Timeline

  • 1856

    • On March 3, Howard Russell Butler is born in New York City. He is the son of lawyer and author of satirical verse William Allen Butler (1825—1902) and Mary Russell Marshall (1828—1919), the daughter of Charles Henry Marshall (1792—1865), a sea captain and an owner of the Black-Ball Packet-line.

      Charles H. Marshall, a packet ship built by William H. Webb in 1869 and named after Butler’s grandfather, was the last packet designed and built for the Black Ball Line, for which Charles was proprietor and manager. Charles’s father and grandfather were also Nantucket-born sea captains.

       Butler’s father, <em>William Allen Butler</em., served as president of the American Bar Association and the Association of the Bar of the City of New York.

  • 1857

    • James Buchanan becomes president of the United States.

      By From Brady daguerreotype (Mathew Brady) (1822-1896) (Library of Congress) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

  • 1858

    • The first transatlantic cable is laid.

    • Lincoln-Douglas Debates are held.

  • 1859

    • Charles Darwin and Alfred Wallace publish Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection.

      Charles Darwin (1809–1832)

      In his class notes for 1901, Butler wrote, “I think the greatest advantage derived from my college course was the early acquaintance it gave me with the theory of evolution.”

  • 1860

    • The Pony Express is founded.

    • Abraham Lincoln is elected president of the United States.

  • 1861

    • The Civil War begins at Fort Sumter, South Carolina.

    • Butler Narration Timeline 1861 by Princeton University Art Museum
      Transcript: 

      AUDIO RECORDING (text below)

      “We remember the big and little events of early life, not as occurrences but as retinal pictures of the environment at the time. I say I remember the firing at Fort Sumter. But what I remember is the front stoop, the railing, the crowd passing in the street, as a picture stamped in my memory. I suppose of the great excitement, which I shared through contagion, that particular picture, as known to me as the firing at Fort Sumter, has remained vivid.” –Howard Russell Butler

  • 1862

    • The Homestead Acts are passed.

  • 1863

    • Lincoln issues the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing slaves in the rebel states.

  • 1865

    • Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrenders to Union General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Courthouse. The Civil War ends.

      “<em>Celebrations of victories were staged at Union Square and we had fine views of them from Captain Marshall’s house. The crowd was so great that it would be almost impossible to get to the front stoop hours before the parade began or the fireworks touched off.</em>” –Howard Russell Butler

    • The Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution is passed, permanently outlawing slavery.

    • President Lincoln is assassinated.

    • Butler Narration Timeline 1865 by Princeton University Art Museum
      Transcript: 

      “It was my custom to go for the morning paper to a nearby newsstand on University Place. Arriving at the stand that morning, I saw that the newspapers had large black columns separating the columns, with the heading that Lincoln had been shot. Returning home I shouted the terrible news to my father who came to the head of the stairs, rushed down to get the paper and then back to his dressing room, where he threw himself on the sofa and burst into tears.” Butler would later watch Lincoln’s funeral procession from his grandfather’s apartment in New York. “I remember him later [Charles M. Marshall], as he stood watching the catafalque bearing the remains of Lincoln as it passed his windows in 14th Street. His hands were on my shoulders and he shook with emotion.” –Howard Russell Butler

    • The Butler family moves to Yonkers, New York

    • “At a very early age, I somehow got the impression that art was not only going to be my vocation, but my mission in life. I viewed it with almost religious enthusiasm.” –Howard Russell Butler

    • Jules Verne publishes From the Earth to the Moon (De la terre à la lune).

      Henri de Montaut, from De la terre à la lune (From the earth to the moon), by Jules Verne, Paris (Hetzel), 18??.

  • 1868

    • Ulysses S. Grant is elected president of the United States.

  • 1871

    • Alexander von Humbolt publishes Cosmos: A Sketch of a Physical Description of the Universe, covering a large number of topics in scientific exploration and invention.

  • 1873

    • Howard Russell Butler enters the College of New Jersey’s (now Princeton University) first school of science, seeking a B.S.

      Completed in 1874, the John C. Green School of Science was designed by William A. Potter in the High Victorian Gothic style. Joseph Henry, the former Princeton professor and the first director of the Smithsonian Institution, delivered the inaugural address for the School of Science in May 1873. The School was destroyed by fire in 1928.

    • Butler and his brother rowed on the canal near Princeton, where they saw large canal boats made of steel and powered mechanically. “The difficulty of rowing on the canal, and the impossibilities of having any races on it, made us wish that the adjoining marshland could be cleaned and flooded. This was the first idea of Princeton lake, long afterwards realized in Lake Carnegie.” –Howard Russell Butler

      Canal Society of New Jersey.

