Tag: Washington DC

No comments

Marilyn Monroe and the Portrait Gallery

  By ,

They stood silent, trying hard to hold their poses. The first to catch my eye was Marilyn Monroe. A bit over-the-top – the hair too blonde, the lips too red, the famous white dress too stereotypical. Perhaps. But then it did draw my eye to their presence.

Portrait Gallery Mr. Time

A dozen of them, each dressed in some iconic fashion. Was that Arthur Ashe in a suit and tennis racket? An unexpected Annie Oakley? Frida Kahlo? Forming a double line their presence was reflected in the Portrait Gallery’s floor fountain, a thin film of water that greets visitors to the museum’ atrium. Ten minutes or more they stood silently. Costumes beckoning stares from curious lunchers. Then, suddenly, a group of itinerant tourists enters en masse and wistfully lines up opposite the fountains from the animated art. At first they seem uncertain what will happen. The tension breaks as each poser in rapid fire bellows an introduction. Then Marilyn (after staring for so long I felt I was on a first name basis) commands all to “Follow Me.” And they did, marching past astonished onlookers and into the caverns of the gallery.

As curious was their statuesque presence, their abrupt departure was even more intriguing. I wanted to follow. What was this?

Portrait Gallery Mr. Time

A poster in the museum’s lobby gave me a first hint. “Mr. Time,” it said, “Portraits by Boris Chaliapin.” A prolific portrait artist called up on 413 occasions to create covers for Time magazine, Chaliapin’s work is currently on exhibit at the Portrait Gallery. Rather than simply display the works, the museum enlisted the help of local teens to write and perform a series of vignettes to highlight the exhibit. “Portraits Alive!” it cajoled alluringly. Not only can you see the art on the wall, you can see the art portrayed in person.

Marilyn Monroe once said, “It’s all make believe, isn’t it?” Perhaps, but then sometimes the make believe comes to life. The Portrait Gallery has done that.

David J. Kent is the author of Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America, now available. His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World (both Fall River Press). He has also written two e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.

Check out my Goodreads author page. While you’re at it, “Like” my Facebook author page for more updates!

Follow me by subscribing by email on the home page. Share with your friends using the buttons below.

 

9 Comments

Within These Walls – Ipswich at the Smithsonian

  By , ,

Yesterday, after shipping out a copy of my book to Nikola Tesla’s grand-nephew William Terbo, I took a break and headed downtown to Washington DC. I had read in the “Wicked Local” online version of my hometown paper, Ipswich Chronicle, that The Actors Company would be performing Within These Walls at the Smithsonian Museum of American History. I had to go.

For those who didn’t know it, an entire house once located at 16 Elm Street in Ipswich was disassembled in 1963 and reconstructed at the Smithsonian. The exhibit is one of the largest objects in their collection, and is displayed such that visitors can look into the various rooms of the house and experience the respective lives of five residents over the years.

JT Turner Within These Walls

Within These Walls was written by playwright, actor, and director J.T. Turner, who was asked by the Smithsonian to tell the stories of the people who lived there. As the house itself looms behind them, the play opens with the two Ipswich housewives, Kay Thompson and Helen Lunt, pleading with the demolition man not to tear it down. Reminiscent of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, as the workman settles in for the night intending the demolition to start the next morning, he begins to hear the house reveal its history. As he questions his sanity, residents of the house appear in sequence representing major historical time periods.

It begins with Abraham Choate building the house in 1760 for his growing family. He is followed by Abraham Dodge, a revolutionary war patriot who explains how Ipswich came to be known as “The Birthplace of American Independence” (hint, it has to do with being the first to refuse to pay taxes to the British crown). Ahead to the Caldwells, active in the fight to abolish slavery prior to the Civil War, then to the Lynch family of Irish immigrants struggling to pay the $50 a year rent to the wealthy Heard family who then owned the house. And finally to the Scott’s as they supported the World War II effort at home while their two sons fought overseas.

Abraham and Sarah Choate

Throughout the play the spectators become entranced both by the individual stories of the people who lived in the house and by the historical periods they represent. Having been born and raised in Ipswich, and just recently spent my 4th of July holiday there, the play was especially poignant as the family names and stories remain part of the ongoing life-thread of the town. At times the memories it invoked became personally emotional. After the play ended I was lucky enough to have a brief conversation with J.T. Turner. As I thanked him for his wonderful writing, the actress who played “Grandma” Scott gaze at me with that look that actors get when they see how their craft affected others. I can safely say that I was affected by the performance. Thank you all.

David J. Kent is the author of Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America, now available. His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World (both Fall River Press). He has also written two e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.

Check out my Goodreads author page. While you’re at it, “Like” my Facebook author page for more updates!

Follow me by subscribing by email on the home page. Share with your friends using the buttons below.

 

 

No comments

Juneteenth, Frederick Douglass, and Emancipation Day

  By

A statue of Frederick Douglass was dedicated on June 19th in Emancipation Hall of the U.S. Capitol Building. It’s been a long time coming, but the date, and the location, are eminently appropriate. Juneteenth, a portmanteau of June and Nineteenth, celebrates the day that the final state of the failed Confederacy abolished slavery. So having the unveiling of the former slave turned great statesman and ardent abolitionist on Emancipation Day is as good an orchestrated roll out as could be imagined.

Frederick Douglass

Douglass is a phenom in the history of freedom from slavery, and a story that deserves its own space for the telling. For now just recall that he was the most vocal “freeman” to push for emancipation. He pressed Abraham Lincoln and others and was often frustrated at the slow pace of change. So while Lincoln rightly deserves much credit for emancipating the slaves, Douglass deserves much more credit than history has recorded.

