18661776 Club
Congress hands an 18-year-old the Lincoln commission
No sculptor has ever gotten a federal statue commission this young, and none has ever been a woman.
A year after Lincoln's assassination, Congress wanted a marble memorial for the Capitol rotunda. On July 28, 1866, it gave the commission to Vinnie Ream, an 18-year-old who had modeled the president's likeness in clay during the last winter of his life. She became the youngest artist, and first woman, ever handed a U.S. government statue commission. The vote passed by a narrow margin; critics objected loudly to her age and inexperience…
