They gathered in the banquet room of a waterfront hotel on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, more than 1,000 people assembled to celebrate one woman. She waited in a chair, petite and poised in a plum-colored dress, hidden from the crowd by a curtain of red cloth. Her fans circulated among the tables as Civil War-era music filled the air. At precisely the right moment, after the praise-filled speeches and the proclamation of a day dedicated in her honor, the red cloth was pulled away, and there she was: Anna Ella Carroll, captured in brush strokes of oil paint on linen and surrounded by members of President Abraham Lincoln’s Cabinet as he prepared to sign the Emancipation Proclamation. Read full article >>