Collection Information
Size: 0.6 linear ft. (on 1 microfilm reel)
Summary: REEL 131, frames 1-264: Family history; biographical material; ca. 50 photographs of Spencer and her paintings; M.A. thesis, "Lilly Martin Spencer: American Painter of the Nineteenth Century," by Ann Byrd Schumer; articles about her life and work, 1959; and a list of paintings owned by her granddaughter, Lillian Spencer Gates.
REEL 131, frames 265-735: Ca. 100 letters from Spencer to her parents, Giles and Angelique Martin, written after her arrival in Cincinnati in 1841 until her mother's death in 1866, and ca. 150 letters from clients, agents, and friends regarding her early career, her marriage, her move to New York City, and later, to Newark, N.J. and to her domestic and artistic life in those cities. Also found are journals and clippings, 1857-1902; family histories; photographs; articles; clippings and a photograph related to her painting "Truth Unveiling Falsehood"; and material relating to her involvement in the women's literary association, Sorosis, ca. 1874-1887.
Among the correspondents are: Samuel Putnam Avery, Charles H. Brainard, Cyrus Butler, T. Apolson Cheney, Mary Mapes Dodge of Hearth and Home, Jessie Benton Fremont, Robert Green Ingersoll, Jenny Lind, Rembrandt Lockwood, Benson John Lossing, John Sartain, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Ella Wheeler Wilcox.