NATIONALHumanities ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES • VOLUME 11 • NUMBER 2 • MARCH/APRIL 1990

The Civil War: 125 Years After Appomattox Editor's Note

The Civil War

To understand the American character in the twentieth century, says histo­ rian Shelby Foote, one must understand the Civil War. "Before the war, people had a theoretical notion of having a country, but when the war was over, on both sides they knew they had a country. They'd been there. They had walked its hills and tramped its roads. . . . And they knew the effort that they had expended and their dead friends had expended to preserve it. It did that. The war made their country an actuality." Civil War pickets around a fire. The photo­ This April marks the 125th anniversary of the Confederate surrender at graph has been attributed to Mathew Brady. Appomattox. And this fall, filmmaker Ken Burns will present an eleven- In volume 9 of The Photographic History hour television series that retraces the course of the war, using original pho­ of the Civil War (1911), the photograph is tographs and archival material. In this issue, Endowment Chairman Lynne used to illustrate a poem titled "Christmas V. Cheney talks with the Mississippi-born Foote, who spent twenty years Night of '62” by William Gordon McCabe, a Confederate soldier. (National Archives) writing a definitive three-volume history of the conflict and who served as an adviser on the NEH-supported Burns documentary. As we look back, the bloodiness of the Civil War still astonishes. Of Humanities 100,000 men at the battle of Shiloh in April of 1862, more than 20,000 were A bimonthly review published by the killed, wounded, captured, or missing. "Shiloh had the same number of ca­ National Endowment for the Humanities sualties as Waterloo," Foote reminds us. "And yet, when it was fought, there were another twenty Waterloos to follow." Chairman: Lynne V. Cheney Director, Communications Policy: For those in the North who had thought victory was near, Shiloh made Marguerite Hoxie Sullivan clear the struggle would be cataclysmic. By 1864, a central issue of the elec­ Editor: Mary Lou Beatty tion was whether the tenacity of the Southern troops would make voters Assistant Editors: James S. Turner war-weary enough to reject Abraham Lincoln for a second term. Pulitzer Ellen Marsh prize-winning historian James McPherson, author of Battle Cry of Freedom, ex­ Production Editor: Scott Sanborn amines the entwined political and military strategies of that year. And a new Production Assistant: Susan Querry NEH-supported exhibition at the Chicago Historical Society portrays what Editorial Assistant: Kristen Hall America as a whole was like in the age of Lincoln. Marketing Director: Joy Evans In other articles on the Civil War, the magazine looks at photographers Editorial Board: Marjorie Berlincourt, less well known than Mathew Brady who have provided significant parts of Harold Cannon, Richard Ekman, the pictorial history of the war. The Papers of Jefferson Davis discloses a Con­ George Farr, Donald Gibson, federate president dealing diplomatically with his generals; and a Freedmen Guinevere Griest, James Herbert, and Southern Society project unearths the letters of a black Union soldier Thomas Kingston, Jerry Martin who writes home to his daughters still in slavery, promising to free them. Design: Hausmann Graphic Design, Inc. Last, we look at a reclusive figure of that period, poet Emily Dickinson. The war touched even the isolation of Amherst, where Emily Dickinson was The opinions and conclusions expressed in Humanities are those of the authors and do not quietly writing her poetry. When essayist Thomas Wentworth Higginson re­ necessarily reflect Endowment policy. Material signed his Unitarian ministry to lead a black regiment in the Union Army, appearing in this publication, except for that already copyrighted, may be freely repro­ Emily Dickinson wrote to him: "I trust you may pass the limit of War, and duced. Please notify the editor in advance so though not reared to prayer— when service is had in Church, for Our Arms, that appropriate credit can be given. The I include yourself. ..." The correspondence was to continue until the end Chairman of the Endowment has determined of her life; after her death Higginson and Mabel Todd Loomis became joint that the publication of this periodical is neces­ sary in the transaction of the public business editors of her Poems, published posthumously one hundred years ago. required by law of this agency. Use of funds for printing this periodical has been approved —Mary Lou Beatty by the director of the Office of Management and Budget through September 1992. Send requests for subscriptions and other commu­ nications to the editor, Humanities, National Endowment for the Humanities, 1100 Penn­ sylvania Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20506. Telephone 202/786-0435. Annual sub­ scription rate: $9. (USPS 521-090) ISSN 0018-7526.

MARCH/APRIL 1990 Contents

The Civil War

A Conversation with . . . Civil War expert Shelby Foote and 4 NEH Chairman Lynne V. Cheney talk about writing history. War and Politics: The Election of 1864 by James M. McPher­ 10 son. How the contest between Lincoln and McClellan was seen as a referendum on fighting for unconditional victory.

Troubles and Thorns Innumerable: The Presidency of 15 Jefferson Davis by Mary Seaton Dix and Lynda L. Crist. His letters of 1861 show diplomatic skill under duress.

A House Divided: America in the Age of Lincoln by Kathi 19 Ann Brown. An exhibition at the Chicago Historical Society examines the complexities of the period from 1820 to 1877.

