Iron+Mine,+Port+Henry,+New+York,+The

Date: ca. 1862
 * [[image:http://ids.si.edu/ids/deliveryService?id=http://americanart.si.edu/images/1910/1910.9.11_1a.jpg&max=460 link="@http://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artwork/?id=16373"]] || Title: **The Iron Mine, Port Henry, New York**

Artist: **Homer Dodge Martin** Born: Albany, New York 1836 Died: St. Paul, Minnesota 1897

Medium: oil on canvas mounted on fiberboard Dimensions: 30 1/8 x 50 in. (76.5 x 127.0 cm.) Smithsonian American Art Museum Gift of William T. Evans

Accession: 1910.9.11 || The iron-ore bed in Craig Harbor near Port Henry, New York, was one of the richest veins in the northeast. Earlier artists had pictured America's mountain peaks and virgin forests, but by midcentury, the railroads, mines, and oil fields were the new and exciting scenes to paint. From a mineshaft that looks like a bleeding wound, tailings stream down the side of the cliff to the water, where ore was loaded onto barges. Nearby were the blast furnaces of the Bay State Iron Mine Company, which supplied the steel for America's railroads. Railways in turn carried more raw materials to the nation's burgeoning factories. Painted during the Civil War, Martin's canvas quietly asserted the primacy of the North, whose strength lay in its natural resources and manufacturing.
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Project-100 Entry on The Iron Mine, Port Henry, New York Artist Biography SAAM Collections
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