Edward Augustus Brackett

Born in Vassalboro, Maine, in 1818, Edward Augustus Brackett grew up in modest circumstances and had little formal schooling. After an accident left him blind in one eye, he was apprenticed to a trade, but he eventually turned toward art and taught himself sculpture.

Brackett became known in Boston as a sculptor, especially for portrait busts and ideal works in marble. His life also took a dramatic turn during the years before the Civil War, when he was imprisoned for helping a fugitive slave; he later wrote about that experience and remained active as both an artist and an author.

In addition to his sculpture, Brackett published "Twilight Hours: or, Leisure Moments of an Artist," a memoir that helps preserve his voice and memories of nineteenth-century cultural life. He died in 1908, leaving behind a career shaped by persistence, craft, and unusually vivid life experience.