In the 1890’s Women Sculptors were not accepted as students by many established sculptors. One exception was Larado Taft of Chicago. He taught and encouraged many female student artist to develop their skills as sculptors.
Lorado Taft and sculpture class
Description:Photograph of Lorado Taft and his sculpture class at the Chicago Art Institute (ca. 1890s). Identified individuals are Carrie Brooks McNeil (seated, front left), Julia Bracken (seated front right), Will LeFavor (standing second from left in checkered apron), and Lorado Taft (standing third from right in black vest). (Note 1)
The story is told by Wikipedia as follows: As the date of the f air’s opening grew closer, Taft realized that he would not be able to complete the decorations in time. Discovering that all the male sculptors he had in mind were already employed elsewhere, he asked Daniel Burnham if he could use women assistants, an occurrence that was virtually unheard of at that time. Burnham’s reply was that Taft could “hire anyone, even white rabbits, if they can get the work done.” Taft, an instructor of sculpture at the Chicago Art Institute who had many qualified women students and who frequently employed women assistants himself, brought in a group of women assistants who were promptly dubbed “the White Rabbits.”
One side note: The White Rabbits helped build the White City, as the Chicago Fair was called. “Thine alabaster cities gleam, undimmed by human tears” were the words that Katherine Lee Bates wrote in 1895 in her poem “America, the Beautiful.” Samuel A. Ward composed the hymn tune in 1882. It was combined with Bates’ poem in 1910 and published as “America, the Beautiful.” Read the complete history HERE . The words became part of the third verse inspired by her seeing the Columbian Exposition “White City” in 1893.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Rabbits_(sculptors)
From the ranks of the White Rabbits were to emerge some of the most talented and successful women sculptors of the next generation. These include:
- Julia Bracken (1871–1942)
- Carol Brooks (1871–1944)
- Ellen Rankin Copp (1853-1901)
- Helen Farnsworth (1867–1916)
- Margaret Gerow (whose art career ended with her marriage to sculptor Alexander Phimister Proctor)
- Mary Lawrence (1868–1945)
- Bessie Potter (1872–1954)
- Janet Scudder (1869–1940)
- Enid Yandell (1870–1934)
- Zulime Taft [de] Lorado Taft’s sister
Horticultural Building
Horticulture Building of World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893. Women Sculptors nick named the “White Rabbits” created much of the work on this building. Carol Louise Brooks (later MacNeil) was one of those sculptors. (Note 2)
Besides their work on the Horticultural Building, several of the White Rabbits were to obtain other commissions to produce sculpture at the Exposition. Among these were Lawrence’s statue of Columbus, placed in front of the Administration Building, Yandell’s Daniel Boone for the Kentucky Building, Bracken’s Illinois Greeting the Nations in the Illinois Building, and Farnsworth’s Columbia for the Wisconsin Building.
Note 3. SOURCE: PJ Chmiel https://farm1.staticflickr.com/196/497505305_c32f7e852d_b.jpg
Notes:
- Original photo found in RS 26/20/16, Box 25, Art Institute Classes. Phys. Desc: TIFF Original photo is 7.75″ x 4.5″ ID:0006291. Repository: University of Illinois Archives. Found in: Lorado Taft Papers, 1857-1953. Subjects: American SculptureChicago Art Institute Taft, Lorado, 1860-1936. Rights:This image is in the public domain. Please contact us if you would like to purchase a high-resolution copy of the image.
- [CREDITS: By C.D. Arnold – Arnold, C.D., The World’s Columbian Exposition: Portfolio of Views, Issued by the Department of Photography, National Chemigraph Company, Chicago, 1893, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=29205089]
- PHOTO: Daniel Boone statue; by PJ Chmiel. See his gallery on Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/pjchmiel/ also https://farm1.staticflickr.com/196/497505305_c32f7e852d_b.jpg
Joie Katherine MacNeil 1922-1928
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Joie Katherine MacNeil is the Girl in “The Red Tam”
The Red Tam exhibits Kroll’s careful balancing of form and color. The flow of the red tam into the green scarf enlivens the simplified volumes of the sitter’s face. The painting is one of three Kroll portraits of the daughter of American sculptor Hermon MacNeil — Joie Katherine MacNeil.
Joie was the daughter and darling of the MacNeil household
This work exhibits a careful balancing of form and color. The flow of the red tam into the green scarf enlivens the simplified volumes of the face. Kroll’s traditional approach was at odds with the modernist artist’s desire to experiment with new styles and methods.
[ SOURCE INFO ]
Joie’s Travels across the US, Hawaii, and Canada
When Joie was thirteen, she traveled with her parents to across the US. Their journeys began in Chicago, then San Francisco, next Hawaii, and Canada finally Massachusetts. The local newspaper told the story this way:
‘[1924 June 27, The Daily Sun, Queens Borough; page 12; Col 4] Mr and Mrs Hermon Atkins MacNeil and their daughter, Joy, of North Boulevard, are on a three months’ trip to the coast. They are going by automobile to Chicago, from where they will go to Kennilworth, Ill., to visit Mrs. MacNeil’s father. From there they will go to San Francisco by train, and later to Honolulu to visit Mr. MacNeil’s brother, who is a professor at a College there. On their return trip they will tour Canada and stop off at Chelsea, Mass. Both Mr. and Mrs. MacNeil are nationally known as sculptors.