Picture Essay: Images of War by William C. Davis. A look at 22 the photographs of the period, the technology that recorded them, and the cameramen who produced them.

Excerpts: Letters of a Slave Turned Union Soldier. A story 27 of pathos and pride, revenge and recrimination.

Other Features Tampering with Poetic Genius: The Early Editing of Emily 30 Dickinson by Judith Farr. How well-meaning friends distorted the poet's work.

The Definitive Brooklyn by Maggie Riechers. From the 36 Dodgers to Coney Island, a Brooklyn Historical Society exhibition uses icons to explain the borough's past.

In Focus: Carolynn Reid-Wallace by Carole Ann Parish. The 39 new vice chairman of the National Council of the Humanities.

29 Calendar

40 Noteworthy

The Humanities Guide For Museums and Historical Associations by Marsha Semmel, 41. Recent NEH Grants by Discipline, 43. Deadlines, 46.

HUMANITIES 3 A Conversation with... Civil War Historian Shelby Foote

in simply the facts— it's in the way writing of the history as much as I the facts are presented. There's a enjoyed writing novels. Asked to quote from a Keats letter that I think choose his favorite book, a writer sums it up better than anything I've usually decides in accordance with ever heard. Keats said, "A fact is not how he felt while he was writing a a truth until you love it." Isn't that a particular work. He looks back on wonderful thing to say? something as a happy time or a bad Cheney: That is marvelous. You once time. That's what he usually means. suggested that, in fact, it was your Cheney: You, I think, are one of the good fortune not to have become masters of prose style in our cen­ part of the academy. tury. You seem to create an effortless Foote: Right. I must not be under­ prose, maybe the hardest kind to stood to be running down profes­ create. How many words do you sional historians. Without their me­ typically write a day? ticulous and extensive research, I Foote: I'm a slow writer. Five or six couldn't have done anything. So I'm hundred words is a good day for not saying what they do is not of me. What I do— if it does have the enormous value, because it is. I'm effect you're kind enough to say it he writing of history was the top­ talking about the treatment of the does— is, I write for possible reading ic when Endowment Chairman material after you've got the facts aloud. I read it over to myself, and if Lynne V. Cheney talked recently assembled. it hasn't got the right flow to it, I do Twith Shelby Foote, author of the three- Cheney: You say in an explanatory something about it. volume classic, The Civil War. Foote note in one of your Civil War vol­ Cheney: When young writers come has also written six novels, among them umes that the novelist and the histo­ to you and ask for advice, what do Follow Me Down and Shiloh. rian, in a sense, have the same goal. you tell them? Foote: Right— the truth. Both are Foote: I tell them to work hard and Lynne V. Cheney: One recent re­ looking for the truth, but one is read a lot. Charles Dickens can teach viewer observed that your Civil War looking for one kind of truth, some you more about writing than any history was out of academic fashion. say, and another for another kind of teacher of creative writing I ever It was a very favorable review, but it truth. I claim that's false. There is a knew. Reading good writers with the made the point that you write old- bedrock truth that both of them are kind of understanding that makes fashioned narrative history. trying to discover. you absorb some of their craft, some Shelby Foote: I'm very proud of my Cheney: Do you have any preference of their methods, some of their amateur standing, and I don't like to for writing fiction over nonfiction or ways, is the best of all possible be called Dr. Foote. vice versa? schools for a young writer. Good Cheney: In what ways do you think Foote: I really don't. I suppose if I writing is a cumulative thing; we that being a nonprofessional is an were put at gunpoint, I would prob­ learn from what came before us, and advantage? ably pick as my favorite one of my anybody who neglects that is ne­ Foote: I think it's an advantage be­ novels because the whole thing came glecting an extremely valuable thing. cause I know better than a profes­ out of my head. But I don't know, Cheney: Hemingway once was asked sional does that the truth doesn't lie not really. I certainly enjoyed the by a young person what three things

