Did Vinnie Ream visit the White House daily for 5 months?

[Rob Wick]

Roger,

I have a subscription to NewspaperArchive.com and GenealogyBank, and in both of those databases, the first mention I find of Vinnie Ream is August of 1866. In the Daily Milwaukee News, the paper printed the debate in the Senate over whether to authorize spending $10,000 on the statue. Although some of the page is illegible, from what I could read, none of her supporters mentioned that she had several sittings with Lincoln, which would have gone toward showing that she was capable of sculpting the statue. That necessarily doesn't mean she didn't, but I would have thought that a defender might have brought that up. On GenealogyBank, the first reference to her and the statue doesn't come until 1868, and it deals with how Ream had been roundly chastised by other women and how she dealt with that. The only mention of Lincoln sitting for her came a couple of years later, although the source for that is never mentioned. Undoubtedly, it would likely have been her.

I also looked in Ida Tarbell's papers, and the only thing I came across was a bulletin published in the 1920s from the University of Iowa Extension Service that follows the standard story.

Just based on this short, admittedly haphazard research, I have to say that, at most, it isn't proven, but as Susan said, I find it doubtful that she could have produced a likeness without some sittings with Lincoln.

Best
Rob