Packard, a pioneer in the field of business education, founded a business college in New York in 1858. Packard's Business College was especially successful in training young women for office work; in this respect, Packard was a leader in demonstrating to employers the clerical skills of women, especially in stenography and with the newly invented typewriter.

During his early years in Rome, the American sculptor Henry Kirke Brown modeled this large marble for an American patron, E.P. Prentice. His subject is taken from the biblical account of the Moabite Ruth, a young widow who faithfully remains with her Israelite mother-in-law and is rewarded for her virtue and fidelity with a new husband, Boaz. Ruth was such a popular subject among mid-nineteenth century sculptors that one contemporary writer noted an epidemic of "Ruth fever." Brown depicted her at the moment when she is addressed by Boaz while gleaning in his field. A beautiful maiden in classicized drapery, one hand holds her garment over her bosom in a gesture of modesty, and the other secures a sheaf of wheat. The poet and editor William Cullen Bryant recalled that Brown quoted the following lines from Keats' Song of the Nightingale in relation to the subject: "Perchance the self-same song hath found a path To the sad heart of Ruth, when sick for home She stood in tears amid the alien corn." Brown returned to the United States in 1846. Ruth was part of a group of his works exhibited at the National Academy of Design in 1849, and no doubt helped secure his election as an Academician two years later. The sculpture was purchased by Miss Eliza Hicks and presented to the New-York Gallery of the Fine Arts by 1848, which became one of the core collections of the N-YHS ten years later.

"About 1820, William John Coffee executed in plaster, the portrait of DeWitt Clinton from which Asher B. Durand made his engraving for David Hosack's Memoirs of DeWitt Clinton" (an impression of this engraving is in the print collection of N-YHS).

Rogers described this group as follows: "A young man is about starting out on a journey, and, on parting from his lady-love puts an engagement ring on her finger." The man leans on a pillar of stones with one foot atop his suitcase, perhaps waiting for his train. He gazes at a well-dressed young woman, who looks at him appealingly as he places the ring on her finger. Rogers created two variations of the scene: in the original version, the man has a mustache that makes him appear older, and the woman's hair is braided down her back, rather than coiled on her head, so that she appears younger. The increased age difference changes the tenor of the scene, perhaps raising doubts about the couple's future. Rogers' poignant subject may strike modern viewers as overly sentimental. Indeed, his depiction of a young maiden nearly swooning on the arm of her soon-to-be-departed lover contrasts with many of the artist's other portrayals of strong, capable women inspired by Rogers' wife, Hattie. Unlike the case with some of his other groups, here Rogers offers very little description of the action taking place, but the poignant theme of separated lovers allowed viewers to spin their own romantic stories. In fact, one writer identified only as M. N. wrote, "We can sit and conjure up romances by the dozen while gazing upon those earnest faces. . . . Will he keep his promise? . . . And will she prove a constant, devoted girl?" The author went on to rhapsodize on the tragic outcome if either of them was lured away by another. Rogers had used this device to good effect in some of his Civil War sculptures, such as The Town Pump (1941.917), Mail Day (1932.97), and Country Post Office: News from the Army (1929.105, 1936.644), which are sufficiently generalized to allow viewers to identify their individual experiences with the subject and enter into a shared communion. For some, Parting Promise might have functioned as a reminder of such agonized partings during the war of the previous decade, but for M. N. and probably many others, it functioned as a fetish on which the viewer could project his or her romantic fantasies. The sculpture illustrates not only a scene of leave-taking but also the difficulties Rogers faced when trying to balance his dual goals of creating a democratic art that would appeal to a broad audience and maintaining the reputation he had built in the 1860s as an esteemed fine artist. The same year that he produced Parting Promise he exhibited a bust portrait of John E. Williams (Historic New England and Old Dartmouth Historical Society, New Bedford, Mass.) at the National Academy of Design, the reigning arbiter of nineteenth-century artistic taste. Submitting a work in the traditional genre of portraiture was meant to buttress his reputation in the confines of the artistic community. Also that same year Rogers began to offer free delivery of his sculptures to any express station in the United States, increasing their popularity beyond the East Coast. In keeping with his broader reach, Parting Promise attempted to engage the much larger American public.