4 MARCH/APRIL 1990 he could do to become a good writ­ real veterans. But I'll tell you who Foote: It's a quality of acute insight er, and Hemingway said, "Oh, that's were really around— the widows and high intelligence. Someone, easy. Read Anna Karenina, read Anna and old, old ladies who had never some Southern writer, said that For­ Karenina, and read Anna Karenina." married because their sweethearts rest was born to be a soldier the way Foote: That's a good answer. He'd were killed in the war. There were a John Keats was born to be a poet. He have given another answer on lot of them. could look at a piece of land and see Thursday, I guess, but that's a Cheney: You were in the army— in the geographical solution, how best good one. the Marines— yourself in World War to fight on it. He could study the Cheney: Who do you think has been II. Did your experience there cast makeup of an opponent, too, and most important in shaping the kind any light upon what military experi­ know what would be most apt to up­ of work that you do? What novelists ence must have been like during the set and unstring him. It's sheer or historians? Civil War? genius. Foote: I did have a funny experience Foote: A great deal. It made me un­ Cheney: The characters that loom with William Faulkner one time. We derstand the workings of the mili­ over the war in most minds have be­ were riding together and I said, "Mr. tary from the inside, how the old come almost mythic, people like Faulkner, I have every reason to be a army game is played; professionals Lee. It's hard, in a way, to focus on much better writer than you are. versus amateurs, all that kind of him as a human being. Your models were Joseph Conrad thing. It was a great help to me. Foote: Right. They have almost got and Sherwood Anderson. My mod­ Cheney: Was the Civil War a war of him removed from our comprehen­ els are Marcel Proust and you. My professionals or amateurs? sion. George Washington, for exam­ writers are better than your writers." Foote: It was really a war of profes­ ple; we can't see Washington as a He laughed. sionals fought by amateurs. The pro­ man; he's sort of a monument. And Cheney: When you write about the fessionals were the ones who lined they've been doing that to Lee for a past do you rely at all on stories the troops up shoulder to shoulder hundred years. I had to work very from your family? I read somewhere and sent them against entrench­ hard to humanize Lee, to bring him that your great-grandfather fought ments and got them blown away. It within reach. I did what I could, but at Shiloh. was the amateurs who devised some it's very hard, very hard to keep him from being just a marble figure, Foote: He did. He got the tail shot off way to avoid that kind of thing. Bed­ more a statue than a man. his horse there. He was fifty-some- ford Forrest, for instance, you could odd years old by then, a lowly cap­ call an amateur. He knew better than Cheney: Well, can you think of inci­ tain, and that was his one great ac­ to make frontal assaults like that. dents in his life that show the tion. He went back to Macon, Mis­ "Hit 'em on the end," he used to human side, perhaps the side that sissippi, after that and was a colonel say, and "keep up the skeer." has some flaw? His character seems in the home guard. One Shiloh was Cheney: He's one of those characters so noble. enough. from the Civil War that people don't Foote: One is a very minor thing and Cheney: But surely growing up, know much about, and I know he's a yet it was valuable to me. Lee was there were tales from the war. . . favorite of yours, someone who par­ about six feet tall, but most of his height was in his body, his long Foote: Yes. There was some of that. I ticularly fascinates you. What is trunk. He had rather short legs. never really talked with any veter­ there about him? Now, that doesn't sound like it's of ans. By the time I came along there any importance at all, but it helps to was nothing left but a few ex-drum­ humanize him— for me, at any rate. mer boys, so I never talked to any Another thing happened after the ainl Archives National

The Keystone Independent Battery Light Artillery, a photograph from the Brady Collection, 1862-63.

