Art Exhibit Depicts Scranton Mayor’s Experience as Prisoner of the Confederacy During Civil War

Jan 19, 2016

“Leaving Florence Prison,” a digital reproduction of a 1897 lantern slide by James Taylor, is among the illustrations on display at The University of Scranton’s Hope Horn Gallery exhibit “Andersonville and Florence Prisons: The Ezra Hoyt Ripple Memoir,” running from Friday, Feb. 5, through Friday, March 11.

Civil War veteran and Scranton mayor Ezra Ripple presented public lectures in the 1890s about his experience as a prisoner of the confederacy during the Civil War. For the presentations, Ripple commissioned one of America’s best-known artists of the day, James Taylor, to produce illustrations on slides based on his memoirs. The Exhibit at The University of Scranton’s Hope Horn Gallery features digital reproductions of Taylor’s glass slides that were originally shown through a “magic lantern” during Ripple’s presentations at various civic and public organization meetings in Scranton.

The illustrations chronicle Ripple’s experience at Florence Prison in South Carolina and Andersonville Prison in southern Georgia, which is the Civil War’s most infamous prison.

The exhibit “Andersonville and Florence Prisons: The Ezra Hoyt Ripple Memoir” runs from Friday, Feb. 5, through Friday, March 11, and is open to the public, free of charge during gallery hours.

Presented in conjunction with the 150th anniversaries of the Civil War and the city of Scranton, the exhibit is co-sponsored by the Lackawanna Historical Society.

Darlene Miller-Lanning, Ph.D., director of the Hope Horn Gallery, will present a lecture about the exhibit in the Pearn Auditorium of Brennan Hall on Feb. 5, at 5 p.m. A public reception will follow at the Hope Horn Gallery in Hyland Hall at 6 p.m. Both events are free of charge and open to the public.

For more information, contact Dr. Miller-Lanning at 570-941-4214 or darlene.miller-lanning@scranton.edu.

 

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