The Depression, New Deal, and Works Progress Administration
History of Native American and U.S. government relations
Indigenous art and culture of North America (with a focus on the Tlingit and Haida communities of the Pacific Northwest)
By the end of this lesson, students should be able to:
Discuss the Oyster Man and Proud Raven totem poles (Northwest Coast, Native Alaska) as primary sources that link to the specific historical context of the Great Depression, the New Deal, and the history of U.S. government and Native American relations.
Apply the tools of visual analysis to support interpretation of artwork
Identify and elaborate on certain key issues related to “American and regional culture,” prompted by an example of American art
1. Watch the videos
The videos on the Proud Raven and Oyster Man totem poles are each less than eight minutes in length. Ideally, the videos should provide an active rather than a passive classroom experience. Please feel free to stop the videos to respond to student questions, to underscore or develop issues, to define vocabulary, or to look closely at parts of the artworks that are being discussed. Key points and a self-diagnostic quiz are provided to support each video.
2. Read about Saxman Totem Park and its historical context
Most scholars have dismissed Alaska’s 1930s-era totem parks as inauthentic “tourist arts” invented by federal bureaucrats and devoid of meaning for Haida and Tlingit people. But this dismissal ignores the importance of these totem parks to Native communities of the 1940s—as well as today. Overlooking the story of the New Deal totem parks also misses the motivations behind an important act of federal patronage for Native American art—one of the largest acts of federal patronage for Native art in the twentieth century—and the degree to which Tlingit and Haida communities participated in and actively shaped this government program for their own cultural and political needs.Emily L. Moore, Proud Raven, Panting Wolf: Carving Alaska’s New Deal Totem Parks [1]
Roosevelt’s New Deal
In response to the ravages of the Great Depression, newly elected United States president Franklin Delano Roosevelt initiated the New Deal in 1933, infusing much needed dollars into the economy and instituting new or updated regulations, programs, and agencies that provided jobs to scores of unemployed workers who built, repaired, decorated, and modernized public works and infrastructure across the country. This multi-pronged initiative of economic and social relief, recovery, and reform lasted through the decade and brought about a sea change in the size and role of the federal government in the nation’s civic welfare.
Among the new programs and agencies were the Works Progress Administration (WPA; later renamed the Work Projects Administration) and the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). The WPA created extensive public works projects, constructing roads, buildings, and bridges, as well as creating public murals, plays, music, and other artistic products. WPA projects also included the inventorying and preservation of the nation’s diverse historic heritage, including that of Indigenous America. The CCC specifically trained and employed over three million young men to carry out projects on public lands such as forests and parks, and at historic sites. The corps included World War I veterans as well as Native Americans (some of whom were also veterans). Both the WPA and the CCC played an important part in the story of Saxman Totem Park and the New Deal in Alaska.
The New Deal and Native Americans
Roosevelt’s New Deal included targeted efforts to improve conditions for Indigenous people across the United States, marking a significant shift in U.S. government-Native relations. Since the second half of the 19th century, with legislation such as the 1851 Indian Appropriations Act, the 1883 Code of Indian Offenses, and the 1887 Dawes Act, Native communities had been legally restricted from engaging in cultural and religious practices such as rituals, arts, and language, and were systematically stripped of their claims to land and their ability to exercise self-governance. Part of a larger movement to assimilate Native Americans within Euro-American culture, Indigenous heritage and cultural expression were actively suppressed. During this period, Native Americans were not U.S. citizens and therefore did not have access to the rights afforded to citizens, notably the right to vote or actively participate in political processes which might improve their situation. With the New Deal, however, this context began to change. The Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 (also known as the Wheeler-Howard Act or the Indian New Deal), was intentionally designed to improve political, economic, and social conditions for Native Americans through access to civil rights such as education, employment, financial credit, and self-governance. The act also included provisions for conserving and developing Indigenous lands and cultural heritage, the latter being explicitly supported by the creation in 1935 of the Indian Arts and Crafts Board.
What prompted this change in policy and approach to the Native community? The development and implementation of the New Deal coincided with a larger initiative by the federal government in the interwar years to identify and preserve a uniquely American heritage, one that was distinct from that of Europe but inclusive of a range of ethnic, racial, and geographic contexts in America. This cultural nationalism was, in part, motivated by a society seeking to retreat from the fast pace of modernization, heightened by the difficulties of the Depression when people imagined and yearned for a past that they believed was simpler and more sustainable. It was also driven by a desire to challenge the perception that the United States was not old enough to claim a long and distinguished history like Europeans could. Given their long history in North America, some Indigenous communities and their art were therefore positioned by the U.S. government in this movement “as prize components of the nation’s pluralistic heritage”—much the same as Greco-Roman art and architecture had been in Europe. [2]
The context of the New Deal in Alaska
While the Indian Reorganization Act and the Indian Arts and Crafts Board brought about changes for Native communities across the United States, the situation these initiatives met with in Alaska was distinct. In the 1930s, Alaska was still a territory, and not yet a state. As such, although there had been some form of non-Native military, civil, or legislative representatives in Alaska since the late 19th century, these officials had little power and the territory was largely controlled by the federal government. Among other effects, this dynamic allowed for continual increases in mining, fishing, whaling, trading and other industries that were operated by non-Natives who largely funneled natural resources and profits outside of the territory.
This reality directly impacted the ability of Native Alaskan communities to live and thrive as they had on land and waterways they had claimed as their own for centuries. Furthermore, Native Alaskan communities were subject to the same restrictive and suppressive policies of the late 19th and early 20th century as Native communities across the United States. In Southeast Alaska, the site of the New Deal totem parks, the impact of these policies on Tlingit and Haida Indigenous peoples was significant. Their long history of monumental totem pole carving had all but ceased, potlatch ceremonies (ku.éex in Tlingit and wáahlaal in Haida) were condemned, and clan knowledge and stories were not being actively passed down to younger generations. Instead, Native people were directed to adopt, or assimilate, Euro-American social and cultural practices. In this context, many Tlingit and Haida people reluctantly renounced their culture and language in a forced exchange for education and land, moving away from their Native villages where totem poles and clan houses had been erected for generations. The villages were left unoccupied, and in some cases, totem poles were intentionally destroyed or defaced by non-Natives who incorrectly thought they were objects of Native religious worship.
Like in many other parts of the United States, land rights were a contentious issue in Alaska. Not only had the United States purchased the territory of Alaska from Russia in 1867 without any Indigenous consultation, an executive order from President Theodore Roosevelt in 1907 appropriated seventeen million acres of aboriginal land to establish the Tongass National Forest, once again without Indigenous negotiation. The struggle for this land played out through the period of the New Deal (and beyond) and factored significantly in the creation of the totem parks.
Building totem parks
Among the nationwide efforts of the Indian Arts and Crafts Board was an initiative to promote the unique characteristics of Native American art, focusing on its design, quality, and value for the country’s identity and heritage. This initiative included restoration projects which were intended to heighten pride and visibility of Native arts across the U.S.—and, in the spirit of the New Deal, bring jobs and economic prosperity to Native communities. In Southeast Alaska, the initiative manifested in the restoration of Haida and Tlingit totem poles and the creation of six parks for their display. The U.S. Forest Service received the necessary federal funds to enact this project in 1938. The CCC employed close to two hundred Tlingit and Haida young men, most of whom were paid $2 per day, to restore over one hundred 19th-century totem poles from ancestral Native villages. The young men were trained and mentored by elder carvers in the community who also passed along the ancestral stories associated with the totem poles. Depending on their condition, totem poles were either repaired or recreated. Six totem parks were developed between 1938 and 1942: Totem Bight, Saxman, Hydaburg, Klawock, Kasaan, and Shakes Island.
Saxman, a small city just south of Ketchikan, is where several Tlingit families relocated in the early 20th century. When the totem parks were being proposed to the Native communities by the Forest Service, Tlingit elders suggested the specific site for Saxman park due to its location near Native homes situated along the beach, which would offer increased visibility from “steamers in the channel.” [3] Among the totem poles recreated at Saxman are the Proud Raven pole and the Oyster Man pole, each from different Tlingit clans.
The creation of totem parks like Saxman succeeded in creating jobs for Native Alaskans and stimulating the local economy through new forms of tourism that highlighted Native arts, but a deeper probe into the details of the project reveals a more complicated story about U.S. government—Native relations and the different viewpoints and interests involved in the establishment of the parks.
Contrasting motives and perspectives
The New Deal totem parks stand as an important case study of the “entangled” histories of American and Native American art, as non-Natives sought to recode Native art forms within their own national narrative and as Native people sought to channel non-Native interest in their arts to assert their own claims of sovereignty.Emily L. Moore, Proud Raven, Panting Wolf: Carving Alaska’s New Deal Totem Parks [4]
When the idea for the totem parks was first proposed, there was concern among the Tlingit and Haida communities about moving the poles from their original locations in unoccupied Native villages to the new parks. The practice of erecting totem poles in Native villages was tied specifically to the site: they served as a reflection of a clan’s history and identity by standing in front of the clan house, or, in the case of memorial poles, by being close to ancestral graves. In all cases, the poles were intentionally left to deteriorate in place (or very nearby) and then replaced with a new pole on that same spot. Moving the poles to new parks was feared by many as a disruption to this original context and life cycle, a disconnection that was only exacerbated by the designs for the parks once they were approved. The designs for all six parks were created by Forest Service architect Linn Forrest and were modeled on European-style landscape traditions, with poles organized by height or for aesthetic impact rather than by association with clans or villages. Additionally, in these designs and in the subsequent promotion of the parks for tourists, the poles were described and presented as preserved “ruins” of an abandoned past rather than part of the living, continuous history of Native Alaskans. This framing did not sit well with Indigenous claimants to the poles.
In finally giving permission to the Forest Service to preserve the poles and create the parks, however, Tlingit and Haida people came to see the parks as an opportunity for Native communities. In their new locations, the totem poles sustained their meaning as legitimate aboriginal claims to land and sovereignty for the clans that created and erected them. The heightened attention on the parks from tourism and the promotion of Native American art across the United States could make this fact more visible and tangible in the ongoing debates between the Forest Service and Native Alaskans over land titles and self-governance. Specifically, the totem poles—and the parks they were moved to—could serve as evidence in the Tlingit and Haida lawsuit against the Forest Service over title to the land in Tongass National Forest, a case initiated in 1929 (Tlingit and Haida Indians of Alaska v. the United States). The suit was finally settled, for the Tlingit and Haida Indians of Alaska, in 1968. In the intervening years, Congress had approved the harvesting of massive amounts of timber in the Forest and the Forest Service had neglected the totem parks. In this and other ways, the potential gains of the New Deal period for Native Alaskans seemed to be lost. But the 1960s brought some degree of relief and the pendulum of the U.S. government-Native relations continued to swing. In addition to the conclusion of the Tongass case, in 1961 the ownership of the totem parks and poles was fully transferred to the Native communities, who began to restore the parks and continue to maintain them today.
4. Discussion questions
How has your understanding and perception of the New Deal changed by learning about the creation of the totem parks and the context of Native Alaskan history?
What parallels do you see between the engagement of Native communities during the New Deal and today?
5. Research projects and creative response activities
Research the work of the Indian Arts and Crafts Board and restoration projects carried out in other Native communities in the United States during the New Deal. Select a specific project and identify the similarities and differences between it and the totem park project, considering the details of the projects and the context of U.S. government—Native relations.
