Ruth Henshaw Bascom (RHB, 1772-1848) born in Leicester, Massachusetts, created more than 1,700 life- size cut-paper and pastel profiles throughout New England in her unique style.
About 230 are known to survive in private collections and museums including the Smithsonian, the Worcester Art Museum, Old Sturbridge Village, Historic Deerfield, Winterthur and many more.
Ruthy also wrote prolifically, keeping a diary from age 16 throughout her long life. Begun as the musings of a young girl stitching pages together, looping rows of words in copper, black and red inks, RHB’s nearly 6,000-page diary, held at the American Antiquarian Society, documents her unexpected artistic career and prodigious output.
Mary Eileen Fouratt has now transcribed RHB’s diaries, and with Maureen Egan, is updating the catalogue raisonné, writing articles, a nonfiction picture book and a general interest book about RHB, all in service to giving Ruthy her due as an artist and writer.
Courtesy, Library of Congress
Meet Ruthy
On January 1,1789, at age 16, Ruthy Henshaw began to keep a diary. She continued until at least 1846, a year and half before her death at age 75. RHB lived a layered life that has been flattened into an unflattering narrative that does not align with a close reading of her diary and extant works. Even before she began creating simple silhouettes in 1801, RHB was a careful observer, an explorer of museums, mills and manufactories and a money-maker. She became an inventive artist unafraid of experimenting, employing both her millinery talent and mixed-media techniques before the term was invented. Read more ...
The diaries contain details from a woman’s perspective on life in Central Massachusetts from the late 18th to the mid-19th century. She writes about the weather, major historical events, education, the female economy, industrialization of textile production, family and friend networks, illness and accidents, death and dying, minister exchanges, church music, sermons, musters, exhibitions, subscription libraries and inventions of lighting, railroads, daguerreotypes, and other technological wonders.
Describing leisure and social activities, visiting museums, meeting artists, making hats, taking trips to Boston and Connecticut, and a longer trip by stage and ship to Norfolk, she is a delightful companion. She noted earning money by selling a hen, teaching school, selling hats, and taking profiles.
Although her artwork is valued by private and public collectors, RHB has not been given her due as an artist with an original style, or as an observant writer with an eye for detail. To read Ruthy deeply is to love her.
On January 1,1789, at age 16, Ruthy Henshaw began to keep a diary. She continued until at least 1846, a year and half before her death at age 75. RHB lived a layered life that has been flattened into an unflattering narrative that does not align with a close reading of her diary and extant works. Even before she began creating simple silhouettes in 1801, RHB was a careful observer, an explorer of museums, mills and manufactories and a money-maker. She became an inventive artist unafraid of experimenting, employing both her millinery talent and mixed-media techniques before the term was invented. Read more ...
The diaries contain details from a woman’s perspective on life in Central Massachusetts from the late 18th to the mid-19th century. She wrote about the weather, major historical events, education, the female economy, industrialization of textile production, family and friend networks, illness and accidents, death and dying, minister exchanges, church music, sermons, musters, exhibitions, subscription libraries, and inventions of lighting, railroads, daguerreotypes, and other technological wonders.
Describing leisure and social activities, visiting museums, meeting artists, making hats, taking trips to Boston and Connecticut, and a longer trip by stage and ship to Norfolk, she is a delightful companion. She noted earning money by selling a hen, teaching school, selling hats, and taking profiles.
Although her artwork is valued by private and public collectors, RHB has not been given her due as an artist with an original style, or as an observant writer with an eye for detail. To read Ruthy deeply is to love her.
RHB Artwork
In the days before photography, Ruthy occasionally cut silhouettes as a pastime. Over time, she altered her style, making life-size profiles, using pastels, pencil and paint, often layering paper, collage-like. She added hints of drapery for formality, duck ponds for whimsy and gold leaf for sparkle. Other times she cast a spell of color that’s surprisingly modern.
