Reconstruction
Medium
Classification
Department
Smithsonian Collection
Museum
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Credit
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution
Accession Number
NPG.87.216
Tags
OratorLawyerDaniel Webster: MaleSecretary of StateMassachusettsNew HampshireMassachusettsNewspaperMagazine publisherNewspaper publisher
About this artwork
In 1867, in the wake of horrific racial violence in the South, the New York artist John Lawrence Giles engraved this hopeful vision of the peaceful and unified nation that would result from Reconstruction. The designer and publisher, Horatio Bateman, issued an explanatory booklet to help interpret the complex allegory.