Adalbert J. Volck

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Adalbert J. Volck, portrait from 1862

Adalbert J. Volck , actually Adalbert Johann Volck (born April 14, 1828 in Augsburg , † March 26, 1912 in Baltimore ) was a German-American dentist, painter and caricaturist.

Life

Volck was the third of 13 children of Andreas Volck (1800–1888). His father ran a distillery and vinegar factory. From 1835 the family lived in Nuremberg, where he attended the Polytechnic School . In 1848 he took part in revolutionary efforts; the prospect of intensified four-year military service caused him to desert and flee to the USA via Bremen . He arrived in New York City in November 1848 and, with his knowledge of chemistry, found his first job as an assistant in the dental office and laboratory of Dr. Keep in Boston . From there he is said to have gone west and to California in 1849 during the California Gold Rush . He soon returned to the east coast and was trained in the practice of Dr. Chapin A. Harris employed in Baltimore as a laboratory assistant. In Baltimore, he became one of the earliest students of the newly formed Baltimore College of Dental Surgery , graduating in 1852. He opened a flourishing practice that he ran for 45 years and became a member and later president of the Association of Dental Surgeons . He is considered to be one of the first dentists to use porcelain for fillings from 1854 .

Writing the Emancipation Proclamation , caricature against Abraham Lincoln , trampling the constitution, 1862

Atypical for a Forty-Eighter , Volck was a supporter of the southern states during the Civil War . He smuggled letters and medicines and served Jefferson Davis as a courier . His home on Charles Street in Baltimore served as a conspiratorial meeting place for Southern sympathizers. Volck used his drawing skills for caricatures, the majority of which only became known after the war. Under the pseudonym V. Blada , he published a collection of thirty drawings as Sketches from the Civil War in North America and another collection as Comedians and Tragedians of the North , with which he countered the very successful political cartoons by Thomas Nast that supported the northern states wanted to.

After the war, Volck continued his dental practice and also worked as a portrait painter and sculptor, but without the political undertone of his earlier works. His representative works in silver, including a thank you from the citizens of Baltimore to Mayor Hooper, became famous. Volck was a member and partially co-founder of a number of cultural institutions in Baltimore such as the Academy of Art , the Allston Association , the Wednesday Club , the Athenaeum Club and the Charcoal Club .

He was buried in Loudon Park Cemetery in Baltimore.

In 1852 he had married Letitia Robert Alleyn, one of his first patients. The couple had two sons and three daughters. The sculptor Friedrich Volck and the theologian Wilhelm Volck were his younger brothers; Friedrich was also temporarily active in Baltimore and Richmond (Virginia) .

estate

Part of Volck's estate, including sketchbooks, is held in the Maryland Historical Society in Baltimore. The 29 original copper plates for the print version of the Sketches from the Civil War in North America are now in the library of Brown University .

Works

  • Confederate War Etchings. 1863
  • Sketches From The Civil War in North America 1861, 1862, 1863. Reprint: Tarrytown: William Abbott, 1917 ( archive.org )
  • Emily V. Mason: Popular Life of Gen. Robert Edward Lee: Illustr. with 17 original designs by Professor Volck. Baltimore: J. Murphy and Company 1872 ( digital copy , Bayerische Staatsbibliothek )

literature

  • Mark E. Neely, Jr., Harold Holzer, Gabor S. Boritt: The Confederate Image: Prints of the Lost Cause . UNC Press Books, 2000
  • John D Wright: The Routledge Encyclopedia of Civil War Era Biographies. Routledge, New York 2012, ISBN 978-0-415-87803-6 , p. 608

Web links

Commons : Adalbert J. Volck  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Genealogy at the Merkel Foundation, Nuremberg
  2. ^ Adalbert Volck at Find a grave
  3. ↑ Catalog entry
personal data
SURNAME Volck, Adalbert J.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Volck, Adalbert Johann (real name); Volck, Adalbert John; V. Blada (pseudonym)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-American dentist, painter and cartoonist
DATE OF BIRTH April 14, 1828
PLACE OF BIRTH augsburg
DATE OF DEATH March 26, 1912
Place of death Baltimore