Daughters of Revolution

Daughters of Revolution (1932) is a painting by American artist Grant Wood; he claimed it as his only satire.

Origin In 1927, Wood was commissioned to create a stained glass window in the Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Unhappy with the quality of domestic glass sources, he used glass made in Germany. The local chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) complained about the use of a German source for a World War I memorial, as Germany had been an enemy of the US in that war. They expressed a lingering anti-German sentiment in society, and other people in Cedar Rapids also protested the German source. As a result, the window was not dedicated until 1955.

Wood was said to have described the DAR as "those Tory gals" and "people who are trying to set up an aristocracy of birth in a Republic." Five years later Wood painted Daughters of Revolution, which he described as his only satire. He emphasized the contrast of three aged women in faded dresses framed against the heroic 1851 painting of Washington Crossing the Delaware, which, ironically, was painted in Germany by the German-American artist Emanuel Leutze. Wood depicted his mother's clothing on the models, including a lace collar and amber pin he bought for her in Germany.