ACGCOMMISSIONED IN 1857, CHRISTIAN SCHUSSELE’S painting Men of Progress (right) was completed in 1862 and portrays nineteen American technological innovators, several of whom had a significant impact on the Civil War. One late inclusion by Schussele was naval architect John Ericsson (standing just right of the column at center). He engineered the ironclad U.S.S. Monitor, which flew the flag below—little of which has survived—during its celebrated duel in March 1862 with the ironclad C.S.S. Virginia (converted by Confederates from the salvaged wooden frigate U.S.S. Merrimack). Others in this painting were famed for prewar inventions of military importance, including Samuel Colt (standing third from left), whose Hartford armory turned out Colt revolvers and other weapons for the Union. Elias Howe (seated farthest at right) devised the sewing machine, which helped clothe troops and brought him profits that he used in part to equip a Connecticut regiment in which he served. Schussele pictured Samuel F. B. Morse seated with his right hand on the table beside his telegraph, which proved of great strategic value during the war. Smithsonian Secretary Joseph Henry (standing just left of the column) conducted electrical research that contributed to Morse’s invention and quarreled with him over credit for it.
Although they never came together as pictured here, Schussele chose an apt setting for those innovators—the Great Hall of the U.S. Patent Office. That building now houses the National Portrait Gallery, where the painting hangs today. ACG
HALL OF FAME Christian Schussele’s Men of Progress may have been commissioned by New York inventor Jordan Mott (seated just left of the column) (FIRST IMAGE). A fragment of the flag flown by the U.S.S. Monitor (SECOND IMAGE) resides at the National Museum of American History.
