To commemorate the 150th anniversary of the United States Civil War, the Terra Foundation for American Art partnered with the Newberry Library to mount Home Front: Daily Life in the Civil War North. The exhibition focused on the enormous and costly effect the war had on civilians, using more than 100 items—paintings, sheet music, and magazine illustrations—to examine the culture of the Northern home front and illustrate the war’s impact on all areas of life. From household economies to the absence of young men at home and from war relief work to the erasure of frontier Indians from the national consciousness, Home Front revealed the all-consuming nature of this transformative war.
Dates & Venue
September 27, 2013–March 24, 2014
The Newberry Library, Chicago, Illinois
Works of Art from the Terra Foundation Collection
- Eugene Benson, Indian Attack, 1858
- Alfred Thompson Bricher, The Hudson River at West Point, 1864
- Frederic Edwin Church, Our Banner in the Sky, 1861
- Samuel Colman, Jr., Ships Unloading, New York, 1868
- Sanford Robinson Gifford, Hunter Mountain, Twilight, 1866
- Winslow Homer, On Guard, 1864
- Thomas Moran, Autumn Afternoon, the Wissahickon, 1864
- William Sidney Mount, Fruit Piece: Apples on Tin Cups, 1864
- Lilly Martin Spencer, The Home of the Red, White and Blue, c. 1867–1868
Publication
Brownlee, Peter John, Sarah Burns, Diane Dillon, Daniel Greene, and Scott Manning Stevens. Home Front: Daily Life in the Civil War North. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013.
Related Content
Press release: “Terra Foundation & Newberry Present Chicago’s Only Major Sesquicentennial Civil War Exhibition,” September 18, 2013
Website: Civil War in Art: Teaching & Learning through Chicago Collections
