Portland Museum of Art exhibit focuses on life in 19th century America

A Portland Museum of Art exhibit focusing on children offers insight into the development of the United States.

During the 19th century, the United States grew from infancy to a powerful nation with a prominent place in world affairs. “American ABC: Childhood in 19th-Century America,” featuring 110 works by such American artists as Winslow Homer, George Catlin and Eastman Johnson, provides a glimpse into the world of families during that period.

The exhibit “demonstrates how portrayals of the nation’s youngest citizens took on an important symbolic role in the United States’ long journey towards maturity,” according to material provided by the museum.

In the 1800s, children were seen but not heard. Oftentimes, they were ignored, or taken advantage of as cheap labor. They did not receive the kind of attention many parents give youngsters today in American families.

“American ABC: Childhood in 19th-Century America” shows their idealized innocence in some works, including Johnson’s oil painting titled “The Party Dress;” and Winslow Homer’s famous oil painting titled “Snap the Whip,” which shows young boys playing outside a one-room schoolhouse in rural America. Both works were done in 1872.

The darker side of the 19th century is depicted in such paintings as John George Brown’s “A Tough Story,” showing poverty; and the series of photos of children sleeping in the streets of New York titled “Street Arabs in their Sleep Quarters,” taken by Jacob Riis in the 1890s.

With the urbanization of an agrarian culture, America faced extremes of poverty and great wealth. For example, Edward Mitchell Bannister’s “Newspaper Boy,” painted in 1869, is a poignant view of a young poor boy selling newspapers. The tension in his face reveals the difficulty of selling newspapers on the streets at a very young age before child labor laws were enacted.

“Little Girl with Flowers (Emily Mae),” an oil painting done by Cornelia S. Pering painted in 1871, shows a child of society, wearing a fine white dress with pantaloons, white stockings and high button shoes, and holding a bouquet of flowers. This romantic view of childhood reflects a child born into privilege.

Catlin’s works depicting Native American children in the 1840s give viewers a glimpse of this ethnic group neglected in art history textbooks. Grace Carpenter Hudson’s oil painting titled “Little Mendocino,” created in 1892, is the most outstanding of these works – depicting a baby realistically and reflecting the soul of Native American culture during the period.

Homer’s fine line graphic from Harper’s Weekly titled “The Noon Recess” is a beautiful work of art. It shows a schoolteacher sitting with a young wayward student inside a one-room schoolhouse, while classmates play outside during recess. (If you look carefully, you’ll see Homer’s initials on the blackboard on the back wall.)

Homer was an accomplished draftsman before he became well known for his oil paintings. He was originally trained as an apprentice for a printer in Boston. During the Civil War, he did fine line illustrations for Harper’s Weekly, an early newspaper in America.

Besides paintings, the exhibit also features a variety of children’s books of the period, including Mark Twain’s “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” Noah Webster’s “Elementary Spelling Book,” McGuffey’s readers and colorful ABC primers.

The exhibition was organized by the Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts at Stanford University. According to the museum, the exhibit encompasses six themes: “The Country boy” addressing the ideals of American democracy and the definition of manhood; “Daughters of Liberty,” examining the roles of future wives and mothers; “Children of Bondage” and “The Ragamuffin,” dealing with slavery and immigration; “The Papoose,” focusing on Native Americans; and “The New Scholar,” looking at the idea that a system of public schools could unite the peoples of the United States.

The exhibit’s companion book, written by Claire Perry, curator of American Art at the Cantor Arts Center and published by Yale University Press, is truly outstanding. It presents new research on the social and economic significance of childhood in 19th century America and has many colored plates of high quality. It also includes more works than are in the exhibit.

“American ABC: Childhood in 19th-Century America” is worth several trips to see, because there is so much to absorb. The exhibit is a perfect holiday exhibit to share with the whole family. Both children and adults alike will enjoy seeing how young people looked during the 19th century, when America changed from an agrarian culture to an urbanized civilization.

The exhibit is up through Jan. 7.

The museum is at Seven Congress Square in the downtown. Hours are from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday; from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Friday. Admission: $10 for adults, $8 for seniors and students with I.D., $4 for youths ages 6 to 17. Children under 6 admitted free. The museum is free from 5 to 9 p.m. Fridays. For more information, call 775-6148, or visit portlandmuseum.org.

Pat Davidson Reef has a master’s degree in education and has taught art history at Catherine McAuley High School in Portland. She has written two children’s books, “Dahlov Ipcar, Artist,” and “Bernard Langlais, Sculptor.” She teaches children’s literature for teacher recertification for the American Institute for Creative Education.