Emancipation didn’t come easy, of course, as the deaths of between 620,000 and 750,000 men from bullets and disease so graphically reminds us. Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation was issued initially in September 1862 and took effect on January 1, 1863. But the immediate impact was limited. It took the North winning the war, Congress passing the 13th Amendment, and ratification by the states for slaves to finally “be then, thenceforward, and forever free.” Still, not all of the former Confederate states were happy to comply. It took a Union General, plus a couple of thousand armed troops, to effectively take over the last holdout – Texas – and declare that “all slaves are free.” That was June 19, 1865. Juneteenth.

So, as Lincoln would have paraphrased himself, it is altogether fitting and proper that a seven-foot bronze statue of Frederick Douglass be installed in the Capitol Building on Juneteenth. Emancipation Day.

David J. Kent is an avid science traveler and the author of Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America, in Barnes and Noble stores now. His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World and two specialty e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.

Check out my Goodreads author page. While you’re at it, “Like” my Facebook author page for more updates!

2 Comments

Two Life Masks of Abraham Lincoln…And His Hands Too!

  By , ,

A few days ago I posted three views of Abraham Lincoln, a compilation of three photographs I took within the span of a few days in Washington D.C. I’ll have more on the second and third photos soon; for now let’s focus on the first one. The life masks and hands of our 16th President, Abraham Lincoln.

Back in the day, that is, the middle of the 1800s, sculptors would make a mask of the subjects face and head to later use for busts and full length sculptures. A Chicago-based sculptor named Leonard Volk approached Lincoln in the midst of the famous 1858 Illinois Senate race against Stephen A. Douglas. After two years of lobbying Volk finally convinced Lincoln to sit down in the spring of 1860, not long after Lincoln had returned from the East where he wowed the crowds at Cooper Union and in various cities of New England.

Abraham Lincoln Volk life mask

The casting process, according to Lincoln (and Abraham Lincoln Online), was “anything but agreeable.” Volk himself noted that:

“it was about an hour before the mold was ready to be removed, and being all in one piece, with both ears perfectly taken, it clung pretty hard, as the cheek-bones were higher than the jaws at the lobe of the ear. He bent his head low and took hold of the mold, and gradually worked it off without breaking or injury; it hurt a little, as a few hairs of the tender temples pulled out with the plaster and made his eyes water.”

The hands were actually cast a couple of months later in Lincoln’s Springfield home. Both are shown clasped, but the right hand holds a short piece of wood. Not surprisingly for Lincoln, the wood has a story. Again from Abraham Lincoln Online:

[Volk] wanted Lincoln to hold something in his right hand, so Lincoln produced a broom handle from his wood shed and began whittling the end of it. When Volk told him he didn’t have to smooth the edges Lincoln replied, “I thought I would like to have it nice.” Since Lincoln had been shaking hands in congratulations for getting the Republican nomination for President, Volk noted that “the right hand appeared swollen as compared to the left,” and that “this difference is distinctly shown in the cast.”

Abraham Lincoln hands

Ah, but there is a second life mask. Cast in February 1865, just weeks before the end of the Civil War and Lincoln’s tragic assassination, sculptor Clark Mills applied oil to Lincoln’s face, followed by a thin layer of plaster. Unlike the Volk mask, which came off in one piece, the second life mask fell “off in large pieces” that “were then reassembled to form the finished mask.”

Abraham Lincoln Mills life mask

Just one look at the two masks can show how the war (and illness) wore on the man and his face. The difference is striking, and disheartening.

Volk and Mills masks

I was lucky enough to see the masks and hands in the National Portrait Gallery, one of the Smithsonian’s many museums open free to the public. The attendant in the gallery told me that the sculptures had only returned to the museum about two weeks before, having been on tour. He expected them to go back out on tour in about six months. You can also see them in the Library of Congress in this short video from the History Channel.

Of course, why dawdle over some heads and hands when you can sit with Abraham Lincoln in his entirety? More on the second photo later.

More on Abraham Lincoln.

David J. Kent is the author of Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America. His newest Lincoln book is scheduled for release in February 2022. His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World and two specialty e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.

Follow me for updates on my Facebook author page and Goodreads.

No comments

Martin Luther King Assassination Anniversary

  By

Martin Luther KingToday is the anniversary of the 1968 assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, the famed civil rights leader. He was shot April 4th while standing on the balcony outside his room at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. Dr. King’s contributions and impact on American society are well known, and yet immeasurable. The following short YouTube clip explains the assassination well:

In 2011 a memorial was erected to Martin Luther King along the tidal basin in Washington DC. You can see some of my photos in this piece from last year.

More information on Martin Luther King can be found here.

Follow me by subscribing by email on the home page.  And feel free to “Like” my Facebook author’s page and connect on LinkedIn.  Share with your friends using the buttons below.

6 Comments

Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial – Washington DC

  By ,

The photograph below is a close-up of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial in Washington DC. This beautifully massive monument represents King as a “Stone of Hope” emerging out of the “Mountain of Despair,” from the famous line in his “I have a dream” speech given August 28, 1963 on the steps of the nearby Lincoln Memorial.

Martin Luther King

The site, which covers four acres along the Potomac tidal basin, was opened to the public on August 22, 2011. The dedication ceremony was scheduled for August 28th – the anniversary of his famous speech, but was postponed to October 16th because of the arrival of Hurricane Irene. In addition to the “stone” and the “mountain” there is a long wall displaying some of his most well known quotes.

Martin Luther King Memorial

Overall, the effect is breathtaking. King emerging from the mountain and gazing stalwartly toward the memorial to Thomas Jefferson standing resolute across the tidal basin. The artist did justice to the man and to the memory of his accomplishments.

David J. Kent is President of the Lincoln Group of DC and the author of Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America. His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World and two specialty e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.

Check out my Goodreads author page. While you’re at it, “Like” my Facebook author page for more updates!