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The extreme clipper Young America, drawn by James E. Buttersworth and converted to a lithograph by Palmer, was published in 1853, when American clipper ships were breaking records in all oceans and exciting the public's interest in their achievements.
found his true calling and became the keeper of "The Woodcock," a Brook! yn tavern, and later "The Abbey," once the gatehouse to a Brooklyn estate. At first, Frances specialized in background and atmosphere, the results of sketching trips to Long Island in Nathaniel Currier's carriage. It is said that she chose the pigments which the colori sts added to the earliest Currier & Ives products. Later, she co-invented with Currier an advanced form oflithographic crayon that facilitated the actual rendering of an image on stone. The work of Frances Palmer, artistlithographer, was always signed in the
neuter "F. F. Palmer." A list of large folio prints (about 18" x 24") by Palmer numbers some 140, an average of six per year, although she produced 24 in 1866 alone. And these numbers do not include the small folios (about IO" x 5"), which were rarely signed. She was a very busy lady. When, in 1859, James Ives heard the news that Edmund Seymour Palmer had died in a drunken fall down the stairs of a Brook lyn hotel, he remarked , "That's the best thing he ever did. " Three years later Frances' s son died of tuberculosi s at the age of thirty-three. Frances continued to work diligently
"The Hudson River Steamboat 'St. John"' was issued by Currier & Ives in 1864 . Here is the classic profile portrait of a river steamer slipping through the Hudson Highlands on almost mirror smooth water, an enticing image of what was then the most modern and comfortable transport available.
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and in thi s period she produced her grandest work , the memorable " A Midnight Race on the Mississ ippi" between the Natch ez and Eclipse, her most often reproduced work. This print is unique in that it depicts not only a race , but one conducted at night. It was evidently quite popular and inspired other similar prints. In 1866 she recreated the theme in the outstanding "Champions of the Mi ssissippi (A Race for Buckhorns)," between Queen of th e West and Morning Star . Her marines are, without exception, innovative and resourceful. While her male contemporaries were fashioning broadside, daylight views in numberless quantities, she turned them into three-quarter views, showed them racing, and at night. It was thi s "small, frail " woman who had the stature and strength to bring new ideas and fresh excitement to the otherwise formulaic work of the period. Frances Palmer probably produced some of her plates from secondhand sketches and accounts , and from her colorful imagination. Tradition holds that she never traveled west of Hoboken, New Jersey. Frances Flora Palmer died in 1876 of tuberculosis, a disease she must have endured for years. Her brief obituary note credited her, ironically, with only one achievement: having been the widow of Edmund S. Palmer! 1
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Mr. Peluso, a frequ ent contributor to the Maine Antiqllle Digest, is organizing the JamesBardex hibitatTheMariners' Mu8 seum,NewportNews, to openOctoberl996. ~ ii< =>
26
SEA HISTORY 74, SUMMER 1995
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