First State Election in Detroit, Michigan, 1837, ca. 1837

  • Thomas Mickell Burnham, American, 1818-1866

Oil on canvas

  • Unframed: 24 1/4 × 30 3/4 inches (61.6 × 78.1 cm)
  • 34 3/8 × 40 3/8 × 3 3/8 inches (87.3 × 102.6 × 8.6 cm)

Gift of Mrs. Samuel T. Carson

57.267

On View

  • American, Level 2, West

Department

American Art before 1950

Banner: No Monopoly | Regular Democratic | Nomination! | For Governor | Stevens Ason[full name of Stevens T. Mason is obscured by hat] Horse's mane: Equal Rights

James W. Tillman (d. 1866)

his widow, Martha Conant

(Mrs. Alpheus S. Williams) Tillman (d. 1903)

her daughter Louise Tillman (Mrs. Samuel T. ) Carson, who placed the painting on loan at the museum on January 31, 1905

1957-present, gift to the Detroit Institute of Arts (Detroit, Michigan, USA)

“Election of Mason, Detroit in 1937.” Detroit Daily Advertiser (February 4, 1852). Roberts, Robert Ellis. “Sketches and Reminiscences of the City of the Straits and its Vicinity.” Detroit Free Press, 1884, pp. 106-107. Farmer, Silas. The History of Detroit and Michigan. Detroit, 1889, pp. 112-113, 359-360. Ross, Robert Budd. “Fine Arts in 1837.” Detroit Sunday News Tribune. September 9, 1894, p. 17. Palmer, Friend. Early Days in Detroit. Detroit, 1906, pp. 452, 719-720. Hemans, Lawton T. Life and Times of Stevens Thomson Mason; the Boy Governor of Michigan. Lansing, 1920, pp. 306-312. Burroughs, C. “Painting and Sculpture in Michigan.” Michigan History Magazine 20 (1936): pp. 396-397. Michigan, A Guide to the Wolverine State. St. Claire Shores, MI, 1941, p. 137. Drepperd, Carl W. American Pioneer Arts and Artists. Springfield, MA, 1942, p. 52. Groce, George C. The New-York Historical Society’s Dictionary of Artists in America. New Haven, 1957, p. 96. Walbank and Schrier. Living World History, 2nd ed. New York, 1963, p. 514 (ill.). Kenny, Sister M. Kilian. “A History of Paintings in Michigan 1850 to World War II.” Ph.D. Diss, Wayne State University. 1965, pp. 19-20, 187. “Paintings: the People and Places of the Old Northwest Territory.” Antiques 87 (March 1965): p. 305. Woodford, F.B. and A.M. Woodford. All Our Yesterdays. Detroit, 1969, pp. 82, 380, no. 17. Williams, Hermann Warner, Jr. Mirror to the American Past: Survey of American Genre Paintings 1750-1900. Greenwich, CT, 1973, p. 103. Gibson, Arthur Hopkin. Artists of Early Michigan: A Biographical Dictionary of Artists Native to or Active in Michigan 1701-1900. Detroit, 1975, p. 64 (ill.). Yarnell, James L. and William H. Gerdts. The National Museum of American Art’s Index to American Art Exhibition Catalogues from the Beginning through the 1876 Centennial Year. Boston, 1986, p. 521. Gerdts, William H. Art Across America: Two Centuries of Regional Painting 1710-1920. New York, 1990, p. 232. American Paintings in the Detroit Institute of Arts, Volume 2. New York, 1997, pp. 36-39 (ill.). Saxbe, William B, Jr. “Battle of the Transits: The Toldeo War.” Timeline 4, 5, pp. 2-11.

Thomas Mickell Burnham, First State Election in Detroit, Michigan, 1837, ca. 1837, oil on canvas. Detroit Institute of Arts, Gift of Mrs. Samuel T. Carson, 57.267.