    • Butler is appointed assistant to Cyrus Fogg Brackett, professor of physics and founder of the electrical engineering department. About Brackett, Butler would later write, “I owe him more than I can express. He was a great teacher, a brilliant lecturer, imaginative. His course of Physics, illustrated with experiments, accomplished my awakening. He brought to me a new vision of the world and of life. Henceforth, art and science seemed bound together in my thoughts.” –Howard Russell Butler
      Marble plaque of Cyrus Fogg Brackett (1833–1915), designed by Joseph Schiller in 1911 and installed in Princeton University’s Frist Student Center (PP80).

      For more information about Cyrus Fogg Brackett, see http://etcweb.princeton.edu/CampusWWW/Companion/brackett_cyrus_fogg.html

    • Butler helps organize the student “Nassau Scientific Society.”

  • 1875

    •  Butler experiences his first eclipse expedition while a student at the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University). He accompanies Steven Alexander, head of the astronomy department, and Cyrus Brackett, professor of physics and founder of the electrical engineering department, to Manchester, New Hampshire.

      “The Eclipse was to be just after sunrise. We awoke to the sound of rain and nothing was seen.” –Howard Russell Butler

    • Art Students League of New York is founded.

  • 1876

    • Alexander Graham Bell invents the telephone.

    • Butler receive a B.S. from the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University).

    • Butler is invited to give the “scientific oration” at Commencement.

    • After commencement, Butler travels west with classmates. 

      They visit John Muir, the preservationist and Sierra Club founder, in Yosemite Valley.

  • 1877

    • Thomas Edison develops the gramophone and phonograph.

      Thomas Edison with the phonograph, photographed by Mathew Brady in Washington, April 1878

    • Butler is appointed assistant professor of physics at Princeton University. He accompanies the Princeton Geological Expedition to Colorado’s Rocky Mountains, serving as a photographer. Many of the specimens secured by this expedition were displayed in the Elisabeth Marsh Museum, established in 1874 by Arnold Guyot, Princeton’s first Blair Professor of Geology, in what is now the Faculty Room in Nassau Hall.

      Elisabeth Marsh Museum, ca. 1886

    • Butler Narration Timeline 1877 by Princeton University Art Museum
      Transcript: 

      “Few today know the enormous saving of time and trouble, to the outdoor photographer, brought about by the invention of the dryplate. Eastman’s motto ‘You touch the button, we do the rest’ means little to a ‘kodaker.’ But if the latter had ever tried wet-plate photography in the Rocky Mountains, he would think differently and gratefully about it.” –Howard Russell Butler 

       

    • Read more about Princeton’s 1877 scientific expeditions:

      http://paw.princeton.edu/issues/2013/11/13/pages/6409/index.xml

  • 1878

    • Butler makes illustrations for Western Union and Telegraph Company of inventions by Thomas Edison and others.

      Butler’s illustration of Thomas Edison’s microphone (Edison Carbon Transmitter) in Electricity and the Electric Telegraph, by Prescott George Bartlett based on Butler’s many trips to Edison’s laboratory in Menlo Park.

  • 1879

    • Thomas Edison invents the lightbulb.

    • Butler travels to Europe on a Cunard steamer from New York to Liverpool.

    • Butler Narration Timeline 1879 by Princeton University Art Museum
      Transcript: 

      “Every Ship in those days smelt, just as every street in New York was dirty. To find a ship without smells or a New York street without dirt was not to be expected . . . but I enjoyed the journey and was hardly sick at all. There was a fine crowd aboard and I believe we made Liverpool in nine days.” –Howard Russell Butler 

    • In London, he sees paintings by J. M. W. Turner: “I did not then realize what an influence he was to have over me. Year by year I’ve come to realize that he was the great pioneer of impressionism, the great analyser of color and light.”

      J. M. W. Turner, Snow Storm: Steam-Boat off a Harbour's Mouth, 1842. Tate Gallery, London

  • 1880

    • Howard Butler works at the Gold and Stock Telegraph Company founded in 1867 to develop the technology of the stock ticker.

      Edison’s Gold & Stock ticker

  • 1881

    • Chester A. Arthur is inaugurated president of the United States.

  • 1882

    • Butler receives a law degree from Columbia University.

    • The Transit of Venus is observed.

    • To celebrate the 1882 Transit of Venus, John Philip Sousa wrote the Transit of Venus March  in 1883.
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tS867McD4tQ

  • 1883

    • Butler begins his practice in electrical patent law.

  • 1884

    • Butler leaves the law profession to become an artist. 

    • He studies in Mexico with Frederic E. Church and at the Art Students League in New York with J. Carroll Beckwith and George de Forest Bush.

    • Butler said of Church, “He taught me very little practically but he opened my eyes to the possibilities in the development of my own future.” –Howard Russell Butler

  • 1885

    • Thomas Edison invents the movie in Menlo Park, New Jersey.