Landing of the Norsemen is the sculptor's last effort and the final flowering of his technical and narrative talents. In February 1893 Rogers announced that he had sold the rights to his groups to William Brush, longtime foreman of his plaster shop (the subsequent Rogers Statuette Co. was short-lived, publishing its last known catalogue in 1895). Rogers explained that he was relinquishing that part of his business so that he could concentrate on his "studio work," that is, larger sculptures of famous men and historical subjects. Unfortunately, he had begun to suffer from a palsy that made it increasingly difficult to work, and this is the only product of his retirement. It was intended not for mass reproduction, but for individual sale, to be placed in public buildings or outdoor spaces. Rogers chose as his subject a party of Vikings arriving on North American shores. The artist undertook his usual meticulous research so that he could render the scene as accurately as possible. He contacted Professor William H. Carpenter of Columbia College for advice on aspects of the design, in particular the runic inscription for the shield that one of the Vikings carries. A circular that Rogers distributed to promote the sculpture describes Nordic expeditions to the North American continent around the year 1000 and the dangers they faced from the native peoples they encountered. These Vikings have just debarked from their vessel and are preparing to resist an attack. The artist pointed out that the boat and all the details of the group were modeled after actual relics found in Viking burial mounds. The principal figure stands in a stalwart, heroic pose, garbed in chain mail over a tunic with a sinuous pattern at the hem and sleeves. A horn is slung around his chest, and he holds a sword, ready to meet an attacker. His other hand rests on the fierce-looking dragon's head that embellishes his boat, a conflation of an ornament that would usually appear on the prow of a ship with the small boat used for landing. Behind him are two comrades. One is armed with an axe and shield bearing a line from the ninth-century poem Havamal: "Fair Fame never Dies." The other is bare to the waist. Rogers' work of the preceding few years had become smaller and less detailed, perhaps owing to his growing infirmity, making it all the more astonishing to see the rich textures of the Vikings' costumes and weapons and the fantastically fierce yet decorative dragon's head. The modeling of the musculature is equal to that in any of the artist's previous work. In an interesting departure, parts of the sculpture, such as the men's hair and the ground, show a slightly rougher, broader treatment. The detail in the costumes indicates that in spite of his palsy Rogers was still capable of fine work, and it is likely that the freer handling of specific parts of the sculpture is a conscious choice, producing an effect that is surprisingly fresh and modern in relation to his earlier work. Rogers' oeuvre encompassed a variety of themes, including the Civil War groups that established his fame, genre scenes of everyday American life, and subjects taken from popular theater of the day. This final work represents a historical event, a subject traditionally classed among the loftiest themes an artist could attempt. Rogers had pursued such themes during his late career without the success he had hoped for. As early as 1871 he had made designs for a large Revolutionary War sculpture that he called "Camp Fires of the Revolution." In the late 1880s he attempted other designs for monumental sculptures that did not come to fruition, including "John Eliot Preaching to the Indians" and the "Stamford Memorial," which celebrated the purchase of the Connecticut site from the Indians in 1642. Rogers exhibited Landing of the Norsemen at the National Academy of Design in 1893. Recognizing this as a closing moment in his career, the academy gave him a small retrospective in conjunction with its annual fall exhibition, comprising eight plasters and eighteen of the master bronzes he used to make his plasters. The large bronze earned high praise from the New York Times critic Charles de Kay, who observed that even while it was in development, the modeling was "cleverer" than that of Rogers' earlier works. When it was completed, de Kay called it "spirited . . . true to possibilities, very well composed." Rogers lent the work the following year to the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, D.C., where it remained until 1901. He then sent it, along with several of his master bronzes, to the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences (now the Brooklyn Museum), where they remained for almost thirty years. No versions of this final effort were sold, making Landing of the Norsemen a rare example of an absolutely unique Rogers sculpture.

