PBA Galleries

Card, signed and dated by Drake, on front pastedown inscribed to Hiram Powers, Christmas, 1850. Powers' bookplate at upper edge of card. Hiram Powers (1805-1873) was the most famous American Sculptor of the middle part of the 19th century. His "Greek Slave" was the most celebrated American sculpture of its day. His statue of Daniel Webster stands in front of the Boston State House and three other works by Powers, a bust of Marshall, and statues of Franklin and Jefferson, are in the U.S. Capitol. There was a second volume to Drake's work was published posthumously in 1854. Garrison and Morton call the work a "classical contribution to the social history of N. America [which] includes the most important work on the natural history of malaria published up to that time." Garrison & Morton 1777; Howes D469.