    • Butler travels to Paris, where he studies under Pascal Dagnan-Bouvert, a leader of the naturalist School. He leaves in June for a painting colony at Concarneau, Brittany, then returns to Paris in October and studies with Alfred-Philippe Roll.

    • Butler encounters the work of Jules Bastien-Lepage shortly after the latter’s death. In his Biographical Notes, Butler said that the artist’s work had “been a revelation to me."

      Jules Bastien-Lepage, Joan of Arc, 1879. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, gift of Erwin Davis, 1889 (89.21.1)

  • 1886

    • Butler’s painting The Seaweed Gatherers wins honorable mention at the Paris Salon. He visits Italy in the winter and in the summer joins a painting colony at St. Ives, Cornwall, England

      Les ramasseurs de varech (The Seaweed Gatherers), 1886. Smithsonian American Art Museum.

  • 1887

    • Butler travels to Spain, Morocco, and Mexico. He exhibits two large paintings at the Paris Salon; one is entitled Lever de Lune. 

    • Howard Russell, Market Place, Cuantta, Mex, 1888

  • 1888

    • Butler takes a studio on 57th Street in New York. He is elected to the Society of American Artists. The Seaweed Gatherers wins the Temple Marine Medal at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.

  • 1889

  • 1890

  • 1891

    • Butler’s daughter, Helen, is born.

  • 1892

    • In Pennsylvania the Homestead Strike, at one of Andrew Carnegie's steel mills, lasts for five months.

    • The Sierra Club is founded, with 182 charter members. John Muir is elected president. The club defeats an effort to reduce the boundaries of Yosemite National Park.

    • Butler summers in East Hampton, Long Island, and is elected to the exclusive Century Club (Association), established in 1847 as a club to promote interest in the fine arts and literature.

  • 1893

    • Butler builds a cottage, called Bay Bush, in East Hampton. His daughter Helen dies of cholera.
      Howard Russell Butler, The Windmill. The Parrish Art Museum, Water Mill, New York, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Raymond Horwitz

  • 1895

    • Butler wins a silver medal at the Cotton States and International Exposition, Atlanta

      Interior of art building, Cotton States and International Exposition, Atlanta

  • 1896

    • Butler serves as president of Carnegie Music Hall until 1905.

      Carnegie Hall, New York City

    • Butler’s son, Howard Russell Jr., is born.

  • 1897

    • Butler is elected an associate at The National Academy.

  • 1898

    • Butler oversees the purchase of land for, and construction of Andrew Carnegie’s residence on Fifth Avenue.

  • 1899

    • Butler is elected an academician at The National Academy.

  • 1901

    • Butler wins a silver medal at the Buffalo Exposition

      “My picture Clearing which I exhibited at the Buffalo Exposition in the summer of 1901, was sold from the Exposition to Morris Belknap, of Louisville, KY for a modest sum of $400.” –Howard Russell Butler

  • 1902

    • Butler completes his supervision of Andrew Carnegie’s residence on Fifth Avenue and obtains Carnegie’s support for construction of Lake Carnegie at Princeton University. 

      Andrew’s Carnegie’s mansion, now home to the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum. Photo: By Gryffindor (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creat

    • “I painted my first portrait of Andrew Carnegie as he sat in the library of his new house, after his Breakfast, reading his newspaper. This is the portrait that hangs central of his gallery, of which Mrs. Carnegie considers best of all the portraits which were painted of him.”

    •  “ I think it was during one of these sittings that he was almost bragging of the four lakes which he had built, all of which I had seen. To make conversation I told him of my scheme which I had for the lake in Princeton. In my college days, as already told, I had been a coxswain of the six oar college barge. We rowed on the Delaware and Raritan Canal—a dangerous matter, for the canal then was filled with boats, many of them propelled with steam, and it was not easy to pass them on half a car. So the idea of cleaning out the marshes, which extended from the campus to Kingston, building a dam, and floating them, became a dream for all of us and often in the evenings we would sit toasting our toes on an open stove, a kind known as the Blushing Maiden, and discuss the great project. To my surprise Carnegie was very much interested. ‘Wouldn’t it be a great place for students to curl?’ he asked.” –Howard Russell Butler

    • Construction of Lake Carnegie begins

  • 1904

    • Butler proposes the organization of the National Academy Association.

    • Carnegie Lake is completed.

      Andrew Carnegie (left) and Princeton University officials at Lake Carnegie's dedication ceremony on December 5, 1906.

  • 1905

    • Albert Einstein publishes the theory of special relativity as well as the explanation of Brownian motion and the photoelectric effect.

