Annotations for Cyrus E. Dallin: Let Justice Be Done
I’m about thirteen thousand words into the updated biography for Dallin (part of NaNoWriMo project for the month of November) which is an attempt to get the basic framework on paper once and for all. At the end of the month, I should have at least 50,000 words with which to work, perhaps more.
In the process of updating Dallin’s biography, I have been fact checking the original book on Dallin and discovering that much of what I’m finding in the original source citations is not matching what the book says. There have been enough instances, that I’ve decided to take this blog in a different direction for awhile and document what I’m finding. I am hoping to build upon what Rell Francis did in 1976 and add to the body of knowledge about Dallin and that is the intent behind the corrections. For those of you that are interested in Dallin, perhaps you will find these useful as well.
Ready? Ok, here we go…
NaNoWriMo and the Dallin Book
Nothing like a daily deadline to make one move a project along. For those of you who don’t know – November is National Novel Writing Month. Every year I try valiantly to write 50,000 words in 30 days. Usually after about 20,000 words I bail. That’s about eleven days into the month (1667 words a day is the required minimum to stay on track). The unusual thing for me is that it has never occurred to me to write about Dallin for my “novel.” Until this year, that is.
The contest began yesterday, and I’m already 124 words OVER my quota. Feeling pretty good not only about getting my thoughts, questions, and research into one cohesive narrative; but also feeling a compulsion to tell the story of this family in a way that I’ve never felt compelled to do before.
One hundred and forty-eight years ago this month, Cyrus Edwin Dallin was born to Thomas and Jane (Hamer) Dallin in the frontier town of Hobble Creek aka Springville, Utah. It was and remains a breathtaking town at the base of the Wasatch Mountain range. The scenery is beyond anything this New Englander has ever seen. I can understand why he couldn’t leave it for very long before coming back. The history of this area and of Utah itself is comparatively new by New England standards but no less fascinating.
In any event, my magnum opus research project is on its way. I’d like to think somewhere Dallin is looking down thinking “get on with it girl!” Who knows – maybe it will be his 148th birthday gift from me – my tribute to a man who was so much more than a sculptor – an activist, an artist, a husband, a father, a neighbor and a teacher.
And did I mention he was an Olympic gold medalist too? No? Well, you’ll have to wait on that story until next time…
Ciao!
Brigham Young Academy
It has been a hypothesis of mine for quite some time that the Dallin family remained strong in their LDS beliefs past the time when they were alleged to have left the church and it is for that reason that the church played such a big part in his career as well as why he was denied his victory with the Paul Revere statue in Boston for so long. Cyrus allegedly denied being a member of the church. I say allegedly, because I have found no hard documentation of him saying so at this point. At least none I can lay my hands on for this post.
In my previous post I discussed the timing for his trip to Boston in 1880 and the discrepancy in the Rell Francis book. Today, I am looking at another facet of that story: Dallin’s alleged desire to attend the Brigham Young Academy. It is for this reason that he is working at his father’s mine, according to the story.
The Francis book states “At the age of seventeen he sought a higher paying job in order to earn enough money to enter Brigham Young Academy at nearby Provo, where he planned to study art.” but the Downes article that is cited for this statement indicates that he wanted to “go to an academy at Provo, six miles north of Springville.” No mention of which academy or any study of art. Seems close enough in the description, except that according to their website BYA was a private church highschool chartered in 1876 by Brigham Young and not an art academy. Interestingly enough, Abraham O. Smoot was the chairman of the board of the Academy. He was also the leader of the company that brought the Dallin family to Utah originally. Is there a connection there? Probably just a coincidence, but it does add a layer of depth to the story.
Perhaps there was more than one academy in Provo or perhaps Dallin still kept the faith at that point. I would like some additional proof before I commit to the BYA idea. It does work for my hypothesis that he was still LDS, but further investigation is needed. I discovered that Dallin’s wife’s diary is at the Utah State Archives – pretty cool since she hated Utah and grew up in Massachusetts where she remained most times when Dallin visited his beloved home state. My experience with Vittoria’s writings leads me to believe I may find some reasoning there. She was very outspoken about Dallin and her thinking in general.
That’s it for this week. Looking forward to figuring out another piece of the puzzle.
A Discrepancy…Again
Have you ever read something and then immediately had to reread it because you realized something was wrong? This has happened to me so often during the course of this project that I have started keeping a running log of discrepancies, which of course means that my research takes a winding path trying to sort out the truth from the fiction.