HUMANITIES 5 war that helps to explain his life and Foote: It was an act of revenge on the But of course the big thing about character. He was traveling some­ part of the man who did it. His son Lee, Lee at his very best, was his hu­ where on a train, and everywhere had been killed— manity, his willingness to admit mis­ he went, of course, there were Cheney: Was it Montgomery Meigs? takes. His character shows best at crowds waiting just to get a look at Foote: I believe it was Meigs. Arling­ his worst defeat, that is, Pickett's him. He stopped one place and ton's grounds became a cemetery charge at Gettysburg. He walked out there was a woman with a baby and they buried men there so that it on that field and met those men there. She went up to him and said, could never be restored; they could stumbling back from slaughter and "General Lee, would you hold my never move those men again and the said, "It is all my fault. I asked more child for a minute so I can tell him house could never go back to the of you than any man should ask of when he grows up that you held Custis family. another man. It is my fault. You him?" and Lee said, "I'd be glad to," must help me now. We must rally Cheney: When you think about Lee, and he took the baby and held him. and stop these people if they coun­ is there any aspect of him that partic­ She said, "Is there anything you can terattack. It's all my fault." I don't ularly strikes you? What made him a tell me that will help in raising know of another general in the leader that men would die for? That's him?" and Lee said, "Yes," as he whole world who ever spoke such an amazing thing when people will handed the baby back. "Teach him to words. die for a leader. deny himself." Cheney: I think it was his fault, Foote: It was partly presence, which Cheney: Interesting. wasn't it? comes at you off the photographs, Foote: Foote: Lee had been denying himself but it was also something else. His It was indeed. There was a lot all his life. He came from a family concern for the private soldier was a of fault, more than enough to go that had been badly scarred by scan­ thing well-known in the army. If any round, but very few men have ad­ dal— his half-brother, who was man was offended by anything and mitted it, except Lee himself. caught up in a sexual scandal; his fa­ he saw Lee, he could go up to him Cheney: And Lincoln. If you com­ ther, Light Horse Harry, who was in­ and say, "General, they did this to pare Lincoln to Lee, what are the volved in financial scandals. You get me," and Lee would say, "It'll be distinguishing characteristics, the the strong notion that he was hold­ looked into." And it was looked characteristics that set these two ing down all kinds of impulses that into. There was once a Northern leaders apart? he believed were bad, and he suc­ prisoner who was being marched to Foote: The thing about Lincoln is ceeded in doing it, too. the rear and General Lee was there, that he is almost beyond our com­ Cheney: I once spent some time and the prisoner said, pointing to a prehension— his uncanny political writing about what's now called Ar­ guard, "That man took my hat," and abilities, his marvelous depth of un­ lington House, the mansion that sits Lee said, "Give him his hat back. derstanding of other people and in Arlington National Cemetery. It Shame on you." Nothing was too himself, his extreme cunning. He used to be called the Custis-Lee small for him to pay attention to. once said, "Government is an at­ mansion and was once Lee's home. tempt to get the best out of people After he left it to head the Army of who seem determined to give their Northern Virginia, the Union turned the land around it into a graveyard. worst," and I suppose you've run sion. The staff knew it and used to the quotations and the stories? What into some of that in Washington. But stay away from him at such times. are your best sources? he knew how to do it. He had an­ Cheney: Now, here we've fallen into Foote: It comes from wide reading. other quality that still amazes me. — and it's my fault— we've fallen Some things you cannot use for fac­ Lincoln, in conversation with an­ into comparing the military leader of tual matters—regimental histories or other man, would perceive that that the South and the political leader of old men's memoirs— are splendid man saw him as some sort of bump­ the North, and I've left out Jefferson for providing anecdotes that you can kin or fool, and Lincoln (unlike me, Davis. I think I'm probably not the tell really did happen. for instance— I'd be very anxious to first to do that. Cheney: Having done a little histor­ disabuse him of this terrible notion Foote: No. In point of fact, it's the ical writing myself, I know that and show what a bright fellow I real­ general practice. I sometimes think there's that feeling of discovery ly am)— Lincoln would sit back and that there's a gigantic conspiracy to when you come across one of these let this man think he was a fool and hide Davis from the world. He's so stories and you know it's going to it didn't bother Lincoln at all. And misrepresented in almost every his­ make the narrative come alive. Are then some critical juncture would tory you read; he's looked on as a there a couple of stories like that that come when the man would treat Lin­ bloodless pedant, a man who paid you remember particularly? coln as a fool; the next thing you attention to little things while big Foote: There's a book I admire by a know, the man was in Siberia or things were sliding past him. None man named Sam Watkins. It's called something like that. He really knew of that is true. After the war, some­ Company Aitch: A Side Show of the Big how to take advantage of some­ one asked Lee whether Davis had Show. He wrote it as a long-time vet­ body's underestimating him. been a good president. Lee said, "I eran looking back on his experi­ Cheney: Your story reminds me of don't know of any man who could ences. He fought in the western an old Washington saying: "Don't have done better, and when it comes theater; he was in the Army of Ten­ get mad, get even." down to it, I don't know of any man nessee— Bragg's army, Hood's army, Foote: Lincoln would take to that who could have done as well." Lee Joe Johnston's army. In the Confed­ kind of thinking, not in the way of had a high opinion of Davis. But erate army the noncommissioned of­ revenge but as a way of solving a what happened was, in the South, ficers and commissioned officers up problem. He didn't have the vanity having lost the war, we had to blame through the rank of colonel were that most of us have to carry around someone, and we didn't want to elected by their men, and Watkins with us. blame our gallant generals, so we describes one of these elections, Cheney: Was Lee vain? blamed Jefferson Davis. Of course in somebody running for second corpo­ Foote: He had a certain vanity; he the North he was widely hated, even ral, for example. It's very funny. In did. But it was by no means a coarse more, perhaps, than Lincoln was in the army there's always a company vanity; he wasn't preening himself the South. or posing or anything, but he had a Cheney: That quotation from Lee, The Fifth Vermont Regiment in 1861 in very strong sense of his position and that detail is what makes your histo­ Virginia, near Washington, D.C. The Fifth his worth. ry spring to life. Where do you find Vermont fought in major battles throughout the war, including Gettysburg and the He was a gentle, outgoing man. Wilderness campaign. (Library of Congress) But he had a bad temper on occa­ clown, and he was describing some source of material, just as the Iliad of the company clowns, all those lit­ was for later Greek writers. tle things. It's the small things added Cheney: Well, Mr. Foote, you're as up that make the big thing ring true. good a talker as you are a writer. I Without them you just get this over­ understand you've been very in­ view of facts piling up on one an­ volved in film consulting lately, too. other—where these troops were at this time, what they were doing at Foote: I might say I'm highly pleased that time, and so forth. Often the about the Civil War television series breath of life is the result of the in­ Ken Burns is making for release on clusion of incidentals. public television this coming fall. So much of what he's doing has the Cheney: There's a story I remember kind of validity I admire. For in­ from your Civil War history. It's an stance, he's going back to the origi­ interchange between two soldiers nals for his photographs. He's not who are yelling across the lines and just copying them out of magazines one talks about what's the South and books; they're real prints from fighting for—honor—and the other the original negatives, so that you says the North's fighting for money. get a clarity you couldn't get the How does it go? other way. And because the series is Foote: The Southern soldier shouted chronological, the photographs across to the Northern soldiers, show you the war in a way that is "Why do you fellows keep on fight­ wonderfully comprehensible. You ing? You're fighting for money and see Lincoln age, you see the lines of we're fighting for honor." And the worry deepen in his face, you see Northern soldier shouted back, "I the circles under his eyes. You watch guess we each of us is fighting for Lee turn from a grizzled to an al­ the thing he needs the most." most white-haired man. There's an­ Cheney: That's really good. other thing you get from this series- in-progress— an orderly unfolding Foote: That's one of the best answers through the whole four years. You're anybody ever gave. going north, you're coming south, Cheney: Your books have been so going east, coming west, following enormously successful because the progress of the war chronologi­ they're so beautifully written. But cally. And that very act helps you to they also tap into this fascination we understand what was going on and have with the Civil War. the predicament the men were in, all Foote: Well, that fascination is well the way from Lincoln and Davis founded. I believe strongly that an down to the private soldier. That way understanding of us as we are today you learn what their problems were, in the world and in our own notions and you only know what they knew of ourselves, is founded on what at that moment of the war, so that happened in the American Civil you really judge them in accordance War. The Revolution made us free, with what they knew rather than but the Civil War is what made us what they theoretically should have what we are. It was that war that de­ done. cided which way this country was Cheney: That's a useful insight. going, not only in the abolition of Foote: If you really lay the ground­ slavery, but in a lot of different as­ work and show what led up to an pects, good and bad. The Civil War event, you don't have to explain defined us. things. The narration will do that. A Dead soldiers at Gettysburg. Cheney: You once said that the Civil good example is that a lot of people, War is our Iliad. What did you mean including, I'm sorry to say, large that the Richmond authorities knew by that? numbers of historians, seem to think they had to do something about it or Foote: I meant that we draw on it for that the Gettysburg campaign was the South would be split in two. our notion of ourselves, and our art­ something that occurred to Lee per­ They called on Lee with the possibil­ ists draw on it for the depiction of us haps in the middle of the night. He ity of detaching at least a third of his in the same way that Homer and snapped his fingers and said, "I army, sending it to Mississippi to later the dramatists— Aeschylus, know what I'll do. I'll go up to Penn­ help break the siege, or they gave Sophocles, Euripides—drew on the sylvania and fight a great big battle him the choice of doing something Trojan War for their plays. We draw and take Washington, and the war in the eastern theater, such as mak­ on the Civil War for our notion of will be over." It was nothing like ing an invasion of the North, which ourselves and often for historical that. You have to understand that might cause Lincoln to recall Grant novels, bad and good. It's a great Grant had Vicksburg under siege, from in front of Vicksburg. Lee did

