A Biographer's Blog

One of the main themes in my biography of Hosmer is the ways she and her supporters shaped her image to make her acceptable to her nineteenth-century audience.  As part of this project, Hosmer made sure never to seem too ambitious or angry in public.  But in private letters a different picture sometimes emerges.  When she was in contention for the commission to sculpt a memorial to Missouri senator Thomas Hart Benton, for instance, she reveled in the thought of “collapsing the flues” of her competitors in Rome with the news of her victory.  When she did win, she reported that her friend Shakespeare Wood regretted one particularly jealous contemporary was out of town so Wood wouldn’t get to witness “his horrid grin of anguish” at the news.  Of course, Hosmer eventually took what she called the “wise & prudent” route of gracious acceptance.  Still the snarkiness was there, and therefore I think she would have really liked author Anita Liberty’s new line of Fair Anger Jewelry.  Simple and lovely pendant necklaces come with themes such as Confidence: Imbues with the confidence to knowledge to know you are, in fact, always right.  And Contentment: Amplifies your feelings of superiority and self confidence.  Hosmer, ever confident, would have coveted that one, I believe.