    • Butler is elected an honorary trustee of the American Fine Arts Society. He lives in the Santa Barbara, California, region until 1907

       

  • 1906

    • Butler is elected an associate of the Society of Illustrators.

  • 1909

    • 1909 Butler has a one-man exhibition at the Albright Gallery, Buffalo, New York.

      Special exhibition of Howard Russell Butler paintings (35 paintings, 2 watercolors, 10 pastels) at the Albright Gallery, Buffalo, New York.

  • 1911

    • Butler moves to Princeton.

    • He serves briefly as president of the Princeton Inn.

  • 1912–13

    • Butler negotiates the purchase of land for the Princeton Battle Monument and designs the site over the next several years

      Sculptor Frederick MacMonnies and architect Thomas Hastings, dedicated 1922. Photo by Djkeddie (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0 (<a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0">http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0</a>)], via Wikimedia Commons

       

  • 1913

    • Butler exhibits at Folsom Galleries, New York.

  • 1915

    • Butler wins a silver medal at the San Francisco Exposition.

  • 1916

    • Butler is elected president of the National Academy of Design and vice president of the National Academy of Design (he resigns both positions in 1921.)

    • Butler wins the Carnegie Prize at the National Academy of Design winter exhibition for his painting Maine Cliffs in Moonlight, pictured in article below.

    • Butler sells his East Hampton property.

    • Butler moves into a new summer studio at Baldhead Cliff, Maine, completed the previous year.

  • 1917

    • Butler exhibits at Vose Gallery, Boston. He wins second prize at the Duxbury Exposition.

  • 1918

    • Butler accompanies the U.S. Naval Observatory party to Baker, Oregon, to paint a total eclipse of the sun.

      Howard Russell Butler, American, 1856-1934 Solar Eclipse, 1918 Oil on canvas Princeton University PP357

  • 1920

    • Butler visits Yellowstone Park.

  • 1921

    • Butler lives in California for a second period, until 1926.

      Moonrise, Miramar, 1921

    • Butler receives a letter from then-assistant secretary of the Navy, Franklin D. Roosevelt, praising his 1918 painting of an eclipse. 

  • 1923

    • Butler paints the 1923 solar eclipse from a special "observing chair" in Lompoc, California..

      Howard Russell Butler, American, 1856-1934 Solar Eclipse, Lompoc 1923 Oil on canvas Princeton University, gift of H. Russell Butler, Jr. PP351

    • Painter and Space or The Third Dimension in Graphic Art is published by Scribners.

    • Butler receives an M.F.A. cum laude from Princeton University.

  • 1924

    • Edwin Hubble makes the discovery that the Milky Way is just one of many galaxies.

  • 1925

    • Butler paints the 1925 solar eclipse from the roof of the Arrigoni Hotel in Middletown, Connecticut .

      Howard Russell Butler, American, 1856-1934 Solar Eclipse, 1925 Oil on canvas Princeton University, gift of H. Russell Butler, Jr. PP352

    • He is appointed supervisor of astronomical exhibitions for the proposed Astronomical Hall, American Museum of Natural History, New York.

    • Butler is elected a member of the American Astronomical Society.

  • 1926

    • Butler is named an honorary fellow of the American Museum of Natural History. He exhibits at Milch Gallery, New York.

       

  • 1927

    • Georges Lemaître develops the Big Bang Theory.

  • 1929

    • Edwin Hubble develops Hubble's law of the expanding universe.

    • Butler is elected president of the Architectural Improvement Society of Princeton.

  • 1932

    • Butler paints the 1932 solar eclipse from his studio in Maine.

      Howard Russell Butler, American, 1856-1934 Solar Eclipse, 1932 Oil on canvas Princeton University, gift of David H. McAlpin, Class of 1920 PP349

  • 1934

    • 1934 Butler dies in Princeton on May 22.

      New York Herald Tribune, May 23, 1934

      Butler’s tombstone in Princeton Cemetery

       

  • 1937

    • A memorial exhibition is held at Ferargil Galleries, New York.

  • 1938

    • The Howard Russell Butler Memorial is dedicated in the lobby of the new Princeton University Observatory, and the University receives the 1932 eclipse painting given by the Class of 1920 through David H. McAlpin III ’20. At the ceremony, a message from Henry Norris Russell, chairman of the Astronomy Department, who was traveling abroad, was read: “The greatest triumph of Mr. Butler’s blending of science and art is found in his four ‘portraits’ of total solar eclipses, which surpass incomparably any other representation of these grand phenomenon. Here his physicist’s knowledge and artist’s skill met in perfect union.”

  • 1962

    • An exhibition is held at the New Jersey State Museum.

  • 1975

    • An exhibition is held at the Drawing Room, Princeton.

  • 1977

    • An exhibition is held at Squibb Gallery, Princeton.