8 MARCH/APRIL 1990 not want to make that invasion, the way I hope I did in my book, wicked woman. You're getting what though after he got into it, he got and the way I know Ken Burns does you deserve." The reader knows caught up and excited. He simply in this series— makes that clear with­ that's what is happening. It's simply chose that course, rather than send out explanations. If you really tell a described in the way she ate the ar­ part of his army to Mississippi. And story with psychological insight, and senic and how she felt. He doesn't when you tell the story correctly, I hope with some humor mixed up have to say, "Shame on you, shame you understand this is not some­ in it too, if you really tell a story so on you," or anything like that. And I thing he snapped his fingers and it's lifelike, you don't have to do a lot hope a dedicated historian can do said, "Ah-hah, I'll win the war in of explaining. This is pretty far the same thing, depending on how one stroke." He was responding to afield, but when Flaubert wrote Bov- close he comes to matching Flau­ pressures from various directions. ary and she's finally eating that arse­ bert's skill and talent— though God And the chronology of the thing— nic, he doesn't have to say, "Oh, you knows that's an awful lot to ask. □

HUMANITIES WAR AND POLITICS

b y ja m e s m . McPh e r s o n

HE MOST FAMOUS maxim of in chief of all the Union armies. the nineteenth-century mili­ Grant planned coordinated cam­ Ttary theorist Karl von Clause- paigns to give rebellion its coup de witz defined war as the continuation grace. Southern leaders vowed de­ of politics by other means. In 1864, fiantly to "die in the last ditch" be­ in America, politics was the con­ fore surrendering to Yankees. But tinuation of war by other means. these same leaders were quarreling A presidential election in the among themselves over responsibil­ midst of war has not been a unique ity for past defeats, the Southern event in American history. On four economy was in shambles, civilians of these occasions (1812, 1864, 1944, were hungry and disaffected, Con­ and 1972) the war policies of an in­ federate armies lacked supplies, and cumbent President seeking reelec­ peace movements had sprung up in tion have been important campaign North Carolina and elsewhere. issues; in each case the incumbent Powerful Union forces in Virginia won. In the other two elections (1952 under Grant's overall command and and 1968), voters overturned the par­ in Georgia under Sherman stood ty in power partly because of the un­ poised for invasions that they confi­ popularity of its war policies— and, dently expected to crush Confeder­ indeed, of the war itself. But despite ate resistance well before the presi­ the centrality of war issues during dential election in November. these elections, in only one of them Grant and Sherman intended by a did voters perceive the survival of series of flanking movements to the United States to be at stake: in Abraham Lincoln, Brady studio, 1863 threaten Confederate communica­ 1864. That election was seen as a ref­ tions and force the Southern com­ erendum on whether the Union manders Lee and Johnston into should continue fighting the Civil open-field combat, where superior War to unconditional victory. The re­ Union numbers and firepower could sult of this political campaign did as be used to greatest advantage. The much to determine the outcome of Southern strategy, by contrast, was the war as did events on the battle­ to block the Union's flanking move­ field. But military campaigns, in turn, ments and force Northern armies in­ decisively influenced the election. stead to assault defenses entrenched Optimism prevailed in the North on high ground or behind rivers, in the spring of 1864. The victories at where fortifications and natural Gettysburg, Vicksburg, and Chatta­ obstacles would more than neu­ nooga the previous year had sent tralize superior numbers. the Confederacy reeling. President In part the South's smaller popula­ Lincoln had brought the hero of tion and resources dictated this strat­ Vicksburg and Chattanooga, Ulysses egy, but it resulted also from the S. Grant, to Washington as general contrasting war aims of the two sides. To win the war, Union armies had to conquer and occupy Southern territory, overwhelm or break up James M. McPherson is the Edwards Confederate armies, destroy the eco­ Professor of American History at Prince­ nomic and political infrastructure ton University. He is the author of Bat­ that supported the war effort, and tle Cry of Freedom, which won the suppress the Southern will to resist. 1989 Pulitzer Prize in history. George B. McClellan, Brady studio, 1863 But in order to "win" on their terms,

