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136 chapter seven “The Isabella Road Has Been the Longest” In 1888, two decades after her last trip to the United States, Harriet decided to return to her home country. The New York Herald reported that on June 17,“One of the first passengers to leave the Umbria was a little, dark complexioned lady, wearing a plush coat, despite the sultry atmosphere, and carrying a heavy valise. . . . The lady was Harriet Hosmer.”1 She told the paper she had come back to the United States to complete a set of doors for a public library, a project that was never finished. She may have also needed a break from her dramatic relationship with Ashburton. But there had been a disturbing incident the year before,when an important collection of neoclassical sculpture, including Zenobia and works by Hiram Powers and Thomas Crawford, failed to sell. Some cultural critics took the event as an opportunity to criticize the style of sculpture; as one wrote even before the auction, “It is not supposed these works will sell for near their cost as they belong to a period when great reputations were easily earned in art.”2 The fiasco may have spurred Harriet finally to realize that if she wanted to be celebrated as an American artist, she needed to set foot in America. Despite her long absence, she found a warm greeting when she arrived in the summer. By December the New York Tribune reported, “Miss Harriet Hosmer is much lionized in Boston.”3 To many she was still the Yankee girl, even though she was now fifty-eight. One article raved,“Her life of art and world-wide fame and distinguished associations has left her as simple and unaffected as a child, and the eager energy of the New England girl still characterizes the famous woman.”4 As the newspaper reports makes clear, the name Harriet Hosmer continued to carry weight. This was especially true in cities outside of the North- “The Isabella Road Has Been the Longest” 137 east that were trying to prove their cultural sophistication. After spending the summer with the Carrs in Bar Harbor,Maine,Harriet traveled throughout the middle of the country promoting herself. Invited to Denver to present two“art talks,” she was greeted warmly by the governor’s wife and given shares in a gold mine; she also took a thrilling train trip through the Rockies . She believed she might have found a buyer for the African Sibyl in the Mile-High City as well.5 Accompanied by Cornelia, she also visited Chicago , where she stayed with the wealthy businessman John G. Shortall, who had helped found Chicago Title & Trust.Shortall had purchased a Puck and a Sleeping Faun in 1867; after installing the former in his house, he boasted to a friend,“The Puck is in the Southwest corner of the hall, opposite the entrance, and is very beautiful.”6 He hosted a reception for the artist at his home at 1600 Prairie Avenue,a street on which many of Chicago’s wealthiest families then lived. Harriet’s two pieces were on prominent display, and she also brought an album with photographs of her other pieces. Throughout the evening, she regaled her fellow guests with tales of her famous friends and her days in Rome.7 Such reminiscences became a new weapon in her self-promotion arsenal. Events like the reception and connections with people like Shortall convinced Harriet to extend her stay in the United States. She spent much of her time in Chicago, an exciting place to be in the late 1880s. Although the city had not been incorporated until two years after Harriet was born, it had experienced remarkable growth and had a population of more than a million by 1890. The city had conquered St. Louis in the race to become the gateway between the East and the West, and it was the midwestern railroad hub. Even the massive fire of 1871 had not permanently slowed Chicago’s momentum. As businessmen made fortunes, many Chicagoans were anxious to prove their cultural sophistication. The nation’s plan to celebrate the four-hundredth anniversary of Christopher Columbus’s journey in 1893 (a year late) with a world’s fair seemed like the perfect opportunity to show off their metropolis, and Chicago’s leaders launched into a fight with other American cities to become the site of what would be known as the World’s Columbian Exposition. Harriet’s residence in Chicago soon led...

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