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PBS plans to feature Lafayette in its national television program “History Detectives,” a series devoted to solving historical mysteries.
The mystery bringing PBS to Lafayette surrounds the identity of a young woman depicted in an illustration by noted American artist and illustrator Howard Chandler Christy. Lafayette’s Skillman Library is the repository of a significant collection of Christy’s papers, including copies of stories illustrated by Christy, magazine and program covers, posters, advertisements, early sketch books, and other original artwork by the artist.
The woman in question is thought to be Evelyn Nesbit, the model and actress known for her entanglement in the 1906 murder of her ex-lover, famed architect Stanford White, by her husband, Harry K. Thaw. The trial that followed became known as the “Trial of the Century” and the love triangle was the subject of the 1955 film The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing, starring Joan Collins as Evelyn Nesbit.
“Lafayette’s Christy collection, especially of his personal papers, is considered the most complete anywhere,” says associate producer Lucy Blackburn of Lion Television, which produces “History Detectives” jointly with Oregon Public Broadcasting. “By going through Christy’s letters and papers, we will try to solve the mystery of the woman’s identity and determine whether [Christy and Nesbit] knew each other.”
A crew will be on campus Wednesday, April 7, filming for an episode slated to air this summer, the date to be determined. The detectives will be speaking with Diane W. Shaw, special collections librarian and College archivist, and Elaine McCluskey Stomber, project archivist.
The second season of “History Detectives” will begin airing in June. The program’s four hosts are renowned experts in the world of historical investigations. Using traditional investigative techniques, modern technologies, and plenty of legwork, they show that artifacts, buildings, and stories can give new (and sometimes shocking) insights into our national history. The program’s website includes classroom resources for middle school and high school teachers.
Lafayette’s Christy collection also includes letters, many with poetry and sketches, from Christy to his wife, legal and financial documents, and photographs of Christy at work and with his family. There are letters from Calvin and Grace Coolidge, Jimmy Doolittle, J. Edgar Hoover, Harry Houdini, Fiorello LaGuardia, Douglas MacArthur, Eddie Rickenbacker, Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, and Harry S Truman.
It was given in 1999 by Jane and Joe Conneen and Larry Miley in memory of Mimi Conneen Miley.
Christy gained fame with his widely published combat sketches of Teddy Roosevelt’s Rough Riders during the Spanish-American War. He later became known for his “Christy Girl” and his recruitment posters for the Navy.
Born in Ohio in 1873, Christy moved to New York City in the 1890s to study art, where he enrolled in the Art Students League. At the school, he had the rare opportunity to be privately instructed by William Merritt Chase when the distinguished artist recognized Christy’s skills.
Christy soon directed his interest to illustrations, selling his work to magazines such as Leslie’s Weekly, Life, and Harper’s. In 1898, during the Spanish American War, he was commissioned by Harper’s, Scribner’s and Leslie’s Weekly to go to Cuba, where he traveled with Teddy Roosevelt’s Rough Riders. His drawings of the Rough Riders and other combat sketches, including those of the Battle of Santiago, were widely published.
He returned to New York a prominent illustrator, but stereotyped as a military artist. To dispel that impression, he began sketching beautiful young women and quickly developed his signature image, the Christy Girl. Described as “saucy but elegant, independent but sweet,” the Christy girl became hugely popular and was the subject of a series of books published by Christy between 1900 and 1912.
During World War I, Christy gained further fame with his series of patriotic posters, particularly the Navy recruitment poster “Gee!! I Wish I Were a Man,” featuring his wife, Nancy Palmer, as the model.
In 1921, the artist gave up illustration for portrait painting, completing 30 portraits in the first year alone and soon becoming the most fashionable portrait painter of his day, with a list of subjects that included Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, Amelia Earhart, Benito Mussolini, and the Prince of Wales.
His most famous work, “The Signing of the Constitution,” was completed in 1940 and hangs above the east grand stairway in the U.S. Capitol. Christy continued to paint until his death in 1952.