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Breaking Home Ties, by Thomas Hovendon.
Credit: Courtesy of Philadelphia Museum of Art, Given by Ellen Harrison McMichael, in memory of C. Emory McMichael.
Voted the most popular painting at the Chicago World's Columbian Exposition in 1893, Thomas Hovendon's Breaking Home Ties captured the drama of the separation of families by showing a young son leaving the family farm to make a living in the city.