[1] At the height of their popularity, Rogers' figurines graced the parlors of homes in the United States and were found as far away as Chile and Australia.

The English novelist Charles Reade furnished his home with all the Rogers figurines available to him, and in the Dakota Territory, Lt. Col. George Custer and his wife had one.

He gave early evidence of artistic interests and even as a young child, showed a taste and talent for drawing.

However, it was the feeling of his parents that an artist’s life was little better than a vagabond, and in 1845, at the age of sixteen, after what was considered a good education in the town schools, he was placed in a dry-goods store in Boston, with the intention of learning the business.

[3] John Roger's statuettes celebrated the lives ordinary, everyday, urban and rural people, in portraits that conveyed and endorsed shared American values.

Through his Rogers Groups he offered an unrivaled transcript of the manners, sports, amusements, social customs, domestic interests, costumes, and even modes of furnishing of the period.

John Rogers made statues of Civil War soldiers, family groups, literary topics, theater scenes and heroic historical figures.

John Rogers’ sculpture of "The Slave Auction," which was exhibited in New York in 1860, brought him to the notice of the general public.

Among the most commonly found John Rogers Groups today are "Coming to the Parson" (1870), " We Boys" (1872), "The Favored Scholar" (1873), "Going for the Cows" (1873) and "Checkers up at the Farm" (1875).

However, Rogers himself did sculpt "The Fisher Girl" of which 11 copies were cast in England by Copeland in Parian ware, as a lottery winning for subscribers/members of the Cosmopolitan Art Association in 1861.

The popularity of Rogers' figurines was already declining when poor health forced his retirement in 1893 and had significantly diminished by the time of his death in 1904.