The Wandering Paths of History

Sculptor Belle Kinney's "Confederate Women"

In searching pictures for last week's blog about the $10 and $20 bills, I came across pictures of statues for both Alexander Hamilton and Andrew Jackson, both full length and both in the Capitol.  Like so many adventures on which the research for Isaac B. Werner's manuscript have taken me, the statues of Hamilton and Jackson took me down an unexpected path!

Unfortunately, I did not find an image of Jackson's sculpture free to post, but I did learn about the sculptors, and the picture at top-right of this blog is by one of them.  Jackson was sculpted by Belle Kinney (1890) and Leopold F. Scholz (1877-1946).  The two sculptors were wife and husband, and in her private life Belle went by Belle Kinney Scholz.  However, professionally she retained her maiden name.  She won her first prize for a sculpture when she was 7 years old for a bust of her father.  At 15 she entered the Art Institute of Chicago, and at 17 she received her first commission to sculpt Jere Baxter, the organizer of the Tennessee Central Railroad.  She met her husband Leopold at the Art Institute, and they married in 1921. Leopold, 13 years older than Belle, was born in Austria.  With two exceptions, all of his known sculptures were done with his wife.  Belle is known not only for their joint achievements but also for her individual work, such as her best known sculpture, "Confederate Women."

As interesting to me as the information about Jackson's sculptors was, it was what I discovered about Alexander Hamilton's sculptor that intrigued me most, and although I have wandered a long way to learn more about Dr. Horatio Stone, the sculptor of Hamilton pictured at left, I have not been able to satisfy my search.

Horatio Stone was born in 1808 to Reuben and Nancy Stone in New York State.  He practiced medicine until devoting himself full-time to sculpture in the 1840s.  He moved to Washington, D.C. and helped establish the Washington Art Association, for which he served as President.  During his career he maintained studios in both Washington, D.C. and Carrara, Italy.  He died of "Roman Fever" in 1875 and is interred in Italy.  A close study of details, such as of Hamilton's hands, shows the significance of his medical training to the sculptures he created.

None of that, however, was what so intrigued me.  My husband's second great Grandfather is named Horatio Gates Stone and was born in New York State in 1812.  In doing extensive genealogy research  I have learned that the Stone family repeated names from generation to generation, and one of the names so often repeated was Horatio.  Horatio Stone the sculptor had no descendants, but is it possible that Horatio Gates Stone and Horatio Stone might have common ancestors?  At this point, my "wandering path of history" has not taken me far enough to answer that question.  What I can share is that the repetition of Horatio among my husband's Stone ancestors is so common and confusing that years ago I posted on ancestry.com an attempt to clarify all the repeated uses of the name Horatio, which I titled "Too Many Horatioes!"

In Isaac B. Werner's family, names were also repeated from one generation to another.  Isaac shared the same middle name with his twin brother Henry, their middle name "Beckley" having been their mother's maiden name. As for the name Henry, it was not only Isaac's brother's given name but also the name of his cousin, Henry Werner, with whom he left Wernersville to seek their fortunes in the West, but also the name of his favorite Uncle Henry Werner and other relatives.  Repeated given names in the Werner family have been a challenge to my research.

Fresh Off the Presses!

$10 Bill with Hamilton

It must have occurred to many of you as well that the popularity of the Broadway Musical "Hamilton" might have an impact on Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew's decision to replace the image of Alexander Hamilton on the $10 bill with the image of a woman.  We weren't the only ones to regard that was a possibility, and a headline in the April 15, 2016 New York Times read:  "Success of 'Hamilton' May Have Saved Hamilton on the $10 Bill."  The article by Jackie Calmes referred to the careful avoidance by Lew during an interview with Charlie Rose on PBS about whether "...a woman's portrait would be at the center of the $10 bill."



Secretary Lew had set December of 2015 as the deadline for selecting the image for the bill, and the fact that the deadline had come and gone indicated Lew might be having second thoughts.  Lew and his wife attended a performance of "Hamilton" and spoke with Lin-Manuel Miranda, who tweeted afterward that Lew had hinted that "Hamilton" fans would be happy with the ultimate decision.  That might leave some outspoken groups advocating the image of a woman for the $10 bill very unhappy.  See "You Can't Please Everybody," 7-9-2015 in the Blog Archives to read what was behind the initial decision to change the image.

