The world viewed Evelyn Nesbit primarily through her work as one of the United States’ first super-models. Beginning at the age of fourteen, Evelyn was painted or drawn by such well known artists as James Carroll Beckwith and Charles Dana Gibson and photographed by significant photographers such as Rudolf Eickemeyer and Gertrude Käsebier. Her image was used on calendars and in advertisements for everything from chocolates to lumber.
In Evelyn As, the poem “Evelyn As Exhibition in Twenty-Four Pictures: A Guide” details the places, people, and images that shaped Evelyn and our subsequent conception of her beauty, which often masked her tragic history as an exploited young woman. The images below form the basis for most of the symbolism used in the linked poems of Evelyn As.
For further information on Evelyn Nesbit, Paula Uruburu’s American Eve is highly recommended.
Christine Butterworth-McDermott 