Caroline Ransom was born in Newark, Ohio in 1826. Her family soon moved to establish a settlement on the Western Reserve, which failed by 1864 and forced the family to move to Cleveland. In the 1850s, Ransom went to New York and studied under landscape artist Asher B. Durand, who was part of the Hudson River School of painters. Soon her focus switched to portraiture and she went on to study with Thomas Hicks. Eventually, her works became popular and she began to paint portraits for politicians, such as Speaker of the House John W. Taylor and Representative Joshua Giddings. After the Civil War, Ransom began painting portraits of soldiers who had been killed in battle and gifted the pieces to their families. In 1876, Ransom was elected an honorary member of the Army of the Cumberland, the only woman so honored, and later founded of the Daughters of the American Revolution. Some of her prominent works include a painting of James Garfield kept in the Garfields’ Mentor home, the portraits of Joshua R. Giddings and General George H. Thomas that hang in the Capitol Building, and the portrait of Colonel Charles W. Whittlesey, the first president of the western reserve historical society.