#henry rathbone

[professorpski]

Matthew Brady Photography at the Chicago History Museum

As many people can not go visit museums, curators are drawing our attention to some of the treasures in their collections. The Chicago History Museum is now open, but you should buy tickets online. If you can’t go, you can do some armchair viewing of the photographs taken by Matthew Brady who was active around the time of the US Civil War. Many of them are formal portrait of men who were politicians, but this one is of a woman who became famous for a terrible reason: Clara Harris was one of the guests of President Abraham Lincoln and his wife Mary Lincoln at Ford’s Theater the night that the president was murdered. April 14, 1865, Harris’ fiancee Major Henry Rathbone fought with John Wilkes Boothe, the assassin, and was badly injured. The two did marry, but Rathbone blamed himself for not preventing Lincoln’s death and eventually lost his mind, attacked and killed Clara. He was declared insane.

What has this got to do with fashion? Well, not much, but I didn’t see how I could share this photograph and not tell you the story of her life and death. 19th Century portraits are in interesting reality check on the other main source we have for fashion then, the colored fashion plate from Paris. Photography only had black and white at the time, so we have to then use letters and other written description to see if we can discover more. Here, Harris is wearing the kind of floor-length, hoop-skirted fashion that was common in 1865. The skirts were huge and took up yards and yards of cloth. This one is relatively plain despite the enormous geometric motif around the hemline. Fancier dresses for parties and such often had bows, ribbons, ruffles, etc. The waistlines were trim and the bodices cut close to the body, and this appears to be a tunic the echoes that silhouette. Embellished motifs trim the sleeves and the skirt of the tunic. 

If this portrait of Clara Harris seems sober, even conceals much of her face, realize it had a serious purpose. It was commissioned to be used to gain subscribers for prints of a painting  called “The Last Hours of Lincoln, 1865.”   Photographed by Mathew B. Brady, Washington, D.C., 1865.  That painting by Alonzo Chappel was a huge project and included many men who weren’t even in the room when Lincoln died. But it was a combination of of mourning art and political art.

For more on visiting the museum and what is on display, go here: https://images.chicagohistory.org/search/?searchQuery=mathew+brady&assetType=default

You can see more portraits by Brady in the Chicago History Museum if you go here:  https://images.chicagohistory.org/search/?searchQuery=mathew+brady&assetType=default

[deathwood2]

Subtle Clone High joke I needed the wiki to explain to me

[fyabrahamlincoln]

April 14, 1865

“The shouts, groans, curses, smashing of seats, screams of women, shuffling of feet and cries of terror created a pandemonium that…through all the ages will stand out in my memory as the hell of hells.”  —Helen Truman, April 14, 1865

As they enjoyed the performances in the comedy, Our American Cousin at Ford's Theatre on April 14, 1865, Mary Lincoln leaned toward her husband, slipped her hand in his, and jokingly referred to their guests Clara Harris and Henry Rathbone as she asked, “What will Miss Harris think of my hanging on to you so?” Lincoln immediately replied, “She won’t think a thing about it.”

Shortly after this exchange, actor John Wilkes Booth stepped into the presidential box, barred the door behind him with a wooden plank he placed there earlier in the day, and quietly waited for the moment when actor Harry Hawk would be alone on stage and utter a line Booth knew would draw a big laugh from the crowd. Loud enough, he hoped, to muffle the sound of his single-shot .44 caliber Derringer pistol.

"Don't know the manners of good society, eh? Well, I guess I know enough to turn you inside out, old gal — you sockdologizing old man-trap!" The moment Harry Hawk finished delivering his line, the audience erupted into laughter. Knowing the moment was at hand, Booth quickly stepped forward, aimed his pistol at the back of Lincoln's head, and fired.

While most of the audience members missed the noise from Booth's pistol, those that did hear it largely assumed it was part of the play. As Lincoln's head slumped forward, one of the president's guests in the box, Major Henry Rathbone, immediately leapt into action and fought with the assassin to try and prevent his escape. In retaliation, Booth quickly pulled out a knife and stabbed Rathbone in the arm before stumbling to the stage below. ​ ​Despite breaking his leg in the fall, the assailant quickly stood, faced the stunned audience, and thrust his bloody dagger in the air as he yelled "Sic Semper Tyrannis!" and quickly exited through the back door.

