Vinnie Ream Hoxie was just 18 years old when the U.S. Congress selected her to sculpt a memorial statue of President Abraham Lincoln in 1866. Her selection marked the first time the U.S. government commissioned a female artist.

Though Vinnie was so young, she was experienced, and this would be her second sculpture of the President. The first one she worked on a couple of years prior, spending about five months on the project, finishing the sculpture shortly after President Lincoln's assassination. About receiving the project, Vinnie said,

"He had been painted and modeled before, but when he learned that I was poor, he granted me the sittings for no other purpose than that I was a poor girl. Had I been the greatest sculptor in the world, I am sure that he would have refused at that time."

And about the President himself, she wrote,

"I have never known anyone in such deep grief as Mr. Lincoln showed during all the months I worked with him . . . I frequently felt that even his great strength was being sapped by his heavy sorrow."

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Senators, generals, and many others visited Vinnie while she worked on the memorial statue in a basement studio inside the Capital building. Vinnie finished the memorial statue of the President in 1871. Her work depicted President Lincoln with his head slightly bent forward, extending the Proclamation with his right hand. The statue was met with high praise. One art critic wrote,

"The head bending slightly forward and downward, seems to regard with anxious solicitude the multitude of newly liberated people, to whom is presented the 'proclamation' of the emancipation. Its action is in perfect harmony with the idea represented."

Vinnie continued to sculpt throughout her life while also taking up social causes, marrying, and having a son. She passed away on November 20, 1914.

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