Create a tourism poster and brochure for Saxman Totem Park for the year 1940, featuring either (or both) the Proud Raven or Oyster Man totem poles. Using the information and source material provided in this learning guide, position the language and design of the poster and brochure to support the Native perspective of the park.
City planning and design at the turn of the 20th century in the United States, notably the City Beautiful Movement
The civic role, reception, and stewardship of public sculpture in American cities
History of voting rights
The development of the Lost Cause Mythology
By the end of this lesson, students should be able to:
Describe how the City Beautiful Movement and the commissioning of public sculpture reflect the broad goals of the Progressive Era in the United States.
Compare the results of the City Beautiful Movement in two U.S. cities, one in the north and one in the south.
Using examples of both public art and other primary sources, discuss the complexities and contradictions of the Progressive Era.
1. Look closely at Civic Virtue and Monument Avenue
Frederick MacMonnies (sculptor), Thomas Hastings (architect), and Piccirilli Brothers (carvers), Civic Virtue Triumphant Over Unrighteousness, 1919, marble, more than 17 feet high (Originally City Hall Park, Manhattan, then Queens Borough Hall, now Green-Wood Cemetery, Brooklyn but without fountain basins; photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
Look at this sculptural group from all sides. What details can you identify?
Based on what you see, can you describe the relationship between the figures, their actions, and their setting?
The sculptural group, which has suffered significant damage from long-term exposure and neglect, was originally positioned in the center of a large fountain. Can you try to imagine the experience of this fountain when it was first completed? What do you think the sculptor wanted people to feel when seeing the fountain? What do you see that makes you say that?
Monument Avenue, Richmond, Virginia (photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
Monument Avenue and the Lost Cause, 1890–1929
Questions to ask:
Look first at the image of the grassy island that runs through the middle of Monument Avenue. What words would you use to describe this setting? Look next at the aerial view of Monument Avenue. How can you expand on your description of the boulevard and its design? What stands out as distinctive?
Continuing looking at the images of Monument Avenue. What do you notice about them as a group? What do the various monuments have in common, both in style and in how they are positioned in the setting?
Imagine that the monuments, and the homes and buildings around them, were brand new. What impressions and/or questions would you have if you were driving down this boulevard?
Now look back at the pictures of the monuments and the avenue today. What has changed? What new ideas and questions do you have about this historic area of the city of Richmond, Virginia?
2. Watch the videos
The video on the sculpture Civic Virtue is only seven minutes long and the video Monument Avenue and the Lost Causeis just six minutes long. Ideally, the videos should provide an active rather than a passive classroom experience. Please feel free to stop the videos to respond to student questions, to underscore or develop issues, to define vocabulary, or to look closely at parts of the artworks that are being discussed. Key points, a self-diagnostic quiz, and high resolution photographs with details of Civic Virtue and Monument Avenue are provided to support each video.
3. Read about Civic Virtue, Monument Avenue, and their historical contexts
The Progressive Era: advancing opportunity, rights, and beauty
As industrialization and immigration expanded in the late 19th century, cities in the United States grew rapidly as did the economic and social divides among their inhabitants. Unregulated labor (there was no minimum wage until 1935) created conditions of terrible poverty and inequity. Greedy, corrupt industry leaders only got richer as these circumstances continued. Local and state governments often contributed to the corruption and the resulting disempowerment of workers and immigrants through their ties with private industry and/or by turning a blind eye to its unethical practices. Reformers, under the banner of progress, began to actively expose these ills and work for change. They believed that government, instead of reinforcing corruption, could be an agent for social and economic good through regulation, protections, and legislation that promoted greater opportunity for a wider swath of the population. Labor laws, taxation and election reform, and women’s suffrage were among the most notable achievements of the Progressive Era.
Concurrent with the push for social, political, and economic reform was the belief that a more organized and beautiful city would be an inspiring environment in which to pursue and sustain the common good; it could serve as a symbol of civic pride to all who lived and worked there. Sparked by the “White City” of the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, and modeled on the modernization of many European capitals in the 19th century, cities across the U.S. embarked on beautification and urban planning efforts starting in the 1890s. This City Beautiful Movement brought about new street layouts and civic architecture along with public parks, transportation, and art. In many cases, lawmakers also introduced regulatory systems to guide the construction, use, and preservation of these new developments. New York City and Richmond, Virginia offer two unique and quite distinct examples of the manifestation of the City Beautiful Movement.
New York City
Like many U.S. cities at the turn of the 20th century, New York was no stranger to corruption and inequity in government, industry, and the urban infrastructure. Tammany Hall, the Democratic political organization that largely controlled elections and political activities in New York City and the state capital of Albany, was known for regularly engaging in illegal political patronage and bribes during the late 19th century. Simultaneously, the impact of unfair practices in labor, housing, and public services in the city was palpable, as documented in sources like Jacob Riis’ 1890 book, How the Other Half Lives. Reform efforts in New York were difficult and inconsistent even into the 20th century as progressive groups pushing for different causes didn’t always operate in a unified way. Nonetheless, reforms did happen. And, in the 1890s, a number of organizations and initiatives emerged to support the beautification of the city for the betterment of all its inhabitants. Among these entities were the New York City Municipal Art Society (founded in 1893) and the New York City Art Commission (established in 1898). By 1902, the Art Commission had the power to review plans for all public works, including art, for the city. Their oversight included Frederick MacMonnies’s Civic Virtue.
Between 1901 and 1922, the Art Commission and city officials worked together (and occasionally around each other) to move forward the plans for this monumental fountain dominated by a massive sculptural group, the funds for which had been bequeathed to the city in the 1891 will of Mrs. Angelina Crane. Like numerous other public sculptures created as part of the City Beautiful Movement in New York and elsewhere, the choice of an allegorical subject was motivated by the spirit of both precedent and the values of the Progressive Era. MacMonnies, in consideration of the City Hall Park site for Civic Virtue, wanted to convey the honesty, strength, and dignity of (male) city leaders who would do right by the city of New York and not be tempted by corruption. He believed this was best illustrated by the personification of a young, male figure of virtue triumphant over vice. MacMonnies cited images of the archangel Michael and Saint George who both slay evil in the form of the dragon, as well as the battle between David and Goliath, as part of his inspiration.
Richmond, Virginia
Further south in the United States, Progressive Era reform efforts in Virginia also sought to address lack of governmental regulation, equitable financial support, and protections for civic and social systems (like elections and public education). City planning was a key strategy for state Progressives, notably in the city of Richmond. In 1886, Governor Fitzhugh Lee shared a proposal with the city council to create a new real-estate development on Richmond’s west side.
. . . the said city of Richmond will, from the passage of an act of the Legislature conferring on the city the necessary power lay out, grade, and set trees along the said avenues, and within five years from the passage of said act, the said city of Richmond will curb, pave the sidewalks, and put gas and water along the same, all of which shall be free from cost to the owners of property on the said avenue. description of the city council meeting in the Richmond Dispatch, October 12, 1886
Since governor Lee also served as ex-officio president of the Monument Association which sought to create a memorial to the Confederate general Robert E. Lee , this real-estate development proposal and the monument were directly linked. The city of Richmond would eventually line the main thoroughfare of this new neighborhood with public memorials to former Confederate leaders. The Lee monument was the first among them. It was completed and officially dedicated on May 29, 1890 at the east end of the new Monument Avenue, a 140-foot-wide boulevard lined with trees and new homes. In his remarks for the dedication, Richmond business leader and former Confederate staff officer Archer Anderson vowed that the monument would inspire generations and “stand as the embodiment of a brave and virtuous people’s ideal leader!” [1] Over the next 39 years, an additional four Confederate monuments were positioned along the avenue.
Not really progress for all
Closer examination of each of these two examples of the City Beautiful movement reveal their limitations in inspiring all who experienced them and in contributing to the common good, both aspirations of the Progressive Era. As such, they reflect the complexities and contradictions of the period.
In the case of Civic Virtue, the sculptor Frederick MacMonnies embraced a rather conservative approach in his representation of virtue escaping the grasp of vice, a choice which was quickly eclipsed by certain progressively minded perspectives of the day. For the sculptural group, he chose to portray virtue as a strong young male and vice in the form of the female temptress. As he describes it, the honorable youth:
. . . looks out into the distance so concentrated on his great ideal that he does not even see the temptation. To suggest this temptation, its dual nature which dazzles while it ensnares, its charm and insinuating danger, one thinks of the beauty and laughter of women; the treachery of the serpent coils of a sea creature wrapped around its prey. These lovely sea women coil themselves about their victim. Their scaly, sinuous tails entwine him. With one hand, each one draws about him the net disguised in tangled seaweed; with a smile on her lips one holds, half hidden, a skull, sinister suggestion of disillusionment and death. The other hides her face as we hide all dark designs. They entirely surround him, but he steps out triumphantly and places his foot on a firm rock. Below him lies the wreck of a ship which had sped gaily, its proud figurehead of victory overturned—torn shreds of hope.—Frederick MacMonnies [2]
While this gendered characterization might have been accepted as appropriate in the context of allegorical imagery in the 19th and early years of the 20th century, by the time Civic Virtue was completed in 1922, the sculpture was read more literally by those who saw it. In particular, women activists who had worked hard to realize the passage of the 19th amendment—considered a key achievement of the Progressive Era—perceived Civic Virtue as an out of date and offensive representation of women. Their concerns catalyzed the sculpture’s eventual removal from City Hall Park and relocation to Queens in 1941. These initial objections to the sculpture, however, obscure the fact that even the women’s suffrage movement contradicted some of the social justice ideals of the Progressive Era, at least from our modern perspective today. While the 19th amendment to the United States Constitution granted women the right to vote, Black women (and men), other people of color, poor whites, and many immigrants were still left disenfranchised by voting restrictions imposed in the form of literacy tests, poll taxes, and other measures implemented around the country during the Progressive Era.
Such regulations were specifically cemented in the southern United States via a rash of new state constitutions ratified around the turn of the century. Virginia’s 1902 constitution, like others, instituted convoluted new election rules in order to significantly limit voting by Blacks and impoverished whites. These moves, supported by southern Progressive reformers, ensured the continued dominance of white culture and reinforced segregation. Under this broad umbrella of white supremacy, the development of the Monument Avenue neighborhood in Richmond—hailed as an exemplar of the City Beautiful Movement—was designed to explicitly bar Black residents through the use of restrictive covenants (legal agreements that prohibit certain groups from buying, renting, or occupying real estate). All of the new urban infrastructure of this part of town would be available only to whites, while Blacks continued to live in sections of Richmond that lacked adequate services, such as sewer lines, garbage retrieval, and paved streets.
The values of white supremacy were further reinforced by the erection of additional memorials to Confederate leaders along Monument Avenue. This resurgence of pride in the Confederacy was part of the Lost Cause mythology (the promotion of the false belief that the Civil War was fought by the Confederacy not over the issue of slavery, but rather to honorably uphold the virtues of the Southern way of life). The common good, in this way of thinking, was therefore to be found in the model of Confederate leaders. This belief is reflected throughout Archer Anderson’s 42-page written address for the 1890 dedication of the Lee Monument, where he extols Robert E. Lee as a great hero, a model patriot, and an icon of civic virtue:
A people carves its own image in the monuments of its great men . . . so to-day, in every part of America, the character and fame of Robert Edward Lee are treasured as a “possession for all time”. . . .