In the 1870s and 1880s Rogers explored two different types of subject matter: genre themes taken from everyday life and scenes from popular plays. In a few groups he combined the two, depicting theatrical amusements in the home. Rogers was a fan of theater in both public and private settings, and he was inspired to model this scene after seeing an amateur play acted out in a friend's parlor. Such home theatricals were a common form of entertainment in the late nineteenth century. Rogers' playacting subject takes the form of a trial, and as he described it, "a young man is charged with committing some offense. The lady, who takes the part of prosecuting attorney, is delivering such a withering sarcastic argument to the judge against the prisoner, that he turns round for protection to the young lady policeman who has him in charge." The scene is set in a large rectangular space that suggests a stage, and all the actors play their parts earnestly, though the merriment at the heart of their production cannot be concealed. The artist created a pyramidal composition with the judge, appropriately enough, at the pinnacle. Viewing the sculpture from behind offers a "backstage" look at the makeshift theater, showing that his bench is composed of two chairs with a board between them, and a curtain rod has been placed across. The "judge" gazes down sternly on the accused kneeling below, whose expression of mock terror forms the focal point of the sculpture. As a prisoner, his hands are tied with a scarf, and the female police officer to whom he appeals at left holds a baton and looks at him compassionately. At right the female prosecutor (modeled after Rogers' sister Laura) delivers her impassioned case to the judge with her head thrown back and her mouth open, as if in mid-sentence. The interlocking gazes create a lively composition suggesting a climactic moment in their domestic drama. The Mock Trial, with its large size and complexity, heralds a period of increasing ambition in Rogers' work. During this time he attempted ever more complicated compositions and demonstrated his growing mastery of his medium with greater detail in textures, as can be seen in the embroidery on the prosecutor's costume, and with heightened emotions, evident in the intensity of the facial expressions. Works like this also show Rogers' self-awareness about the nature of his work. They inhabit a middle ground between his acclaimed theater scenes and his beloved genre groups. Where Rogers had previously offered numerous depictions of children at play, this is the first of many scenes of adults entertaining themselves, in this case by putting on their own "play," in both senses of the word. The subject of home amusements holds a mirror to both Rogers' work and his viewers. His genre scenes up to this point were generally set outside the home, but this new subject depicted an amusement that would take place in a parlor, the room where Rogers Groups were typically placed. The viewer of his earlier domestic and theater subjects is unquestionably that, a witness to a scene taking place outside his or her domain. But this tableau puts the viewer into the scene, since he or she would probably view the sculpture in a parlor where just such an entertainment might take place. As Rogers' abilities as a sculptor grew, he strove for increasing realism in his subjects and a closer connection with his viewers' lives, not appealing to earlier times or other places but engaging them in their homes and at their everyday amusements.

Bubbles represents a new venture in full-size works for the home that Rogers hoped would equal his success in small sculptures. His wife, Hattie, wrote in early 1873 that he was experimenting with a more sizable figure, "for niches perhaps," noting that "he is often asked for them." For his subject Rogers modeled a boy standing with one foot on a step blowing bubbles. The artist began with his two-year-old son Charlie as his sitter but must have departed from his likeness, since Hattie later noted that it was not an accurate portrait of the child. The figure is rendered at life size, forty inches high, nearly twice as large as Rogers' previous works. Faced with the problem of creating compositional interest with a single figure, the sculptor introduced stairs to give the boy a dynamic pose and created a diagonal running from the boy's soapy bowl to his pipe with the bubble growing from it. The foliage at the boy's feet offers a visual echo of the grass and plantings that would surround the figure in a garden setting. When Rogers was in Rome thirteen years before, he had complained of the lack of imagination shown by his fellow sculptors there: "They just make a graceful figure and call it anything." Rogers did not wish to confine himself to technical virtuosity alone but wanted to endow his works with a sense of narrative and a connection to American life. In this case, he did so by showing a child engaged in a common pastime. However, throughout his career Rogers showed an interest in antique sculpture, and subtle classical influences can be seen in his work. Here, the boy's smock covers his contemporary shirt and shorts and falls in elegant folds that call to mind classical drapery. His hair, too, with its beautifully tousled curls, resembles that of a Greek sculpture rather than the clearly contemporary hairstyles seen in Rogers' depiction of three of his children (Charlie in the middle) in Playing Doctor of the same year (1932.98, 1936.633). Unfortunately, Rogers' hopes for a new branch of popular sculpture were not realized. Sales for Bubbles were slow, perhaps because, priced at $35, copies were much more expensive than his smaller works, which cost $12 to $25. Because few were made, examples of this group are now extremely rare.

