Visitors to the Alice in the past few weeks have been introduced to the most recent additions to the collection. These large busts of the great 19th-century poets Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Alfred, Lord Tennyson, once graced the library at Higgins Classical Institute in Charleston, Maine. They were gifts to the school from the graduating classes of 1907 and 1908. Higgins Institute was one of the many private academies that provided education for rural Maine communities that could not support public high schools, and operated from 1891 until 1975. When the school closed, the busts came into the possession of Ann Tracy, whose father, William A. Tracy, had been principal of Higgins from 1917 to 1948. Dr. Tracy, Professor Emerita at SUNY Plattsburgh, donated the busts to the Alice earlier this summer.
The busts were made by P.P. Caproni and Brother, a Boston firm that specialized in casting plaster reproductions of classical, Renaissance, and modern statuary. Pietro Paulo Caproni and his brother, Emilio, established their company in 1892 and by the early 1910s had a collection of over 4000 casts of statues, busts, and reliefs. Pietro's wife Gertrude was responsible for marketing Caproni casts through catalogs and by making direct connections with educators. Plaster casts were used by art students as models for drawing, and they were also thought to be suitable decorations for schools and libraries, being both beautiful and educational. Unsurprisingly, William Miner chose several pieces from Caproni to decorate Chazy Central School, including the sculptures of Diana and Hebe in the Cicero Room.
Although the busts of Longfellow and Tennyson themselves don't have a direct connection to the Miners, they are clearly items they would have appreciated. Alice and William Miner were great poetry enthusiasts, and quotations from the poems of Longfellow and Tennyson can be found throughout the Heart's Delight Farm books and calendars. They even named one of the guest rooms at Harmony Hall in honor of Tennyson. Both men were long-lived and prolific, with careers that spanned most of the 19th century, and they came to define American and English poetry. In poems such as "The Courtship of Miles Standish," "Paul Revere's Ride," and "The Song of Hiawatha," Longfellow took events from American history as his subjects, and created lasting popular mythology. Tennyson also drew on history and myth, such as in The Idylls of the King, his retelling of the Arthurian legends. Meditations about nature and rural life are consistent themes throughout the works of both poets, which undoubtedly was one of the reasons they are so frequently referenced by the Miners. These busts are a reminder of the important role that literature, and especially poetry, had in the Miners' private and public life.
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