Let this monument, then, teach to generations yet unborn these lessons of his life! Let it stand, not as a record of civil strife, but as a perpetual protest against whatever is low and sordid in our public and private objects! Let it stand as a memorial of personal honor that never brooked a stain, of knightly value without thought of self, of far-reaching military genius unsoiled by ambition, of heroic constancy from which no cloud of misfortune could ever hide the path of duty! Let it stand for reproof and censure, if our people shall ever sink below the standards of their fathers! Let it stand for patriotic hope and cheer, if a day of national gloom and disaster shall ever dawn upon our country! Let it stand as the em-bodiment of a brave and virtuous people’s ideal leader! Let it stand as a great public act of thanksgiving and praise, for that it pleased Almighty God to bestow upon these Southern States a man so formed to reflect His attributes of power, majesty, and goodness! [3]
In Richmond, one dominant voice of dissent towards the Lee Monument was John Mitchell, Jr., editor of the city’s Black newspaper, The Richmond Planet, and member of the Richmond city council from 1888 to 1896. Mitchell and others among the dwindling number of Black elected officials voted against financial support for the monument, but to no avail. As Mitchell wrote in his coverage of the 1890 dedication of the monument, “The rebel yell, reinforced by a glorification of the lost cause was everywhere manifest.” [4] White Supremacy was, in fact, inextricably linked in the south to Progressive politics and, by extension, the City Beautiful Movement. Those that would benefit the most from “progressive” reform would be white.
Over 130 years later, however, in recognition that white, Confederate leaders do not in fact reflect the ideals of leadership valued by most Americans and in response to significant public protest, the monuments have now all been removed from their pedestals.
4. Discussion questions
Civic virtue is demonstrated by citizens contributing to their society in ways they believe will support the common good. Civic virtue is deemed essential to democracy. How do you see it in action today? Are there public monuments in place today that you feel inspire civic virtue in our modern society? How do they align with or differ from the monuments featured in this lesson?
Consider the different representational approaches of the sculptures featured in this lesson: Civic Virtue uses allegorical personification and Monument Avenue’s sculptures depict specific individuals. In both cases, however, the monuments rely on a kind of mythology to convey their intended meaning. How did this mythology operate in each instance, and what were its benefits and limitations? Is there a place for a mythologizing approach to public sculpture today? Why or why not? Give examples if you can.
Do you agree with the assertion that a beautiful, ordered environment enhances life for all? Have a debate and consider the arguments for or against this precept of the City Beautiful Movement—and be sure to address the role of public sculpture therein.
The monuments featured in this lesson have either been moved to new locations or removed from public display. Use these and other examples to reflect on the ways a community or nation can approach public art that no longer reflects their dominant societal values. You may want to watch this video about Kehinde Wiley’s Rumors of War (2019) in Richmond, Virginia to support your discussion.
5. Research projects and creative response activities
Continue to research the City Beautiful Movement by investigating the movement’s efforts in your city or another U.S. city you would like to study. Share your results with your class. In presenting your findings, answer these questions with evidence from your sources:
Do you think the City Beautiful Movement could be considered a success?
How did it effectively support Progressive ideals and how did it work against them?
Do you believe the City Beautiful Movement could succeed in a different socio-political context in United States history?
Hold a design competition in your class to answer the question: what would make your city or community more beautiful—and, as such, supportive of the common good—today?
Teaching guide: Thomas Hovenden, The Last Moments of John Brown
By the end of this lesson, students should be able to:
Discuss The Last Moments of John Brown as a primary document that links to its specific historical context during the nineteenth century
Identify the social and political factors that led to the creation of this painting
Discuss the story of John Brown and its relationship to how he is depicted in this painting
Thomas Hovenden, The Last Moments of John Brown, c. 1884, oil on canvas, 117.2 x 96.8 cm (de Young Museum, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
The video “Martyr or murderer? The Last Moments of John Brown” is only six minutes long. Ideally, the video should provide an active rather than a passive classroom experience. Please feel free to stop the video to respond to student questions, to underscore or develop issues, to define vocabulary, or to look closely at parts of the painting that are being discussed. Key points, a self-diagnostic quiz, and high resolution photographs with details of The Last Moments of John Brown are provided to support the video.
3. Read about the painting and its historical context
Abolition and action
The abolitionist John Brown led a raid on the federal armory at Harpers Ferry (in what is now West Virginia) in 1859. This was the last of several actions in which he used violence as a means to try to end slavery (which was itself filled with violence). He intended to redistribute the weapons stored in the armory to slaves and incite a rebellion that would lead to the end of slavery. Within two months of the raid and his arrest, Brown was tried, sentenced, and executed. The violent actions of John Brown to end slavery were controversial at the time. The debate surrounding the morality of the raid polarized American politics. It forced people to choose sides, and hardened opinions about slavery. It is believed to have contributed directly to the secession of southern states in 1860-61, but even some abolitionists were concerned by Brown’s violent methods.
Brown was a white man who had taken enormous risk to free enslaved African Americans. Even after his execution, Frederick Douglass referred to him as “Captain Brown,” and Harriet Tubman had tried to find volunteers to support the raid on Harpers Ferry. During the Civil War, John Brown became a hero to Union soldiers and the subject of a popular marching song. By World War I, this had changed, and today his place in history is controversial and complex.
Remembering John Brown
Painted 25 years after the raid at Harpers Ferry and Brown’s execution, Thomas Hovenden’s image is clearly sympathetic with John Brown. He depicts Brown on his way to his execution: his arms are bound, a noose is visible around his neck, and he is heavily guarded by armed men, yet he pauses to tenderly kiss a young child (a story that circulated in the press but was never confirmed). The young white girl near the bottom right, holding on to the African American woman’s skirts (the African American woman is probably meant to be her nanny), seems to look upon Brown as if she understands his importance — she is an embodiment of innocence and morality.
Hovenden also used religious references to elevate John Brown to the status of a martyr, depicting him with a long white beard like Moses and creating a subtle crucifix behind him. The soldiers’ bayonets imply latent violence, and echo representations of Christ presented to the people, surrounded by Roman soldiers. The position of the viewer also poses some questions to us — are we jailers? Are we part of the crowd? Are we sympathetic supporters? Are we part of the militia ready to escort him to the gallows? Hovenden has parted the crowd for us and given us privileged access to a moment in history.
4. Discussion question
How do you respond to the speakers’ question about whether John Brown should be seen as a martyr or a terrorist? What reasons or historical examples inform your answer?
Does this painting tell us more about American society and culture in 1859, or in 1884? Why?
5. Research questions
Compare the lyrics of “John Brown’s Body” to those of “Old John Brown: A Song for Every Southern Man” (trigger warning: strong racist language). From these popular songs, how can we map out the political and economic issues that underlay the Civil War? How can we relate them to the way Hovenden designed his painting?
Find two or three other depictions of John Brown in art (such as this one), and compare them to Thomas Hovenden’s The Last Moments of John Brown. How are they similar? How are they different? Is their attitude towards John Brown and his actions clear? Why or why not?
Teaching guide: Eastman Johnson, A Ride for Liberty — The Fugitive Slaves
Describe the painting. How has the artist shown us what is important?
What details in the painting might be important?
What mood would you associate with this painting?
2. Watch the video
The video “A dangerous escape to freedom: Eastman Johnson, A Ride for Liberty — The Fugitive Slaves” is only four minutes long. Ideally, the video should provide an active rather than a passive classroom experience. Please feel free to stop the video to respond to student questions, to underscore or develop issues, to define vocabulary, or to look closely at parts of the painting that are being discussed. Key points, a self-diagnostic quiz, and high resolution photographs with details of A Ride for Liberty — The Fugitive Slaves are provided to support the video.
3. Read about the painting and its historical context
A desperate chance
A Ride for Liberty — The Fugitive Slaves is based on an event Eastman Johnson said he witnessed at a Manassas battlefield during the Civil War, as a family fled slavery and made a desperate ride for the Union line. The title alludes to the Fugitive Slave Act, which allowed slave hunters to seize fugitive slaves without due process and prohibited anyone from aiding escaped fugitives. Northern reluctance to comply with the Act was one of the conflicts between North and South that led to the Civil War. With the beginning of the war, the Act no longer applied. Enslaved persons who could make it to the Union armies were considered contraband of war and were freed. Formerly enslaved people were of great benefit to the Union army, providing intelligence on land and troops, and many also fought in the war.
A different depiction
Eastman Johnson’s depiction of the African American family on the horse was a departure from the majority of depictions of African Americans in art at the time. Most were stereotypes based in racial prejudice, which exaggerated aspects of their appearance and showed them as almost grotesque. Even abolitionist art of the time, which was meant to promote the end of slavery and empathy for enslaved people, depicted African Americans as passive or begging for help. Johnson instead has chosen to depict the family as individuals, with varying skin tones and facial features. He also shows them taking charge of their own destiny, and risking their lives in the process.
4. Discussion questions
The video narrators both wonder how Eastman Johnson’s Ride for Liberty would have been received had it been exhibited in the year it was painted. Think about how many different kinds of viewers there might have been for this painting. How would their reactions have been similar or different depending on their identity and perspective?
Think about your first impression of the painting, before you knew more about its meaning and context. Was the artist able to communicate the meaning of the work of art to you easily, or did you need to know more about the work? What other works of art (visual, literary, or musical) do you think might have a similar feel to this painting?
5. Research questions
Henry Ossawa Tanner’s paintingThe Banjo Lesson addresses the legacy of American slavery and racial prejudice at the end of the nineteenth century. Compare Tanner’s painting with A Ride for Liberty — The Fugitive Slaves, and discuss how they approach their subject matter and meaning. How are they similar? How are they different?
The video briefly shows some objects made to promote abolition in the United States. Find two or three examples of these works (some examples are here, here, here, and here). What kind of images were used to plead the case for abolition? How are they different from the kind of fine art painting that Eastman Johnson made?
Teaching guide: Jaune Quick-To-See Smith, State Names
Jaune Quick-To-See Smith’s State Names (2000) will be useful in the study of:
The history of activism in the United States
Race and national identity
American and national identity and the American landscape
The Indian Removal Act
The Trail of Tears
By the end of this lesson, students should be able to:
Discuss State Names as a primary document that links to its specific historical context during the twentieth century
Identify the artist’s motivation for the artistic decisions made in making the work
Discuss the interaction between the past and the present for Native Americans in the United States
Jaune Quick-To-See Smith, State Names, 2000 (Smithsonian American Art Museum, image: Dr. Steven Zucker (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
Describe the painting. What parts of it stand out to you?
What art materials can you identify? How has the artist manipulated them?
2. Watch the video
The video “What’s in a map? Reading the United “States” in Jaune Quick-To-See Smith’s State Names” is only five minutes long. Ideally, the video should provide an active rather than a passive classroom experience. Please feel free to stop the video to respond to student questions, to underscore or develop issues, to define vocabulary, or to look closely at parts of the painting that are being discussed. Key points, a self-diagnostic quiz, and high resolution photographs with details of State Names are provided to support the video.
