A Tribute to Vinnie Ream by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Name: A Tribute to Vinnie Ream
Author: Ella Wheeler Wilcox

"A Tribute to Vinnie Ream" is a celebratory ode by Ella Wheeler Wilcox honoring the American sculptor Vinnie Ream (1847–1914), the first woman and the youngest artist ever commissioned by the United States government to create a statue for the Capitol — her celebrated life-size marble of Abraham Lincoln, unveiled in 1871. The poem is structured as four stanzas of eight lines each, organized around a refrain that shifts its opening exclamation — "All hail," "Three cheers," "Thank God," and "Bring gifts" — to build successive waves of praise, gratitude, and personal offering. This anaphoric structure gives the poem the feeling of a public ceremony or toast, each stanza amplifying the previous one's tribute. In the first stanza, Wilcox hails Ream as "Wisconsin's artist daughter," invoking the hills and winds of the West as witnesses to her ascent. The geographical grounding is deliberate: Ream was a Midwestern woman who conquered a world of art and power centered in the East, and Wilcox frames her achievement as a regional as well as national triumph. The language of elevation — crowned, heights, glory — establishes the dominant metaphor of the poem: Ream has climbed to a summit that few dared attempt. The second stanza shifts to acknowledge the struggle behind the achievement. Ream "fought with tribulation," and her antagonists are named as abstractions — Spite, Envy, and Malice — commanded to flee in shame. This stanza alludes to the very real controversy that surrounded Ream's Lincoln commission. Critics, including members of Congress, questioned whether a young woman with limited formal training deserved the honor, and attempts were made to revoke her commission. Wilcox frames Ream's perseverance as a moral as well as artistic victory. The phrase "brought from death, to lasting life / The martyr of our Nation" refers both to the act of sculpting a memorial to the assassinated Lincoln and to the broader idea that great art preserves those who are gone. Ream is cast not merely as a craftsman but as a kind of resurrectionist. The third stanza elevates Ream to the status of national symbol. Addressed now to the people of the South and East — not just the Midwest — the poem insists that all Americans should honor her, crown her, and strew flowers in her path. Yet it closes with a pointed, playful assertion of regional pride: "But remember, she is ours!" The possessive is both affectionate and competitive, a Midwesterner's claim on a woman the whole nation now wants to claim. The fourth and final stanza is Wilcox's most personal. Having catalogued what others should bring — hails, cheers, thanks, gifts — she turns inward and confesses she has nothing material to offer. Her gift is the poem itself, described with deliberate self-deprecation as "a little gift of song," humbly proffered. This modesty functions rhetorically as a contrast with Ream's monumental achievement in stone: where Ream works in marble and brass, Wilcox works in words, and she positions her art as the lesser medium. The final lines echo the first stanza almost verbatim, completing a circular structure and reinforcing the poem's ceremonial, public character. Thematically, the poem engages with questions of gender, regionalism, and artistic legitimacy. Ream's success is presented as a rebuke to those who doubted women's capacity for serious artistic work, and Wilcox — herself a woman writing in a literary culture that frequently dismissed popular women poets — implicitly aligns herself with Ream's struggle. The tribute is thus also a kind of self-inscription: two women artists, one in marble and one in verse, asserting their place in the national record. The poem's diction is earnest and declamatory, suited to the occasion verse tradition of the nineteenth century, in which poetry served a civic and commemorative function. Wilcox does not pursue irony or ambiguity; her praise is unqualified and her imagery conventional — chalices, crowns, heights, flowers. The strength of the poem lies not in subtlety but in its accumulative energy and its sincere identification with a subject who had turned public hostility into public honor.

By Ella Wheeler Wilcox · First published 1905 · Genre: Poetry, Tribute Poetry, Biographical Poetry · 315 words

First lines

All hail to Vinnie Ream! / Wisconsin's artist daughter, / Who stands to-day crowned with the fame / Her noble work has brought her. / Lift up your brows, hills of the West, / And tell the winds the story, / How she, our fairest, and our best, / Has climbed the heights of glory.

Three cheers for Vinnie Ream! / Who fought with tribulation, / And brought from death, to lasting life, / The martyr of our Nation. / Oh, Spite and Envy, flee in shame! / And hide your head, black Malice! / She sips, to-day, the sweets of Fame, / From Fame's emblazoned chalice.

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A Tribute to Vinnie Ream is listed on Textopian as a poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox, dated 1905 CE.

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Work type: Poem
Author: Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Date: 1905 CE
Language: English
Genres: Poetry, Tribute Poetry, Biographical Poetry, Patriotic Poetry, Laudatory Poetry
Length: 315 words
Structure: 1 section, 4 paragraphs
Reading fit: Easy (6th Grade)

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Genres

Poetry — The work is written entirely in verse form with consistent rhyming structure and formal meter, establishing poetry as the fundamental genre.
Tribute Poetry — The title explicitly identifies this as a tribute, and the poem's entire purpose is celebratory commemoration of Vinnie Ream's artistic achievements and character.
Biographical Poetry — The poem focuses on the life narrative and accomplishments of a specific historical figure, tracing her rise from tribulation to fame and national recognition.
Patriotic Poetry — The work emphasizes national pride, references to a nation's martyrs, regional loyalty, and celebration of American artistic achievement as a source of collective honor.