John Rogers

Rogers was born in Salem, Massachusetts on October 30, 1829. He studied drawing as a young man and later turned to clay sculpture. He traveled to Europe briefly in the late 1850s and returned to New York, where he began sculpting, concentrating mostly on figural groups. His figural compositions in plaster, many of which had a patriotic or moralizing theme, were well known during his lifetime. He sold many such sculptures through a mail-order business based in New York. He retired in 1894, the popularity of his subject matter aimed at mass taste declining. He died in New Canaan, Connecticut on July 26, 1904.