3. read about the painting and its historical context
Familiar/unfamiliar
Jaune Quick-To-See Smith has said that she likes to use maps because maps tell stories. In the case of State Names, we can see her characteristic use of an instantly recognizable icon (the map) that has been altered so that when we get close, what we expect is not what we see. Drips of paint obscure state boundaries, and some of the state names are missing.
Identity and history
Jaune Quick-To-See Smith has said that her maps are points of departure for the political treatment of Native people, and that she cannot say strongly enough that her maps are about stolen lands. She began using maps in her artistic practice when she was making works that were responding to the Columbus quincentennial in 1992, directly relating to the beginnings of European colonization of North America. She has removed the names of states that have European origins, leaving only states (and areas of Canada and Mexico) with names derived from indigenous sources. Quick-To-See Smith is an enrolled member of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes of the Flathead Nation, and her art is meant to say something about her own identity and the identity of her people.
Art and history
Quick-To-See Smith was trained as an Abstract Expressionist, and her work exists in dialogue with techniques associated with iconic artists such as Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, and Jackson Pollock, but her use of these techniques are grounded in challenging the viewer to think about identity, heritage, and history in different ways, something that these other artists were not interested in.
4. Discussion questions
What do you think Quick-To-See Smith hopes to accomplish by making works like State Names? How much power does art have to change minds and shape the future?
How often do you use maps in your daily life? What do you think maps are for? Can maps be for other things than the ones you use them for? What makes a map a map?
5. Research questions
Maps have a long history, with many different reasons for creating them. Find two maps from two different cultures and compare them. What are the maps meant to represent? What ideas do they incorporate? How are they a part of the culture that produced them?
Using resources like this timeline, choose an example of a time when Native Americans were pushed off of their lands by non-Native forces. Find maps that illlustrate this displacement. Where do those Native groups live now? How is the land they were forced to move to the same or different from the one they were driven from? Does it have the same climate, geography, and resources? What reasons were given for their land being taken?
Teaching guide: Thomas Moran, Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone
The role of tourism to the West in the nineteenth century
By the end of this lesson, students should be able to:
Discuss Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone as a primary document that links to its specific historical context during the nineteenth century
Identify the social, political, and economic factors that led to the designation of Yellowstone as a National Park
Identify how the relationship between explorers and Native Americans was different from the relationship between Native Americans and the U.S. government
Thomas Moran, Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, 1872, oil on canvas mounted on aluminum, 213 x 266.3 cm, Smithsonian American Art Museum (photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
Describe the landscape. What features seem most important to you?
How is this painting similar to other landscape paintings you’ve seen? How is it different?
What mood or emotion would you associate with this painting?
2. Watch the video
The video “The painting that inspired a National Park” is only nine minutes long. Ideally, the video should provide an active rather than a passive classroom experience. Please feel free to stop the video to respond to student questions, to underscore or develop issues, to define vocabulary, or to look closely at parts of the painting that are being discussed. Key points, a self-diagnostic quiz, and high resolution photographs with details of Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone are provided to support the video.
3. Read about the painting and its historical context
A scientific expedition
Thomas Moran was one of the members of the first geological survey of the Yellowstone region, led by Ferdinand Hayden. William Henry Jackson was the photographer for the expedition. Moran was not an explorer – he had to learn how to ride a horse so he could join the survey’s crew. He applied to be part of the expedition because he became intrigued by Yellowstone after illustrating stories about it for Scribner’s magazine. Since there were large areas of the American West that were thinly populated, and not well known to non-Native Americans, many different groups were interested in gathering information about these lands. Frederic Jackson Turner’s “Frontier Thesis” of 1893 proclaimed that the United States had now colonized the American continent from west to east, and now all that was left was to fill in the gaps in the middle. This proclamation ignored the increasing displacement and military action that had taken place against the Plains Native Americans since the end of the Civil War.
An economic gamble
The survey was financed by Jay Cooke, who had contributed substantially to the Union effort during the Civil War, and was now turning his eye towards the development of railroads in the West. The Transcontinental Railroad had been completed in 1869, and the Northern Pacific Railway, financed in part by Cooke, wanted to copy its success. It was begun in 1870 and its main line completed in 1883, connecting the Great Lakes and western Montana. Cooke was also interested in creating spurs from the main line to tourist destinations, and places like Yellowstone looked like promising hot spring destinations that could rival European spa towns like Baden-Baden. The eventual designation of Yellowstone as a national park led to the creation of a Northern Pacific Railway spur that led to what would become the location of the Old Faithful Inn at Yellowstone, which opened in 1904.
From sketches to paintings
Moran sketched in watercolor, while his colleague Jackson took black and white photographs. Moran’s attention to the geological details that Hayden was recording can be seen in his highly naturalistic depiction of eroding rock, the texture of the sagebrush, and the use of lighting on the pine trees to show the depth of the canyon. His oil painting, competed after returning from the journey, is a composite of several views and is meant to give the impression of the landscape rather than a scientific view of it. He was greatly influenced by the English painter J.M.W. Turner, who also was more interested in the visual and emotional effect of his paintings than their accuracy.
Making a park and a career
Hayden presented his preliminary findings to Congress, along with Jackson’s photographs and Moran’s watercolors, and proposed that Yellowstone be set aside as the first official national park. Moran, upon hearing this would happen, rented a studio in Washington D.C. and began work on the very large (213 x 266.3 cm) oil painting of Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. He finished the painting at the same time that president Ulysses S. Grant signed the legislation designating Yellowstone as a national park, and Congress bought the painting and put it on view in the Capitol to commemorate the momentous event. Moran would become famous for his Western scenes, especially those of Yellowstone, and would refer to himself as Thomas “Yellowstone” Moran.
4. Discussion questions
Thomas Moran depicted Yellowstone National Park in many paintings, which were very popular with the viewing public. What natural features near you are well-known? How do people capture and preserve memories of this natural feature?
Yellowstone was difficult to get to when Hayden’s expedition visited it in 1871, but by 1904 there was a full hotel served by a rail line there, and today there are highways leading to the park and roads running through it. Is it better for places like Yellowstone to be accessible to as many people as possible, or should they be harder to get to? What might be the benefits and drawbacks to each?
5. Research questions
Thomas Moran was greatly influenced by J.M.W. Turner’s style of painting. Compare Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone to one of Turner’s landscape paintings. How are they the same? How are they different?
Photographer Ansel Adams is also an artist associated with the national parks, although he was almost two generations younger than Thomas Moran. Compare two or three of Ansel Adams’ photographs of Yosemite and compare them to Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. How is photography different from oil painting? What do Adams’ photographs and Moran’s painting both emphasize about the landscape? How are they different?
Teaching guide: Six Portraits of the Levy-Franks family
By the end of this lesson, students should be able to:
Discuss the Six Portraits of the Levy-Franks Family as a set of primary documents that links to their specific historical context during the eighteenth century
Discuss the social and economic context that produced the Levy-Franks’ wealth
Discuss how the source material for the paintings reflects the aspirations of the family
Gerardus Duyckinck I (attributed), six portraits of the Levy-Franks family (Franks Children with Bird, Franks Children with Lamb, Jacob Franks, Moses Levy, Mrs. Jacob Franks (Abigaill Levy), and Ricka Franks), c. 1735, oil on canvas, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art (photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
What makes the paintings feel like a group that belongs together?
What details in the paintings feel like they might be important?
2. Watch the video
The video Six Portraits of the Levy-Franks family is only four and a half minutes long. Ideally, the video should provide an active rather than a passive classroom experience. Please feel free to stop the video to respond to student questions, to underscore or develop issues, to define vocabulary, or to look closely at parts of the painting that are being discussed. Key points, a self-diagnostic quiz, and high resolution photographs with details of the Six Portraits of the Levy-Franks family are provided to support the video.
3. Read about the paintings and their historical context
An expression of status
Having one’s portrait painted was something only the wealthy could afford. By commissioning six portraits of their family, the Levy-Franks were demonstrating their wealth and status in the community of New York City. There were no painters with extensive formal training in the colony, so limners (itinerant artists with little or no formal instruction) were the only artists available to make portraits. The flat and slightly stiff feeling of the paintings reflects the limner’s lack of training in the naturalistic Baroque style popular in Europe.
The paintings were made using British prints as inspiration. Mezzotints (a style of printmaking that creates a wide range of soft tones) from England that copied paintings of the British aristocracy provided the basis for the Levy-Franks portraits, and probably reflected their social aspirations. The portrait of Abigaill Levy-Franks was likely based on a portrait like this one of Princess Anne, with a similar pose and style of dress to the one we see in the painting. The semi-public space in the house where these paintings were hung made their statement of familial wealth and status known to all the family’s visitors.
Jewish in the “New World”
The Levy-Franks were one of a small number of families in New York City who identified as Jewish. By 1730, there were only 75 Jewish families in the city. The Levy-Franks lived in what is now Lower Manhattan, and helped found the Mill Street Synagogue, the first Jewish congregation in North America. Abigaill Levy-Franks’ letters to one of her sons living in London reveal her concern that he keep to his Jewish traditions, including a kosher diet and observance of the holidays and the Sabbath.
While Abigaill was concerned with her son maintaining his Jewish identity, the Levy-Franks portraits do not contain references to Jewishness. This may have been intended to avoid alienating visitors to their home, emphasizing what they had in common with them (wealth and status) rather than their differences.
4. Discussion questions
The portraits reinforce the wealth and social status of the Levy-Franks family, but also create a strong network between the members of three generations. Looking at the portraits together, how did the artist emphasize family connections and create a unified sense of community?
Why do you think that the male figures point to Abigaill? What does that say about her status? Is that status surprising?
Why do you think that the limner borrowed elements from British mezzotints in the Levy-Franks portraits? What messages do those elements send to viewers?
Do you think these portraits be different if they had been painted in London rather than New York? Why or why not?
What would be a modern equivalent of the Levy-Franks portraits? What is different between a formal painted portrait and other kinds of portraits?
5. Research questions
Early portraitists in the American colonies included John Singleton Copley (The Mifflins, Paul Revere, and Henry Pelham), the Freake painter, Lawrence Kilburn, Henry Benbridge, Pieter Vanderlyn, John Smibert, Robert Feke, and Joseph Blackburn. Choose works by two of these artists and compare them to the Levy-Franks portraits. How are they similar? How are they different?
Modern artists like Kehinde Wiley, Cindy Sherman, Lucian Freud, and Amy Sherald have reinterpreted what portrait painting looks like. Choose two modern portrait artists, and compare a work from each to the Six Portraits of the Levy-Franks Family. How are their messages the same or different? Do they use their materials in the same way?
Teaching guide: Sixteen casta paintings
Francisco Clapera’s set of sixteen casta paintings (c. 1775) will be useful in the study of:
Social structures
Spanish colonial America
Race and ethnicity
By the end of this lesson, students should be able to:
Discuss Francisco Clapera’s set of sixteen casta paintings as a set of primary documents that link to their specific historical context during the eighteenth century
Discuss the social and economic factors that underlay the creation of these paintings
Discuss how ideas of race can be related to ideas of social status
Francisco Clapera, set of sixteen casta paintings, c. 1775, 51.1 x 39.6 cm (Denver Art Museum)
Describe the paintings as a set, or have them describe a single painting. What seems to be the most important part of the paintings?
What details seem like they might be important?