While Rogers was developing his life-size equestrian statue of General John Fulton Reynolds (which still stands outside Philadelphia's City Hall), he continued to work on the smaller groups that made his fame. His output during the late 1870s and 1880s alternated between theatrical vignettes from the works of Shakespeare and scenes of country life, often inspired by his experiences in the village of New Canaan, Connecticut, where he had lived since the late 1870s. Neighboring Pews combines Rogers' flair for domestic drama with the recurring theme of love and flirtation. Twenty-first-century viewers might mistake the scene for a nostalgic portrayal of an earlier, simpler rural existence. However, rather than receding into the past, Rogers' scene depicts contemporary life and its foibles. He took care to clothe his figures in the fashions of the day, and even the pew bears the Gothic Revival style that was then popular in ecclesiastical architecture and the decorative arts. Rogers shows two women arriving late to church. The man behind them indicates to the younger of the two the proper place in the hymnal to join in the singing, and her elderly companion is, in Rogers' words, "indignant at the preference shown." The young woman is modestly but fashionably dressed with a nosegay on her shoulder, and her hat is adorned with a beautifully curling feather that echoes her carefully coiffed hair. She smiles sweetly at the handsome man who solicitously points out the correct page. The seated older woman glares at her, and Rogers conveys that her irritation is not because she considers such flirtation improper, but because she is not the object of the young man's courtesy. She, too, is dressed to attract attention, with ruffles at her hem and collar, a lacy shawl, a bonnet bedecked with a large bow, and curls at her temples as artful as those of her young charge. Meanwhile, in the pew ahead of them, a small boy reclines wearing his father's hat, preoccupied with trying on his gloves. During this period Rogers began to examine the dynamics between younger and older generations in this and other groups such as A Matter of Opinion (1929.88, 1948.420) and A Frolic at the Old Homestead (1936.631, 1929.104). The figures represented in Neighboring Pews range from childhood and youth to old age. A writer for the Southern World understood the artist's intention, noting that the scene spanned "manly politeness and boyish mischief." As a fifty-four-year-old man with both an elderly father and children approaching adulthood, Rogers was sensitive to intergenerational dynamics. Just as the figures enter each other's spaces with their twisting motions, looks, and gestures, the artist suggests how communal ties bring them together in shared experiences and, in this case, a bit of jealousy and a gently humorous satire of feminine vanity. His model for the older woman was a Mrs. Allen, who summered in a cottage across the road from Rogers' home. His daughter described her as "the happy second wife of a second husband," and one can imagine the amusement a merry soul might find in posing with such a comically sour expression. Rogers released his sculpture in time for Christmas shopping, and newspapers enthusiastically recommended it as a gift, particularly for pastors. It became one of his most popular groups; a remarkable accomplishment given its late date, as opposed to earlier popular groups such as Coming to the Parson (1936.649, 1929.102, INV.710, 1948.411) that had enjoyed prodigious sales for many years. Neighboring Pews was praised for its careful balance of humor and dignity. As one Pennsylvania newspaper put it: "it is delineated with a touch of humor which while doing no violence to propriety in the treatment of the subject." By this period, however, Rogers faced increasing criticism for his sculptures' inoffensive crowd-pleasing character, which some read as blandness.

