I am rereading a favorite narrative, “Aren’t I a Woman? Female Slaves in the Plantation South” by Deborah Gray White. The book was assigned for a course I took during my undergraduate years and still own my copy. The plight of black women and slavery coincided during the same period, just before the Civil War, with the insulated life of the wealthy Elizabeth Colt tucked away in an abolitionist state and city. Their lives intersect, however, in their shared losses of their children. This is eloquently illustrated by African-American abolitionist and women’s rights activist Sojourner Truth who took to the podium at the Akron, Ohio Women’s Rights convention in 1851. She said in part the following:
“I have borne thirteen chilern and seen em mos’ all sold off into slavery and when I cried out with a mother’s grief, none but Jesus heard–and ar’n’t I a woman?” That quote gave me chills because both women Elizabeth Colt and Sojourner Truth understood and experienced the deep loss of their children; for Elizabeth, this included all five, four in infancy and her adult son Caldwell at 34 years old. Elizabeth created a life in the visual arts as a collector and active participant in commissions of paintings and memorials, as a way to grieve, cope and memorialize her losses. This included her commissioning of artworks for a new picture gallery she constructed in her mansion Armsmear after the death of her husband Samuel (four of her five children were also gone) One early commission was Sanford Robinson Gifford’s “A Passing Storm in the Adirondacks.”
http://thewadsworth.org
Bequeathed to the Wadsworth Atheneum after her death in 1905, the painting graces the galleries that feature Hudson River paintings. The scene is of an approaching storm, “the turbulent nature of the landscape can be interpreted as reflecting the mood of the artist and nation during the Civil War era. “(Gifford lost a brother to the war.) His use of atmospheric perspective dramatizes the effects of the rainstorm sweeping the right portion of the canvas, a burst of light suggests a spiritual meaning and parallels with Elizabeth’s Christian beliefs.
Elizabeth had the opportunity to contemplate, reflect, and to work through her grief in her commissions of artworks. As my research expands, I am curious if there were artifacts or objects to help “common” women living in Hartford through their grief over losing their children. Sojourner’s words haunt me because her loss of thirteen children came to be not through nature, like a miscarriage or illness, but through the dominance of man. What artists in her time were able to vocalize this kind of pain?
Note: References include: “The Spirit of Genius: Art at the Wadsworth Atheneum,” 1992.