Her death notice in the Daily Star of Queens Borough
JOIE MACNEIL, 17, DAUGHTER OF SCULPTOR, DIES March 20, 1928.
Joie Katherine MacNeil, seventeen, daughter of Hermon A. MacNeil, noted American sculptor, died in Flushing Hospital of an infection which had been slowly draining her health since an attack of scarlet fever several years ago.
Miss MacNeil returned from Paris last fall with her mother, Mrs. Carol Brooks MacNeil, with whom she had been studying art in France. The girl’s health had failed rapidly since, and for the last three months she had been confined to the MacNeil home on Fifth Avenue (North boulevard), College Point.
She was removed to the Flushing Hospital two weeks ago.
Only daughter and darling of the MacNeil household, Joie returned a year ago from the fashionable Oakmere Academy, a girls school at Mamaroneck, where she had completed a fall course and expressed great eagerness to accompany her parents to Europe.
In France she delighted her parents by applying herself to the study of art forms afforded in the best schools and galleries in Paris and by actually producing some very promising sketches and portrait studies, evincing marked talent with pencil and brush.
Joie MacNeil bade fair to prove an artistic heritage as the daughter of the renowned sculptor and Mrs. MacNeil, herself a sculptress of wide reputation and an internationally recognized artist.
She leaves behind her parents, two brothers, Alden a recent graduate of Cornell University and now a student in the famous Fountainbleu art school, and Claude, an aviator and mechanical engineer on the staff of the Sikorsky Aircraft Manufacturing Company at College Point.
Funeral services will be held this evening at eight o’clock at the MacNeil home, the Rev. George Drew Egbert, rector of the First Congregational Church of Flushing officiating.
A special program of music for the occasion is being arranged by Thomas Burton, concert singer, a friend of Miss MacNeil and a neighbor.
Private services will follow tomorrow at the creamatory in Fresh Pond Cemetery, Maspeth, under the direction of C. Johann & Sons.
Source: The Daily Star, Queens Borough, Tuesday Evening, March 20, 1928. Page 4, column 7.
Joie MacNeil’s and her Parents’ Travel documents from 1919
Joie MacNeil Dies at age 17:
By · Comments‘The Darling of the MacNeil Family” succumbs at 19.
She was the Girl in “The Red Tam”
Queens Borough, The Daily Star told this account:
JOIE MACNEIL, 17, DAUGHTER OF SCULPTOR, DIES March 20, 1928.
Joie Katherine MacNeil, seventeen, daughter of Hermon A. MacNeil, noted American sculptor, died in Flushing Hospital of an infection which had been slowly draining her health since an attack of scarlet fever several years ago.
Miss MacNeil returned from Paris last fall with her mother, Mrs. Carol Brooks MacNeil, with whom she had been studying art in France. The girl’s health had failed rapidly since, and for the last three months she had been confined to the MacNeil home on Fifth Avenue (North boulevard), College Point.
She was removed to the Flushing Hospital two weeks ago.
Only daughter and darling of the MacNeil household, Joie returned a year ago from the fashionable Oakmere Academy, a girls school at Mamaroneck, where she had completed a fall course and expressed great eagerness to accompany her parents to Europe.
In France she delighted her parents by applying herself to the study of art forms afforded in the best schools and galleries in Paris and by actually producing some very promising sketches and portrait studies, evincing marked talent with pencil and brush.
Joie MacNeil bade fair to prove an artistic heritage as the daughter of the renowned sculptor and Mrs. MacNeil, herself a sculptress of wide reputation and an internationally recognized artist.
She leaves behind her parents, two brothers, Alden a recent graduate of Cornell University and now a student in the famous Fountainbleu art school, and Claude, an aviator and mechanical engineer on the staff of the Sikorsky Aircraft Manufacturing Company at College Point.
Funeral services will be held this evening at eight o’clock at the MacNeil home, the Rev. George Drew Egbert, rector of the First Congregational Church of Flushing officiating.
A special program of music for the occasion is being arranged by Thomas Burton, concert singer, a friend of Miss MacNeil and a neighbor.
Private services will follow tomorrow at the creamatory in Fresh Pond Cemetery, Maspeth, under the direction of C. Johann & Sons.
Source: The Daily Star, Queens Borough, Tuesday Evening, March 20, 1928. Page 4, column 7.
Purchase MacNeil Medallion On eBay
By · CommentsEtching of Carol Louise Brooke MacNeil
By · Commentsby William Harry Warren Bicknell
William Harry Warren Bicknell was an American artist born in 1860 in Boston Massachusetts. His etching of Carol Brooks MacNeil (below) is on paper and framed behind glass. It measures about 8”x9.5” (etching) frame is 12.25” x 14.5”. The etching is dated 1897 (note signature block on bottom photo).
