ABSTRACT

Strategically situated along a well-traveled corridor in the art galleries at Philadelphia’s 1876 Centennial Exhibition, the first official world’s fair held on U.S. soil, a tabletop collection of twenty-nine small figural groups by sculptor John Rogers was poised to capture the attention of an extensive international audience.1 Among these stood Taking the Oath and Drawing Rations 1865, a vignette of a courteous Federal officer doffing his kepi as he presents a Bible to a Southern woman just after the Civil War.