits New York City to promote use of her bust of Horace Greeley by Leslie's Illustrated News.

1873

Spring: Sells a copy of antique Young Augustus (Young Octavian) to Elizabeth Buffum Chace.

Models bust of James P. Thomas of Saint Louis.

May: Heads for California. Sells Lincoln bust in New York to Central Park.

August/September: First internationally renowned woman sculptor to exhibit in San Francisco and San Jose. Shows Lincoln, Asleep and Awake, Cupid Caught, and The Marriage of Hiawatha.

1874

January: Feted in New York.

Profiled in the Rising Son by William Wells Brown.

1875

July: Sells copies of Senator Charles Sumner in New York and Albany.

October: Exhibits several statues in Saint Paul, Minnesota,

1876

May: Exhibits The Death of Cleopatra, The Old Arrow-maker and his Daughter, and portraits John Brown, Charles Sumner, and Longfellow at the International Exposition celebrating the Centennial in Philadelphia.

1878

Models busts of John Cardinal McCloskey, and former President U. S. Grant.

September: Exhibits the Death of Cleopatra and her portrait busts at the Interstate Industrial Exposition in Chicago.

Makes bust of Bishop Thomas Patrick Roger Foley.

Puts Death of Cleopatra into storage.

December: Presents her bust of John Brown to Rev. Henry Highland Garnet in New York and sailed home.

1879

Fall: Exhibits the Bride of Spring in Syracuse, New York, and Cincinnati.

1883

Prepares a bas-relief altarpiece combining an Asian, a Caucasian and an African cherub for a church in Baltimore and a statue of the Holy Virgin for the Marquis of Bute.

1884

January: Protests U.S. tariffs on art.

1887

January: Meets Frederick Douglass in Rome.

1893

May: Hiawatha and Phillis Wheatley exhibited at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago.

1895

Bust of Charles Sumner exhibited at Atlanta World's Fair.

1896

Gives address as "c/o U.S. Consul Paris, France."

1898

September: Visits New York.

1901

Living in London, England.

1907

Reportedly living in Rome (doubtful).

1909