CDV of Maxwell with gun, dog at her feet. Titled Mrs. M.A. Maxwell's Rocky Mountain Series. Martha Dartt Maxwell (1831-1881) was born in Pennsylvania. She attended Oberlin College in Ohio for a year, but had to leave for financial reasons. Her parents were by then in Wisconsin. She was hired to chaperone two children of James Maxwell a Baraboo, WI, businessman, who were attending Lawrence College. In return, he agreed to cover her tuition there. Scarcely a year later, James, two decades her senior, proposed marriage, and Martha accepted. When the Maxwells were ruined financially in the Panic of 1857, they headed for the Colorado gold fields. Through a set of circumstances, unfortunate and fortunate, Martha became acquainted with, then fascinated by, taxidermy (a German squatter in their cabin had been trained in the art). She returned to Wisconsin to study taxidermy, returning to Colorado in 1868. She then began collecting native fauna and preserving them. She insisted on natural habitats, making the animals seem to come alive. She developed a number of other taxidermy techniques, such as making molds or frames over which to stretch the skins, rather than stitching them up and stuffing them, as was the standard technique at the time. She opened her museum in Boulder, CO in 1874 in which to display her specimens, moving to the larger city of Denver a year later. Her displays garnered so much attention, that she was asked to produce an exhibit for the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition in 1876. While she received much attention at the Centennial, afterward the financial struggles continued. After Martha died in 1881 of an ovarian tumor, her daughter contracted with a man in New York to exhibit and/or sell the collection. They were exhibited a couple times, then put in storage where they disintegrated to the point that nothing could be saved. So other than a few pieces that may have been acquired in Philadelphia, photographs are all that remain to document Martha Maxwell's work. Condition: Image has lightened. Light wear to mount corners.
CDV of Maxwell with gun, dog at her feet. Titled Mrs. M.A. Maxwell's Rocky Mountain Series. Martha Dartt Maxwell (1831-1881) was born in Pennsylvania. She attended Oberlin College in Ohio for a year, but had to leave for financial reasons. Her parents were by then in Wisconsin. She was hired to chaperone two children of James Maxwell a Baraboo, WI, businessman, who were attending Lawrence College. In return, he agreed to cover her tuition there. Scarcely a year later, James, two decades her senior, proposed marriage, and Martha accepted. When the Maxwells were ruined financially in the Panic of 1857, they headed for the Colorado gold fields. Through a set of circumstances, unfortunate and fortunate, Martha became acquainted with, then fascinated by, taxidermy (a German squatter in their cabin had been trained in the art). She returned to Wisconsin to study taxidermy, returning to Colorado in 1868. She then began collecting native fauna and preserving them. She insisted on natural habitats, making the animals seem to come alive. She developed a number of other taxidermy techniques, such as making molds or frames over which to stretch the skins, rather than stitching them up and stuffing them, as was the standard technique at the time. She opened her museum in Boulder, CO in 1874 in which to display her specimens, moving to the larger city of Denver a year later. Her displays garnered so much attention, that she was asked to produce an exhibit for the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition in 1876. While she received much attention at the Centennial, afterward the financial struggles continued. After Martha died in 1881 of an ovarian tumor, her daughter contracted with a man in New York to exhibit and/or sell the collection. They were exhibited a couple times, then put in storage where they disintegrated to the point that nothing could be saved. So other than a few pieces that may have been acquired in Philadelphia, photographs are all that remain to document Martha Maxwell's work. Condition: Image has lightened. Light wear to mount corners.
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