Long Island Farmer Husking Corn, by William Sidney Mount (1807–1868)
To Use This Document
With Your Students
Date
1834
Description
Man in a corn field at right center husking a cob of corn still on the stalk; basket at bottom right. Sturdy, well-dressed, and the picture of self-reliance, William Sidney Mount’s Long Island farmer in this scene became a symbolic image of Jacksonian Democracy in the 1830s. The way that William Sidney Mount’s imagery received its widest dissemination in his lifetime is through the engraving for currency purposes of this painting, which was completed in 1834 by the New York security-engraving firm of Rawdon, Wright & Hatch, just after the artist had displayed the work at the National Academy of Design. The resulting engraved image then appeared on bank notes made for different state and local/municipal banks across the United States, from c. 1838 to c. 1862. Currency prior to the Civil War was not issued by a central US Treasury, but by local banks. Vignettes on bank notes were chosen for their associative power (and the challenge that authentic, detailed art imagery offered to counterfeiters). Many great American artists at the time, such as Henry Inman, Asher B. Durand, Francis W. Edmonds, Thomas Sully, and others had images of their work featured. The symbolic Jeffersonian ideal of Mount’s upright, steady farmer in a cornfield became a popular and enduring image.
Type
Image
Region
Long Island
Era
Expansion and Reform
Topic
Agriculture, Community, Labor
Repository
Identifier
1975.016.0008
Rights
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