Sculptor Evelyn Longman and the Slocum Monument at Forest Hills Cemetery
The Henry Slocum Monument at Forest Hills Cemetery, photograph by Richard Heath (fall 2021)
There are several sculptures by Daniel Chester French at Forest Hills Cemetery but one is actually largely the work of his only woman assistant, his protégé Evelyn Beatrice Longman (1874 -1954). The sculpture that she worked on is the Slocum Monument. A larger-than-life relief of an angel carved in a single shaft of pink Tennessee marble, it sits under a stand of hemlock trees on Rhododendron Path off Poplar Avenue. Research by Dana Pilson, a Curatorial Assistant at Chesterwood (the home and studio of Daniel Chester French which is operated by the National Trust for Historic Preservation) has shed more light on Longman, who worked in a time when it was unusual for a woman to be a professional sculptor. [1]
Longman may not be as well known as Anne Whitney, Theodora Kitson or Anna Hyatt Huntington but she did work next to Daniel Chester French. French is arguably America’s greatest sculptor and Longman worked with him without being lost in his shadow. She successfully practiced her art creating both public and private commissions for 50 years.
Longman was born on a farm in Winchester, Ohio. She left school and farm life at the age of 14 to work in a dry goods store. With savings from her job, she traveled to Chicago in 1893 to visit the World’s Columbian Exposition and was enthralled by the all the sculpture she saw. She became determined to become a sculptor herself. In 1898 she enrolled in the sculpture school conducted by Lorado Taft at the Art Institute of Chicago. Taft had been the Chicago Exposition’s Superintendent of Sculpture. He used women assistants while creating sculpture for many of the Exposition buildings such as Horticulture Hall. Longman completed the four year course at the AIC in just two years. Her drive attracted the attention of William French, Daniel Chester French’s brother who was the first director of the Art Institute of Chicago.
With a letter of introduction from William French and $40 Longman traveled to New York City in December 1900 and presented herself at the 11th Avenue studio of Daniel Chester French. French was impressed with her sculpture and she worked as his studio assistant from 1901 to 1904.
Her first project was the lettering which appears at the foot of the three pairs of bronze doors that French had designed for the Boston Public Library’s main building in Copley Square. (According to Pilson, French disliked doing lettering). [2] By 1906 Longman had established her own studio in New York City but she would continue to advise and collaborate with French for the next 25 years. She was close with the French family (her own family being far away in the Midwest and Canada). She often celebrated holidays with the French family. French called her “sculpturette”.
1884 G.W. Bromley Maps Scanned from Jamaica Plain Historical Society Archives, plate E
William H. Slocum (1818-1901) lived on a 65 acre hillside estate on Pond Street in Jamaica Plain; some of his nearest neighbors were Isabel and Larz Anderson who lived in a sprawling mansion on their own hilltop. Today, the Showa Institute and the British School of Boston occupy the site of the Slocum property. On August 19, 1901 Slocum’s daughter Mary (Slocum) Nichols bought a 300 square foot lot (number 1634) at Forest Hills Cemetery on Rhododendron Path.
French was friendly with the Slocum family. During a trip to Boston in March 1905 for a two-hour personal tour of her Fenway Court with Isabella Stuart Gardner, French accepted a dinner invitation from Mary and John Nichols at their Pond Street estate. The idea for a monument for William Slocum may have begun then. Early in 1909, Mary Nichols signed a $6000 contract with French for a monument with the fee to be equally divided among family members. Work began soon after. In a letter from his New York studio dated April 25,1909, French wrote, “Miss Longman has been making a life-sized figure in relief of my design for a monument for the John Nichols lot at Forest Hills Cemetery. I am to go over and put my impression on it personally. It is “the Angel of the darker drink.” [3]
The Mill Girl. Louisa Wells Monument , Lowell Cemetery, from their newsletter
The completed plaster was carved by French’s long time artisans, the Piccarrilli Brothers. They delivered and set up the monument at Forest Hills Cemetery in the spring of 1910. From the original $6000 fee, the Piccarrillis were paid $2,200; Longman received $2000 and French $1800. A brick vault was set below ground in front of the monument which was designed to hold six burials. The last two burials were conducted in 1946 and 1948.
One of Longman’s earliest commissions came directly from French. It was for the “Mill Girl” monument at the Lowell Cemetery which was dedicated in 1907./ In 1905 a relative of French’s attorney George F. Richardson wrote and asked if French would design a monument to Louisa Wells. Louisa was a mill girl who had died in 1886. Born in Vermont, Wells worked for 50 years at a spinning mill in Lowell. She saved more than $6000 as a mill worker and her will directed that a monument be erected in memory of herself and her mother. Relatives contested Louisa’s will and the case languished for nearly 20 years until the probate court directed Richardson to honor the will’s instructions; by then the capital had grown to $8000.
However, since French was quite busy he instead recommended that Richardson commission Evelyn Longman. Richardson took that advice and paid her a $5000 fee. The Mill Girl monument depicts a slumped, tired mill worker holding a spindle in her hand being comforted by the Angel of Death. [4] It is a relief set in a shaft of Tennessee marble that is fifteen foot high. Likely, it was also carved by the Piccarrilli brothers. Read more on Lowell Cemetery sculptures at https://www.lowellcemetery.com/explore-visit/notable-monuments
Other commissions for sculptural work followed; Longman created bronze doors for the US Naval Academy Chapel (1906-1909) and the Hosford Doors for the front entrance to the Clapp Library at Wellesley College (1910). In a blind competition, Longman won the commission for the figure which became the symbol of AT&T for over half a century. Longman’s 24 foot tall, gold leafed Spirit of Communication figure holds electric bolts in his left hand. It was completed in 1916 for the top of the AT&T building in Manhattan. It’s now outside their headquarters in Dallas, TX.
Evelyn Longman at work on the U.S. Naval Academy Chapel doors, image courtesy of the Estate of Evelyn Longman/Chesterwood Archives.
Other commissions Longman completed were for two sculptures for the Panama Pacific Exposition in San Francisco (1915) and the Illinois Centennial Monument (1918 ). On the strength of all these works Longman was made a full member of the National Academy of Design in 1919; she was the first woman elected to this group. [5]
In 1920, Evelyn Longman married Nathaniel Batchelder. Batchelder was the Headmaster of the Chafee School in Windsor Connecticut. Their wedding took place at Chesterwood. Longman Batchelder then moved to Windsor, Connecticut where she lived and worked in a studio that her husband built for her. She died in 1954.
By Richard Heath, November 2021
Find more information in this online exhibit
End Notes:
1 - Fine Art Connoisseur magazine May-June 2021. Pilson provided additional information to the writer
2 - The lettering is difficult to read unless on your hands and knees. One line reads “Poetry is Like the Lodestone.”
3 - “The Angel of the Darker Drink at last shall find you.” The Ruba’yat, Omar Khayyan
4 - The Lowell Review, August 8, 2020. (Lowell Cemetery Newsletter)
5 - National Academy of Design, Evelyn Beatrice Longman - #1BA1 French’s recommendation helped too.