What makes the paintings feel like a unified set?
2. Watch the video
The video “Casta paintings: constructing identity in Spanish colonial America” is only five and a half minutes long. Ideally, the video should provide an active rather than a passive classroom experience. Please feel free to stop the video to respond to student questions, to underscore or develop issues, to define vocabulary, or to look closely at parts of the painting that are being discussed. Key points, a self-diagnostic quiz, and high resolution photographs with details of the sixteen casta paintings are provided to support the video.
3. Read about the paintings and their historical context
A vision of the “New World”
Casta paintings were primarily made for export from the Spanish Viceroyalty of New Spain to Spain and the rest of Europe. The first set of casta paintings made by Manuel Arellano in 1711 may have been commissioned for the viceroy of New Spain, who most likely would have brought them back to Spain with him when he returned from his tour of duty. Francisco Clapera is the only Spaniard known to have painted a casta series. He had been involved with the Art Academy in Madrid and was involved with the Art Academy in Mexico City as well. One possibility is that casta paintings were developed by painters in Mexico City in a bid to elevate their professional status as well as the status of painting in New Spain.
One of the things that the paintings show is the natural bounty of the Spanish colony, with fruits such as pineapple and papaya, and maize (seen in tortilla-making). They also show the perceived exoticism of the territory, with depictions of indigenous cuisine (like the aforementioned tortillas, but also tamales and mole). The overall impression is of bounty, productivity, and for the most part, people in harmony within their families.
Race, class, and elite anxieties
The Viceroyalty of New Spain was populated by a number of groups, distinguished by race, ethnicity, and place of origin: the Spaniards born in Spain, along with creoles (Spaniards born in New Spain) were at the top of the social hierarchy, and had more educational and economic opportunities. There were also a large number of Indigenous people from varied ethnic groups, enslaved Africans who had been brought to New Spain, and free Africans and people of African descent. In New Spain, as opposed to Spain itself, there was much more social mobility, which made the elites nervous, and casta paintings may have served as a way for Spaniards to codify racial groups. By codifying the forms of racial mixing that took place in New Spain, the “pure-blooded” elites may have sought a form of control over the “dilution” of pure Spanish blood.
Earlier Spanish concerns with “purity of blood” revolved around the Reconquest (Reconquista) of the Iberian Peninsula from Muslim rule. After the final victory at Granada, the Spanish crown ordered the expulsion of all Muslims and Jews who refused to convert. However, those who converted and stayed were looked upon with suspicion, and these “New Christians” were suspected of secretly keeping their old faiths. “Purity of blood” was a term that referred to proving one’s lineage to be Old Christian rather than a new convert, and became tied to ideas of class within Spain, often enforced by laws and regulations that required proof of lineage to participate in military orders, guilds, and other organizations.
Jews and Muslims were prohibited from emigrating to the Spanish colonies (though some did anyway), and Spanish anxieties about lineage and Christianity were transferred to the Indigenous and African groups who were likewise newly converted Christians. While skin color was a part of how racial others were perceived, their relationship to Christianity was also a factor in their social standing. The reality of race in New Spain was much more fluid than how it is shown in the casta paintings, and the definition of social classes and professions was not as rigidly defined either. This made those at the top — the Spaniards and creoles — nervous, as their position at the top of the social hierarchy (with the exception of people in top government posts) was not guaranteed.
4. Discussion questions
Casta paintings depicted stereotypes about race and social class in New Spain. How do we, today, perpetuate stereotypes about race, class, and identity in the United States?
While the casta paintings are about race, they can also tell us something about gender. What do the paintings seem to assume about the roles of men and women in New Spain’s society?
5. Research questions
Compare the casta series painted by Miguel Cabrera with Francisco Clapera’s. What elements are similar, and what are different? How does Cabrera depict the themes of abundance and exoticism in seen in the Clapera paintings?
Compare the genre of costumbrismo with casta paintings. Select one costumbrismo and one casta painting and compare them. What do they have in common? How are they different? Do they say similar things about race and class, or do they have different messages?
Teaching guide: Benjamin West, Penn’s Treaty with the Indians
Describe the painting. What parts of it seem important to you?
Are there small details in the painting that you think might be important?
How does Benjamin West distinguish between the colonists and the Native Americans?
How does the background scenery contribute to the painting’s narrative?
2. Watch the video
The video “The making of an American myth: Benjamin West, Penn’s Treaty with the Indians” is only four minutes long. Ideally, the video should provide an active rather than a passive classroom experience. Please feel free to stop the video to respond to student questions, to underscore or develop issues, to define vocabulary, or to look closely at parts of the painting that are being discussed. Key points, a self-diagnostic quiz, and high resolution photographs with details of Penn’s Treaty with the Indians are provided to support the video.
3. Read about the painting and its historical context
Making myths
Benjamin West’s Penn’s Treaty with the Indians illustrates a scene in which the Quaker leader William Penn is trading peacefully with leaders of the Lenni Lenape and Delaware peoples. It is a recounting of a popular belief that in 1682, Penn met with the Lenni Lenape and Delaware peoples under an elm tree at Shackamaxon and traded gifts for land. He had been granted the rights to the land by King Charles II of England, but as a Quaker he is shown choosing to do what was morally and ethically right within his beliefs and negotiating peacefully to compensate the Native Americans who were living in what the colonists called Pennsylvania Colony.
However, the painting doesn’t show the reality of the relationship between the colonizers and the local Native groups. It was commissioned about 100 years after the scene it shows, and is meant to show the way people wanted to believe that colonization happened. It was an important narrative for people in the colonies to believe that “at least at this time we traded well with our neighbors. That we have business practices and religious practices and cultural practices that perpetuate peace.” It is essentially depicting a myth.
Awork of propaganda
The painting was also meant to bolster the reputation of William Penn’s son Thomas, who hadn’t been very fair in his dealings with the local Natives, and whose near royal authority over the colony was not popular on the eve of the revolutionary War. He was the one who commissioned the painting. It helped to be able to point to something that showed you and your ancestors had been kind, benevolent, and fair.
Images that persuade
The painter, Benjamin West, has placed the bolt of white cloth being offered to the Native Americans at the center of the painting, emphasizing the idea of trade. He also shows other Native people in the painting wearing cloth in shades of green, yellow, red, and blue. It is meant to emphasize that the colonists had offered something that the Native people really wanted and that the trading was fair. The scene also emphasizes an idea of peace: the Quakers are unarmed and the Native people have set down their bows and arrows. The seated Native man at the center front who is looking at the bolt of fabric is shown holding what looks like a peace pipe. In addition, we can see Native houses under the tree and European houses being built in the background, implying that the two groups lived together in harmony rather than the reality of the Lenni Lenape being pushed off of their land through coercion and violence.
4. Discussion questions
How might we draw parallels between the motivations behind Penn’s Treaty with the Indians and modern concerns over “deepfake” videos and manipulated photographs? How is a painting similar to or different from a video or a photograph?
Why do you think that Thomas Penn thought a claim to being fair with Native Americans would make fellow colonists more inclined to accept his family’s leadership?
5. Research questions
Look up the Walking Purchase of 1737, and describe the strategy Thomas Penn used to defraud the Lenni Lenape of their land. How much land was taken? Were the Lenni Lenape able to try and fight back? Where do the Lenni Lenape now live?
Benjamin West was one of many history painters working around the time of the American Revolution. John Trumbull and Thomas Birch were among his contemporaries. Choose a history painting by one of these artists and compare it to Penn’s Treaty with the Indians. How are the paintings similar? How are they different?
Describe the bowl, including its surface appearance, form, and decoration.
How is this bowl similar to other types of bowls you have seen? How is it different?
How does the way the bowl looks convey that it is a status object?
2. Watch the video
The video “The triangle trade and the colonial table, sugar, tea, and slavery” is only five and a half minutes long. Ideally, the video should provide an active rather than a passive classroom experience. Please feel free to stop the video to respond to student questions, to underscore or develop issues, to define vocabulary, or to look closely at parts of the painting that are being discussed. Key points, a self-diagnostic quiz, and high resolution photographs with details of the sugar bowl are provided to support the video.
3. Read about the sugar bowl and its historical context
“White gold”
Sugarcane comes from Southeast Asia, but its cultivation spread to India and the Middle East by the 8th century. It then moved into Europe, and the Portuguese began to grow it in their island colonies of Madeira and the Azores. Columbus brought sugarcane to Hispaniola on his second voyage in 1493, and the Portuguese would later expand their sugar production to their colony of Brazil. Other warm, fertile areas of the Americas were also cultivated with sugarcane.
Sugarcane is a labor-intensive plant to grow, harvest, and process into refined sugar and sugar by-products like molasses and rum. This made it an expensive luxury item. Humans have always enjoyed and sought out sweet foods, and this concentrated sweetness was highly desired for the tables of the wealthy. The high price that sugar and its by-products (especially rum) commanded motivated Europeans to start large sugar plantations.
Enslaved labor
The difficult processes of sugar cultivation, harvest, and processing, combined with the availability of Africans who had been abducted and enslaved, and colonial governments and individuals being comfortable with enslaving people, led to a large increase in the population of enslaved African people in the Americas. Although enslaved labor was not necessary for profitable production of sugar, it allowed plantation owners to greatly increase their profits. Millions of people, mostly West Africans, were abducted, brought to the Americas, and forced to labor on the plantations. The work was so arduous that the average working life of an enslaved person on one of these plantations was only 7 years.
A global trade
Enslaved people and the sugar they were forced to produce were enmeshed in a global trade network that exchanged humans, sugar, rum, spices, and many other goods in a system referred to as the Triangle Trade, as the routes of exchange formed a triangle between Africa, Europe, and the Americas. Many people in all three places profited from the trade network, while at the same time either ignoring or accepting its foundation on the forced labor of enslaved people. The global economy that the sugar bowl was a part of had begun in the 1500s, spurred in part by European “discovery” and colonization of the Americas.
On the table
The silver sugar bowl would have held the sweet “white gold” used to enhance the drinking of beverages like coffee, tea, chocolate, and punch. Tea was imported from Asia, primarily China, and was also such a luxury item that it was sometimes kept locked up so that servants wouldn’t steal it. The sugar bowl reflects the associations of tea with China, and is in fact patterned on a Chinese vessel form used for a completely different food – rice. The precious metal made to make the bowl, the luxury sugar inside it, and the costly beverages (chocolate and coffee were also expensive) it was associated with all would have been obvious to the people who would see this sugar bowl.
A fine art
Making an object like the silver sugar bowl would have required highly skilled craftsmen to complete. A workshop would have been led by a master craftsman, with journeymen and apprentices working under him. The silver was made into a sheet, which was then hammered (referred to as “raising”) into its rounded bowl shape. At intervals, the metal would need to be annealed (heated so that the metal would regain its malleability) or it would begin to split. Once finished, the silver was pickled (put in an acid bath) to remove discoloration from oxidation, and polished to a high finish.
4. Discussion questions
Global trade is still a system that can rely on the exploitation of workers. What might encourage this exploitation? What might be a way to stop it? Can you think of a kind of item that exemplifies these kinds of trade networks and exploitation today the way that the silver sugar bowl does for the 18th century?