A $20 Bill with Jackson



A rumor started that Alexander Hamilton would remain on the $10 bill, and Andrew Jackson would be replaced on the $20 with the image of a woman.  As far back as June 18, 2015, Washington Post writer Steven Mufson had written an article headlined:  "Why the U.S. government needs to remove Andrew Jackson from the $20 bill."  After listing Hamilton's virtues, such as being a founding father, co-authoring the Federalist Papers, serving as a Revolutionary War staff aide to George Washington, serving as the first Treasury Secretary, establishing the first national bank, and advocating a national currency rather than the currencies of the various states, Mufson continued by describing all the reasons why Andrew Jackson should never have appeared on the $20 bill in the first place.  He included the enumeration of Jackson's "disastrous economic policies," including his dismantling of the second Bank of the United States, his restrictions on the use of paper money which contributed to the severe economic Panic of 1837, and his responsibility for appointing Treasury Secretary Roger B. Taney to the Supreme Court (from which position Taney wrote the majority opinion in the Dred Scott case that haunted American race relations for decades).  See "Earliest Currency," 7-3-2015 in the blog archives to read more about this early period.

Harriet Tubman

Many people assumed there was widespread support for a woman's image on our paper currency.  That did not seem to be true when I asked my blog followers to weigh in on the issue.  Perhaps it is because those who read this blog appreciate knowledge of and respect for history, or perhaps it is because most people are concerned about wasteful government spending, but the followers of this blog who responded were not among those eager to see a woman on the $10 bill!  See "Survey Results for $10 Bill Image," 7-16-2015 and "More Money Comments," 7-23-2015 in the blog archives to read some the those reactions.

As of April 20, 2016 we learned Secretary Lew's decision.  Hamilton is safe!  As rumored, Andrew Jackson is the one to be displaced by a woman, and the woman selected is Harriet Tubman.  The choice of Tubman seems particularly appropriate, as Jackson has received harsh criticism in more recent times for his brutal relocation of Native Americans and his support for slavery.

Fewer rumors about other changes had leaked.  In fact, while Lincoln and Hamilton remain on the $5 bill and the $10 bill respectively, the reverse of those bills will change.  The Lincoln Memorial on the reverse of the $5 bill will remain, but images of Marian Anderson, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. will be added.  On the reverse side of the $10 bill the Treasury building will be replaced and a depiction of the 1913 March in Support of Women's Right to Vote will appear, with portraits of suffrage leaders Susan B. Anthony, Lucretia Mott, Alice Paul, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Sojourner Truth.

Don't expect to see these changes any time soon.  The redesigns are not scheduled for unveiling until 2020!  

Political Symbols on the Prairie

All Americans are familiar with the elephant and the donkey as symbols of our two leading political parties, but do you know the origins of those two animals as party symbols?  Animals were often used in political cartoons to satirize individuals and groups.  One of my favorite cartoons from the County Capital during the 1890s appears at the right.  (Remember, you can click on the images to enlarge them.)  The poor farmers and miners who were suffering such hard times are depicted as hares or rabbits, appealing to the wealthy and powerful for help.  Those well-dressed animals ignoring their pleas are: politician as horse, monopolist as bull, office holder as goat, speculator as sheep, and money lender as cow.  Fierce dogs, labeled famine, want, and other hardships, threaten the defenseless rabbits.

The origin of the donkey as the symbol of democrats is traced back to the 1828 presidential campaign of democrat Andrew Jackson.  His opponents called him a "jackass" for his populist views, but rather than being offended, Jackson adopted the image of a stubborn donkey in his campaign posters.  Cartoonists, especially Thomas Nast, picked up the association of a donkey representing democrats, and the image continues to this day.

It is believed that a cartoon drawn by Nast that appeared in Harper's Weekly in 1874 was the first use of an elephant to represent the republican party.  My favorite from the County Capital depicting the elephant as a political symbol appears at the left.  The People's Party, which the newspaper and Isaac supported, saw republicans as the wealthy and powerful, gobbling up benefits through their influence over politicians in Washington and the state capitols.  This cartoon uses not only an elephant but also adds a greedy pig inside, labeled "Plutocrat" and wearing a blanket labeled "G.O.P." or Grand Old Party, another name for republicans.  The hay the elephant is consuming is labeled "The Public Substance."

The symbol used by the County Capital for the People's Party was the rooster.  The crowing rooster pictured at the right appeared on the front page of the newspaper announcing a near sweep of state and local elective offices, the editor's visual boast covering about half the page!

Although there is no doubt that in Stafford County, Kansas, the rooster represented the People's Party, researchers believe it sometimes was used to represent democrats.  An article appearing in the 1913 Journal of American History traces the origin to 1834 in Indiana when a man named Joseph Chapman ran for office.  Apparently Chapman was quite an orator, and his style of boasting about what he would accomplish if he were elected was described by his opponents as "crowing," giving him the nickname of "Crowing Joe."  http://www.newrivernotes.com/old_nrn/misc/rooster.htm   Another researcher traced the connection of a rooster with democrats in West Virginia.  In that state, voters were urged to "Scratch the Rooster," meaning to put an "x" below the rooster symbol to vote a straight democratic ticket.  http://morganmessenger.com/news/content/story-10302

All of that may be true, but at the St. John, Kansas, County Capital newspaper, the rooster crowed for the People's Party.