Christmas 2020 is the 125th Wedding Anniversary for Hermon Atkins MacNeil and Carol Louise Brooks
ByChristmas Eve 1895.
Chicago, Illinois
There was a Wedding in …
Hermon MacNeil’s Studio
~ 1733 Marquette Building ~
Married in a private ceremony on Christmas Day Hermon and Carol MacNeil had a reception in the Marquette Building
Carol Louise Brooks as a young girl. An Etching by William Harry Warren Bicknell. (about 1891)
~
Every Christmas we remember this
Special Christmas Day Wedding of two sculptors.
They met in Chicago, Carol’s hometown as they sculpted the “White City” of The Worlds Columbian Exposition (aka. Chicago Worlds Fair). That event opened in May 1893.
Hermon made figures on the Electricity Building. Carol (Carrie) was a student of Lorado Taft and became a “White Rabbit”, that group of select females permitted to sculpt as the deadline for opening day loomed closer.
Two years later Hermon, age 29, proposed to Carol (Carrie) just 24. She accepted. They got a Marriage License on Christmas Eve and used it the next day. Several weeks later they sailed to Rome where Hermon had accepted the Reinhart Fellowship and they both continued to learn sculpture for 3 years. And then spent a a fourth year in Paris.
~ Christmas Day 1895 ~
In 1895, Amy Aldis Bradley wrote of Hermon MacNeil:
“…The young sculptor was married on Christmas Day, and sailed for Rome on Wednesday, and is, on the whole, the most happy young man I know.” (http://marquette.macfound.org/slide/herman-macneil/ )
One hundred and twenty-five Christmas Days ago, Hermon Atkins MacNeil and Carol Louise Brooks were united in marriage in Chicago, Illinois by Rev. Edward F. Williams, a Congregational Minister. They purchased their Marriage License on Christmas Eve Day 1895 & made their Vows on Christmas. [CLICK HERE to See their License]
Related Post: The-Most-Happy-Young-Man-I-Know/
Both Hermon and Carol were sculptors who worked on the 1983 Chicago World’s Fair (World’s Columbian Exposition). Just days earlier MacNeil received word that he had won the Rinehart Roman Scholarship. (Carol had also studied sculpture with both Lorado Taft and Frederick William MacMonnies). Within the week, the pair left for Rome, passing three years there (1896-1899). It was a romantic time of study together under the same masters. With frugality, the income of Hermon’s Rinehart scholarship supported them both. They travelled through Italy occasionally bartering a room for sculpture. They spend a fourth year in Paris.”
According to information from the MacArthur Foundation (current owner and curator of the Marquette Building), Amy Aldis Bradley’s complete words in 1895 to Peter Brooks:
After commissioning MacNeil for the exterior bronzes, Aldis wrote to Peter Brooks, “McNeil’s [sic] panels are being placed in position. It is greatly to their and his credit that these bas-reliefs have won for him the Roman [Reinhart] Fellowship. The Commission, choosing him as the best of the very young men…The young sculptor was married on Christmas Day, and sailed for Rome on Wednesday, and is, on the whole, the most happy young man I know. He is very grateful to the owners of the Marquette Building.” (http://marquette.macfound.org/slide/herman-macneil/ )