The historical images in the video that show sugar production have the caption “this illustration minimizes the brutality of slavery.” Discuss why you think these illustrations didn’t show the reality of slavery. Do you think that most elites, such as the people who would have used the sugar bowl, were aware of the conditions on the plantations their sugar came from?
This sugar bowl was handmade. In the 21st century, most of the objects in our world are mass produced. Do we look at handmade objects differently now than we did in the preindustrial era?
5. Research questions
Artist Kara Walker’s sculpture installation, “A Subtlety, or the Marvelous Sugar Baby” deals with the legacy of slavery and the sugar trade in America. Find interviews with the artist and write about the following: What imagery does she use to communicate her ideas? What aspects of slavery does she address? How does she present the legacy of slavery and sugar as being a part of modern America?
The voyage imposed on enslaved Africans from Africa to the Americas is referred to as the Middle Passage. Many artists have made works about the Middle Passage, including J.M.W. Turner, Radcliffe Bailey, Keith Morrison, Tom Feelings, Isaac Julien, and Willie Cole. Compare and contrast two works by different artists. How are they similar? How are they different?
Teaching guide: Wayne Thiebaud, Ponds and Streams
A visit to the Valley today reveals a land that has undergone more transformation over the past 150 years than it experienced over the previous many centuries. It has seen people – cultural communities – from around the world converge on it. It has seen settlements emerge along railroad lines, silos and packing houses rise up, stretches of highway create corridors, and beautifully engineered rows of crops, acres of orchard and miles of irrigation canal create a new kind architecture – a thoroughly man-made one. Fresno Historical Society, “Description of the San Joaquin Valley”
Wayne Thiebaud, Ponds and Streams, 2001 will be useful for the study of:
The preservation and development in rural America in art and history
Look closely and describe what you see — what is man made and what is natural? How can you determine what is natural and what is not?
Can you tell what season it is? What the weather is like?
Based on how the painting is composed, what has the artist chosen to focus on? What has he mostly left out?
What is our viewpoint in relationship to the landscape? Does it change, is this relationship consistent?
How does the artist use color? What colors does the artist put next to each other? Do any of the colors attract your eye? Do other colors elicit other reactions?
2. Watch the video
The Seeing America video about Thiebaud’s Ponds and Streams, 2001 is less than five minutes in length. Ideally, the video should provide an active rather than a passive classroom experience. Please feel free to stop the video to respond to student questions, to underscore or develop issues, to define vocabulary, or to look closely at parts of the painting that are being discussed. Key points, a self-diagnostic quiz, and high resolution photographs with details of the work are provided to support the video.
3. Read about the painting and its historical context
An important example of Thiebaud’s late farmscapes, Ponds and Streams depicts a patchwork of plowed fields and shimmering waterways from a bird’s-eye vantage, with a barely visible horizon. Poised between representation and abstraction, the painting is composed of carefully constructed geometries and nonrepresentational colors that recall the artificial pastels of the artist’s painted confections. The California landscape—traditionally a symbol of nature at its most pure and bountiful—is presented as a completely cultivated site sustained only through an extensive network of artificial irrigation systems and chemical fertilizers. It is fitting that this stunningly beautiful meditation on the California landscape is a gift to the Museums from Richard and Rhoda Goldman, who were lifelong advocates for the care and protection of the environment, and founders of the Goldman Environmental Prize. Through the extraordinary generosity of the Goldmans, Ponds and Streams joins four paintings and more than 300 works on paper in the Museums’ collection of works by Thiebaud.
Thiebaud has said, “My own sense is being American is a very important part of what I feel and do.” Look at other work by this artist. Does his statement make sense? What about his work seems “American”? (Smithsonian Magazine)
Teaching guide: Aaron Douglas, Aspiration
Aspiration at the 1936 Texas Centennial Exposition
Aaron Douglas’s painting Aspiration, today in the de Young Museum in San Francisco, was one of four paintings created for the “Hall of Negro Life” at the 1936 Texas Centennial Exposition; only two of the paintings survive.
The subjects of the four paintings were:
1. Estevanico (one of the first native Africans to reach the present-day continental United States) [now lost]
2. The “Negro’s Gift to America” [now lost]
3. Into Bondage (National Gallery of Art)
4. Aspiration (de Young Museum, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco)
Hall of Negro Life, Texas Centennial Exposition, 1936
Black organizers of the Hall of Negro Life sensed that whiteness defined itself in terms of binary opposition. If whiteness equaled progress, blackness must mean stasis. To portray blacks as a people who had progressed since slavery would directly undermine this view, even if this historical narrative implied that African Americans needed white tutors to achieve civilization. Visitors were hammered by the theme of progress as they entered the hall. At the front door, visitors encountered a sculptured plaster model of a black man “with broken chains from slavery, ignorance, and superstitions falling from his wrists.” A series of murals along the walls of the lobby by the artist Aaron Douglas of New York became the exhibit’s most eye catching and subversive feature. One mural, the ‘Negro’s Gift to America,’ portrayed blacks as builders of the country, contributing to music, art, and religion to American culture. A woman with a baby in her outstretched arms in the center of the painting symbolized ‘a plea for equal recognition…the child is a sort of banner, a pledge of Negro determination to carry on . . . in [a] struggle toward truth and light.’
Nevertheless the Hall of Negro Life proved too dangerous to survive. When officials announced that the centennial Exposition would continue in 1937 as the Greater Texas and Pan American Exposition, the hall was demolished, the only original permanent structure immediately destroyed.
Michael Phillips, White Metropolis: Race, Ethnicity, and Religion in Dallas, 1841-2001 (University of Texas Press, Jan 2, 2006), pp. 60-61.
Aaron Douglas, Aspiration, 1936 will be useful for the study of:
The”New Negro”
The Harlem Renaissance
The continuing struggle for civil rights for African Americans
The history of Texas
By the end of this lesson, students should be able to:
Discuss Aaron Douglas’s Aspiration as a primary document that links to the specific historical context of continuing discrimination and the struggle for civil rights in the period between the World Wars
Understand the “New Negro” and attempts by African Americans in this period to construct a narrative of the past in order to envision a better future
Discuss the power of public art even in the context of a temporary exposition
Apply the tools of visual analysis to support interpretation of the artwork
Questions to ask:
Describe the three figures on the plinth. How would you describe our view of them in relation to the city in the upper corner?
The artist used a limited palette of colors – how would you describe them?
How do the various elements of the painting (the figures, shapes, and colors) suggest the meaning of the title, Aspiration (the hope of achieving something)?
2. Watch the video
The video “A beacon of hope, Aaron Douglas’s Aspiration” is less than 8 minutes in length. Ideally, the video should provide an active rather than a passive classroom experience. Please feel free to stop the video to respond to student questions, to underscore or develop issues, to define vocabulary, or to look closely at parts of the painting that are being discussed. Key points, a self-diagnostic quiz, and high resolution photographs with details of the work are provided to support the video.
3. Read about the painting and its historical context
Douglas translated jazz rhythm and improvisation into visual terms: concentric circles suggest sound emanating from raised instruments, syncopated by the intercepting silhouetted figures. In his speech at the First American Artists’ Congress in 1936, Douglas made his case for why black artists should look to vernacular traditions such as jazz and dance rather than to visual traditions rooted in Europe. The task of the black artist was to give ‘creative expression to a traditionless people….[he] is essentially a product of the masses and can never take a position above or beyond their level.’ Jazz was a New World art form, its potential to liberate expressed in the face of an oppressive history.
“like a spiritual emancipation”: The Harlem Renaissance
Detail. Jacob Lawrence, The Migration Series, 1940-41, 60 panels, tempera on hardboard (even numbers at The Museum of Modern Art, New York, odd numbers at the Phillips Collection, Washington D.C.)
Just as cultural limits loosened across the nation, the 1920s represented a period of serious self-reflection among African Americans, most especially those in northern ghettos. New York City was a popular destination of American blacks during the Great Migration. The city’s black population grew 257 percent, from 91,709 in 1910 to 327,706 by 1930 (the white population grew only 20 percent).[1] Moreover, by 1930, some 98,620 foreign-born blacks had migrated to the United States. Nearly half made their home in Manhattan’s Harlem district.[2]
Harlem originally lay between Fifth Avenue and Eighth Avenue and 130th Street to 145th Street. By 1930, the district had expanded to 155th Street and was home to 164,000 people, mostly African Americans. Continuous relocation to “the greatest Negro City in the world” exacerbated problems with crime, health, housing, and unemployment. Nevertheless, it brought together a mass of black people energized by race pride, military service in World War I, the urban environment, and, for many, ideas of Pan-Africanism or Garveyism. James Weldon Johnson called Harlem “the Culture Capital.”[3] The area’s cultural ferment produced the Harlem Renaissance and fostered what was then termed the New Negro Movement.
Alain Locke did not coin the term New Negro, but he did much to popularize it. In the 1925 book The New Negro, Locke proclaimed that the generation of subservience was no more—“we are achieving something like a spiritual emancipation.” Bringing together writings by men and women, young and old, black and white, Locke produced an anthology that was of African Americans, rather than only about them. The book joined many others. Popular Harlem Renaissance writers published some twenty-six novels, ten volumes of poetry, and countless short stories between 1922 and 1935.[4] Alongside the well-known Langston Hughes and Claude McKay, female writers like Jessie Redmon Fauset and Zora Neale Hurston published nearly one third of these novels. While themes varied, the literature frequently explored and countered pervading stereotypes and forms of American racial prejudice.
Mark R. Schneider, “We Return Fighting”: The Civil Rights Movement in the Jazz Age (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 2002), p. 21.
Philip Kasinitz, Caribbean New York: Black Immigrants and the Politics of Race (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1992), p. 25.
James Weldon Johnson, “Harlem: The Culture Capital,” in Alain Locke, The New Negro: An Interpretation (New York: Albert and Charles Boni, 1925), p. 301.
Joan Marter, ed., The Grove Encyclopedia of American Art, Volume 1 (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2011), p. 448.
Negro life is not only establishing new contacts and founding new centers, it is finding a new soul. There is a fresh spiritual and cultural focusing. We have, as the heralding sign, an unusual outburst of creative expression. There is renewed race-spirit that consciously and proudly sets itself apart.— Alain Locke
African American culture saw a remarkable Renaissance in the 1920s and 30s, often accompanied by a passionate optimism about the future of African Americans in the United States. This optimism was apparent at the Hall of Negro Life at the Texas Centennial of 1936, and in Douglas’s paintings for its entrance. If you could talk to someone from that period, knowing what we know today about all that has happened since the 1930s, what would you tell them?
5. Research question
Art historian Renee Ater has written that Douglas “understood the present and the future as being tied to the past.” Why did Douglas and others feel it was so important to write a past in order to move forward into the future? How does Douglas tie the past to the future in the painting Aspiration and what do you think Douglas is saying about future of African Americans going forward?
