Grade 6: Immigrating to USA
Formative Assessment 3
Student Prompt: Use information from two informational texts (biographies), four paintings by Hassam, and several pictures taken by Riis to support a claim.
Resources on line:
Biography of Riis:
Biography of Frederick Childe Hassam: Included at the end of this document;
Photo gallery of Riis:
Painting 1 of Hassam:
Painting 2 of Hassam:
Painting 3 of Hassam:
Painting 4 of Hassam:
The claim:
Riis and Hassam both depicted NYC during the same period, yet they chose strikingly different subject matter because each man was trying to send a different message and each had a different purpose. Be sure to cite ample evidence from both texts, as well as evidence from the photographs and paintings.
Scoring Guide for Formative Assessment 3Directions: Rate the student’s response according to its ability to meet the criteria listed below.
Key:
3 = The response shows full understanding.
2 = The response shows some/or partial understanding.
1 = The response shows minimal to no understanding
NS = Not Able to Score (Refusal or Absent)
The response cites ample textual evidence to support the claim. / 3 / 2 / 1 / NS
The response includes logical inferences based on what the texts say explicitly. / 3 / 2 / 1 / NS
The response includes a comparison between the two authors/texts. / 3 / 2 / 1 / NS
The response cites evidence from all four sources: the photos, both articles, and paintings. / 3 / 2 / 1 / NS
Short Biography of Frederick Childe Hassam
Frederick Childe Hassam was born at home in a suburb of Boston in 1859. His father Frederick was a cutlery merchant and descended from a long line of New Englanders, his mother Rosa was a native of Maine. Hassam was interested in art at an early age and took his first lessons in drawing and watercolor as a boy attending Mather Public School.
In 1882, Hassam became an illustrator and specialized in illustrating children's stories for magazines. He continued to develop his technique while attending drawing classes at the Lowell Institute and at the Boston Art Club, where he took painting classes.
During the summer of 1883, Hassam traveled with a friend, Edmond Garrett, throughout Europe studying art and creating watercolors of the European countryside. Sixty-seven of the watercolors Hassam did on his trip to Europe formed the basis of his second New Your exhibition in 1884.
In 1889, Hassam was living in New York City which at that time was known as the art capital of the United States. He lived in a studio apartment on the corner of Fifth Avenue and Seventeenth with his wife, Dora. Their apartment overlooked a view Hassam painted in one of his first oil paintings of New York City. The painting, Fifth Avenue in Winter, showed a fashionable street of NYC during the late 19th Century (late 1800s) being traveled by horse-drawn carriages and trolleys.
For the most part, Hassam painted the “high society” urban atmosphere of New York that he encountered within walking distance of his apartment, and avoided the lower-class neighborhoods. In his paintings, Hassam captured well-dressed men in top hats, fashionable women and children running errands and horse-drawn cabs slowly making their way along crowded streets lined by buildings. One of Hassam’s paintings called Lower Manhattan, shows the “high society” urban atmosphere of New York.
Hassam was a successful artist who sold many paintings to dealers and museums in several cities in the United States and abroad. Hassam gained fame in the American art community and received several awards and medals. In 1906, he was elected Academician of the National Academy of Design.
After a brief period of depression and drinking, Hassam then decided to live a healthier life style and began swimming. During this transition, he felt rejuvenated and painted some Neo-Classical subjects, including nudes in outdoor settings. The number of Hassam’s paintings showing city people began to decrease. Hassam told a friend that he was tiring of city life, and he did not enjoy the loud subways, elevated trains, and motor buses which had replaced the horse-drawn scenes he was so fond of painting in earlier times. Hassam began to spend only his winters in New York and traveled the rest of the year.
In 1904 and 1908, Hassam traveled to Oregon. He produced over 100 paintings, pastels, and watercolors of the desert, the rugged coast, and scenes of Portland. With the art market now eagerly accepting his work, by 1909 Hassam was enjoying great success, earning as much as $6,000 per painting.
The most famous works of Hassam’s later life is the set of about thirty paintings known as the "Flag series", which he began in 1916 when he was inspired by a "Preparedness Parade" for the American involvement in World War I. Each of the paintings showed some sort of a scene with an American flag in the background. Although Hassam had great hopes that the entire series of “Flag” paintings would sell as a war memorial set (for $100,000), the pictures were sold individually
In 1919, Hassam purchased a home in East Hampton, New York. Many of his late paintings were of nearby subjects in that town and on Long Island. In 1920, he received the Gold Medal of Honor for lifetime achievement from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and numerous other awards through the 1920's. Hassam traveled relatively little in his last years. He died in East Hampton in 1935, at age 75.