At age 55, RHB purchased a painting desk and ramped up production, finishing 80 portraits that year. She did some profiles “gratis,” but often accepted money or bartered. Profile of a Boy was one of only 174 pieces included in Holger Cahill’s groundbreaking 1932 exhibit for MOMA – American Folk Art: The Art of the Common Man in America, 1750-1900.
Profile of Mrs. P. A. Hayward, by Ruth Henshaw Bascom, Courtesy, Ashby Historical Society
Portrait of Jane Marshall Wood by Ruth Henshaw Bascom, Courtesy Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association’s Memorial Hall Museum,
Deerfield, MA.
Profile of a Boy by Ruth Henshaw Bascom, New England, ca.1820, pastel on paper, accession #1931.200.1
The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. Gift of Abby Aldrich Rockefeller.
Profile of a Man by Ruth Henshaw Bascom, Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Collection of Edgar William and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch, 1967, accession number: 1967-268-18, https://philamuseum.org/collection/object/259562
RHB Diaries
RHB’s nearly 6,000 page diary is held at the American Antiquarian Society in Worcester, Massachusetts. The diary evokes her lively spirit and documents her artistic career. Locked into 50 carefully stitched folios, Ruthy’s rich life has been difficult to decipher. Mary Eileen Fouratt’s careful transcription brings that life to light.
Courtesy, American Antiquarian Society
2 very Plesent indeed Friends had a Speaker at
their meeting Daddy maam Phebe Cate Charlot went
Mrs Gilmore went to tafts
3 plesant Cloudyish Mr Andrews come to work Lydia here to [*******]
PM went to home in evening Sally Reed came here Staid all night
4 Sunday dry Clouds cool Daddy and I went to meeting Sally went home at 12 PM
made my ink Black with copperas and Sugar put too much Sugar
5 very Plesant Daddy went to Shrewsbury Mr Lynde and wife to Worcester
Mrs Andrews here at work spinning tow filling to check aprons
July 2-5, 1790
Courtesy, American Antiquarian Society
The Researchers
Mary Eileen (Egan) Fouratt began her research into Ruth Henshaw Bascom during her senior year at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts at the suggestion of her thesis advisor, history professor Ross Beales, Jr. She read RHB’s diaries at the American Antiquarian Society and created a catalogue raisonné of RHB’s extant profiles. Then she published on RHB in the Dublin Seminar Proceedings and Worcester Art Museum Bulletin. Her career in museum education and arts administration took her away from RHB, but she has returned to it, now with the addition of her sister and collaborator, writer Maureen Egan.
Egan has written Insiders’ Guide to Richmond, VA and Richmond’s Culinary History and has had features in the Washington Post, the Daily Beast, Southern Living and elsewhere. Both Egan and Fouratt were Baron Fellows for Creative and Performing Artists and Writers at AAS in 2022. They delivered talks on Ruthy Henshaw’s early years at the American Society for 18th Century Studies’ annual conference in 2023 and at AAS at the Historic Children’s Voices Symposium in 2024.
The pair is working on several Ruth Henshaw Bascom-related projects, including making Fouratt’s entire transcription of the diaries available and discovering, analyzing and sharing what they continue to learn about Ruth Henshaw Bascom.
Courtesy, American Antiquarian Society
Have a Bascom in your back hall? Family letters that mention Ruthy? We’d love to hear from you as we continue our research and update the catalogue raisonné of RHB’s extant profiles. Email the researchers at info@ruthhenshawbascom.com.
Resources
Besides the diaries themselves and Fouratt’s early years transcriptions available on the AAS site, we recommend Our Own Snug Fireside: Images of the New England Home, 1760-1860 by Jane C. Nylander for selected RHB diary quotations, as well as these videos.
Mary Eileen Fouratt and Maureen Egan presented on Ruthy’s early years of her diary at AAS in May 2024 at the Historic Children’s Voices Symposium.
Antique Roadshow Appraisal: Portraits Attributed to Ruth H. Bascom, ca. 1830