Teaching guide: Horace Pippin, Mr. Prejudice
Horace Pippin’s Mr. Prejudice (1943) will be useful for the study of:
the contribution of African Americans to American war efforts — during both the First World War (including the Harlem Hellfighters) and the Second World War
efforts to limit discrimination against African Americans including Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s 1941 executive order (number 8802) outlawing discrimination in wartime industries
the history of racism and discrimination in the American military
the history of the Ku Klux Klan
By the end of this lesson, students should be able to:
discuss Horace Pippin’s Mr. Prejudice as a primary document that links to its specific historical context during the Second World War, the history of racism in the United States, and the growth of the Ku Klux Klan
understand the significance of the participation of African Americans in the armed forces during World War I and World War II
apply the tools of visual analysis to support interpretation of the artwork
identify and elaborate on certain key issues related to “Politics and Power,” prompted by an example of American art
1. Look closely at the painting
Horace Pippin, Mr. Prejudice, 1943. oil on canvas, 46 x 35.9 cm (Philadelphia Museum of Art)
Are there clues that help you identify their meaning within the painting? Start by looking at what the figures are wearing, and what they hold.
Some of the figures are actively engaged, look closely and see if you can determine what these figures are doing.
How is the painting composed? How are the figures grouped?
Pippin is known for his direct, seemingly self-taught style of painting. What do you notice that suggests that the artist did not go to art school?
How do the figures in the painting make you feel? Do specific figures make you feel different ways? What might be some reasons for this?
2. Watch the video
The video on Pippin’s paintingMr Prejudice is less than 6 minutes in length. Ideally, the video should provide an active rather than a passive classroom experience. Please feel free to stop the video to respond to student questions, to underscore or develop issues, to define vocabulary, or to look closely at parts of the painting that are being discussed. Key points, a self-diagnostic quiz, and high resolution photographs with details of the painting are provided to support the video.
3. Read about the painting and its historical context
Pippin was interested in producing a kind of “insider ethnography” — teaching people about the African American community through his pictures. He once said of himself, “You know why I am great? Because I paint things exactly the way they are. I don’t go around making up a whole lot of stuff. I paint it exactly the way it is and exactly the way I see it.”[1] Pippin was keenly interested in the events of daily life in the African American community around him. He painted scenes of families playing dominoes, saying prayers, eating breakfast. But he also painted portraits of his Amish neighbors, and recreated scenes in the Bible stories that he heard as he grew up. Big themes concerned him as well: events in American history, World Wars I and II, and racism. Pippin had fought in World War I, where he was disabled and shipped home after a year in France; he painted many scenes from his experiences there. In Mr. Prejudice, painted during World War II, Pippin provided a trenchant social commentary on racism in America, reminding the viewer that while “V” stood for Victory, and black machinists and steel workers were of vital importance to the war effort at home, the Ku Klux Klan (on the right) and the Statue of Liberty (on the left) still vied for control of America. The African American soldiers and sailors, fighting abroad for international freedom even as he painted this work, were still serving in a segregated military.
1. Celeste-Marie Bernier, African American visual arts: from slavery to the present (University of North Carolina Press, 2008), p, 102.
From Angela L. Miller, Janet Catherine Berlo, Bryan J. Wolf, and Jennifer L. Roberts, American Encounters: Art, History, and Cultural Identity (Washington University Libraries, 2018), p. 512, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (available for free download)
Although Mr. Prejudice is a relatively small painting…its impact is powerful. The group of figures in the lower half were painted with flat shapes and bold colors and placed symmetrically on either side of the giant “V” separating them. A grim-faced white man, bare to the waist like an executioner and intent on his task, hammers a wedge down into the “V.” Only after we notice the skin color of the other people in the painting—black on the left side and white on the right—and what they are wearing, do we realize that the artist is making a strong social statement. Horace Pippin was deeply affected by his experiences as a soldier in a segregated troop during World War I in France, where he fought bravely for democracy. He also remembered how African American soldiers were treated poorly after they returned home. He painted Mr. Prejudice over twenty-five years later, towards the end of World War II, when he saw more discrimination against the next generation of young African American soldiers. For African Americans, the “V” for victory referred to winning the struggle for equality in the U.S. as well as winning the war in Europe.
Horace Pippin fought in the 369th Regiment, a famous African American Infantry division nicknamed the Harlem Hell Fighters. Throughout the boredom and the bloody battles, the men of the 369th Regiment were both fearless and fierce, although over half of them lost their lives. The French government was so impressed that the entire regiment was awarded the Croix de Guerre (French for “cross of war”), one of France’s highest military honors.
Though African American artists like Horace Pippin may have seen themselves simply as artists, American culture identified them as “black artists.” Do artists from an oppressed minority have a special responsibility to address that oppression in their art? How does knowing about the an artist’s background change how we understand or interpret a work?
5. Research question
How were African American soldiers like Pippin received when they came home after serving in World War I? How did that contrast with the way that white soldiers were received?
Teaching guide: Norman Rockwell, Rosie the Riveter
Norman Rockwell’s Rosie the Riveter (1943) will be useful for the study of:
women’s rights and gender roles in the mid-20th century
the contribution of women to the war effort
U.S. participation in World War II
the United States and Allied victory over the Axis powers
the rise of Nazi Germany
By the end of this lesson, students should be able to:
discuss Norman Rockwell’s Rosie the Riveter as a primary document that links to its specific historical context during the Second World War
understand the significance of women’s participation in the war effort
apply the tools of visual analysis to support interpretation of the artwork
identify and elaborate on certain key issues related to Work, Exchange, and Technology, prompted by an example of American art
Describe the figure, including her expression, the position of her body, her clothing.
Try to sit like the figure. Does it feel natural?
How much of the composition is taken up by the figure?
What does the clothing depicted tell us about Rosie?
Rockwell is known for his realistic depiction of details and textures. What do you notice that heightens this sense of realism?
In what ways is this image not real at all? Why might Rockwell have made those decisions?
2. Watch the video
The video on Rockwell’s Rosie the Riveter is only 7 minutes in length. Ideally, the video should provide an active rather than a passive classroom experience. Please feel free to stop the video to respond to student questions, to underscore or develop issues, to define vocabulary, or to look closely at parts of the painting that are being discussed. Key points, a self-diagnostic quiz, and high resolution photographs with details are provided to support the video.
3. Read about the painting and its historical context
A sense of continuity with the past helps maintain stability in the midst of change. Beginning in the 1910s, the illustrator Norman Rockwell gave this to mass audiences in abundance. In Rockwell’s America, cars, television antennae, and other complications of modern life are framed and defined by the persistence of the past, which lies reassuringly just beneath the thin veneer of modernity.
Rockwell is one of a handful of household names among America’s image-makers who are broadly familiar to the general public. Yet, until recently, those who were serious about fine art-critics, museum curators, men and women of “taste” would have nothing to do with him. He was maligned for giving audiences what they wanted—a vision of a national life that never existed—rather than confronting them with difficult dilemmas (although he did take on race prejudice and the Civil Rights movement in a series of late works). In addition, he was merely an illustrator; most of his work was done for the Saturday Evening Post, a mass circulation middlebrow journal for which he produced 322 covers between 1916 and 1963….His critics believed that illustration required less skill than art: modern artists transform reality rather than merely mirror it. Yet the notion that illustration—and artistic naturalism more generally—is less “artful” than other forms of image-making is belied by Rockwell’s compositions. He shows us not the way things were, but the ways in which many Americans wanted to believe they were….
The American way of life
Rockwell’s images embodied “The American Way of Life,” a populist notion of shared national character and core values. His magazine covers (often reprinted as posters) speak in a voice of social inclusiveness and shared humor. They imply a confidence that, confronted with the situations shown, we will respond the same way as Rockwell’s subjects themselves.
Rockwell’s exacting realism gave his depictions a feel of authenticity. From the 1930s on, his work enjoyed such wide circulation that at times it seemed to take the place of lived memories, reshaping the recollection of national life. Like the family snapshot that stands in for, and ultimately replaces, the actual event, his illustrations have, for many Americans then and now, become “our America.” Yet those who do not recognize Rockwell’s America as theirs feel a sense of alienation: “Where am I in this picture?”
Paradoxically, Rockwell’s rise to fame between the world wars coincided with a time of unprecedented movement away from the ideals his images represent: small-town, face-to-face, rooted in stable social identity. In his upbringing, Rockwell himself had little direct experience of the small-town life he depicted on the covers of the Saturday Evening Post. His nostalgic vision was avidly consumed by millions of Post readers, yet the Post was a part of the national media, the newspapers and broadcasting, that were displacing regional and local identity. The consumer culture advertised by mass circulation magazines was taking the place of the older way of life commemorated in Rockwell’s images. His appeal to the purportedly universal elements connecting people across class, regional, and ethnic lines was something that linked him to other purveyors of mass culture, such as his friend Walt Disney.
From Angela L. Miller, Janet Catherine Berlo, Bryan J. Wolf, and Jennifer L. Roberts, American Encounters: Art, History, and Cultural Identity (Washington University Libraries, 2018), p. 254, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (available for free download)
4. Discussion questions
Rockwell gives is an ideal image of a woman who symbolizes America’s confidence and resilience, at a difficult time that tested those very values in the American people. Can you think of another image that offers an ideal, instead of presenting reality?
Rosie was a famous character before Rockwell’s illustration. Compare the image from the cover of the published music to the 1942 song with Rockwell’s painting. What are the differences and similarities?
5. Research question
In what ways was the experiences of “real” Rosies (actual women who went to work for the war effort) different from Rockwell’s depiction? Were there groups of people who were not able to or discouraged from contributing to the war effort?
Teaching guide: Benny Andrews, Flag Day
Benny Andrews’s Flag Day (1966) will be useful for the study of:
Postwar United States History
History of the 1960s
The Civil Rights movement
History of activism in the United States
Race and national identity
African American artists
Politically-engaged art
By the end of this lesson, students should be able to:
Discuss Benny Andrews’s Flag Day as a primary document that links to its specific historical context during the Civil Rights movement.
Understand how biography can inform our understanding of a work of art
Apply the tools of visual analysis to support their own interpretation of the artwork
Identify and elaborate on certain key issues related to American and national identity, prompted by an example of American art
Describe the flag. What details of the flag seem most notable to you?
How does this look different from the typical image of an American flag?
What words would you use to describe the man in the painting? Which details of the figure lead to your choice of words?
What do you think the man’s relationship is to the flag?
Look closely at the surface of the painting. How did the artist construct this image using paint and pencil? What choices did the artist make?
2. Watch the video
The video “Identity, Civil Rights, and the American Flag” which features Benny Andrew’s Flag Day is only six minutes in length. Ideally, the video should provide an active rather than a passive classroom experience. Please feel free to stop the video to respond to student questions, to underscore or develop issues, to define vocabulary, or to look closely at parts of the painting that are being discussed. Key points, a self-diagnostic quiz, and high resolution photographs with details of Flag Day are provided to support the video.
3. Read about the painting and its historical context
Actually, in my case, racism was just one of the many problems I had. I had a class problem, too, you see. My family (was) probably one of the poorest, especially when we were sharecroppers in the country—and I’m just talking about Morgan County now. We were probably as poor as could be considered in terms of money or any kind of things like that….We also had a problem of living in the country; we were not included in the tokenism thing of going to high school, for example. So there were so many things—it was not just to fight being a black person in a white society; it was also fight being a poor person in a total society—being both black and white.
— Benny Andrews, as quoted in I. Richard Gruber, American Icons: from Madison to Manhattan, the Art of Benny Andrews, 1948-1997 (Georgia: Morris Museum of Art, 1997), p. 131.
