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Society of the Cincinnati Eagles
More than thirty examples of the insignia badge,
commonly called the eagle, are in the collections.
The Society eagle was designed by Pierre Charles
L'Enfant, an original member of the French Society,
and first manufactured in the spring of 1784 by the
goldsmith firm Duval and Francastel in Paris. Because
the eagle was not standardized by the Society until
1902, dozens of variations commissioned by constituent
societies and individuals exist from the 18th and 19th
centuries. The collections include an eagle
manufactured by the first goldsmith to make the badges
in America. Jeremiah Andrews, a Philadelphia
goldsmith, in the late 1780s and 1790's and several
manufactured by Tiffany & Company of New York, which
made many of the Society eagles sold to members in the
19th and early 20th centuries.
Portraits of Past Presidents General
Of the thirty-four men who have previously held the
position of president general of the Society of the
Cincinnati, the collections include oil portraits of
twenty-six. After the first president general, George
Washington, died in 1799, six other Revolutionary War
veterans held the office, the last being William
Popham of New York (d. 1848) an original portrait of Popham by George Linen is on display on the first
floor of Anderson House. Society leadership in the
19th century was dominated by Hamilton Fish
(1808-1893), governor of New York, United States
senator, and secretary of state under Ulysses S.
Grant. Hamilton Fish served as president general of
the Society from 1854 until his death thirty-nine
years later. The son of Revolutionary War veteran
Nicholas Fish, he shepherded the Society through the
Civil War and presided over the renewed interest in
Society membership that blossomed in the 1870s and
1880s.
For more information on the Society's museum
collections, please contact:
Emily L. Schulz
Deputy Director and Curator
(202) 785-2040 x428
eschulz@societyofthecincinnati.org |
