Men of Progress (1862) by Christian SchusseleSmithsonian's National Portrait Gallery
The 1862 painting Men of Progress portrays an imagined gathering of esteemed nineteenth-century U.S. scientists and inventors. The portrait does not commemorate an actual occasion but was meant to honor national achievement, especially in technology and industrial manufacturing.
In 1857, the inventor of a coal-burning stove, Jordan Mott (center), commissioned Philadelphia artist Christian Schussele to paint this portrait. Mott is shown seated at a table around which the group appears to discuss a model of Samuel F. B. Morse’s electromagnetic telegraph.
The portrait celebrates American inventors.
They included Cyrus McCormick (center), who built his fortune on the horse-drawn mechanical reaper (patented 1834).
Charles Goodyear developed the vulcanization process for rubber (patented 1844).
Samuel Colt (center) devised the first mass-produced revolvers (patented in U.S. in 1836).
Elias Howe (right) patented a sewing machine (1846) that helped revolutionize the garment industry.
It also honors Joseph Henry, a physicist who conducted groundbreaking research on electromagnetism and served as the first secretary of the Smithsonian Institution (1846–78).
The group is reportedly assembled in the U.S. Patent Office. Various patent models and blueprints are interspersed among the sitters, making visible the men’s contributions to an increasingly industrialized U.S. economy.
The painting’s emphasis on advanced communication technologies, ironwork, and industrialized manufacturing is significant when we consider it was completed during the Civil War. These sectors of the U.S. economy connected “progress” with Northern industrial might.
Men of Progress (c. 1859) by Christian SchusseleSmithsonian's National Portrait Gallery
A comparison of the painting with this earlier watercolor study by Schussele reveals the artist made several changes to the composition that reinforce its nationalism.
Men of Progress (1862) by Christian SchusseleSmithsonian's National Portrait Gallery
The late addition of John Ericsson underscores the painting’s wartime significance. Ericsson’s design of the ironclad warship, the USS Monitor, enabled the Union navy to maintain its strategic blockade at Hampton Roads in 1862.
Men of Progress (c. 1859) by Christian SchusseleSmithsonian's National Portrait Gallery
Schussele also replaced an arched doorway in the background of the study with Benjamin Franklin’s portrait. The insertion of the famed statesman and scientist over the group reinforces the connection between national and technological advancement in Men of Progress.
Men of Progress (1862) by Christian SchusseleSmithsonian's National Portrait Gallery
Schussele portrayed Franklin as a scientist, posed beside a tabletop electrostatic machine. Franklin’s eighteenth-century experiments with electricity enabled the development of Morse’s telegraph featured at the center of the painting.
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Schussele created two versions of Men of Progress. The first version, which is larger than the Portrait Gallery’s painting, is now in the collection of the Cooper Union in New York City.
Men of Progress (1863) by John SartainSmithsonian's National Portrait Gallery
In 1863, Philadelphia printmaker John Sartain produced an engraving after this first version. In the following years, the magazine Scientific American (founded 1845) regularly advertised the print as a prize for subscribers.
Excerpt from Scientific American, Vol. 23, No. 24, p. 377 (1870) by Scientific American, a division of Nature America, Inc.Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery
Scientific American played an important role in communicating science to a mass audience. It frequently described the inventors in Men of Progress as self-made, making their successes seem obtainable to readers and cultivating a broad audience for the print.
Men of Progress (1863) by John SartainSmithsonian's National Portrait Gallery
In 1864, the magazine claimed of the sitters, “Their elevation was the result of their own honest study and unceasing perseverance—means which are within the reach of everyone. We wish that the picture we have described could have a place in all the workshops of the land.”
Men of Progress (1862) by Christian SchusseleSmithsonian's National Portrait Gallery
Despite the bold claim to universality, the work presents a narrow interpretation of “progress,” and its presentation of scientists and inventors is exclusionary. No women or people of color are included in the group.
Listen to the National Portrait Gallery’s director, Kim Sajet, and Richard Kurin, the Smithsonian distinguished scholar and ambassador-at-large, discuss this aspect of the work in an episode of the museum’s podcast, PORTRAITS.
Presentation of gifts from Argentinian delegation to Truman, May 21, 1948 (1948) by Abbie Rowe/National Park ServiceSmithsonian's National Portrait Gallery
Despite these limitations, Men of Progress continued to represent achievements in U.S. technology throughout the mid-twentieth century. For eighteen years (1947–65), the painting hung prominently in the West Wing lobby of the White House.
Students in front of Men of Progress (2016) by Mark Gulezian/National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian InstitutionSmithsonian's National Portrait Gallery
In 1965, the painting was transferred to the collection of the National Portrait Gallery, where it remains today. Housed in the former U.S. Patent Office, Men of Progress prompts visitors to consider how values around innovation and progress have changed since its completion.
Men of Progress (1862) by Christian SchusseleSmithsonian's National Portrait Gallery
What might the work look like if it were reimagined for today?
