,

Remembering Wisconsin-Born Woman Chosen To Sculpt President Lincoln

Vintage Wisconsin: First Woman To Receive Federal Art Commission Was Born This Week In 1847

By
Wisconsin Historical Images

Famed Wisconsin sculptor Vinnie Ream, seen above with her bust of President Abraham Lincoln, was born this week in 1847. She was the first female sculptor to receive a commission from the federal government.

Ream was born in Madison on Sept. 25, 1847. Her father was a surveyor and the family operated a stagecoach hotel out of their home. An artistic child, Ream studied art, literature, and music at the Academy, a division of the Christian College of Columbia, Missouri. Her family settled in Washington, D.C., during the Civil War where Hoxie, only 15 years old, found work as a federal clerk in the Post Office Department. She also began taking classes with sculptor Clark Mills.

At 16, Ream’s friends and supporters convinced President Lincoln to sit for her. Lincoln allowed her to come to the White House for daily half-hour sculpting sessions that stretched out over five months in 1864.

Stay informed on the latest news

Sign up for WPR’s email newsletter.

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

The Lincoln bust was only the first of her prominent sculptures. She later beat out several men for the honor of sculpting a life-sized marble figure of Lincoln after his assassination, a statue that still stands in the Rotunda of the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C.

Many were outraged at the awarding of such a prestigious assignment to an 18-year-old woman, let alone one without a particularly notable artistic pedigree. It was widely rumored that her political connections and her personal beauty and engaging personality won her the commission.

Congress provided Ream a workspace in the Capitol where she completed a plaster model. She then traveled to Europe to select the pure white marble from the quarries of Carrara for the final statue. The finished statue was unveiled in the Capitol in 1871.

Ream also created busts of other famous individuals, including Gen. George Armstrong Custer, editor and journalist Horace Greeley, Cherokee Chief Sequoyah, and Admiral David Farragut, the latter of which she carved from the propeller of Farragut’s ship. Her allegorical sculpture “The West” stands in the Capitol in Madison.