In preparation for publishing some of my research, I was entering source documents about the Dallin family into a new research database. One of those documents happened to be an 1880 U.S. Federal census record for Springville, Utah Co., Utah. The 1880 census was taken that year on the 3rd of June. “So what?” you say. Well — it occurs to me that I read that Dallin went to Boston in the spring of 1880 – April to be exact. Unless he could be in two places at once, there appears to be a problem here.
Going back to my original source for the April date (original here meaning where I first read it, not in terms of the document itself), Rell Francis’ book Cyrus E. Dallin: Let Justice Be Done, I realized that page 7 of said book was where I had first gleaned that tidbit of information for my chronology. The footnote told me that the information was obtained from yet another tertiary source: an article written in 1899 in Brush and Pencil.
Two sidebar notes here: one – never take what is written in a periodical as gospel, back up the story using something other than someone else’s memory or someone else’s research which is most times faulty in the case of the former or nonexistent in the case of the latter; two – this seems to be par for the course in the research that I have seen on Dallin to date. Most of what is written is a pure regurgitation of periodical articles based on previous articles. It makes for a nice story to be sure, but I am not writing a novel – I am writing a biography. Frustrating.
Ok back to the timing of Dallin’s trip to Boston. Fortunately, I happen to own a copy of said Brush and Paint article so I pull it out to verify the date. The article notes that Dallin had entered his sculptures made of clay from his father’s mine into the Salt Lake City fair in October of 1879 along with a couple of drawings. One of Dallin’s future benefactors was “so struck by these productions of the young man” in the spring of the following year, that he interested another Utahn in a joint effort to raise money to send Dallin to school in Boston. Nowhere does it say this happened in April or that Dallin went to Boston in April. His work was noticed in the spring, presumably it took them some time to raise the money.
I can build connections between the benefactor and Dallin. I can also build connections between the school he allegedly attended and the benefactor. The original benefactor, C.H. Blanchard, was from Boston, giving him knowledge of the area and of the art schools that would be there. He came to Utah probably as many entrepreneurs from the east did, to invest in the rich commercial mining trade that was booming at that time.
Blanchard worked as the recorder for mining claims in the Tintic Mining District beginning in July 1879 where Dallin’s father, Thomas, held claim to The Golden Bell mine. Young Cyrus worked sorting ore, a job he held so he could pay for art school in Provo, Utah where he planned to go the following winter. It would make sense that Blanchard knew Thomas Dallin and his son. He also knew that they did not have a lot of money which is why he probably recommended Truman H. Bartlett’s art school in Boston. Bartlett ran a free art school for poor children, a great place to send someone who needed to learn but could not afford to pay for school. So far, these connections make sense, until proven otherwise. But the April date? Nope.
Conclusion? It is my belief based on what I have so far that Dallin was in fact in Springville, Utah in June of 1880 as reported by the census. He left sometime after that to go to Boston to start his training.
Interesting questions: why is T.H. Bartlett unable to be found in the 1880 census in Boston or Massachusetts? Why did Dallin scrap his plans, if they really were his plans, to earn money to go to the Brigham Young Academy in Provo, Utah, and instead head for Boston? And when exactly DID he go? Ah…and so the research continues…
The Scope of the Project
There are two tiers to this project: 1) to create an updated catalog raissonne of Dallin’s works including their current locations where known; and 2) to create a biography of Dallin that focuses not only on his works of art, but on his life in Utah and Massachusetts, his travels, his hobbies, his friends, his family, and his teaching career.
It is my most sincere wish that his full story be told. Many thanks to both the Cyrus E. Dallin Art Museum (www.dallin.org) and the Springville Museum of Art (www.sma.nebo.edu) for their continued help and support for this important project.
Dallin Research — Four Years in the Making
Hello! Welcome to the Cyrus E. Dallin, American Renaissance Sculptor blog. My name is Christine and I will be your guide through the career of this prolific sculptor, painter, and teacher. I had the good fortune not only to be raised in the town in which Dallin decided to reside for the last forty-four years of his life, thereby enjoying the fruits of his labors that decorated my hometown; but also to reside currently about twenty minutes from where he was born in Utah.
My studies of this man have taken me from the art museum that bears his name in Massachusetts to the Mass. School of Art where he taught for over forty years, to the Springville Museum of Art in Utah, founded by Dallin and colleague John Hafen in the early 20th century.
Join me for a fascinating journey through time and history. Acquaint yourself with Cyrus E. Dallin – the man, the sculptor; his contemporaries; his family; his career. I hope that you will be as swept up in his life as I have become.
