Description: This image is a photograph of a drawing of Morrison R. Waite, 1890. The portrait depicts Waite (1816-1888) as a dignified older man wearing his jurist's robe. At the bottom of the portrait is a handwritten signature ("M.R. Waite") and near the subject's ringed left hand is the artist's signature ("Max Rosenthal, Phila [illegible] 90"). Waite to the left his home state of Connecticut to practice law in northwestern Ohio. He ran twice unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate and spent one term in the state legislature. Waite later declined a seat on the Ohio Supreme Court. In 1871, U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant selected Waite to help settle claims with Great Britain that arose from the American Civil War. Waite's legal skills helped the United States obtain almost $16 million from Great Britain for that nation's support of the Confederacy during the Civil War. Upon returning to the United States, Waite participated in the Ohio Constitutional Convention of 1873 and was selected to be the convention's president. While serving at the Constitutional Convention, Waite received word that President Grant had nominated him to be Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court. Waite served as chief justice for the next fifteen years. Max Rosenthal (1833-1918) was a painter, lithographer, etcher, and draftsman born in Russian Poland, He emigrated to the U.S. in 1849. He is one of four Rosenthal brothers who founded a lithographic printing company in Philadelphia. Max was the firm’s primary artist. He is believed to have illustrated some of the earliest books produced in the U.S. that used the chromolithograph process. During his career he produced hundreds of portraits of eminent Americans and Britons. His son, Albert Rosenthal, was also a noted artist. View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: AL05831
Subjects: Waite, Morrison R. (Morrison Remick), 1816-1888; Rosenthal, Max, 1833-1918; Portraits; Supreme Court justices; Ohio History--State and Local Government
Places: Morrison R. Waite