American Stories: Paintings of Everyday Life, 1765-1915 presents the history of American vernacular painting from the Colonial era until the early 20th century. Most of the pictures in the earliest section, "Inventing American Stories, 1765-1830", are portraits of individuals or family groups, reflecting the taste of the time for commissioned portraits. But, there are a few scenes showing larger crowds, such as John Lewis Krimmel's Fourth of July in Centre Square, 1812. The next section, "Stories for the Public, 1830-1860", reflects the growing interest in genre painting in the US, these appear to be everyday scenes, but often were raised to the symbolic, an example is William Sidney Mount's Cider Making, 1840-41. "Stories of War and Reconciliation, 1860-1877", reflects the Civil War and Reconstruction, with pictures such as Winslow Homer's The Veteran in a New Field, 1865, showing a former soldier returned to his fields to thresh wheat. The final section, "Cosmopolitan and Candid Stories, 1877-1915", reflects America's growing taste for European art, and includes the works of prominent American artists who lived primarily in Europe, such as Mary Cassatt, or those who traveled widely, such as John Singer Sargent.