Symposium 2023 Smolenski Presentation

MaryKate Smolenski presents “Denying Loyalism: Martha Codman Karolik’s Ancestry, Collecting, and Nationalism”
Martha Codman Karolik was a Boston Brahmin who was deeply interested in her family history. She amassed a collection of heirlooms, including a portrait of her great-great-grandmother, Katherine Greene Amory, who was a loyalist. Karolik denied Amory’s loyalism and published her journal, which omitted any mention of her political views. Karolik’s denial of her family’s loyalism was part of a larger effort to promote ethnic nationalism. She donated the Amory portrait to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, as part of her effort to make American art available to educate the public. However, it is important to understand that the image’s legacy is interwoven with the erasure of loyalism and the promotion of ethnic nationalism [Photo Caption: Portrait of Mrs. John Amory (Katherine Greene), c. 1763, John Singleton Copley, Oil on Canvas, 126.68 x 101.6 cm (49 7/8 x 40 in.), The M. and M. Karolik Collection of Eighteenth-Century American Arts, 37.36, Image Courtesy of the MFA, Boston]
MaryKate Smolenski is a PhD Student in the American and New England Studies Program at Boston University. She studies the memory of Revolutionary-era loyalism, particularly in regards to material culture, female loyalists, and their descendants. MaryKate has previously worked with several museums and historical societies, including the Newport Historical Society, History Cambridge, and the GWU Museum and Textile Museum. Prior to starting her PhD, she completed a two-year fellowship at the Preservation Society of Newport County where she re-interpreted an eighteenth-century historic house museum, Hunter House. She also co-founded the non-profit, online publication, the Coalition of Master’s Scholars on Material Culture (CMSMC), which aims to fill a gap for master’s students to share their research.