Acknowledgments

Van Horn, Jennifer

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Acknowledgments

Jennifer Van Horn

Portraits of Resistance: Activating Art During Slavery

~Many people and institutions have lent generous support to this project. The book took shape during a postdoctoral fellowship at the National Portrait Gallery and Smithsonian American Art Museum (2015–16). At NPG my thanks to Robyn Asleson, Taína Caragol, Brandon Fortune, Kate Lemay, Dorothy Moss, Asma Naeem (now at BMA), Wendy Wick Reaves,...

Author

Jennifer Van Horn

PublisherYale University Press

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-23610

Acknowledgments

Many people and institutions have lent generous support to this project. The book took shape during a postdoctoral fellowship at the National Portrait Gallery and Smithsonian American Art Museum (2015–16). At NPG my thanks to Robyn Asleson, Taína Caragol, Brandon Fortune, Kate Lemay, Dorothy Moss, Asma Naeem (now at BMA), Wendy Wick Reaves, Leslie Ureña, and especially to Gwendolyn DuBois Shaw, whose warmth and scholarly example have inspired me and many others. Ellen Miles remained a stalwart supporter generous with her knowledge. At SAAM, my thanks to Amelia Goerlitz, Eleanor Harvey, Karen Lemmey, and William Truettner; postdoctoral fellows E. Bruce Robertson, Julia Rosenbaum, and Tobias Wofford; predoctoral fellows Caitlin Beach, Layla Bermeo, Emily Casey, Ruthie Dibble, and Ashley Lazevnick.

In 2018–19 I was honored to be William C. Seitz Senior Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts (CASVA), National Gallery of Art. Dean Elizabeth Cropper and Associate Deans Peter Lukehart and Therese O’Malley, along with my CASVA cohort, encouraged me to think bigger and better. I am especially grateful to senior fellows C. Jean Campbell, Michelle Foa, David O’Brien, and J. P. Park, as well as Mellon and Safra Professors Steven Nelson and Richard Powell. I miss our lunches at the Refectory more than I can say. Thanks also to Alexander Brey, Megan Driscoll, Ximena Gómez, and Rachel Grace Newman. I am grateful that Steven Nelson and Therese O’Malley facilitated a workshop of the manuscript at CASVA (spring 2020) and indebted to the participants, Nika Elder, Louis Nelson, and Phillip Troutman. Faculty leaves at George Mason University and the University of Delaware (UD) gave me time to write. Funds from the Unidel Foundation were critical for conducting research in far-flung archives and museums and for supporting publication.

Curators and staff at many museums have lent their time and expertise. I am especially appreciative of Eric Brooks (Ashland), Graham Boettcher and Katelyn Crawford (Birmingham Museum of Art), Susan Schoelwer and Jessie MacLeod (George Washington’s Mount Vernon), Paula Bagger (Hingham Historical Society), Mimi Miller and Carter Burns (Historic Natchez Foundation), Lydia Blackmore and Sarah Duggan (Historic New Orleans Collection and the Classical Institute of the South), James Wade (Longwood Historic Mansion), Amelia Peck and Elizabeth Kornhauser (Metropolitan Museum of Art), Mary Edna Sullivan (Middleton Place), Elizabeth Abston and Kathleen Barnett (Mississippi Museum of Art), Daniel Ackermann and Gary Albert (Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts), Mel Buchanan (New Orleans Museum of Art), and Leo Mazow and Christopher Oliver (Virginia Museum of Fine Arts).

At Yale University Press, my thanks to the readers for their charitable and insightful suggestions, to Amy Canonico and Raychel Rapazza, who went above and beyond, and to Ann Twombly, who saved me from errors both grammatical and factual. It has been a pleasure to publish with them.

I am grateful for the scholars who supported me during a project that spanned several years and multiple fields. Wendy Bellion, Martin Brückner, and Catharine Dann Roeber—colleagues at UD and Winterthur Museum—will recognize echoes of conversations in these pages. I am grateful for their comradeship and intellectual generosity and to Catharine for our collaboration as co-editors for the Winterthur Portfolio special issue “Enslavement and Its Legacies.” At UD, Zara Anishanslin, Tiffany Barber, Perry Chapman, Kenneth Cohen, Mónica Domínguez Torres, Jesse Erickson, Laura Helton, Jason Hill, Jessica Horton, Sandy Isenstadt, Julie McGee, Dael Norwood, Ikem Okoyo, Cindy Ott, Alison Parker, and Sarah Wasserman were charitable supporters. It was a delight to think about the imbrication of portraiture and race with participants in a workshop at Winterthur Museum (spring 2019), Anna Arabindan-Kesson, Mia Bagneris, Janine Yorimoto Boldt, Stephanie Delamaire, Jennifer Germann, Gwendolyn DuBois Shaw, James Smalls, and Phillip Troutman. Thanks to Mia and Jennifer for our continued collaboration and friendship. John Ott is due special appreciation for reading drafts and offering astute feedback, as is Phillip Troutman. Phil’s enthusiastic response to my first paper on this material convinced me there was something there. Toward the end, his comments on the manuscript reinvigorated my faith that the difficult histories I was trying to tell were within my grasp. Thank you, Phil. I hope to return the favor.

