Glesmann, Amanda J.2020-07-132020-07-132002http://udspace.udel.edu/handle/19716/27300Pilgrims Going to Church (1867) was the first and best-known painting of American colonial life by the Anglo-American artist George Henry Boughton (1834–1905). Today the painting is often associated with the Colonial Revival movement and the Centennial Exposition of 1876; this essay demonstrates that Pilgrims Going to Church carried a much broader, more complex and ambiguous range of connotations in the minds of nineteenth-century viewers. Consideration of the painting's relationship to popular genre and history paintings of the period and close reading of contemporary descriptions of Pilgrims Going to Church and other nineteenth-century works of art provides a context in which to understand the narrative and compositional openness that allowed the image to support a variety of meanings and interpretations over time. ☐ The continued success of Pilgrims Going to Church is remarkable: The numerous other depictions of colonial history that proliferated throughout the nineteenth century have long since been forgotten; indeed, most of the genre and history paintings of the period—of any subject—are today dismissed as overly “sentimental” or melodramatic. By looking beyond modern interpretations of Pilgrims Going to Church to consider contemporary understandings of the painting and the shifting cultural conditions which shaped various readings of the image, this essay explores the causes behind the singular popularity and lasting appeal of Boughton's iconic representation of American colonial life and links the success of his vision of history to American attitudes about the past.Boughton, George Henry, 1834-1905. Pilgrims going to churchPilgrims (New Plymouth Colony) in artThanksgiving Day in artHistory in artThesis1164695839