The Tour Marm in the Twilight Zone

The Tour Marm in the Twilight Zone

Mrs. Virginia Green is a retired teacher in California who taught me valuable lessons during my first year as a tour guide (trip leader). I owe her a debt of gratitude because she helped shape the way I design and conduct my educational student programs. What a blessing it was to meet her during my first season of my chosen profession!

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Mrs. Green approached her historic East Coast educational student tours through art discoveries.

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It was a good partnership because I was brought up with an appreciation of art, and had an almost intimate knowledge of the collections held by several museums along the Eastern Seaboard. She also reminded me of Miss Fastenberg, my affectionately revered fourth grade teacher.

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Her eighth grade class was traveling along the East Coast from Williamsburg to New York, stopping at several museums in and between these cities. Her enthusiastic eighth graders were well equipped with workbooks and journals. In addition to the paintings they studied, she introduced them to several iconic works of art that were not curriculum-related, but part of a decent liberal arts education.

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There were specific paintings she had chosen to illustrate historic concepts, events, biographies, and art in general. Her students not only knew these paintings by sight, but also the background of the respective artists and the events surrounding the subject. Sargent’s 'scandalous', Madame X (see below), was immediately sought out by her students during their art hunt! (Evidently, Mrs. Green knew some juicy tidbits about it and they were keen to find her!) Another gigantic canvas, Washington Crossing the Delaware, which was recently posted by both elementaryhistoryteacher and American Presidents was a big surprise due to its sheer size(approx 12'x21')!

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A couple of the paintings in their workbook i.e. Thomas Eakins’, Gross Clinic (see below), which has recently been in the news, were not on public display. I remember jumping off the bus while it was in traffic on a narrow, one-way street at the Jefferson Medical School to utilize my New York sense of mission and my acquired Virginia charm to convince the janitor to allow us in to view the gigantic canvas (96"x78") that CSI fans would drool over! I had a time limit; this had to be done before the bus could get around the block. (Mission accomplished!)

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At the time of this tour, I had recently moved to Alexandria, Virginia in a fit of pique. The choice of Old Town Alexandria as my home was an accidental, spur of the moment decision; I had not ever been there before, but that’s another story! However, at that point in my new career in tourism, I was forced to supplement my income by waiting tables, eventually becoming a serving wench at historic Gadsby’s Tavern. There is a separate museum adjacent.

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This tavern was one of several in one of the busiest seaports in America. Gadsby’s, as the city’s premier social center, hosted several of our founding families and other notables. George Washington and many of the Lee family owned town home within walking distance, and ate, gamed, danced, and met at Gadsby’s. As a daughter of a Virginian from Westmoreland County, we are kin to many of these First Families of Virginia (FFV) through both marriage and collateral ties.

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My father exposed me to our family and US history during our jaunts to Williamsburg, Jamestown, and all the great plantation estates along the Potomac and James River. I felt inordinately at home working at Gadsby’s, perhaps as a result of my familial connections as well as the ties to Colonial and Early Republic history. It also reminded me of Stratford Hall, home of the Lees. After I told him where I worked, he was concerned that the ghosts of family members might still haunt the building and I should be prepared for a meeting with a cousin or two! (Dad said that, tongue-in-cheek! He was a terrible tease!)

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As you know if you have read some of my other posts, I am originally from New York and was given a wonderful education through my family and the taxpayers of New York City. I spent countless Saturdays in art programs, plays, and concerts. The Metropolitan Museum of Art (MET) was, by far, my favorite ‘hang-out’ and I am reluctant to admit that I often played hooky to visit the Met and the Cloisters. (I was once ‘caught’!)

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There was a particular room in the Met’s American Wing that I was drawn into. It was a small, plain, empty, colonial ballroom with wooden floors and wainscoting. With each visit I felt compelled to enter this ballroom and dance a few steps of my fantasy version of the minuet. I ended each dance with a curtsy! The guards came to know me and a couple would applaud at the end! I started this at the age of 9!

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The American Wing of the MET was closed down for many years for renovation and I don’t think it reopened in time for the country’s bicentennial. During that span of time, many changes took place in my life and I eventually settled in Alexandria.

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One of our last stops on the tour was the Met and I had already told the cute little story about my dancing days in the American Wing. Kids like these stories; it brings a personal touch to the site, so naturally the group wanted to see this! Time was running out, and we all rushed to the room, which was in the same spot I had remembered; I was on auto-pilot! They stood and watched me ‘perform’ and a few even tried dancing the minuet themselves. We all applauded but needed to return to the bus. Mrs. Green asked me where the room was from; I told her I that I didn’t know, I hadn’t ever asked! Imagine that! She asked me to find out, incredulous, that I had never inquired!

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It was the original ballroom from Gadsby's Tavern!

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Coincidence?

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You be the judge!

