Vinnie Ream Hoxie

Background

Ream was born September 25, 1847, in Madison, Wisconsin, then a frontier town. Part of her childhood was spent in Washington, D. C. , where her father had found employment, but the family later returned to the W.

Education

She attended Christian College, Columbia, Mo. Here she wrote songs which were set to music and published.

Career

Moving to Washington with her parents during the Civil War, she obtained a minor clerkship in the Post Office department at the age of fifteen. A friend having taken her to the studio of Clark Mills, she laughingly attempted to model a likeness of Mills; the result delighted her and others. Keeping her government position, she thenceforth gave all her free time to the study of sculpture, chiefly under Mills.

Her personality was so winning, and the art of sculpture was at that time so little understood in the United States, that within a year, at senatorial solicitation, President Lincoln allowed her to come to the White House, giving her daily half-hour sittings, during five months. She was reverent, impressionable, industrious, gifted, but of course without sufficient training for the commission which, nevertheless, was awarded to her by Congress after a competition, to make a full-length marble statue of Lincoln for the Rotunda of the Capitol. A contract was signed August 30, 1866: $5, 000 to be paid on acceptance of the full-size plaster model, and $5, 000 on completion of the marble. Vinnie Ream was the first of her sex to execute sculpture for the United States government; she had impressive indorsement, both political and military.

Armed with Secretary Seward's letter of recommendation to the American diplomatic and consular representatives in Europe, the young sculptor, accompanied by her parents, went to Rome to put the statue into marble. In her own country, she had already made from life portrait-busts of Thaddeus Stevens and others. Abroad, in more sophisticated circles, her frontier spirit of independence, coupled with her artlessly ingratiating demeanor, proved attractive. In Paris, she made portraits of Gustave Doré and Père Hyacinthe.

According to the Reminiscences of Georg Brandes, the Danish critic (who pays tribute to her forceful, upright character, even while he smiles at her girlish vanity), she told him that in order to obtain a much-desired commission for a bust of the formidable Cardinal Antonelli, she had merely put on her most beautiful white gown, and obtaining an audience, had proffered her request, which was at once granted (1870). The cardinal gave her a medallion of Christ, inscribing it to his "little friend, Miss Vinnie Ream. " Other incidents attest her popularity.

Her marble "Lincoln, " duly admired abroad, was unveiled with imposing ceremonies in the Rotunda in 1871. Although neither vigorous nor inspiring, the statue is imbued with sincere feeling and holds its own among its Capitoline companions as a remarkable production from a hand so inexperienced. Later she was awarded another government commission after competition: on January 28, 1875, she signed a twenty-thousand-dollar contract for the heroic bronze statue of Admiral Farragut now standing in Farragut Square, Washington, D. C. , a work fairly representative of the average of its day.

To her final period belong two works in Statuary Hall: the "Gov. Samuel Kirkwood, " presented by the State of Iowa, and the "Sequoyah" (a statue of the Cherokee halfbreed who invented the Cherokee alphabet), the gift of Oklahoma. The model of the "Sequoyah, " finished shortly before Mrs. Hoxie's death in Washington, was put into the hands of the sculptor George Zolnay. The completed bronze, placed in 1917, shows a technique somewhat more able than that seen in her earlier works. In addition to those already mentioned, the list of her sitters for portrait-busts or medallions include famous names: General Grant, General McClellan, General Frémont; Senator Sherman, Peter Cooper, Ezra Cornell, Horace Greeley, Liszt, Kaulbach, Spurgeon. Among her ideal figures are "The West, " "The Indian Girl, " "The Spirit of the Carnival, " "Miriam, " "Sappho. " A bronze copy of the "Sappho" was placed over her grave in the National Cemetery at Arlington, Va.

Achievements

• A first-day cover stamp was issued in honor of Vinnie Ream and her work on the statue of Sequoyah, the Native American inventor of the Cherokee alphabet. George Caleb Bingham painted her portrait twice. The town of Vinita, Oklahoma, was named in honor of Vinnie Ream.

Personality

She was small, slender, bright-eyed, with a wealth of long curls.

Connections

In 1878, before the completion of the "Farragut, " Vinnie Ream was married to Lieut. Richard Leveridge Hoxie, United States army. The occasion was brilliant, even for Washington. Mrs. Hoxie became one of the popular hostesses of the city; for many years she gave up her art, only to return to it in later life.

Father:

Robert Lee Ream

1809–1885

Mother:

Lavinia Ellen McDonald Ream

1809–1893

Spouse:

Richard Leveridge Hoxie

1844–1930

References

• Vinnie Ream: The Story of the Girl Who Sculptured Lincoln
• Vinnie Ream (Classic Reprint)
• Vinnie Ream: An American Sculptor
• Vinnie Ream and Mr. Lincoln
• The Story of Vinnie Ream