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Men of Progress—Invention on the eve of the Civil War


In 1857 the inventor of the coal-burning cookstove, Jordan Mott, commissioned Christian Schussele to paint a group portrait of eighteen living American scientists and inventors who had “altered the course of contemporary civilization.” A gathering of that sort never actually occurred, and to complete the work, Schussele traveled to the home of each subject to make a sketch from life. Just before the finished picture was delivered in 1862, John Ericsson’s Union ironclad vessel, the Monitor, had won its victory over the Confederacy’s Merrimac. To mark the occasion, Ericsson’s likeness was hastily added. In part because of these men and their inventions, the Civil War was America’s first modern war.


Christian Schussele (1824–1879)
Oil on canvas, 1862
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution
Transfer from the National Gallery of Art; gift of Andrew W. Mellon, 1942

 

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