Francis Bicknell Carpenter

Francis Bicknell Carpenter (August 6, 1830 – May 23, 1900) was an American painter born in Homer, New York. Carpenter is best known for his painting First Reading of the Emancipation Proclamation of President Lincoln, which is hanging in the United States Capitol. Carpenter resided with President Lincoln at the White House and in 1866 published his one-volume memoir Six Months at the White House with Abraham Lincoln. Carpenter was a descendant of the New England Rehoboth Carpenter family.

Family

Carpenter was born to Asaph Harmon and Almira Clark (1801–1885). He was one of nine children.

On January 6, 1853, Francis married Augusta Herrick Prentiss (1831–1926). Francis and Augusta had the following children:

Florence Trumbell Carpenter was born on March 10, 1854, in Homer, Cortland County, NY. She died on December 30, 1899. She is number 6550 in the Carpenter Memorial on page 645. Florence married Albert Chester Ives on May 12, 1877, in New York. Albert was born about 1854 in Buffalo, NY.

Herbert Sanford Carpenter was born on May 22, 1862, in Homer, Cortland, NY. He is number 6551 in the Carpenter Memorial on page 645. Family on page 654 (# 1478). Herbert married Cora Anderson on February 13, 1894, in NY. Cora was born in Louisville, KY in 1863. She was active in the women's suffrage movement, marching in NYC suffrage demonstrations as a flagbearer from 1913 to 1917. Herbert died in 1926; Cora lived until 1960.

Education

In 1844, after showing his father a painting of his mother that the former viewed as a success, Carpenter was allowed to go to Syracuse, New York, for six months to study under Sanford Thayer. In 1848, at age 18, he was awarded a purchase prize by the American Art-Union. By the age of twenty-one, Carpenter established a studio in New York City. Carpenter was elected to the National Academy of Design as an associate member in 1852.