This stimulus was all Harriet needed to develop in her the idea of doing some serious work in life. She began to give a great deal of time to drawing, her study of nature and her splendid powers of observation being of great assistance to her here.
Those were happy days for Harriet. She was the life of the household, being always ready to deliver comic lectures, to dress up in odd costumes, to give impromptu theatricals, or to say or do original things. Mrs. Kemble, who occupied a villa near the Sedgwicks, often entertained the school-girls by reading and reciting Shakespeare to them. Harriet became devotedly attached to her, their friendship lasting throughout their lives.
In 1849, Harriet left Lenox and returned to Watertown for the purpose of beginning her life work, which she had decided should be that of a sculptor. To work intelligently, it was necessary for her to know anatomy thoroughly, but there was no college where she could prepare herself in that study, for the subject was at that time reserved strictly for men.
It happened that Harriet went to St. Louis to visit friends, and that while she was there some lectures on anatomy were delivered by Dr. J. N. McDowell, the head of the medical department of the State University. The lectures were not open to women, but so great was Harriet's desire to profit by them that Professor McDowell allowed her to see his notes and examine the specimens by herself—a very radical act on his part, since it was thought indelicate for a woman to study this noble subject, even though the knowledge was to be used to create the beautiful in art and, so, to elevate public thought.
Harriet studied hard, and was rewarded at the close of the term by receiving her diploma with the class. This great concession had been gained through the influence of Mr. Wayman Crow, the father of a classmate of Harriet. Mr. Crow became her intimate friend and close adviser, watching over her and guiding her affairs as long as he lived.
The coveted diploma secured, Miss Hosmer decided to travel before returning home. She visited New Orleans and traversed almost the entire length of the Mississippi River. While on a Mississippi steamboat, some young men began to talk of their chances for reaching the top of a certain bluff which they were then approaching. Miss Hosmer made a wager that she could reach it before any of them. The race was made, Miss Hosmer winning easily. The bluff, about five hundred feet in height, was straightway named Mount Hosmer.
In 1852 appeared her first finished product. This was the bust of a beautiful maiden just falling asleep, and was entitled Hesper, the Evening Star.
About this time Miss Hosmer met the renowned actress, Charlotte Cushman. Miss Cushman, seeing promise in the girl's work, urged her to go to Rome and study. Dr. Hosmer approved of this suggestion, and soon father and daughter sailed for Europe.
Upon their arrival in Rome, they called upon John Gibson, the most noted English sculptor of the day, to whom they had letters of introduction. After examining the photographs of Hesper, and talking with Harriet, who always impressed strangers with a sense of her ability and earnestness, Gibson consented to take her into his studio as a pupil.
Overjoyed was she to be assigned to a small room formerly occupied by Canova, of whom Gibson had been a pupil. Here she began the study of ancient classical art, making copies of many masterpieces and selling them without any trouble. When her first large order for a statue came from her friend, Mr. Wayman Crow, Harriet felt that she was beginning the world in earnest. When this order was soon afterward followed by another for a statue to be placed in the Library at St. Louis, she knew that her career as a sculptor was assured.