book reviews 233
Lisa Blee and Jean M. O’Brien, Monumental Mobility: the Memory Work of Massasoit, Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2019, 288p. isbn 9781469648408. Price $29.99.
The removal of Confederate monuments in the United States has prompted a spirited debate regarding the histories they memorialize, the meanings derived by viewers, and their racist origins. Lisa Blee and Jean M. O’Brien’s Monumen- tal Mobility: The Memory Work of Massasoit concerns a different monument, a bronze casting of the Pokanoket leader 8sâmeequan (known commonly as ‘Massasoit’) by sculptor Cyrus Dallin installed at Plymouth, Massachusetts in 1921, as well as issues of indigenous history and memorialization as cop- ies of Dallin’s work traveled across the country. By exploring stories surround- ing copies of the Massasoit statue in four topical chapters, ‘Casting,’ ‘Staging,’ ‘Distancing,’ and ‘Marketing,’ the authors uncover the origins of these statues, the intentions of their exhibitors and purchasers, the effects of distance as the statues traveled beyond Plymouth, and how marketing and capitalism in- tersected with historical memory and public reception of the statues. These chapters work to elucidate the relationship between historical events and memory-making, the ongoing nature of settler-colonialism, and the connec- tions between consumer culture and memorialization. The conclusion of this excellent and thought-provoking book connects the story of 8sâmeequan and the complicated and contested history of his memorialization as the ‘Massa- soit’ to the wider issues of memory-making and the meanings of monuments that have engulfed Civil War-era memorials. The first chapter on ‘Casting’ explores the origins of the Massasoit bronzes, weaving together surviving historical details on the life of 8sâmeequan with the work of Utahan sculptor Cyrus Dallin and the efforts of the Improved Or- der of Red Men (iorm) and the Massasoit Memorial Association to shift the nation’s colonial origins story away from Jamestown and towards New Eng- land’s Pilgrim settlement. The chapter then traces the movement of Dallin’s plaster cast to Utah and the dubious reproduction of at least five additional bronzes that moved across the South and Midwest. Efforts to unveil and dedi- cate these Massasoit statues for narrative effect form the subject of ‘Staging.’ While the iorm possessed a greater degree of narrative control with the in- stallation of the original Massasoit at Plymouth, each statue took on its own regional and local identification as it moved beyond this initial context. Public dedications and the fixture of monuments in semi-permanent locations also brought indigenous interpretations into play. ‘Distancing’ relies on interviews conducted by the authors at each location to determine common interpretive themes and perspectives held by passersby.
© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2019 | doi:10.1163/18770703-00902006
Unsurprisingly, widening geographical distance from Plymouth led indi- viduals to associate the New England leader incorrectly with local indigenous groups or figures instead. This chapter also analyzes Plimoth Plantation and the pbs series Colonial House, in an effort to integrate broader interpretations of the Massasoit statue within ongoing efforts by Indigenous people to chal- lenge the dominant narrative of Plymouth and the First Thanksgiving. Finally, ‘Marketing’ engages with the commercialization of history and memorials by examining the iorm’s initial fundraising and the proliferation of the Massa- soit statue and other examples of Indian souvenirs within museum gift shops, online auctions, and tourist shops. This chapter also highlights the differences between private walking tours at Plymouth, which range from Christian cel- ebrations conducted with little basis on historical sources to the assiduous care that Native Plymouth Tours takes to offer an indigenous view steeped in documentary evidence. Following each of the statues and their movements admittedly leads the au- thors to sites that are more mundane and difficult to analyze. For instance, the installation of casts 4 and 5 in shopping centers in Chicago, Illinois and Kansas City, Missouri as examples of high art rather than historical monuments force the authors to contemplate the connections between commercialization and the loss of historical meaning for the Massasoit casts. Connections between shopping and tobacco store Indians are less convincing when compared to the richer stories and analysis surrounding the original Plymouth statue and the casts installed in the Utah capital building and at Brigham Young University. Despite this minor criticism, Blee and O’Brien’s determination to trace the histories of each Massasoit statue leads them to unexpected and fascinating places, most notably byu’s illegal art reproduction and tax shelter schemes run by art professor and art acquisition director Wesley Burnside in the 1970s and 1980s. The decision to structure the book thematically also allows the authors to engage with different aspects of the Massasoit statue and its copies in relevant and insightful ways. For instance, the chapter on ‘Distancing’ allows the authors to bring in examples from the Wampanoag Homesite at the Pli- moth Plantation living history museum and from the pbs series Colonial House to highlight the emotional work contemporary Wampanoags engage in when they confront historical and contemporary colonialism. This gives additional weight to efforts to counter the sanitized Thanksgiving narrative as well as Dal- lin’s and the iorm’s intended portrayal of the Massasoit as a peaceful and wel- coming figure. Art historians will find Monumental Mobility fascinating and rich in material for teaching courses on the ethics of museum practices and art reproduction,
journal of early american history 9 (2019) 229-260