THE ELECTION OF 1864

MARCH/APRIL 1990 the Confederates— like Americans in strength with demands for an armi­ mounted a simultaneous effort to the Revolution or North Vietnam in stice and peace negotiations— which sway Northern opinion. Operating the 1960s—needed only to hold out would have amounted to Southern from Canada, Southern agents plot­ long enough and inflict sufficient victory. Confederates had cultivated ted a variety of raids to harass the punishment on the enemy to force this antiwar faction in the North Union war effort and sabotage the him to give up his effort to annihi­ with some success. In 1864 they Northern economy— including an late resistance. This was a strategy of sought ways to promote a Demo­ attempt to liberate Confederate pris­ political and psychological attrition cratic victory in the Union election. oners of war from Camp Douglas — of wearing down the other side's Southern military leaders planned near Chicago and Johnson's Island will to continue fighting. Many his­ their operations around the objective near Sandusky, Ohio; the burning of torians have mistakenly argued that of holding out until November. "If factories and warehouses; and the Grant pursued a military strategy of we can only subsist" until the North­ subsidization of antiwar Democratic attrition in 1864— of using the ern election, wrote a War Depart­ candidates for office in Northern North's greater numbers and re­ ment official in Richmond, "giving states. A few of these schemes re­ sources to bring down the South's an opportunity for the Democrats to sulted in action— a bank robbery in ability to resist. It turned out that elect a President. . . we may have St. Albans, Vermont; the burning of way, but not because Grant initially peace." Militarily, because of "the a half-dozen military steamboats at intended it. Rather, the near success importance of this campaign to the St. Louis; subsidies to several North­ of the Southern strategy of psycho­ administration of Mr. Lincoln," ern newspapers and to the Demo­ logical attrition forced the North into Robert E. Lee meant to "resist man­ cratic candidate for governor in Illi­ a campaign of military attrition. The fully" in the hope of weakening the nois; and fires in several large New crucial turning point of both strat­ Northern war party. "If we can break York hotels that were quickly ex­ egies was the Union presidential up the enemy's arrangements early, tinguished with little damage. election of 1864. and throw him back," explained Efforts to encourage peace senti­ Confederate strategy sought to in­ General James Longstreet, "he will ment in the North by the offer of an fluence the outcome of that election. not be able to recover his position or armistice and negotiations to end the On previous occasions when the war his morale until the Presidential elec­ war were more serious. Canadian- had gone badly for the North, the tion is over, and then we shall have a based Confederate commissioners Copperhead peace faction of the new President to treat with." met with Horace Greeley, the editor Democratic party had grown in The Confederate secret service of the New York Tribune, and Lin- ne . . rw Mltr Cleto, rw Uiest Library University Brown Collection, Military Brown K. S. Anne

A pro-Lincoln political cartoon shows Lincoln on a firm platform while McClellan flounders atop a wheel of cheese.

