Fairman Rogers

Fairman Rogers ( * November 15, 1833 in Philadelphia, † August 22, 1900 in Vienna) was a professor of civil engineering, a Trustee of the University of Pennsylvania, horse expert, Charter Member of the National Academy of Sciences and Chairman of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. His horse knowledge, promotion of art and interest in photography series found in the painting The Fairman Rogers Four-in - hand together.

Life

Rogers was the son of ironmonger Evans Rogers and his wife Caroline Augusta, daughter of the inventor Gideon Fairman. During his school years, he was assigned the task to demonstrate the function of the telegraph in front of his classmates.

In 1849 he was inducted into the College Department of the University of Pennsylvania. Since 1853 he worked as an engineer, in January 1856 he married Rebecca H. Gilpin and 1857 he was a professor at the Franklin Institute and the University of Pennsylvania. In his work on roads and bridges, in 1861, he compared the expansion of the railway with the poor state of the roads in America. This year, he was also involved in the exploration of the Potomac River for the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey and provided in the Civil War as an officer in the Corps of Engineers military service. 1863 Rogers was one of the 50 founding members of the National Academy of Sciences. As part of the Academy, he was commissioned a study of the compass in iron ships.

1871 Rogers moved from the professor to the activity of Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania, and in 1881 they turned his interests from the University and from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts to. He was chairman of the training at the Academy and under his leadership it has been completely reorganized. He also wrote an article on Horsemanship, ie the art of dealing with horses. He saw it as an art that can be verwissenschaftlicht but to a certain degree. He took the system of François Baucher on, gentleness and patience in dealing with the horse called. Therefore, he spoke out against violence.

Rogers said to have been the first owner of a typewriter and a Vierspänners in Philadelphia. He was also founder of the Philadelphia coaching clubs.

When Eadweard Muybridge came to Philadelphia, and was commissioned to create a larger scale series photographs, Rogers and Thomas Eakins sat on the committee that oversaw Muybridge's work. At the same time Rogers was as Chairman of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, the supervisor of Professor Eakins, who also himself anfertigte series photographs. 1879 Rogers commissioned Eakins to paint a painting for him. This painting, which is known by both names A May Morning in the Park and The Fairman Rogers Four-in - Hand, Rogers shows on the reins of his Vierspänners in Fairmount Park in Philadelphia. For the first time in the history showed this painting anatomically correct leg positions of horses in motion, a direct result of Rogers ' and Eakins' common interest in the series Photography.

Rogers was a co-founder of the Union League, and member of the American Society of Civil Engineers, the American Philosophical Society and various riding and hunting clubs. Another publication Rogers' deals with the Difference Engine of George Barnard Grant, which was later exhibited at the Centennial Exhibition.

Rogers' last, resulting in Europe, was the publication Manual of coaching, a rule book on all aspects of carriage driving. Among the many points covered you will also find the correct contact and the question of the focus of the coach. The book was lavishly illustrated and also contained a black / white reproduction of the Eakins painting The Fairman Rogers Four-in - hand.

The University of Pennsylvania maintains a Fairman Rogers Collection with many works from the horses and the customer engineering. Rogers is still known today for his Manual of coaching, even more so for the painting The Fairman Rogers Four-in - hand.

Publications

• On Roads and Bridges, Washington, 1861-1862, 2 editions
• Horsemanship etc., in: U.S. Service Magazine, Vol 1, 1864
• The Magnetism of Iron Vessels, with a Short Treatise on Terrestrial Magnetism. D. Van Nostrand, New York 1877, 2nd edition 1883
• A Manual of coaching, JB Lippincott Company, Philadelphia 1900 8 editions ( edition London 1900: digitized, Philadelphia edition 1901 digitized )