Archive for Carol Brooks MacNeil
Christmas 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
~
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 ~
Mary Lawrence: A Sculptor of “The White Rabbits”
Posted by: | CommentsMary Lawrence was a talented sculptor. All that is left of her work in the 1893 World’s Fair are the pictures, as depicted below.

“Christopher Columbus” by Mary Lawrence at the World’s Columbian Exposition, 1893, Chicago, Illinois
She became one of The White Rabbits along with Carol (Carrie) Brooks (MacNeil) and numerous other “women assistants” to Lorado Taft and other male sculptors. They helped create “the White City” as the 1893 Chicago Worlds Fair was known. 1 The material was temporary, made of staff plaster, and modeled on wooden and medal frameworks. The elegance of the White City inspired
Lawrence was a pupil of Augustus Saint Gaudens at the Art Students League of New York for five years. In that period, she proved her skills many times over.
In the Chicago exhibition, her work with the White Rabbits was overpowered by an accomplishment central to the Court of Honor.
Saint Gaudens’ recommended that she create the theme statue of the exposition, namely, the monumental center-piece of Christopher Columbus. 1 This work was to be placed in the Court of Honor at the entrance of the Administration Building.
Frank Millet, who served as Director of Decorations, resented that a woman “had been selected, and seemed to bear her some personal animus as well.” 2 Seeing the piece put on such a prominent place, he ordered her to move the statue to the plaza of the railroad station. Lawrence complied even though Charles F. McKim, architect for Exposition, had told to place the work at that location. His authority to do so was second only to Daniel Burnham, the Chief Coordinating Architect.
She approached McKim a second time to tell him of the change. He had the statue returned to the Court of Honor at the Administration Building entrance. McKim worked with Augustus Saint Gaudens on many projects. He was introduced to Mary Lawrence by Saint Gaudens as they collaborated in New York on early plans for the Exposition in Chicago.
Though McKim was twenty years senior to Mary Lawrence, Bruce Wilkinson describes their relationship in this way:
“Her good looks and high spirits made her popular with the young and the not so young. Charles Follen McKim, whose second wife had died tragically after one short idyllic year, fell in love with her and remained a little so all the rest of his crowded life.”
Kim, Burnham, and especially, Lorado Taft were open to women as students and sculptors. Their show of support in the White Rabbitsdecision advanced opportunities for women for years to come.
Janet Scudder (1869-1940) was one of Taft’s students who described her own the joy filled elation and that of her White-Rabbit-sisters in the following way:
“Janet describes working under Loredo as “That wonderful year! Filled with work, filled with accomplishment and filled with what was considered in those days a very fat salary!”[2] The salary was so large that, upon being paid, “We rushed back to our rooms at the hotel, opened the envelopes and poured out the five-dollar bills (for some reason we were paid our hundred and fifty dollars in five-dollar bills,) and carpeted the floor with them. We wanted to see what it felt like to walk on money.” [3] 3
The Joy of the “White Rabbits” changed their lives and the future of sculpture.

Women and men working on figures for the East entrance to the Horticulture Building in Taft’s section of the World’s Columbian Exposition. Chicago History Museum Images. SOURCE: [ At: https://discoverherstory.wordpress.com/2018/01/08/white-rabbits-american-women-sculptors/ on March 1, 2019.]
Footnotes:
-
White City
Most of the buildings of the fair were designed in the neoclassical architecture style. The area at the Court of Honor was known as The White City. Façades were made not of stone, but of a mixture of plaster, cement, and jute fiber called staff, which was painted white, giving the buildings their “gleam”. Architecture critics derided the structures as “decorated sheds”. The buildings were clad in white stucco, which, in comparison to the tenements of Chicago, seemed illuminated. It was also called the White City because of the extensive use of street lights, which made the boulevards and buildings usable at night. - Bruce Wilkinson, Uncommon Clay: The Life and Works of Augustus Saint Gaudens. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Publishers, Orlando, Florida, 1985, p. 249
- Ibid.
- Janet Scudder: “White Rabbits: American Women Sculptors”. [ At: https://discoverherstory.wordpress.com/2018/01/08/white-rabbits-american-women-sculptors/ on March 1, 2019.]
Carol Brooks MacNeil & the “White Rabbits” of the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair
Posted by: | CommentsIn 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 MacNeil Dies at age 17:
Posted 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.
Etching of Carol Louise Brooke MacNeil
Posted 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.
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