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The Educational Tour Marm



Metropolitan Museum of Art
Education:

k-12
Student Programs
Family Programs
Podcast
Fun pages for kids

Stratford Hall Student Programs

Wordless Wednesday #2 - Answer

Charles Willson Peale: Renaissance Man

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In 1801 Charles Willson Peale formed the first scientific expedition in American history when he supervised the excavation of the remains of a mastodon from a farm in upper New York State. Bringing the bones back to his museum, he restored them and then reassembled the skeleton. Exhuming the Mastodon 1801, one of the very first American genre paintings, represents the record of the exhumation. Peale painted it between 1806 and 1808 and portrayed himself as the one holding the sketch of a mastodon bone. This painting contains 75 figures and shows the great wheel used to lift the water from the marl pit where the bones were embedded, the plank room, and the army tent where the excavators slept. A sketch by his son (above), Titian Ramsey, shows the completed skeleton.

The Artist in His Museum (1822) shows him lifting a curtain to reveal his museum. A partial jaw and a large mastodon bone can be seen on the bottom right propped up against the green table cloth as well as a peek of the mastodon behind the curtain. An artist's palette sits on top of the table.


Peale had already established a museum in Philadelphia, which was known as Peale’s Museum, and was eventually moved to the second floor of Independence Hall. This museum contained portraits of famous Americans, a number of Native American relics, wax dummies, as well as specimens of natural history. He invented his own type of taxidermy and was the first to present animals in a natural setting. Additionally he created background paintings in dioramas to depict habitat; his mastery of trompe d'oeil gave a three dimensional quality to the scene. Charles Willson Peale was a century ahead of his time.

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Charles Willson Peale was born in Chester, Queen Anne’s County Maryland April 15, 1741 to Charles Peale and his wife Margaret. His father was called an adventurer who was transported to the colonies from England for forgery and embezzlement. Peale's father died when he was nine years old leaving him, his brother James, and their mother in dire financial straits. At this tender age, Peale became the head of his family trying to take care of both his younger brother and mother by entering into a series of opportunities to make money.

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At the age of 13 Peale was apprenticed to a saddler (a wholley unhappy experience). He eventually learned watchmaking and by the time he was 21 and married, added clockmaking and upholstery to his repertoire. He was to maintain an enduring and active interest in all things artistic and scientific. In short, Peale was a true son of the Age of Enlightenment and was fascinated by the world around him, seeking ways to understand and improve her.

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It was around the time of his marriage that he became interested in painting through a local amateur artist, Gustave Hessalius. He was forced to flee to Boston because of debts and ended up living with America's most famous portrait artist, John Singleton Copley. In 1766 some wealthy benefactors raised eighty-three pounds to send him to London to study with Benjamin West. He stayed in London for three years returning to Annapolis. In 1772 he painted the first portrait ever of George Washington (above) who was then a Colonel of the Virginia Militia. He was to paint 60 more portraits of Washington.

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Peale's family was growing; he was to have a total of 17 children (all named for famous artists and taught how to paint), by three wives, being widowed twice. His reputation as an artist brought enough money to warrant a business move to America's largest city, Philadelphia. Since he was an ardent Whig and radical, he became close friends with most of the founding fathers, and painted many of them. He and his brother both served in the Continental Army under Washington with distinction in Trenton and Princeton.

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He became more involved in government (served on several committees in Philadelphia and in the Philadelphia General Assembly), science, invention, and the diffusion of knowledge as he grew older. Peale developed a level of expertise in fields such as carpentry, dentistry, optometry, and shoemaking. He wrote several books on various subjects including engineering, hygiene, penmanship, and domestic happiness. He had several patents to his name and had even invented a rude motion picture technique. One invention, in particular, can still be seen at Monticello, home of Thomas Jefferson: a polygraph used to make copies of letters. He also sketched several of the specimens (see horned lizard above) brought back by Lewis and Clark.

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In 1795 he established the Columbianum, America's first public exhibition of both modern paintings and Old Masters. Out of this he organized the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, which received its charter in 1806 and which stands today as the oldest art school in America.

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Peale was the consummate patriarch and the Peale home was a large and happy one as well as serving as a self-contained school. Several generations of the Peale family (including women) became artists and others became politicians. The family members (and extended members) are all well-documented with Peales painting Peales!

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He died in Philadelphia on February 22, 1827 and is buried in St. Peter's Episcopal Churchyard.

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After his death, his museum was sold to, and split by, showman P.T. Barnum and Moses Kimball

then sold to France, and now rests at Hessisches Landesmuseum in Darmstadt, Germany.

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In 2006, Peale's full length portrait of George Washington at Princeton brought 21.3 million at auction.

Further study:

Hudson River Valley Institute

The Academy of Natural Sciences

Reading List:

American Monster by Paul Semonim

For students:

The Great Unknown by Taylor Morrison

Music:

Kew. Rhone. by John Greaves & Peter Blegvad

Seven Scenes from the Painting "Exhuming the First American Mastodon"