The questions this book addresses began to form during my time as an assistant curator at George Washington’s Mount Vernon (2010–11). I joined the curatorial department at the start of a reinterpretation of the Greenhouse Slave Quarters. I owe a tremendous debt to Susan Schoelwer, then curator, and Robyn Adams, then curatorial intern, for the summer we shared pondering how people enslaved at Mount Vernon made lives for themselves and how best to communicate those lives to visitors. Susan’s commitment to telling stories that are artifactually grounded, emotionally gripping, and economical in word count continues to inspire me as a teacher and author. Thanks also to Mary Thompson for sharing her knowledge of Mount Vernon’s enslaved community then and since.

Before my time at Mount Vernon, I was the beneficiary of wonderful professors who introduced me to the history of slavery and its material dimensions: David Brody, Bernard Herman, Peter Kolchin, Maurie McInnis, Louis Nelson, and Dell Upton. David, Maurie, and Louis deserve special recognition for their continued mentorship.

I have benefited from the insights of fellow researchers in enslavement and visual and material culture, including Renee Ater, Sarah Beetham, Dana Byrd, Adrienne Childs, Huey Copeland, Matthew Fox-Amato, Diana Greenwald, Sarah Jones Weicksel, Jennifer Marshall, Roderick McDonald, Christina Michelon, Tiya Miles, Simon Newman, Rachel Stephens, Whitney Stewart, Colleen Stockmann, and Jill Vaum. I am grateful for continued feedback from those in American history, art history, and material culture study, George Boudreau, Steven Bullock, Maggie Cao, Benjamin Carp, Sarah Carter, Jennifer Chuong, Elizabeth Eager, Hannah Farber, Amy Freund, Jennifer Greenhill, Laura Igoe, Benjamin Irvin, Catherine Kelly, Ethan Lasser, Lauren Lessing, Andrew Lipman, Margaretta Lovell, Whitney Martinko, Susan Rather, Catherine Roach, Jennifer Roberts, Paul Staiti, Ellen Todd, Anne Verplanck, Carolyn Weekley, Sophie White, and, finally, editors and friends Robin Veder and Nadine Zimmerli. I have been privileged to present ongoing work at many conferences, especially those hosted by College Art Association, Historians of Eighteenth-Century Art and Architecture, the Omohundro Institute, Society of Early Americanists, and Black Portraiture[s], and talks at Southern Methodist University, the Columbia Early American History Seminar and Early European History Seminar, Tulane University, the University of Illinois, and Penn State University.

I feel incredibly lucky to have spent the last fifteen years talking about public history and enslavement with students at several institutions. For asking probing questions, suggesting sources, and imparting observations, I thank Olivia Armandroff, Jack Ausmus, Megan Baker, Alba Campo-Rosillo, Candice Candeto, Nora Carleson, Lauren Clark, Anne Cross, Emelie Gevalt, Natalie Giguere, Gina Guzzon, Julia Hamer-Light, Michael Hartman, Joseph Litts, Bethany McGlyn, Emily Peikin, Trent Rhodes, Brett Seekford, Lea Stephens, Jackson Truschel, and Anne Williams. Special thanks to Megan, Michael, and Joseph, for feedback on chapters, and to Emily for image assistance.

My daughter, Abigail, has shared her childhood with this book and traveled to plantations, art museums, country houses, and archives. Her questions have kept me honest: “How could people treat other people that way? Why did somebody scratch that painting? Why do you write about sad things?” My husband, Christian Koot, made this book possible while also making it feel like a life shared. From the tea he brings me every morning to his help locating archival materials and planning travel routes—and everything in between—I am grateful. My parents, Paul and Kay Van Horn, offered child minding, travel companionship, support, and humor. My cousin P. J. McKown asked just the right questions. My in-laws, Gerard and Sheila Koot, have willingly journeyed to museums no matter how obscure. My friends Lee Dunham, Shayna Glicksman, and Michelle Weinberger helped me negotiate being an academic and a mother, jobs that don’t always seem to go together, and were always ready to listen.

The tragic Black deaths and powerful social justice protests of the summer of 2020, which took place as I completed the manuscript, testified anew to the persistence of racial inequality in the United States and the imperative for change. Writing about enslavement has brought tears for people in the past whose sorrows I could not lessen. But this book has also brought a renewed sense of community with those who share a commitment to illuminate the lives of people long forgotten by scholars, and fresh hope that telling those stories can help change the future.

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