Scope and Content Note
The papers of Adelaide Johnson (1859-1959) span the years 1873-1947 and consist of diaries, family and general correspondence, speeches and articles, miscellaneous notes, and other material. The collection is organized into five series: Diaries, General Correspondence, Speeches and Articles File, Miscellany, and Addition.
The papers are rich in detail concerning Johnson's life and activities as a sculptor and feminist. Most prominently covered among her pieces of sculpture is the monument to the three suffrage leaders, Susan B. Anthony, Lucretia Mott, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, executed in Carrara, Italy, over a period of twenty years for eventual display in the crypt of the United States Capitol Building. Included in the Speeches and Articles file is a record of portrait sittings by Susan B. Anthony, John Burroughs, Ella Wheeler Wilcox, and others. Correspondents include Susan B. Anthony, Lily Biedler, Arthur Brisbane, T. Campbell-Copeland, Edith M. Ferris, Helen H. Gardener, Agnes Hall, Gena R. Harding, Ida Husted Harper, Elizabeth Hale Falkner Murphy, Emmeline Pankhurst, Alice Paul, Cora L. V. Richmond, May Robson, Henry Rogers, May Wright Sewall, Helen L. Sumners, Emma Cecilia Thursby, Sara Carr Upton, and Henry G. Whitney.
The family correspondence in the Addition series is divided into three parts: letters between Adelaide and her husband, those with her family, and some with her husband's family in England. Because her marriage to Alexander Frederick Jenkins was characterized by long separations, she living in her Washington, D.C., studio and traveling frequently to Europe in reference to her art, he working and living at various times in New York, Hartford, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and London, their relationship is strongly documented in the papers. The Johnson family correspondence includes several letters from Adelaide's mother, Margaret Huff Hendrickson Johnson. The bulk, however, rests with her brother Charles and sister Elizabeth, Mrs. John Dickerman, with some, as well, from their spouses and children. Most letters relating to the Jenkins family are from Alexander's mother, Lydia S. Jenkins, and his brother Leonard.