ARCHIVE OF AUTOGRAPH LETTERS SIGNED, EPHEMERA, AND PRINTED DOCUMENTS of Adelaide Johnson (1859-1955), Feminist & Sculptor of Famous Bust of Susan B. Anthony

Washington DC, 1929-1938. Documents. Good to Very Good condition with expected wear. Archive includes 10 SIGNED Handwritten Letters (29 pages) of various sizes dated January 1929 to February 1938, including one on Susan B. Anthony Memorial Committee stationery; several other SIGNED pieces including a postcard of her Susan B. Anthony sculpture and a multi-page typed PROCLAMATIONS BY STATE GOVERNORS OF SUSAN B. ANTHONY DAY, February 15th, 1937, that is INSCRIBED at the top of the first page: "This great woman--Susan B. Anthony--was a personal and dully [sic] appreciative friend for more than twenty years" and SIGNED "Adelaide Johnson"; and various pieces (truncated) of ephemera. Most of the letters are composed on her 230 Maryland Avenue, N.E. Capitol Hill printed letterhead. One of the letters, from 1930, includes a black & white snapshot identified on the back as taken in 1929, described by Ms. Johnson, as the “Cathedral Like caverns in the quarry of a marble mountain at Carrara Italy. I had not actually visited the quarries where the wonderful marble comes from since 1888 so took one day for this. On the right is Cavalier Beretta Who had charge of my work-myself. Signor Tabricotti who owns the mountain. Last a young Italian sculptor from Boston they marveled that I could clamber through the caverns.” The letters to James H. Post chattily and mercurially describe the ups and downs of a starving artist who is struggling to continue her artistic career while existing in often extremely dire circumstances. Post (1859-1938) business leader and philanthropist, supported her through the years, evidenced here by a handwritten list in his hand titled “Mrs. Adelaide Johnson” which documents the financial contribution he made to her support, year-by-year, from 1913 to 1928, as well as a few retained copies of his letters. Another page from his notes lists the three mortgages on her property. Contents of the letters include trying to work out her precarious financial situation; news of her attempts to sell marbles, get commissions, travel, help other people and causes, and notes regarding the publicity that her work is receiving -- especially the famous Susan B. Anthony bust she carved. The letter file ends abruptly in 1938, most probably due to Post's death and discontinuance of support.

Included are a postcard of the bust, dated 1938 and SIGNED with a short greeting by her on the back; news clippings regarding Johnson’s works; a copy of the Proclamations by State Governors of Susan B. Anthony Day 15 February 1937, sent from the Susan B. Anthony Memorial Committee, Mrs. Robert Adamson Chairman, with a short note at top from Johnson; a typed press announcement from that Committee dated 1 January 1938 sent “To Editors, Publicists, Radio Program Directors, Commentators, etc….” which notes the materials available from the Committee for the Susan B. Anthony Day -- including the USPS postage stamp issued which used the Anthony portrait modelled by Adelaide Johnson. Also, with three issues of PROGRESS. ORGAN OF THE INTERNATIONAL REFORM FEDERATION featuring Johnson sculptures and stories about the pieces.

Johnson attempted to establish herself as a world-class sculptor, travelling back and forth between Europe and the United States many times, most often making her home in Washington, D.C. Beyond art, Johnson participated in various reform movements and organizations, but her most enduring commitment was to the women’s suffrage movement. When she first moved to Washington, D.C. in the mid-1880s, Johnson rented a room from Ellen Sheldon, the secretary of the National Woman Suffrage Association. Through this early connection, Johnson found her lifelong calling as “the sculptor of suffrage.” In 1886 Johnson sculpted the first bust ever made of suffrage pioneer Susan B. Anthony. In 1920 Johnson received her most important commission. Alva Belmont, the principal benefactor of the National Woman’s Party (NWP), had previously bought Johnson’s personal replicas of the 1892 busts of Anthony, Stanton, and Mott, as well as commissioned her own bust. Then, in April 1920 NWP, leader Alice Paul commissioned Johnson to remake the suffrage busts in celebration of congressional passage, and soon ratification, of the Nineteenth Amendment. Johnson decided to craft the three busts as one giant statue, weighing more than seven tons. Emboldened by the success of the Portrait Monument, Johnson used money that patron James Post loaned her to buy a home at 230 Maryland Avenue, N.E. in Washington, D.C. in 1926. She planned to live upstairs and work on her “galley of eminent women” downstairs. For years Johnson lived on next to nothing; she rarely ate and did not heat her home. By 1939 the eighty-year-old artist was threatened with eviction and she began destroying her marble busts with a sledgehammer. Adelaide Johnson came of age during the golden era of American sculpture, when government agencies commissioned statues of presidents and Civil War generals to adorn parks and museums across the country. In this era of civic commemoration, Johnson sought a permanent place for women. In 1996 women’s groups raised the funds to move the Portrait Monument upstairs to the Capitol Rotunda; several other busts by Johnson are held by the Smithsonian; many more were lost or destroyed. Though her lifelong dream to create a “gallery of eminent women” never materialized, Johnson’s legacy lives on in the opera THE MOTHER OF US ALL by Virgil Thomson with a libretto by Gertrude Stein, which prominently features the dedication of a statue of Susan B. Anthony much like the one made by Johnson. (Inventory #: 022002)