Moments later, chaos erupted following Clara Harris's exclamation that the president had been shot. Without hesitation, Dr. Charles A. Leale, a man who graduated with an MD six weeks beforehand, rushed to the president's aid and entered the presidential box once Rathbone removed the wooden bar. Leale quickly assessed the situation. He reassured Rathbone that he would be fine and immediately turned his attention to Lincoln. Leale laid the president down on the floor, examined him, and performed CPR. Soon after, he solemnly declared: “His wound is mortal. It is impossible for him to recover."

Eventually, Lincoln’s body was moved across the street to the Petersen boardinghouse and laid diagonally on a bed too small for his 6’4 frame. All through the night Leale firmly gripped the president’s hand in his “to let him in his blindness know, if possible, that he was in touch with humanity and had a friend.”

​The end of Lincoln’s suffering came at 7:22 a.m. on April 15, 1865. Dr. Phineas Gurley, a Presbyterian pastor asked everyone in the room to pray. Once Gurley finished speaking, Secretary of War Edwin Stanton bowed his head and wept. After he somewhat recovered and composed himself, Stanton muttered, “Now he belongs to the ages.”

[qindil]

PERCHÉ TUTTO QUELLO CHE CREDETE DI SAPERE SULL’ASSASSINIO DI LINCOLN È SBAGLIATO (PARTE IX)

PERCHÉ TUTTO QUELLO CHE CREDETE DI SAPERE SULL’ASSASSINIO DI LINCOLN È SBAGLIATO (PARTE IX)

Fonte: Center For An Informed America Di Dave McGowan21 ottobre 2014 Se c’è qualcosa di cui possiamo essere certi riguardo all’assassinio del presidente Abraham Lincoln, è che non sapremo mai cosa è realmente accaduto la notte del 14 aprile 1865 intorno alle 22:15 all’interno del palchetto presidenziale al Ford’s Theatre. Oltre al tizio che ha eseguito una fuga frettolosa dal palchetto e…

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[un-cerebro-hambriento]

El hombre que intentó salvar a Lincoln

Aunque se sabe exactamente qué pasó cuando Abraham Lincoln fue asesinado, y también se conoce el nombre del asesino, poco se conoce del hombre que intentó salvar al presidente. Henry Rathbone estaba allí con su esposa cuando falló en su cometido: no pudo salvar a Lincoln y esto cambió su vida radicalmente.

Rathbone nunca se recuperó mentalmente e intentó matar a sus tres hijos 18 años más tarde. Cuando su esposa lo impidió, la apuñaló y luego intentó suicidarse. Cuando la policía lo encontró, el hombre seguía repitiendo que había personas escondidas detrás de los cuadros. Vivió el resto de su vida en un asilo, convencido de que alguien intentaba envenenarlo a través de las paredes.

[randomfactsman]

On April 14, 1986, Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, shot in the back of the head by John Wilkes Booth. One of the people sitting next to President Lincoln at Ford's Theatre that day, Major Henry Rathbone, tried to stop Booth from escaping, but was stabbed at the arm and severely wounded.

After the tragedy, Major Rathbone settled down with his wife Mary and had three children, but the memory of that day weighed down in him and contributed to his psychological problems. On December 23, 1883, he shot and stabbed his wife, then tried to commit suicide. When the police found him, he claimed that that it had been done by people hiding behind the pictures in the walls. He was taken to a mental asylum.

In 1891, a royal Prussian physician examined him and reported that he suffered delusions of persecution. "He thought there was an apparatus in the wall pouring 'injurious vapors' into his head, causing headaches. He believed he could hear people gliding suspiciously in the corridor outside his suite."

He stayed in the asylum until his death in 1911.

(Source: A Tragedy's Second Act, Henry Rathbone Wikipedia article.)

(Image source: Wikipedia.)

[abrahamlincolnvampirehunter]

Fig. 6E- A black-eyed John Wilkes Booth fires the fatal shot as Major Henry Rathbone reacts.