Charles Lanman (June 14, 1819 - March 4, 1895) was an American author, government official, artist, librarian, and explorer.

Biography

Charles Lanman was born in

Monroe, Michigan Monroe is the largest city and county seat of Monroe County in the U.S. state of Michigan. Monroe had a population of 20,462 in the 2020 census. The city is bordered on the south by Monroe Charter Township, but the two are administered auton ...

, on June 14, 1819, the son of Charles James Lanman, and the grandson of

United States Senator The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress, with the House of Representatives being the lower chamber. Together they compose the national bicameral legislature of the United States. The composition and powe ...

James Lanman. Lanman's early life included newspaper work as editor of the Monroe Gazette in 1845, associate editor of the

Cincinnati Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line wit ...

Chronicle in 1846, and member of the editorial staff of the New York Express in 1847. He spent ten years, from 1835 to 1845, studying with

Hudson River School The Hudson River School was a mid-19th century American art movement embodied by a group of landscape painters whose aesthetic vision was influenced by Romanticism. The paintings typically depict the Hudson River Valley and the surrounding area ...

artists in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

, where he met many artists, including

Washington Irving Washington Irving (April 3, 1783 – November 28, 1859) was an American short-story writer, essayist, biographer, historian, and diplomat of the early 19th century. He is best known for his short stories "Rip Van Winkle" (1819) and " The Legen ...

. Lanman studied art under

Asher B. Durand Asher Brown Durand (August 21, 1796, – September 17, 1886) was an American painter of the Hudson River School. Early life Durand was born in, and eventually died in, Maplewood, New Jersey (then called Jefferson Village). He was the eighth ...

and at 28 became an elected associate of the

National Academy of Design The National Academy of Design is an honorary association of American artists, founded in New York City in 1825 by Samuel Morse, Asher Durand, Thomas Cole, Martin E. Thompson, Charles Cushing Wright, Ithiel Town, and others "to promote the f ...

in 1846. Lanman's career included service as librarian for the U.S. War Department (1849-1850), private secretary to Senator

Daniel Webster Daniel Webster (January 18, 1782 – October 24, 1852) was an American lawyer and statesman who represented New Hampshire and Massachusetts in the U.S. Congress and served as the U.S. Secretary of State under Presidents William Henry Harrison ...

(1850-1853), librarian and the head of the returns office in the U.S. Interior Department (1853 and 1855-1857), and librarian for the

U.S. House of Representatives The United States House of Representatives, often referred to as the House of Representatives, the U.S. House, or simply the House, is the lower chamber of the United States Congress, with the Senate being the upper chamber. Together they ...

(1861-1865). He was also the librarian for the City of Washington Library, the American secretary to the Japanese legation, and assistant assessor for the

District of Columbia ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

. Lanman married Adeline Dodge in 1849; they had no children. They raised Tsuda Ume (December 31, 1864 – August 16, 1929) from December 1871 to 1882. Ume had been sent by the Japanese government as part of the

Iwakura Mission The Iwakura Mission or Iwakura Embassy (, ''Iwakura Shisetsudan'') was a Japanese diplomatic voyage to the United States and Europe conducted between 1871 and 1873 by leading statesmen and scholars of the Meiji period. It was not the only such m ...

; one of its goals was to study educational systems in the U.S. Ume later founded

Tsuda College is a private women's university based at Kodaira, Tokyo. It is one of the oldest and most prestigious higher educational institutions for women in Japan, contributing to the advancement of women in society for more than a century. History The u ...

for women in Tokyo. Charles Lanman died at Georgetown, D.C., on March 4, 1895.

Literary and artistic works

Writing

Charles Lanman collected biographies of former and sitting

Members of Congress A Member of Congress (MOC) is a person who has been appointed or elected and inducted into an official body called a congress, typically to represent a particular constituency in a legislature. The term member of parliament (MP) is an equivalen ...

for his ''Dictionary of the United States Congress'', published by J. B. Lippincott & Co. in 1859. This eventually became the '' Biographical Directory of the United States Congress''. Lanman's published writings include several collections of essays and books, including two biographies, ''The Private Life of

'' (New York and London, 1852) and ''Life of

William Woodbridge William Woodbridge (August 20, 1780October 20, 1861) was a U.S. statesman in the states of Ohio and Michigan and in the Michigan Territory prior to statehood. He served as the second Governor of Michigan and a United States Senator from Mic ...

'' (Washington, 1867). Written accounts of his own travels and extensive explorations in the United States included: * ''Essays for Summer Hours'' (Boston, 1842) * ''Letters from a Landscape-Painter'' (1845) * ''A Summer in the Wilderness, Embracing a Canoe Voyage Up the Mississippi and Around Lake Superior'' (New York, 1847) * ''A Tour of the River Saguenay'' (Philadelphia and London, 1848) * ''Letters from the Alleghany Mountains'' (New York, 1849) * ''Haw-ho-noo, or Records of a Tourist'' (Philadelphia: Lippincott, Grambo 1850), * ''Adventures in the Wilds of the United States and British American Provinces'' (2 vols., Philadelphia, 1856, London, 1859) * ''Red Book of Michigan: A Civil, Military and Biographical History'' (Detroit, 1871)". Additional works included: * ''Resources of America'' compiled for the Japanese government (Washington, 1872) * ''The Japanese in America'' (New York and London, 1872) * ''Biographical Annals of the Civil Government of the United States'' (Washington, 1876; 2d ed., revised, New York, 1887) * ''Life of Octavius Perinehief'' (Washington, 1879) * ''Curious Characters and Pleasant Places'' (Edinburgh, 1881) * ''Leading Men of Japan'' (Boston, 1883) * ''Farthest North'' (New York, 1885) * ''Haphazard Personalities'' (Boston, 1886). He edited ''The Prison Life of Alfred Ely'' (New York, 1862), and ''The Sermons of Reg. Octavius Perinchief'' (2 vols., Washington, 1879). He also produced scientific articles such as "The Salmonidae of Eastern Maine, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia".

Art

Lanman frequently exhibited paintings and sketches from nature in oil. He made “sketching trips” to every state east of the Rockies. Many of those early sketches were published in

The Illustrated London News ''The Illustrated London News'' appeared first on Saturday 14 May 1842, as the world's first illustrated weekly news magazine. Founded by Herbert Ingram, it appeared weekly until 1971, then less frequently thereafter, and ceased publication i ...

and in various American magazines. Among his pictures are ''Brookside and Homestead'', ''Home in the Woods'' (1881), and ''Frontier Home'' (1884). He was called by

"the picturesque explorer of the United States".

References

* *

Sources

* http://shs.umsystem.edu/manuscripts/invent/3725.pdf * https://web.archive.org/web/20080917190658/http://www.gpoaccess.gov/serialset/cdocuments/hd108-222/intro.pdf

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Lanman, Charles 1819 births 1895 deaths American librarians