A Different Sugaring Off

Between 1861 and 1865, Eastman Johnson made several trips to rural Fryeburg, Maine, where he sketched life in the maple syrup camps. Sugaring Off depicts "boiling day," when the season"s first harvest of maple tree sap was heated to produce maple syrup or sugar. Community members have gathered near the flaming iron cauldron to converse, play music, dance, eat, and court.

In contrast to Johnson's depiction of Southern slavery in "Negro Life at the South" (1859), "Sugaring Off" celebrates Northern "Yankee" values of free labor, communal work, and social equality. This idealized depiction of a rural New England tradition would have offered urban viewers an idyllic respite from the Civil War (1861–1865) that threatened the United States. Moreover, maple syrup and sugar, one of the few crops whose production had remained essentially unchanged since its origins among Native American cultures, seemed to offer a nostalgic antidote to the industrialization that was transforming American life.