The work was obtained from the estate sale of Walter Pratt, first cousin of Hermon Atkins MacNeil. Carol Brooks was a sculptor and artist in her own right. She was one of the “White Rabbits” who worked on the 1893 World Columbian Exposition (Chicago World’s Fair). In addition, on Christmas Day of 1895, she married Hermon Atkins MacNeil designer of the Standing Liberty Quarter.
Another similiar sample of the work of William Harry Warren Bicknell is offered below. Most of his works on the Smithsonian American Art Museum website are “Untitled” Click Here
Stay tuned to HermonAtkinsMacNeil.com for more on Carol Louise Brooks MacNeil and the other women sculptors called the “White Rabbits” of 1897 Chicago Worlds Fair.
Related posts:
- Hermon MacNeil at the 1893 Columbian Exposition ~ ~ ~ THE CHICAGO YEARS ~ ~ (5) CHICAGO YEARS: Partners and Colleagues When Hermon MacNeil came home to the…
- ~ ~ ~ “The Most Happy Young Man I Know” ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Hermon A. MacNeil ~ Success & Marriage! (5) 1895 Hermon Atkins MacNeil, American Sculptor (1866-1947) MacNeil’s bronze of…
- The MacNeil’s Chicago Wedding – Christmas Day 1895 (5) I sit here in Chicago during this Christmas Season, imagining…
- MacNeil – Brooks 120th Anniversary (1895-2015) (5) On Christmas Day one dozen decades ago, Hermon A. MacNeil…
- Marquette Statue in Chicago (4) Today we took a short trip south from our daughter’s…
- Lorado Taft offered praise for ‘promising Native works’ of Hermon Atkins MacNeil in 1903 (4) In the early 1900s, because of his knowledge and authorship…
MacNeil-Brooks Wedding Reception – Christmas Day 1895
By · CommentsOne Hundred and twenty-three years (123) ago, Hermon Atkins MacNeil and Carol Louise Brooks were on married Christmas Day.
Recently an invitation to their Wedding Reception came available from the estate of Walter Pratt. He was a first cousin of Hermon. A facsimile appears below.
Noteworthy, is the location of the reception: the “Studio 1733 Marquette Building Chicago, Adams and Dearborn Streets, Chicago”. Recovery of this printed invitation adds several previously unknown facts to the story of their wedding day. The 19th Century Marquette Building is the 21st Century home of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.
The wedding earlier in the day was a private ceremony. Rev. Edward F. Williams, a Congregational Minister, officiated. Their license, completed in Rev. Williams hand, appears below.
“Marriage: On Christmas Day 1895, in Chicago, he married Carol Louise Brooks, also a sculptor (see their marriage record below). Earlier MacNeil was informed that he had won the Rinehart Roman Scholarship. Following their wedding, the pair left for Rome, passing three years there (1896-1899) and eventually spend a fourth year in Paris where their first son, Claude, was born. During those years they studied together under the same masters and shared the income of the Rinehart scholarship awarded to Hermon. (Carol had also studied sculpture with both Lorado Taft and Frederick William MacMonnies).”
Both Carol and Hermon sculpted for the Chicago World’s Fair of 1893. Carol Brooks was one of Lorado Taft’s “White Rabbits”
Lorado Taft’s “White Rabbits” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Rabbits_(sculptors)
Hermon sculpted statues on the Electricity Building (See picture below)
Carol Brooks MacNeil – 1907 – Twelve years after her marriage to Hermon 
H.A.MacNeil ~1895 sketch – The Sun (New York City) 
The Electricity Building housed the Tower of Light, displays by Western Electric, General Electric, American Bell Telephone, Edison’s lasest phonographs. 
The White City Columbian Exposition: http://members.cox.net/academia/cassatt8.html 
New York Public Library – Digital Gallery (655 x 760) 
H.A. MacNeil “Fan Club” Members examine the Marquette Building – 140 S. Dearborn Ave. 
Panel 4 “The de Profundus was intoned 
Panel 3 “Passing two leagues up the river …” 
Panel 2 ” To follow those waters …” 
“To follow those …” Panel 1
Related posts:
- ~ ~ ~ “The Most Happy Young Man I Know” ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Hermon A. MacNeil ~ Success & Marriage! (13) 1895 Hermon Atkins MacNeil, American Sculptor (1866-1947) MacNeil’s bronze of…
- Hermon MacNeil ~ “The Most Happy Young Man I Know!” (10) ~ Christmas Day 1895 ~ In 1895, Amy Aldis Bradley…
- Hermon MacNeil at the 1893 Columbian Exposition ~ ~ ~ THE CHICAGO YEARS ~ ~ (9) CHICAGO YEARS: Partners and Colleagues When Hermon MacNeil came home to the…
- “PRIMITIVE INDIAN MUSIC” ~ Part 3: 1894 Eda Lord’s Ticket to the Chicago World’s Fair (9) Eda Lord, (the woman who purchased the MacNeil bronze statue,…
- The MacNeil’s Chicago Wedding – Christmas Day 1895 (9) I sit here in Chicago during this Christmas Season, imagining…
- MacNeil – Brooks 120th Anniversary (1895-2015) (7) On Christmas Day one dozen decades ago, Hermon A. MacNeil…
