In honor of Women’s History Month, Founding Forward is proud to highlight a prized piece of its art collection, a portrait of Lucretia Coffin Mott.
The portrait of Lucretia Coffin Mott was commissioned by Founding Forward (then The Union League Legacy Foundation) in 2021. The portrait commission was awarded to internationally recognized artist Joshua LaRock and was unveiled on December 27, 2022. It is currently displayed on the first floor of The Union League of Philadelphia next to the Three Medals of Honor painting and a portrait of Frederick Douglass.
Mott dedicated her life to civil rights. Born to a Quaker family in Massachusetts, Mott’s family moved to Philadelphia when she was a teenager. She became a leader of the abolitionist movement and helped organize the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society.
During the Civil War, Mott worked with The Union League of Philadelphia to establish Camp William Penn, the first training camp for the United States Colored Troops which was partly located on her family’s property in Cheltenham, Pennsylvania. On July 6, 1863, Mott joined Union League members and other leading abolitionists, including Frederick Douglass, at a rally in Philadelphia to recruit soldiers to support the Union cause.
Camp William Penn opened as a training ground for African American troops on June 26, 1863. During the war, over 10 regiments and over 11,000 African American soldiers were trained there. The commander of the camp was Union League member Lieutenant-Colonel Louis Wagner. The USCTs from Camp William Penn served with distinction from August of 1863 to the end of the war. On September 29, 1864, the 6th USCT fought at the Battle of New Market Heights. For their heroism under fire, three members of the regiment received the Medal of Honor. They are depicted in the Three Medals of Honor painting, which was commissioned by Founding Forward and hangs next to portrait of Mott.
Mott spent her entire life fighting for social and political reform on behalf of women, African Americans, and other marginalized groups. In addition to founding the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society in 1833, she also co-wrote the Declaration of Sentiments in 1848 for the first Women’s Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, New York. The Convention ignited the fight for women’s suffrage. Mott also helped found co-educational Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania in 1864.
On November 11, 1880, Mott died at her home in Cheltenham, Pennsylvania, after suffering from pneumonia. She was 87 years old. Although she did not live to see the day women won the right to vote under the 19th Amendment, Mott is credited with igniting the women’s rights movement and serving as mentor to other women’s suffragists such a as Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, who continued Mott’s work after she died.
Mott’s portrait is the most recent addition to the historic resources, collections, and exhibits, under Founding Forward’s stewardship, and housed at The Union League of Philadelphia.
Caring for these items are Founding Forward Archivist and Collections Coordinator Keeley Tulio and the Founding Forward Collections Committee, who provide year-round opportunities for the public to learn more about our history, the founding principles, and continue what we believe should be a lifelong pursuit of education.
Tulio said of Mott’s portrait, “Compared to the dozens of portraits of men in the League House, we have so few of women. The Lucretia Coffin Mott portrait is a fantastic representation of women’s impact during the Civil War. As an object, the portrait stands to acknowledge all of the aid women contributed to organizations like the League for the war effort. With the addition of this portrait, the art collection better reflects who worked with the League in the 1860s and today.”
The first two paintings acquired by the Union League for the collection were Edward Marchant’s Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Sully’s Equestrian Portrait of General George Washington. These two great works of art, and the heroes they depicted, would set a high bar for both the quality of art and the subjects that the Union League would honor.
Since then, the collection has expanded to include many other American patriots as well as historic events such as the Battle of the Monitor and the Merrimac, the Battle of New Market Heights, and the reading of the Declaration of Independence. The collection also includes an important Civil War collection which is used by staff and scholars for research, writing, and genealogists, as well as land and cityscapes, figurative and narrative art, by many of the greatest American artists of the last 160 years.
