Want to Know More about This Woman? Exploring Responses to 19th-Century Depictions of a Philanthropist

Isabella Marshall Graham was (1742-1842) was a groundbreaking philanthropist in early national New York City. Born in Scotland in 1742 and married in 1765 to a British army physician, Graham followed her husband and his regiment to North America and then, on the eve of the American Revolutionary War, to Antigua. Her husband’s death there in 1773 shattered the deeply pious woman emotionally and left her with four young children to support. After returning to Scotland for fifteen years, she moved for the final time, in 1789, to New York. There, starting in 1797, she established an influential group of charities that succored impoverished widows and their children, and she insisted that male-led charities meet their needs too. When she died, she was hailed for her transformative impact on New York’s charitable landscape, and her memory lived on in bestselling biographies for decades after she died.

This poster will present two nineteenth-century depictions of Graham and explore how they help or hinder contemporary audiences’ engagement with this pioneering figure. Visual and material sources about Graham include a portrait by John Wesley Jarvis, an engraving after Jarvis by Frederick W. Halpin, and a memorial stone. The engraved image circulated widely in multiple editions of nineteenth-century books about Graham. The memorial stone honoring Graham and associate Sarah Hoffman previously was mounted on the wall of a school established by a charity the women founded, and it has recently joined the collection of the National Museum of American History.

The portrait presents Graham as a sober, older woman while the memorial stone honors Graham’s philanthropic leadership in nineteenth-century religious terminology. Neither of these sources capture her love of nature, her willingness to confront sexism, or her long struggle with depression. Nor do they convey her extensive experience as an enslaver, with bondspeople of Native and of African descent laboring in her households in Fort Niagara, Antigua, and New York City.

Through conversations with AHA attendees, this poster session will allow me to share aspects of Graham’s life not evident in the portrait or memorial stone and hear audience responses. These conversations will enable me to understand the opportunities and challenges presented by the visual and material culture evidence of Graham. This input will help inform my work telling Graham’s story through museum exhibits and in a biography.

Visually, the poster will be organized with the images of the engraving and the stone featured in the upper half. The lower half will feature words that convey key experiences of her life (these might include: faith, wife, widow, mother, enslaver, migrant, business, leader, nature lover, and depression) with brief descriptions of those aspects of her life.