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William Robert Pearmain

American artist (1888-1912)

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJul 17, 2026
Entity authorityQ8017637 ↗
Source-derived summary

William Robert Pearmain (1888 – September 28, 1912) was an American painter and activist. He grew up in Dublin, New Hampshire, where he was neighbor of George de Forest Brush. He left Harvard University, to study painting, with Brush in Italy. He married Nancy Brush in 1909. He joined the Industrial Workers of the World and worked for the Westinghouse Electric Company in Pittsburgh.

He died from leukemia in Framingham, Massachusetts on September 28, 1912.

His papers are held at the Archives of American Art.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “William Robert Pearmain” is american artist (1888-1912). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through William, Robert and Pearmain, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewStrongest as a route into the people, institutions and dated events that shaped the subject’s public record. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1888, 1912, 1909—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1888. For this dossier, William, Robert and Pearmain is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “american artist (1888-1912)” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 17, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q8017637. VIAF identifies the subject as 267149603. The Library of Congress control number is nr2005011065. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1888, 1912 and 1909.

Critical limits

A concise life account rarely captures disputed attribution, private networks or the changing language used to describe a career. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “William Robert Pearmain”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow William Robert Pearmain primary sources, William Robert Pearmain archive and William research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “William Robert Pearmain”?
  2. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
  3. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “William Robert Pearmain” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.