A graduate of West Point, Pershing saw his first major action in Cuba during the Spanish-American War. Then followed tours of duty against the Moros in the Philippines (1901-03) and against Pancho Villa in Mexico (1916). It was as commander of the American Expeditionary Forces in WWI, however, that Pershing achieved his greatest fame.

Hawthorne, one of America's most famous authors of the mid-19th century, was born in Salem, Massachusetts. After graduating from Bowdoin College he wrote numerous essays and stories, but general recognition came only with the publication of his Twice-Told Tales (1837 and 1842) and Mosses from an Old Manse (1846); these were followed by The Scarlet Letter (1850) and The House of the Seven Gables (1851). For a while Hawthorne lived at Concord, Massachusetts, where he was a part of the literary circle of Alcott, Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Channing. President Franklin Pierce appointed Hawthorne consul at Liverpool, England (1853-57), and he spent 1858-59 in Italy, where he obtained the material for The Marble Faun (1860) and wrote his Italian Notebooks (1872). A description of Hawthorne was published in Appleton's Cyclopedia (3, 1888, 129): "His face was singularly handsome and romantic, the outline full and rounded, the features symmetrical and strong, the brow broad and massive, and the whole refined head powerful and poetic. His manner was that of a shy man, but it was self-possessed and never familiar. . . . In conversation he talked quietly without effusiveness or ardor. He lived habitually within himself, and seemed, as his son Julian said, to find no better society." Hawthorne had died about a decade before young Daniel Chester French first began to model sculptures at his father's home in Concord, Massachusetts, so the artist did not have the opportunity to model the subject from life. There were several portraits of Hawthorne from which to obtain a likeness, however, such as the Bennoch photograph or painted portraits by Charles Osgood (1840) and Cephas G. Thompson (1850), which were owned by members of the author's family. A sculptured bust by Louisa Lander, executed in Rome, was in the Concord Public Library, and the bas-relief by Edward Kuntze had been in the collection of The New-York Historical Society since 1868. The original marble bust by French, profoundly sensitive and quietly romantic, was placed in the Hall of Fame at New York University in 1925, one of several portrait busts of eminent Americans made by French for that collection.

This bronze served as the master model for the plasters that Rogers sold to a broad audience of middle-class Americans. After the Civil War, Rogers turned to genre scenes from everyday American life, and some of his sculptures addressed social problems. In this work the artist focused on an issue that continues to be of widespread concern: in today's parlance, affordable health care. An elderly physician pauses from mixing prescriptions (still holding the mortar that he uses to grind them) to treat the sick child of an indigent mother. Rogers makes clear from the figures' dress that this is a private appointment before the doctor's day has begun, either because of its urgency or to allow the mother to retain her dignity. The doctor wears a soft cap and a robe. It appears that the woman has wrapped herself and her infant in a blanket, perhaps because of the early hour or in her hurry to reach the doctor. The mother's face expresses her worry over her baby, whose head rests against her shoulder as she holds its tiny hand. The pathos of the scene is conveyed in such details as the doctor's wise and benevolent gaze, his hand gently resting on the baby's head, the baby with its affecting expression of weariness and discomfort, and the mother's gaze back at the physician, tensely awaiting his diagnosis. To modern eyes, the scene may seem melodramatic and calculated to arouse sympathy. However, it partakes of mid-nineteenth-century conventions designed to bring social problems to light and promote action. Sentimental culture encouraged an attachment to home and country, evoked compassion for the less fortunate, and urged action on reform issues. Rogers' image of an individual's kindness to one in need addressed specific concerns about care for the poor, especially those who had lost husbands and providers in the recent civil war. It also evoked the theme of Charity with a capital C, a universal theme that artists had rendered in various guises for hundreds of years. The American sculptor Hiram Powers created a bust titled Charity in 1867, the year after Rogers' The Charity Patient, that vividly illustrates the stark differences between Powers' Neoclassical style and Rogers' realism. While Powers rendered a bust of a lovely classicized woman embodying the ideal of charity, Rogers illustrated a specific example of the quality in action in contemporary life. Rogers' call to social responsibility was warmly received. Harper's Weekly enthused, "the atmosphere about this little group almost glows with love and melts with human pity." The Boston Globe declared that it "can hardly fail to move the stoutest heart." Another writer praised the example of Rogers' doctor "who is as much devoted to the case as if he was about to receive a heavy fee." At the same time, Rogers earned kudos for the sculpture's artistic merits, both when it was released and for years after. In 1880 the art historian S. G. W. Benjamin chose it to exemplify Rogers' oeuvre in his book Art in America, and in 1896 the sculptor and art historian William Ordway Partridge compared it to the "simple and beautiful" works of Renaissance sculptor Donatello. As a masterfully realized composition and an exemplar of neighborly kindness in an increasingly isolated and urban society, The Charity Patient had a long life. It remained in Rogers' sales catalogue for the next thirty years as one of his most popular groups, particularly as a gift for physicians.

This cast was part of the Phrenological Museum of Fowler & Wells, which opened in New York City in 1842. Brothers Orson Squire Fowler (1809-1887) and Lorenzo Niles Fowler (1811-1896) and their business associate Samuel Roberts Wells (1820-1875) were noted phrenologists who read heads to understand the subject's "temperament." Their Phrenological Cabinet displaying casts, skulls, and charts became a popular fixture in the city.

This bust is a variation of the head used on the figure in the Lincoln Memorial in Washington.

This cast was part of the Phrenological Museum of Fowler & Wells, which opened in New York City in 1842. Brothers Orson Squire Fowler (1809-1887) and Lorenzo Niles Fowler (1811-1896) and their business associate Samuel Roberts Wells (1820-1875) were noted phrenologists who read heads to understand the subject's "temperament." Their Phrenological Cabinet displaying casts, skulls, and charts became a popular fixture in the city.