Independence+(Squire+Jack+Porter)

Date: 1858
 * [[image:https://s3.amazonaws.com/saam.media/files/styles/x_large/s3/images/1906/1906.9.11_1a.jpg?itok=thbVggbr width="377" height="286" link="@https://americanart.si.edu/artwork/independence-squire-jack-porter-16618"]] || Title: **Independence (Squire Jack Porter)**

Artist: **Frank Blackwell Mayer** Born: Baltimore, Maryland 1827 Died: Annapolis, Maryland 1899

Medium: oil on paperboard 12 x 15 7/8 in. (30.4 x 40.3 cm.) Smithsonian American Art Museum Bequest of Harriet Lane Johnston

Accession: 1906.9.11 || Squire Jack Porter lounges on the porch of his farm, “Rose Meadows,” near Eckhart, Maryland. Seventy-five years old at the time, he was widely known for opening the first coal mines for domestic use in Allegheny County. Porter also served as a captain in the War of 1812. Titling the work Independence, the artist aptly evokes Porter's leisure years, financial well being, and strength of character.
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Jack Porter, a veteran of the War of 1812 who made a handsome living from Pennsylvania's coal mines, is surrounded by handmade objects, including a corncob pipe, a roughly-hewn wooden bench, and his wife's knitting. As a self-sufficient landholder and businessman, "Squire Jack" embodied an independent and enduring spirit that, by the 1850s, had become an American ideal, celebrated by painters and writers alike. The squire takes his ease on the porch of a substantial home, dressed in a flowered vest, black cravat, and polished boots that signal the rewards of his hard work.

Frank Blackwell Mayer was from Calvert County, MD-- one of the most divided counties in the era before the Civil War. This man is literally "on the fence" which is possibly a reference to the border states and their decision whether to back the Union or the Confederacy.

Artist Biography SAAM Collections Page **•**
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