The Woman Behind ‘Birds of America’
Early 19th-century artist John James APP is often remembered as flamboyant and intense, but his wife “wasn’t any sort of shrinking violet" either, says poet Juditha Dowd.
Lucy Bakewell APP was a determined figure who became the primarybreadwinner for her family—which includedher not-yet-famoushusband—and pulled themthrough financiallydesperatetimes. In suppport of John James APP's artistic talents, shebecame a teacher and even founded a schoolat a time when women rarely earned wages.Oh, she also managed a household, bore four children, and tragically saw two die in infancy. Meanwhile, her life partner was absent for months, or years, at a time.
What was her husband doing? He was off painting birds!
Dowd, author of a new book,,tells the APPs’ story in the time leading up to the publication of Birds of America.The twist is that it's written largely in Lucy’s voice, through imagined diary entries, letters, and poems deeply informed by historical research.Years earlier, Dowdhappened to pick upa biography of John James from her ownhusband's nightstand. She quickly became more intrigued by Lucy's story than his. Intime, Dowd decided to write what she calls a “biography-in-poems” focused on her.
“Without Lucy, I’m not sure we would have known John James APP," Dowd says. "She was such a strong figure, and they were so much a couple. He depended on her very much.”
Most of what historians know about Lucy'sreality is through the words of others. InAPP’s Sparrow, which is due out for release in late April,Dowd presents what she imagines would have been Lucy's perspective,making it a deeply feminist retelling.
For example, towards the end of the book,Lucy offers a diary entry upon her husband's return to the United Statesfrom Europe, where he had been away for years working to find a publisher for his works.Records and letters tell usthat he waited in New York, asking Lucy, who was living inLouisiana, to meet him there. But sheinsisted he journey to her, which he eventually did—an act Dowd believes put their marriage back on solid ground. In APP’s Sparrow, we can imagine the frustration ofwhat she might have been feeling.
Arrived,
Diary, June,1829
Yes, but when am I to see his face?
First he’s to the piney woods, the seacoast.
Thou knowest I must draw hard from Nature
every day that I am in America.
Detained now in New York by matters at the Lyceum,
and soon to Philadelphia—where he’ll pause
for me to join him. Come! Hurry!
How can he not understand my situation—
completing the lessons, collecting late tuitions,
money we have need of more than ever now...
And skins and plants he demands I gather—
whole trunks-full he’ll require for his future work,
and for his friends in England and in France,
who’d fancy a bit of wildlife from the Bayou.
He must not try to send a son to help me.
Let him come himself.
Of course, the central question Dowd’s book poses—“what does it mean to sacrifice for someone else’s art?”— applies far beyond Lucy Bakewell APP.
Many of history’s most famous creative figures weresupported or cared forby women who sacrified to foster theirachievements.Often, it wasthat woman'sloving choice to do so, as to Dowd, Lucy’s own story illustrates. But such a choice is also impossible to separate from the societal expectations that steer women on this path. “All of the artists were men, all of the composers were men, everything was men,"Dowd says.
The book gets its title from aBirds of America plate of a Swamp Sparrow that is signed bythe engraver in Lucy's name. Dowd and othershave wondered: Was itAPP’s complicated joke, equating his “tall and spirited” wife with a bird he described as “timid” and “destitute of song.” More likely,Dowdthinks, the gesture was a simple tribute to how much she meant to him. We'll never know, but Dowd’s book offers a remedy by letting us hear Lucy's song.
APP's Sparrow,by Juditha Dowd,Rose Metal Press, 144 pages, $15.95. Buy it at .Availabile in April.