Charles Lanman (June 14, 1819 - March 4, 1895) was an American author, government official, artist, librarian, and explorer.

Biography

Charles Lanman was born in

Monroe, Michigan Monroe is the largest city in Monroe County, Michigan, United States, and its county seat. The population was 20,462 at the 2020 census. The city is bordered on the south by Monroe Charter Township, but the two are administered autonomously. M ...

, on June 14, 1819, the son of Charles James Lanman, and the grandson of

United States Senator The United States Senate consists of 100 members, two from each of the 50 U.S. state, states. This list includes all senators serving in the 119th United States Congress. Party affiliation Independent Senators Angus King of Maine and Berni ...

James Lanman James Lanman (June 14, 1767August 7, 1841) was an American lawyer and politician from Connecticut who served in the United States Senate from 1819 to 1825. He was a cousin of Presidents John Adams and John Quincy Adams. Early life James Lanman ...

. Lanman's early life included newspaper work as editor of the

Monroe Monroe or Monroes may refer to: People and fictional characters * Monroe (surname) * Monroe (given name) * James Monroe, 5th President of the United States * Marilyn Monroe, actress and model Places United States * Monroe, Arkansas, an unincorp ...

Gazette in 1845, associate editor of the

Cincinnati Cincinnati ( ; colloquially nicknamed Cincy) is a city in Hamilton County, Ohio, United States, and its county seat. Settled in 1788, the city is located on the northern side of the confluence of the Licking River (Kentucky), Licking and Ohio Ri ...

Chronicle in 1846, and member of the editorial staff of the

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York New York may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * ...

Express in 1847. He spent ten years, from 1835 to 1845, studying with

Hudson River School The Hudson River School was a mid-19th-century American art movement embodied by a group of landscape painters whose aesthetic vision was influenced by Romanticism. Early on, the paintings typically depicted the Hudson River Valley and the sur ...

artists in

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

, where he met many artists, including

Washington Irving Washington Irving (April 3, 1783 – November 28, 1859) was an American short-story writer, essayist, biographer, historian, and diplomat of the early 19th century. He wrote the short stories "Rip Van Winkle" (1819) and "The Legend of Sleepy ...

. Lanman studied art under Asher B. Durand and at 28 became an elected associate of the

National Academy of Design The National Academy of Design is an honorary association of American artists, founded in New York City in 1825 by Samuel Morse, Asher Durand, Thomas Cole, Frederick Styles Agate, Martin E. Thompson, Charles Cushing Wright, Ithiel Town, an ...

in 1846. Lanman's career included service as librarian for the

U.S. War Department The United States Department of War, also called the War Department (and occasionally War Office in the early years), was the United States Cabinet department originally responsible for the operation and maintenance of the United States Army, als ...

(1849-1850), private secretary to Senator

Daniel Webster Daniel Webster (January 18, 1782 – October 24, 1852) was an American lawyer and statesman who represented New Hampshire and Massachusetts in the U.S. Congress and served as the 14th and 19th United States Secretary of State, U.S. secretary o ...

(1850-1853), librarian and the head of the returns office in the U.S. Interior Department (1853 and 1855-1857), and librarian for the

U.S. House of Representatives The United States House of Representatives is a chamber of the bicameral United States Congress; it is the lower house, with the U.S. Senate being the upper house. Together, the House and Senate have the authority under Article One of th ...

(1861-1865). He was also the librarian for the

City of Washington The District of Columbia was created in 1801 as the federal district of the United States, with territory previously held by the states of Maryland and Virginia ceded to the federal government of the United States for the purpose of creating its ...

Library, the American secretary to the Japanese legation, and assistant assessor for the

District of Columbia Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and Federal district of the United States, federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from ...

. Lanman married Adeline Dodge in 1849; they had no children. They raised

Tsuda Ume was a Japanese educator who founded Tsuda University. She was the daughter of Tsuda Sen, an agricultural scientist, and at the age of 7, she became Japan's first female exchange student, traveling to the U.S. on the same ship as the Iwakura ...

