Artist and prominent early American Charles Willson Peale (1741–1827) willed his passions to his equally remarkable children, nieces, and nephew. This engaging pictorial study reveals in-depth these two generations of artists, naturalists, and civic leaders. A combination of essays explores major historical subjects from the perspective of this exceptional family, including the impact on artists of changing political and social ideas, the nature of the family in America, and the uses and functions of art in the young nation. The book is fully illustrated with paintings by the Peales that range from portraits and historical scenes to scientific illustrations, still lifes, and full-blown expressions of Victorian sentimentality, all of which depict life during the first century of the nation’s independence.