BARTLETT HISTORIC SOCIETY PO Box 514 - 13 School St.
Bartlett, NH 03812
Godfrey Nicholas Frankenstein 1820 - 1873
Frankenstein Cliff and Trestle in Crawford Notch
Story by Scotty Mallett - Railroad Historian
Godfrey N. Frankenstein was born in Darmstadt, Germany in 1820. He and his family fled and immigrated to America in 1831 eventually settling in Ohio. The 1830’s wave of emigration from Germany was caused chiefly by economic hardships, including unemployment and crop failures. Many Germans also left to avoid wars and military service. In some cases, government entities encouraged poor citizens to emigrate. Godfrey had 3 siblings, all of whom became artists.
At the age of 13 he became a sign painter and at the age of 19 was a portrait painter. In 1841 he founded and was the first president of the Cincinnati Academy of Fine Arts.
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When he was 24, in 1844, he went to Niagara Falls. The grandeur of the Falls impressed upon him a new direction. Over a nine year period he would paint hundreds of scenes of the Falls all from different perspectives. Beginning in 1853 he then began a five year process to transfer the sketches to canvas. He picked 80 to 100 good drawings and copied each one to single panels that stood at least eight feet high. The end product was a roll of canvas that when unfurled was nearly 1000 feet long. Frankenstein cleverly juxtaposed scenes from different years to show the changes. In 1858 he began to show them to audiences, mostly in New York City, one at a time, like a moving picture, telling a story in the process. At fifty cents per person to see the show it was a success beyond his expectations.
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In 1867, Frankenstein traveled to Europe and spent two years abroad painting many mountain landscapes. Below, "The Mill Pond" in Ohio
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Godfrey had a great love of the White Mountains and when traveling there he stayed with Dr. Samuel Bemis (1793–1881) at his stone cottage in Crawford Notch, later known as the Inn Unique and currently The Notchland Inn, and he formed a friendship with Bemis.
Dr. Bemis owned most of the Crawford Notch at that time and named the cliffs and the gulf below after his friend Frankenstein. It is said that Mr. Frankenstein painted many White Mountains scenes yet these paintings are hard to find.
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Frankenstein would die in 1873 at his home in Springfield, Ohio. Two years later, in 1875, when the Portland and Ogdensburg Railroad built the Railroad through Crawford Notch the trestle that stands today was named Frankenstein Trestle.
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Godfrey Frankenstein's 1848 Painting of "Mount Washington Over Tuckerman's Ravine" can be found at this link.
John Frankenstein painted this portrait of his younger brother Godfrey, while they shared studio space in Ohio. Godfrey Frankenstein was elected president of the Cincinnati Academy of Fine Arts in 1841, and was later known as "The Painter of Niagara Falls" after creating about a hundred paintings of the national treasure. Here, John portrayed his brother surrounded by plaster casts of classical sculpture and numerous thick books, the largest of which is labeled "Schiller," probably referring to the German philosopher, Friedrich Schiller. Dressed in a coat and tie, Godfrey is absorbed in his own watercolor painting. The partially painted canvas over Godfrey's right shoulder could be Angel and Child or The Dawn of Life, both unlocated works by John. This tranquil scene of an artist absorbed in his work contrasts John's later pessimistic views on his profession. After years of public neglect and struggles to secure patrons, John published a poem, "American Art: It's Awful Altitude" in which he condemned art unions, academics, patrons, and successful artists.
"American Art: Its Awful Altitude" is a 112-page satirical poem written by artist John Frankenstein and published in Cincinnati in 1864. The work fiercely criticizes the 19th-century American art world, calling out successful artists, wealthy patrons, and prominent critics by name. [1, 2]
Key Details of the Work
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Author: John Frankenstein (1816–1881), an immigrant painter and sculptor working in the Midwest and East Coast.
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Format: A 112-page satirical and polemical poem.
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Themes: Attacks on commercialism, lack of genuine taste, and the petty politics driving the contemporary American art establishment.
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Availability: Copies are preserved in rare-book collections like the Library of Congress and digitized via projects like the HathiTrust Digital Library. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
If you would like, I can share more about:
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John Frankenstein's background as a painter and sculptor
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The specific historical context of the 1860s American art scene
The Historical Context of the 1860s American Art Scene
When Frankenstein published American Art: Its Awful Altitude in 1864, the American art world was undergoing massive upheaval driven by the Civil War, rapid economic shifts, and a changing cultural landscape. [1, 2]
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The Impact of the Civil War: The ongoing war forced a dramatic shift in American artistic focus. Romanticized landscapes and idealized historical scenes began giving way to gritty realism, documentary accuracy, and genre paintings that captured the sobering reality and everyday life of a divided nation. [1, 2, 3]
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The Rise of "Art Unions" and Commercialism: The mid-19th century saw the peak influence of Art Unions—organizations that pooled member fees to buy art from select creators and distribute them via lotteries. While they democratized art ownership, independent artists like Frankenstein despised them. They viewed Art Unions as corrupt, bureaucratic gatekeepers that prioritized mass-market appeal over genuine artistic genius. [1, 2]
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Elite Patronage and Petty Politics: Wealthy merchants and industrialists dominated art patronage, using art collections to signal high social status. The art scene was highly cliquey and territorial, run by powerful critics and institutional boards. Artists who refused to play the political game or join exclusive art clubs—like the fiercely independent Frankenstein—were systematically ignored and shut out of lucrative commissions. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
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The Allure of Europe: The 1860s marked the beginning of an era where wealthy American collectors increasingly bypassed domestic talent to buy academic paintings and old master works from Europe. This left American painters and sculptors competing fiercely for a shrinking pool of local patrons, amplifying the bitterness of struggling domestic artists. [1, 2, 3]