(December 31, 1864 – August 16, 1929) from December 1871 to 1882. Ume had been sent by the Japanese government as part of the

Iwakura Mission The Iwakura Mission or Iwakura Embassy (, ''Iwakura Shisetsudan'') was a Japanese diplomatic voyage to Europe and the United States conducted between 1871 and 1873 by leading statesmen and scholars of the Meiji period. It was not the only such m ...

; one of its goals was to study educational systems in the U.S. Ume later founded

Tsuda College is a Private school, private women's university based at Kodaira, Tokyo, Kodaira, Tokyo. It is one of the oldest and most prestigious higher educational institutions for women in Japan, contributing to the advancement of women in society for mor ...

for women in Tokyo. Charles Lanman died at Georgetown, D.C., on March 4, 1895.

Literary and artistic works

Writing

Charles Lanman collected biographies of former and sitting

Members of Congress A member of congress (MOC), also known as a congressman or congresswoman, is a person who has been appointed or elected and inducted into an official body called a congress, typically to represent a particular constituency in a legislature. The t ...

for his ''Dictionary of the United States Congress'', published by J. B. Lippincott & Co. in 1859. This eventually became the ''

Biographical Directory of the United States Congress The ''Biographical Directory of the United States Congress'' (Bioguide) is a biographical dictionary of all present and former members of the United States Congress and its predecessor, the Continental Congress. Also included are Delegates fr ...

''. Lanman's published writings include several collections of essays and books, including two biographies, ''The Private Life of

'' (New York and London, 1852) and ''Life of

William Woodbridge William Woodbridge (August 20, 1780October 20, 1861) was a U.S. statesman in the states of Ohio and Michigan and in the Michigan Territory prior to statehood. He served as the second governor of Michigan and a United States senator from Michi ...

'' (Washington, 1867). Written accounts of his own travels and extensive explorations in the United States included: * ''Essays for Summer Hours'' (Boston, 1842) * ''Letters from a Landscape-Painter'' (1845) * ''A Summer in the Wilderness, Embracing a Canoe Voyage Up the Mississippi and Around Lake Superior'' (New York, 1847) * ''A Tour of the River Saguenay'' (Philadelphia and London, 1848) * ''Letters from the Alleghany Mountains'' (New York, 1849) * ''Haw-ho-noo, or Records of a Tourist'' (Philadelphia: Lippincott, Grambo 1850), * ''Adventures in the Wilds of the United States and British American Provinces'' (2 vols., Philadelphia, 1856, London, 1859) * ''Red Book of Michigan: A Civil, Military and Biographical History'' (Detroit, 1871)". Additional works included: * ''Resources of America'' compiled for the Japanese government (Washington, 1872) * ''The Japanese in America'' (New York and London, 1872) * ''Biographical Annals of the Civil Government of the United States'' (Washington, 1876; 2d ed., revised, New York, 1887) * ''Life of Octavius Perinehief'' (Washington, 1879) * ''Curious Characters and Pleasant Places'' (Edinburgh, 1881) * ''Leading Men of Japan'' (Boston, 1883) * ''Farthest North'' (New York, 1885) * ''Haphazard Personalities'' (Boston, 1886). He edited ''The Prison Life of Alfred Ely'' (New York, 1862), and ''The Sermons of Reg. Octavius Perinchief'' (2 vols., Washington, 1879). He also produced scientific articles such as "The Salmonidae of Eastern Maine, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia".

Art

Lanman frequently exhibited paintings and sketches from nature in oil. He made “sketching trips” to every state east of the Rockies. Many of those early sketches were published in

The Illustrated London News ''The Illustrated London News'', founded by Herbert Ingram and first published on Saturday 14 May 1842, was the world's first illustrated weekly news magazine. The magazine was published weekly for most of its existence, switched to a less freq ...

and in various American magazines. Among his pictures are ''Brookside and Homestead'', ''Home in the Woods'' (1881), and ''Frontier Home'' (1884). He was called by

"the picturesque explorer of the United States".

References

* *

Sources

* http://shs.umsystem.edu/manuscripts/invent/3725.pdf * https://web.archive.org/web/20080917190658/http://www.gpoaccess.gov/serialset/cdocuments/hd108-222/intro.pdf

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Lanman, Charles 1819 births 1895 deaths American librarians