Samuel Worcester Rowse (January 29, 1822 – May 24, 1901) was an American illustrator, lithographer, and painter. He was most famous for his drawings of

Ralph Waldo Emerson Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803April 27, 1882), who went by his middle name Waldo, was an American essayist, lecturer, philosopher, abolitionist, and poet who led the transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. He was seen as a champ ...

and

Henry David Thoreau Henry David Thoreau (July 12, 1817May 6, 1862) was an American naturalist, essayist, poet, and philosopher. A leading Transcendentalism, transcendentalist, he is best known for his book ''Walden'', a reflection upon simple living in natural su ...

. Rowse is also well known for his lithograph, '' The Resurrection of Henry Box Brown at Philadelphia''.

Early life

Rowse was born in

Bath, Maine Bath is a city in Sagadahoc County, Maine, in the United States. The population was 8,766 at the 2020 census. It is the county seat of Sagadahoc County, which includes one city and 10 towns. The city is popular with tourists, many drawn by its ...

on January 29, 1822. He worked in Maine as an engraver.

Works

In 1852, Rowse worked for a lithographer and then opened a studio in

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

, Massachusetts, due to the demand for his crayon (pastel) and charcoal portraits. He developed a reputation for his drawings of people in the news. Rowse boarded with the family of Ralph Waldo Emerson in the summer of 1854, and while there sketched Henry David Thoreau, which was considered to be a good likeness by Sophia Thoreau. The drawing, which had hung in the Thoreau house, was donated to the Concord Free Public Library by

Amos Bronson Alcott Amos Bronson Alcott (; November 29, 1799 – March 4, 1888) was an American teacher, writer, philosopher, and reformer. As an educator, Alcott pioneered new ways of interacting with young students, focusing on a conversational style, and av ...

after he purchased the house in 1877. In June 1858, Rowse made a sketch of Emerson, considered by William James Stillman to be "the most masterly" depiction of him. The drawing is displayed in Emerson'a former home in Concord. Rowse is best known for these images. boxbrown

Copies of his lithograph of ''The Resurrection of Henry Box Brown at Philadelphia'' were used by anti-slavery activists prior to and during the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states th ...

(1861–1865) to raise funds for the

Underground Railroad The Underground Railroad was a network of clandestine routes and safe houses established in the United States during the early- to mid-19th century. It was used by enslaved African Americans primarily to escape into free states and Canada. T ...

and other anti-slavery campaigns.

Henry Box Brown Henry Box Brown (c. 1815 – June 15, 1897) was a 19th-century Virginia slave who escaped to freedom at the age of 33 by arranging to have himself mailed in a wooden crate in 1849 to abolitionists in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. For a short tim ...

was a slave who escaped from

Richmond, Virginia (Thus do we reach the stars) , image_map = , mapsize = 250 px , map_caption = Location within Virginia , pushpin_map = Virginia#USA , pushpin_label = Richmond , pushpin_m ...

in 1849 by having himself shipped overland express to

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

, Pennsylvania in a small crate, delivered to

Passmore Williamson Passmore Williamson (February 23, 1822 – February 1, 1895) was an American abolitionist and businessman in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, a free state in the antebellum years. As secretary of the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society and a member of i ...

, Reverend James Miller McKim, and other members of the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society. His journey took 27 hours and was considered a miracle of the improved private mail system. In 1864 Rowse joined the Saturday Club, of which Emerson was a member. Rowse went to London in 1872 with mathematician and philosopher

Chauncey Wright Chauncey Wright (September 10, 1830 – September 12, 1875) was an American philosopher and mathematician, who was an influential early defender of Darwinism and an important influence on American pragmatists such as Charles Sanders Peirce and Wil ...

. He met

John Ruskin John Ruskin (8 February 1819 20 January 1900) was an English writer, philosopher, art critic and polymath of the Victorian era. He wrote on subjects as varied as geology, architecture, myth, ornithology, literature, education, botany and politi ...

and American cultural critic, Charles Eliot Norton while there. He moved to

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

in 1880. Rowse is depicted in his friend, Eastman Johnson's painting of two men, ''The Funding Bill'', which is in the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

's collection. He was commissioned to make portraits of

James Russell Lowell James Russell Lowell (; February 22, 1819 – August 12, 1891) was an American Romantic poet, critic, editor, and diplomat. He is associated with the fireside poets, a group of New England writers who were among the first American poets that ri ...

Nathaniel Hawthorne Nathaniel Hawthorne (July 4, 1804 – May 19, 1864) was an American novelist and short story writer. His works often focus on history, morality, and religion. He was born in 1804 in Salem, Massachusetts, from a family long associated with that t ...

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (February 27, 1807 – March 24, 1882) was an American poet and educator. His original works include "Paul Revere's Ride", ''The Song of Hiawatha'', and ''Evangeline''. He was the first American to completely transl ...

. and Frances Appleton Longfellow (1859), which is in the Longfellow Trust Collection. Generally the portraits were drawings in black and white, and in crayon. Other subjects were the family of

Frederic Edwin Church Frederic Edwin Church (May 4, 1826 – April 7, 1900) was an American landscape painter born in Hartford, Connecticut. He was a central figure in the Hudson River School of American landscape painters, best known for painting large landscapes, ...

Arthur Hugh Clough Arthur Hugh Clough ( ; 1 January 181913 November 1861) was an English poet, an educationalist, and the devoted assistant to Florence Nightingale. He was the brother of suffragist Anne Clough and father of Blanche Athena Clough who both became p ...

and Howard Dwight. Annie Adams Fields, wife of Boston publisher

James T. Fields James Thomas Fields (December 31, 1817 – April 24, 1881) was an American publisher, editor, and poet. His business, Ticknor and Fields, was a notable publishing house in 19th century Boston. Biography Early life and family He was born in ...

, sat for a black crayon drawing by Rowse and noted the artist was "eccentric but true and interesting". He made portraits of children, which exhibited at the galleries of M. Knoedler & Co. in January, 1902. A book was published that year entitled ''Ideal Children's Heads in Crayon and Oil''. Rowse died in Morristown, New Jersey on May 24, 1901.

References

External links

Samuel Rowse's works
Smithsonian Institution Research Information System {{DEFAULTSORT:Rowse, Samuel W. 1822 births 1901 deaths American artists

Early life

Works

References

Further reading

External links