LETTER: Four ALS to Adelaide Johnson.
Anthony to Sculptor Adelaide Johnson as
the Chicago World’s Fair of 1893 begins
Anthony, Susan B. Four autograph letters signed, “Susan B. Anthony,” to feminist sculptor Adelaide Johnson, 1892-1893; each letter is one leaf, two pages, 5.75” x 9”, on NAWSA letterhead.
While rushing to her art studio in 1882, twenty-three-year-old Adelaide Johnson (1859-1955) fell twenty feet down an elevator shaft, severely injuring herself. She was awarded $15,000 in damages by a jury which she used to finance her art education in Europe under the tutelage of Rome’s Giulio Monteverde. As a student, she accepted as her mission to immortalize in marble and stone the history of the women’s movement. When these letters were written, the flamboyant Johnson was travelling between Rome and Chicago, preparing for the Chicago World’s Fair of 1893, where she exhibited at the Women’s Pavilion many of her sculptures, including those in the likeness of Susan B. Anthony and other suffragettes.
Since Anthony first learned in 1889 that the world’s fair was coming to Chicago, she worked to insure that women had a prominent place in the event. Her hard work of lobbying Congress and gathering petition names paid off when several women were appointed to a special planning board and the Women’s Building, which would house administration offices and exhibits by women, was erected to promote progressive attitudes about the place of women in America. Over a year before the fair began, Anthony wrote the first of these letters on February 19, 1892, from Rochester, New York, to Johnson, who was in Rome studying. In the next letter dated August 12, 1892, Anthony writes that she is gathering money from her “eight rich women” to send to Johnson, who has sunk into financial straits while in Rome. According to the letter, Johnson had made the “startling announcement” in a previous letter that she “would be compelled to leave there[Rome]” if she didn’t raise $500 “to pay off debts.” Anthony was “shocked” at the news and hoped that Johnson’s plan of “disposing of the[John A.] Logan bust at the Grand Army Encampment in Washington” would be realized, but, she cautioned,
the boys in blue will not care so much for the Logan of the Senate - as for the one of the battle field - hence the absence of the brass buttons & shoulder straps - will be against it - but you can try - and yet I feel that you had a thousand times better stay there and rest & recruit and get ready for March when you get here - than to rush home.
Two months later, Anthony wrote from Fort Scott, Kansas, on October 21, 1892, to Johnson, who had already arrived back to the U.S., despite Anthony’s advice. In preparation for the World’s Fair, Anthony hoped “to reach Chicago about Nov. 2d.” where she hoped to see Johnson, though she would probably have no new funds for her: “I have heard of no more money going to Mrs. [Jane H.] Spofford [the treasurer of the N.A.W.S.A.] since I remitted you the last checks - immediately after your arrival home.” Anthony encouraged the sculptor to call on patrons - including the Countess of Rosse - “about your busts,” even offering to do what she could to help. “What do you see that I can say or do for her [the countess]?” Anthony also hoped Johnson “will have called on Mr. Lorado Taft - at his Studio Venetian Building Washington Street[Chicago] to see his bust of S. B. A. - It was in clay the last I knew of it.” (Chicago sculptor Lorado Taft was also preparing at the time for the World’s Fair. Taft is credited with advancing women as sculptors by training them as students, a practice considered unacceptable at the time.)
By the time Anthony wrote the final letter on June 30, 1893, the World’s Fair was already into its second month and Johnson had fallen and hurt herself, though this time, not down an elevator shaft:
The fates do follow you! how could you go stepping through the floor? - Well, I am awfully sorry - and hope you’ll soon be all over it and f
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