Rogers' three Rip Van Winkle groups comprise his first formal series. The artist's long-standing interest in storytelling was already well known, and viewers enjoyed decoding the narratives implied in the meticulous detail of his groups. For this serial subject, Rogers expanded his notion of narrative beyond the use of accessories to create a more powerful sense of temporality with multiple groups. He chose a particularly appropriate theme, which centers on the passage of time. Washington Irving wrote "Rip Van Winkle" in 1819, and it quickly became one of his most popular tales. It tells about the years before the American Revolutionary War, when Rip Van Winkle lives in a village at the foot of New York's Catskill Mountains. An amiable man whose home and farm suffer from his lazy neglect, he is loved by everyone except his wife. One autumn day he escapes her nagging by wandering into the mountains. There he encounters strangely dressed men, rumored to be the ghosts of Henry Hudson's crew, who are playing ninepins. After drinking some of their liquor, he settles down under a shady tree and falls asleep. He wakes and returns to his village, where he finds twenty years have passed. Late-nineteenth-century Americans were intimately familiar with Irving's story and its popularity owed in large part to its huge success as a stage play starring Joseph Jefferson. One of the most acclaimed actors of his time, Jefferson first starred in a production of Rip Van Winkle in 1859. By 1883 he estimated that he had played the part on no fewer than 4,500 occasions. Rogers saw Jefferson play the role in 1869, and he asked Jefferson to sit for the sculptures. The artist's talents as a portraitist served him well; the series enjoyed acclaim and popularity, remaining in Rogers' catalogue until the end of his career. Praises for the series connected it closely with Jefferson and his fame as Rip, making the groups as much icons of popular culture as of literary culture. One critic of Rogers' sculptures spent nearly as much ink on Jefferson as on the works themselves, claiming, "Jefferson has made the story of Rip more truly his own than it even is Washington Irving's." In taking on a beloved American story that had been turned into a wildly successful play, Rogers translated Irving's story from book to stage to plaster, and he carefully negotiated the layers of meaning that accumulated with each of these transitions. He made judicious choices about which aspects he would retain and which he would eliminate, taking full advantage of the unique capabilities of his medium. Contemporary critics were well aware of these fine distinctions, and more than one noted that the settings Rogers chose were taken not from the play, but from Irving's story. The New York Evening Post writer commented that in spite of Rip's "'Jeffersonian' cast," the surroundings closely followed Irving's text. A Chicago critic pointed out that "although [Rogers] faithfully portrays the great actor in the person of Rip, he does not copy any situation occurring in the drama." At the same time, Rip was "attired in a dress literally copied from what Jefferson wears in the early scenes of the play, every fold and wrinkle and tatter of which is familiar to us all." Rogers' union of literature, theater, and sculpture was considered particularly nuanced and successful: one writer noted, "If there is less of the plain A.B.C. in these groups than Mr. Rogers has usually given to the world, there is a delicate, half-hidden subtlety of expressions and touch that are nonetheless readily comprehended by those who can read character by facial expression." Rogers introduced each composition in his sales catalogues with a quote from Irving's tale explaining the action, and Jefferson's character and likeness are naturally the focus of attention. However, the space Rogers created was not a theatrical box with one frontal vantage point (as in his later Shakespearean groups). Rather, Rogers exploited the sculptural medium to show each incident in the round, from all sides. His spiraling compositions create a vertiginous sense of disorientation that is perfectly in keeping with the mood of Irving's tale. In the final group of the series, Rip has awakened from his twenty-year slumber and returned to his old homestead, now dilapidated and decayed. Rogers quoted Irving's words in his sales catalogue as he encounters what he thought was his dog, Wolf: "Rip called him by name, but the cur snarled, showed his teeth and passed on. . . . 'My very dog,' sighed poor Rip, 'has forgotten me.'" Rogers depicted Rip standing before a few ramshackle relics of his former abode, his clothing in tatters. Rogers once again employed a composition that makes full use of the sculptural medium: the dog climbing away from Rip curves behind him, urging the viewer around the group and up to Rip's arm, his hand pressing his temple in disbelief.