Page:Woman of the Century.djvu/403

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HOWLAND.
HOWLAND.

furnished the literature of the family. Her interest in the anti-slavery cause and sympathy with the oppressed, thus fostered, without the distracting influences of the social gaieties of life or fashion, wrought an intensity of feeling that forbade her to continue to lead a purposeless life. EMILY HOWLAND. A free school for colored girls in Washington. D. C, which had attracted attention, both friendly and hostile, needed a teacher. Impelled to work, she offered herself for the position, and in the fall of 1887, without the approval of her friends, she took the conduct of that school and taught with interest and profit until the spring of 1859. Secretary Seward, then a Senator from the State of New York, and his family gave her the powerful influence of their cordial kindness and hospitality. In 1863, just after the Proclamation of Emancipation, she returned to Washington and worked among the freed people, crowded into rude barracks, which had been built and used for cavalry horses. There, teaching, giving out clothing and caring for the sick were her absorbing work for many months. In the fall of the same year the government built a village on the Arlington estate, and on New Year's Day, 1864, moved thither about a thousand of these people. Her next field of work was on this estate, in a camp of fifty-two log houses, which were given the freedmen. She taught there and had the supervision of other schools near Falls' Church, Va., until, fearing a raid from General Early's command, the government issued an order for the destruction of the houses and the removal of the people. In the autumn of 1S64 she gathered a school in a rude building not far fr< »m the ruins of the camp. There, in 1865, the sudden mar of cannon from all the surrounding forts told her and her group of sable pupils that the war was over. She fount! many of the freedmen anxious for the future, and with a feeling that they had earned a little of the land on which they had toiled. This led Miss Mowland's father to buy a tract near the mouth of the Potomac, and early in 1867 a few families from the camp went down the river and settled on the land. It is now nearly all divided into small farms and owned by the colored people. She opened a school at once, and has supplied it with teachers from that time to the present. .Miss Howland exerts a wide influence in her own community for the progressive movements of woman suffrage, temperance, liberty in religion and prevention of cruelty to animals. She has worked earnestly and effectively by distributing literature and by speaking the telling word at the right moment. Her interest in education has not been limited to the colored race. In 1882 she erected a handsome school-house for the children of her native place, and equipped it with complete physical and chemical apparatus. She has also clped many young people to a professional education. In 1890 she was made a director of the First National Bank of Aurora, one of the first women to fill such a position in the country. At the present time she is a trustee of the Wimodaughsis Club, president of the Cayuga County Woman Suffrage Society and of the Sherwood Ramabai Circle, a prominent worker in the local equal rights club and the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, and has the settling of several estates.


HOXIE, Mrs. Vinnie Ream, sculptor, born in Madison, Wis., 23rd September, 1847. Her father, Robert L. Ream, was register of deeds in Madison at the time of her birth. Her mother was of Scotch descent, and her name was Lavinia McDonald. When fifteen years of age, Vinnie, in two hours, modeled a medallion of an Indian chief so cleverly as at once to attract the attention of Thaddeus Stevens, Hon. John Wentworth and other members of Congress, who insisted upon her studying art. In six months she had modeled such striking likenesses of Reverdy Johnson, Frank P. Blair, General Grant, Parson Brownlow, Senator Voorhees, Gen. Albert Pike and Senator Sherman, that she was taken to President Lincoln, who sat to her for his likeness. When he was assassinated, six months later. Congress gave her a commission to make a life size statue of Abraham Lincoln, which stands in marble in the United States Capitol. She received fifteen-thousand dollars for that work. After finishing the model, she took it to Italy to be transferred to marble, and lived in Rome three years with her parents. There she made many ideal works, and among them a statue of "Miriam," a copy of which she sold to Mrs. Lamer, of Philadelphia, for three-thousand dollars. Her "Indian Girl " was put in bronze and sold, and Vinnie also made another marble bust of Lincoln, for Cornell University, and a bust in marble of Mayor Powell, of Brooklyn, N. Y., which now stands in the city hall of that city. She made a likeness of Mr. Rice, of Maine, in marble, and also put into marble the two fair daughters of Mr. Clark. Congress then appropriated twenty-five-thousand dollars for a bronze statue of Admiral Farragut, and, competing with William Story, Ward, Launt Thompson and many distinguished sculptors, Vinnie Ream won the order. While in Paris, Gustave Doré gave Vinnie a painting by his own hand, inscribed: "Offered to Miss Vinnie Ream, on the part of her affectionate colleague, Gustave Doré." Spurgeon sat in his Tabernacle to her for his likeness, and in Munich, Kaulbach, the great painter, sat to her. In Rome Cardinal Antonelli sat to her for his likeness, and presented her three stone cameos, set in pearls, one very' large and exquisitely beautiful, representing the head of Christ On the inside of the frame was a beautiful inscription to the artist. Liszt sat to Miss Vinnie for his medallion, and gave