HUMANITIES 11 Campaign posters and political souvenirs from the election of 1864. Union military victories after the Democratic convention in August 1864 cheered a war-weary North and transformed Lincoln's reelection prospects from almost certain defeat to a landslide victory. uem f mrcn oiia Lf. nvriy f Hartford of University Life. Political American of Museum coin's private secretary, John Hay, at down in the steamy trenches before Wade-Davis Bill) with a pocket veto, Niagara Falls, Canada, in July 1864. Atlanta. "Who shall revive the with­ in order to preserve his own more- This meeting elicited from Lincoln a ered hopes that bloomed at the moderate executive approach, the declaration of willingness to negoti­ opening of Grant's campaign?" Republican rift widened. ate on the basis of reunion and asked the leading Democratic news­ By August, though, the crucial emancipation. Cleverly obfuscating paper, the New York World. "Stop question was not what policy to pur­ the South's insistence on recognition the War!" shouted Democratic head­ sue toward the South once the war of Confederate independence as a lines. "All are tired of this damnable was won, but whether it could be precondition of negotiations, the tragedy. . . . If nothing else would won at all. Some desperate Republi­ Southern commissioners released a impress upon the people the abso­ cans began muttering about dump­ statement blaming Lincoln's inflexi­ lute necessity of stopping this war, ing Lincoln in favor of some other ble terms for the failure of these its utter failure to accomplish any re- candidate less identified with failure. peace feelers. Picking up on this The President came under enormous theme, Northern Democrats broad­ pressure to drop emancipation as a cast the notion that if Lincoln would condition of peace negotiations. Lin­ just drop his insistence on eman­ coln bent but did not break under cipation the war would end. But "I should be damned this pressure. His Emancipation since he would not, the only way to Proclamation had promised free­ get peace was to repudiate Lincoln at in time & in eternity/' dom, "and the promise being made, the polls. At the end of August, said Lincoln, if I were must be kept." when the Democrats held their con­ "I should be damned in time & in vention in Chicago, their prospects "to return to slavery eternity," said Lincoln, if I were "to for electoral victory in November ap­ the black warriors'' return to slavery the black warriors" peared bright. who had fought for the Union. "The How had this happened? How who had fought for the world shall know that I will keep my had the Northern optimism of Union. "The world faith to friends & enemies, come spring turned into such deep despair what will." by late summer that all observers, shall know that 1 will Lincoln was well aware of his Lincoln included, expected the Presi­ probable fate in November. "I am dent and his platform of "war to vic­ keep my faith to going to be beaten," he told a friend tory" to be rejected by the voters? friends & enemies, in August, "and unless some great The answer lies in the success of the change takes place badly beaten." On Confederate strategy of attrition. In come what will." August 23 the President wrote his six weeks of the war's bloodiest famous "blind memorandum" and fighting, from the Wilderness to Pe­ asked his cabinet members to en­ tersburg, the Army of the Potomac dorse it sight unseen: "This morn­ and the Army of Northern Virginia suits would be sufficient." Republi­ ing, as for some days past, it seems had crippled each other so badly that cans joined this chorus of despair. exceedingly probable that this Ad­ static trench warfare would charac­ "Our bleeding, bankrupt, almost ministration will not be re-elected. terize this theater for the next nine dying country . . . longs for peace," Then it will be my duty to so cooper­ months. Fighting mainly on the de­ Horace Greeley told Lincoln, "shud­ ate with the President elect, as to fensive, Lee's army imposed almost ders at the prospect of . . . further save the Union between the election a two-to-one ratio of casualties on wholesale devastations, of new riv­ and the inauguration; as he will have the attacking Union forces. By July ers of human blood." The veteran secured his election on such ground the Army of the Potomac alone had Republican leader Thurlow Weed ob­ that he can not possibly save it suffered 65,000 casualties; losses of served in August that "the people afterwards." other Northern armies brought the are wild for peace. . . . Lincoln's re- Meeting in Chicago at the end of Union casualty total since the first of election is an impossibility." August, the Democratic convention the year to 100,000. Prisoners of war As usual, the buck stopped at the adopted a peace platform. "After were crammed into inadequate President's desk. As commander in four years of failure to restore the camps in both North and South, chief, Lincoln knew that he must Union by the experiment of war," it where thousands died from disease bear the responsibility for failure. declared, we "demand that immedi­ and exposure. The prisoner ex­ His hold on the leadership of his ate efforts be made for a cessation of change system had broken down, party was less than solid. Though hostilities, with a view to an ultimate largely because of the South's refusal the Republican convention in June convention of the states, or other to exchange black soldiers. had renominated him almost unani­ peaceable means . . . [that] peace What had the North to show for mously, radical Republicans ex­ may be restored on the basis of the this staggering carnage? Stalemate at pressed reservations about the Presi­ federal Union." But with their presi­ Petersburg; stalemate in the West; a dent. They had considered him slow dential nomination the Democrats small Confederate army under Jubal in embracing emancipation as a war revealed their own party rift. The Early rampaging through Maryland aim, and had quarreled with him nominee was George B. McClellan, to the very outskirts of Washington; over the policy of reconstructing the removed by Lincoln from command even in Georgia, Sherman's war of South. When Lincoln killed a con­ of the Army of the Potomac two maneuver seemed to have bogged gressional reconstruction act (the years earlier and now seeking vin­

