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Story
May 31, 1906
The Elbert County Tribune
Elbert, Elbert County, Colorado
What is this article about?
Sculptor James Edward Kelly argues that the distinctive American facial type has vanished within the last 100 years due to rapid societal changes, blunting features and complicating artistic representations of national heroes, while female models remain abundant.
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Full Text
American Type Has Irretrievably Lost
By JAMES EDWARD KELLY.
Nothing in the history of the development of racial types is more remarkable than the phenomena to be observed in that of the American people in the brief period covered by the last 100 years. Within the span of a century the American physiognomy has undergone a complete change, so much of a change, in fact, that the typical American face has become extinct. Nobody realizes this fact more clearly than the sculptor, especially if the sculptor be one, like myself, devoted to Americana and to the plastic representation of national heroes and national events. For the greatest difficulty contemporary artists must face in the pursuit of this line of work is the securing of suitable models. Of beautiful female models America has plenty and to spare. The artist will experience no difficulty in finding any conceivable type of woman, for paradoxical as it may seem, it is nevertheless a fact that those same agencies which have been responsible for the obliteration of the masculine American type and a consequent deterioration and corruption thereof, have had the very opposite effect upon the other sex.
Time was, in the early days of our republic, when the American face stood for something—stood for certain definite sterling traits of character which its possessor as a national unit was admittedly recognized as possessing.
The keen edge of our features have become blunted, even as the keen edge of our national conscience has become blunted. We have no longer a national type, distinguished by a clean-cut profile, a sensitive nostril, a firmly modeled chin. And, more conspicuously than all else, we are a nation without a throat. In the process of a little more than a hundred years of national evolution we have modified our Adam's apple into a mere rudimentary physiognomical feature. To-day the American has no national type—he is as cosmopolitan in feature as a German or a Frenchman or an Englishman. As a people we move too rapidly and seemingly year by year we move faster and faster.
By JAMES EDWARD KELLY.
Nothing in the history of the development of racial types is more remarkable than the phenomena to be observed in that of the American people in the brief period covered by the last 100 years. Within the span of a century the American physiognomy has undergone a complete change, so much of a change, in fact, that the typical American face has become extinct. Nobody realizes this fact more clearly than the sculptor, especially if the sculptor be one, like myself, devoted to Americana and to the plastic representation of national heroes and national events. For the greatest difficulty contemporary artists must face in the pursuit of this line of work is the securing of suitable models. Of beautiful female models America has plenty and to spare. The artist will experience no difficulty in finding any conceivable type of woman, for paradoxical as it may seem, it is nevertheless a fact that those same agencies which have been responsible for the obliteration of the masculine American type and a consequent deterioration and corruption thereof, have had the very opposite effect upon the other sex.
Time was, in the early days of our republic, when the American face stood for something—stood for certain definite sterling traits of character which its possessor as a national unit was admittedly recognized as possessing.
The keen edge of our features have become blunted, even as the keen edge of our national conscience has become blunted. We have no longer a national type, distinguished by a clean-cut profile, a sensitive nostril, a firmly modeled chin. And, more conspicuously than all else, we are a nation without a throat. In the process of a little more than a hundred years of national evolution we have modified our Adam's apple into a mere rudimentary physiognomical feature. To-day the American has no national type—he is as cosmopolitan in feature as a German or a Frenchman or an Englishman. As a people we move too rapidly and seemingly year by year we move faster and faster.
What sub-type of article is it?
Curiosity
What themes does it cover?
Misfortune
Fortune Reversal
What keywords are associated?
American Physiognomy
Racial Types
National Evolution
Sculpture Models
Masculine Deterioration
What entities or persons were involved?
James Edward Kelly
Where did it happen?
America
Story Details
Key Persons
James Edward Kelly
Location
America
Event Date
Last 100 Years
Story Details
Sculptor James Edward Kelly observes that the American physiognomy has completely changed in the last century, extinguishing the typical national face, especially masculine features, due to rapid national evolution, complicating the work of artists seeking models for Americana.