This quote from Andrews reminds us that skin color is just one of many reasons that people in the United States have suffered discrimination: class, gender, sexual orientation, and religious and cultural background have also often been grounds for prejudice. Decades after the great Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 60s, African Americans, Latinos, Native Americans, and the LGBTQ community continue to struggle for visibility, equal rights, and opportunity. The Black Lives Matter movement is an important reminder that this struggle (and specifically the violence done to African Americans) continues. Discrimination against other groups, for instance Muslim Americans, are on the rise.
A sincere style
In this painting, Andrews intentionally avoided using the highly polished technique that was understood as “good” painting. Beginning in the nineteenth century, artists like van Gogh painted in a style that could be seen as naive and childlike in an effort to create a sense of the immediate and the personal and to heighten the sense of sincerity. There are many reasons why Andrews may have chosen to paint in this non-academic style and it is possible that Andrews felt this style was well suited to the political events that were then taking place.
The Civil Rights Movement and the flag
The Civil Rights Movement in the United States made great progress in the 1950s and 1960s with judicial decisions such as Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954) which ruled that “separate but equal” facilities were inherently unequal and mandated the desegregation of schools, legislative victories like the Equal Pay Act (1963), the Civil Rights Act (1964) and the Voting Rights Act (1965). Other efforts, such as the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) fell short and were not enacted.
The flag was an especially potent symbol during this period. For example, in 1971 John Kerry, a Vietnam War veteran and later congressman and presidential nominee, spoke on behalf of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War before the Senate Committee of Foreign Relations, and said this:
We saw firsthand how monies from American taxes were used for a corrupt dictatorial regime. We saw that many people in this country had a one-sided idea of who was kept free by the flag, and blacks provided the highest percentage of casualties. We saw Vietnam ravaged equally by American bombs and search and destroy missions…
— John Kerry, Statement of Vietnam Veterans Against the War, 1971, from The American Yawp Reader
A continuing struggle
Despite the landmark legislations listed above, after centuries of slavery and discrimination, it should come as no surprise that people of color continued to struggle for visibility, equality, and a greater voice in American society. Benny Andrews, an African American artist who grew up a sharecropper’s son in Georgia, had firsthand knowledge of the Jim Crow south, along with the social and economic structures that enabled racial inequities to persist. Moving to New York in 1958, he found that similar types of discrimination were also common in galleries and museums, restricting African Americans’ access to the art world and hindering their careers.
These exclusions were made clear in The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s 1969 exhibition “Harlem On My Mind,” which featured large, wall-sized photographs of the neighborhood over the first half of the twentieth century. Organized in the manner of an ethnographic display, the show did not include any painting or sculpture at all, and rejected the participation of Harlem residents themselves in the planning of the show. This controversial show led Andrews and others to establish the Black Emergency Cultural Coalition, a group that fought for museums to include more by African American artists and curators. Significant discrimination in the art world continues to exist today.
These concerns of visibility, equality, and voice are present in Andrews’ Flag Day from 1966. By placing the figure at the center of his composition, Andrews draws our eye toward him and his engagement with the American flag. Yet, the relationship between the man and the flag remains unclear. It is a complicated depiction that not only reflects the artist’s own struggles for recognition, but one that relates to broader questions of racial, national, and individual identity during the height of civil rights activism in the United States.
4. Discussion questions
The 1960s was an era of protest by many different groups, many of which used art in their campaigns. For an artist involved in activist causes, why do you think Benny Andrews left the meaning of Flag Day so unclear?
Can art be an effective tool in tackling large social or political issues? What are some pros and cons of using works of art to promote change?
Think of other examples of how symbols (such as the American flag) are used and transformed in order to make a political point.
5. Research questions
The flag of United States serves as a potent visual symbol of national identity, and many controversies have revolved around its use as a sign of protest and political critique. Like Benny Andrews, other artists such as Jasper Johns, Dread Scott, Faith Ringgold, Sonya Clark, David Hammonds, and Barbara Kruger have created provocative artworks focused on the flag. Compare and contrast two of these works — how are they similar? How are they different?
What is Flag Day? Why do you think Andrews chose this as the title for the painting?
What are your first impressions of this landscape painting?
What has the artist included in the scene?
Does this landscape look like a specific location? What gives you that impression?
Do the landscape and/or other elements in the painting seem idealized (more perfect than reality)? What gives you that impression?
Describe how this painting illustrates the impact of man on nature. Be as specific as possible.
How has the artist organized the painting’s elements—the landscape, the cottage, and the figures—to lead our eye through the image? How does this composition help to tell a story?
2. Watch the video
The video “Wilderness, settlement, and the forming of an American identity” that features Thomas Cole’s The Hunter’s Return is only six minutes in length. Ideally, the video should provide an active rather than a passive classroom experience. You can pause the video to respond to student questions, to underscore or develop issues, to define vocabulary, or to look closely at parts of the painting that are being discussed. Key points, a self-diagnostic quiz, and downloadable high-resolution photographs with details of The Hunter’s Return are provided to support the video.
3. Read about the painting and its historical context
Most Americans were busy settling nature in the nineteenth century, too busy in fact to look up from their work of extending the nation from “sea to shining sea.” When they did look up, they found themselves surrounded by a chorus of voices exhorting them to labor less and to seek meaning in the landscape instead. Writers like Emerson and Thoreau called upon mid-nineteenth-century audiences to treat nature as a treasure. The seemingly untouched quality of the nation’s wildernesses distinguished the United States from Europe. The landscape came increasingly to embody what Americans most valued in themselves: an “unstoried” past, an ”Adamic” freedom, an openness to the future, a fresh lease on life. In time, Americans came to think of themselves as “nature’s nation.” And yet one of the paradoxes of American history, as painters like Thomas Cole noted, lay in the unresolved tension between subduing of the wilderness and honoring it. That tension is still alive with us today, in the competing voices of environmentalists and advocates of development.
Steeped in European theories of art, Cole insisted on the “great and serious” calling of the artist. Unlike other early landscapists in America, he reacted strongly against any notion that his pictures should be literal transcriptions of what the eye sees. He believed instead in a “higher style of landscape,” a way of imbuing the landscape with “moral and imaginative” power. He achieved that by sorting through and then combining sketches made outdoors into a built “composition” at his studio. Landscape composition for Cole was never a “dead imitation” of nature, but an imaginative leap into those “invisible” meanings that lie unseen on the other side of nature. He proclaimed that, “If the imagination is shackled, and nothing is described but what we see, seldom will anything truly great be produced in either Painting or Poetry.”
From Angela L. Miller, Janet Catherine Berlo, Bryan J. Wolf, and Jennifer L. Roberts, American Encounters: Art, History, and Cultural Identity (Washington University Libraries, 2018), pp. 241, 254, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (available for free download)
In your neighborhood, do commercial, industrial spaces balance or overwhelm nature (or the opposite)? Do you think you would have reacted the way Cole did when he saw nature being transformed by man in the mid-nineteenth century, or would you have welcomed that change?
5. Research question
Opening a newspaper today, you are likely to read about political tensions regarding the development of government-controlled land for oil, gas, and coal—the energy needed to fuel the modern United States economy. Using one example, describe the views of both environmentalists and those advocating development.
By the end of this lesson, students should be able to:
Discuss the Gorget as a primary document that links to its specific historical context in Mississippian culture
Understand how cultural practices and beliefs shape the making and imagery of a work of art
Identify and elaborate on key elements of Native American history, prompted by a specific work of art
Gorget, c. 1250-1350, probably Middle Mississippian Tradition, whelk shell, 10 x 2 cm (National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution, 18/853)
Describe the gorget. What details seem most notable to you?
How does the artist who made this use line to create shapes and textures?
How is a sense of space and movement created?
How is this similar to items of personal adornment you are familiar with? How is it different?
2. Watch the video
The video “America before Columbus: a Mississippian view of the cosmos” is only seven minutes long. Ideally, the video should provide an active rather than a passive classroom experience. Please feel free to stop the video to respond to student questions, to underscore or develop issues, to define vocabulary, or to look closely at parts of the painting that are being discussed. Key points, a self-diagnostic quiz, and high resolution photographs with details of the gorget are provided to support the video.
3. Read about the gorget and its historical context
Part of a complex culture
The Mississippian culture is a term used to refer to a set of social practices that were shared among a number of different peoples throughout what is now the southeastern United States, and seems to have spread from the large city center of Cahokia. It is based on the material culture items that archaeologists have discovered, such as this gorget, ceramic and stone objects, and delicate metal ornaments, but also on evidence of practices such as types of farming and architecture. These practices and material culture items were tied to a set of myths, stories, and ideas about political authority that collectively are called ideology. As the ideology was adopted by people further from Cahokia, they also adopted the agriculture, architecture, and material culture that went with it. There are modern Native Americans who are probably the descendants of the Cahokians: the Osage, Ponca, Quapaw, and Kansa people.
A system of political power
The shell that the gorget is made from is a whelk – a type of sea snail – that probably came from the Gulf of Mexico. It would require long-distance trade to bring the shells from the Gulf to the Mississippian towns where the gorgets were made. This made them a luxury item, a symbol of wealth and power through their rarity, similar to the jeweled medallions and pins of European court culture during the same time. Leaders of different towns exchanged these gorgets with each other, as a way of cementing political ties as well as reinforcing their status at the top of the social order. The Morning Star imagery on this and some other gorgets may have tied their authority to the Morning Star myth.
A culture hero
Morning Star (also referred to as Birdman) is a Mississippian culture hero associated with rebirth and the agricultural cycle. Birdman imagery is found in rock art, gorgets, and copper ornaments throughout the Mississippian area. He is also associated with the planet Venus and ideas about the cosmos, such as where our human world is in relation to the upper and lower worlds. The artist has emphasized aspects of the figure in the gorget that seems to align with the story of Morning Star. The holes in the gorget that would have been used to wear it around a person’s neck would have oriented the figure so that it was facing up toward the wearer, but also looking as if it was rising from below to above.
4. Discussion questions
The video states that the gorget was found by an amateur archaeologist at the bottom of a burial mound that contained over a hundred burials. What are some things about this statement that might be considered problematic?
What kinds of power exist? How do people in power display their power? What examples can you come up with from world history? What examples can you come up with from the modern world? How are these examples similar to or different from the gorget?
How might knowing more about Mississippian culture and the story behind the gorget change the way people might think about Native American cultures of the past?
5. Research questions
The gorget is a symbol of ideology as well as power. Other cultures have produced objects that embody similar concepts, including Korea, Asante, Edo, Rome, and Hawaii. Compare and contrast two of these works with the gorget. How are they similar? How are they different?
What other examples of the Birdman / Morning Star in Mississippian art can you find? Do scholars all agree on what these representations mean? Choose two and compare them to the gorget – how are they similar? How are they different?
Arpilleras
Through the creation of arpilleras, women spoke out against the violence of the Pinochet dictatorship.
Arpilleristas (unidentified women artists, Chile), Arpilleras, 1980s, embroidered and appliquéd cloth, crochet, and mixed media, varied dimensions (El Museo del Barrio, New York). Speakers: Chloë Courtney, Marica and Jan Vilcek Curatorial Fellow, El Museo del Barrio and Dr. Tamara Díaz Calcaño, University of Puerto Rico
Felix Gonzalez-Torres, “Untitled” (L.A.)
For Gonzalez-Torres, the pile of candy that makes up “Untitled” (L.A.) is embedded with deeply personal and political meanings.