HUMANITIES dication via politics. But McClellan "Old Abe," as they affectionately Democrat turned Republican, was a War Democrat. He recognized called their commander in chief, a "honorable peace, won in the full light that an armistice and negotiations thumping endorsement at the polls. of day at the bayonet's point, with without prior conditions would con­ Absentee voting by soldiers was a our grand old flag flying over us as stitute a Confederate victory, making bold experiment in democracy, pio­ we negotiate it, instead of a cowardly restoration of the Union impossible. neered by both sides in the Civil peace purchased at the price of na­ Therefore, in his letter accepting the War. By 1864, nineteen Northern tional dishonor." A New York pri­ nomination, McClellan constructed states allowed soldiers to vote in the vate spoke for most Union soldiers; his own platform specify­ he intended, he wrote, to ing reunion (but not "give the rebellion an­ emancipation) "as other thump this fall the one condition by voting for old of peace." Abe. I cannot afford Though the Dem­ to give three years ocrats seemed to be of my life to main­ sending a muddled taining this nation message— a war can­ and then give the didate on a peace Rebels all they want." platform—jubilant These were the Southerners cele­ convictions that re- brated McClellan's ; elected Lincoln by a nomination. The margin of 212 to 21 Democratic nomi­ ; in the electoral col­ nee's election on this lege (the President platform "must lead lost only New to peace and our in­ Jersey and the bor­ dependence," de­ der slave states of clared the Charles­ Kentucky and Dela­ ton Mercury, if "for the next two Pennsylvania soldiers in the Army of the ware). Republicans increased their months we hold our own and prevent James voting in the 1864 election. majority in both houses of Congress military success by our foes." to more than three-fourths. It was a It didn't go that way. Three days field. Just three state legislatures had powerful endorsement of Lincoln's after the Democrats adjourned, tele­ refused to do so— those of Illinois, iron-willed determination to fight on graph wires bringing news of Sher­ Indiana, and New Jersey— all con­ to unconditional victory. The elec­ man's capture of Atlanta electrified trolled by Democrats who knew tion demonstrated to a British war the North. "Victory!" blazoned Re­ which way most soldiers would vote. correspondent that the North was publican headlines. "IS THE WAR Although 40 to 45 percent of the sol­ "silently, calmly, but desperately in A FAILURE? OLD ABE'S REPLY TO diers had been Democrats when earnest . . . in a way the like of THE CHICAGO CONVENTION." they joined the army, only 20 to 25 which the world never saw be­ Hard on the heels of Atlanta's fall percent of them voted Democratic in fore. . . . I am astonished the more I came Phil Sheridan's spectacular se­ 1864. In the twelve states that tabu­ see and hear of the extent and depth ries of victories over Jubal Early in lated the army vote separately, 78 of [this] determination . . . to fight to the Shenandoah Valley and minor percent of the soldiers voted for Lin­ the last."n successes of Northern arms on the coln— despite the lingering admira­ Richmond-Petersburg front. For Lin­ tion of some men in the Army of the This article is adapted from the forthcom­ coln and the Republicans, these mili­ Potomac for their old commander ing book, The Civil War: An Illus­ tary triumphs transformed electoral McClellan. The civilian vote, by way trated History, (© 1990, American prospects from darkest midnight to of comparison, went 54 percent for Documentaries, Inc.) being published in bright noonday. A gray, ominous Lincoln. conjunction with the documentary film, twilight settled over the South. The Why this large difference between The Civil War. To produce the eleven- "disaster at Atlanta," lamented the the civilian and soldier vote? For hour documentary series, which will air Richmond Examiner, came "in the most soldiers, their honor as fighting on public television this fall, Florentine very nick of time" to "save the party men was at stake. They had gone to Films under the direction of filmmaker of Lincoln from irretrievable war for flag and country, and they Ken Burns has received $1,349,100 from ruin. . . . It will obscure the prospect meant to bring home the flag of a the Humanities Projects in Media pro­ of peace, late so bright. It will also united country with all of its thirty- gram of the Division of General Programs. diffuse gloom over the South." five stars in place. To vote Demo­ In other Civil War-related NEH proj­ By October, the political signs cratic, to admit that the war was a ects, David Donald of Harvard Univer­ pointed to a Republican landslide. failure and their sacrifices had been sity has received a research grant to sup­ The most remarkable part of this in vain, to march home with a flag port work on a biography of Abraham phenomenon was the soldier vote. shorn of eleven stars, would plunge Lincoln and Joanna Cowden of California Having won the military victories their country and its manhood to the State University has a fellowship to that turned the war around, these depths of shame. "We want peace study political ideologies of the period citizens in uniform prepared to give too," wrote an Ohio officer, a former 1861 to 1865.

MARCH/APRIL 1990 Troubles and Thorns Innumerable i The Presidency of Jefferson Davis BY MARY SEATON DIX AND LYNDA L. CRIST

WO DAYS AFTER his inaugu­ exhausted. All hope of relief in the Confederacy the of Museum Wetzel, Katherine by Photo ration as president of the Union through the agency of com­ TConfederate states, Jefferson mittees, congressional legislation or Davis found a moment to write his constitutional amendments, is wife about the stirring events that extinguished." had taken place at Montgomery, Ala­ On January 20, Davis wrote Frank­ bama, the capital of the fledgling na­ lin Pierce, the President whom he tion. "The audience was large and had devotedly served as secretary of brilliant," Davis told his wife Varina, war for four years: "I come to the "upon my weary heart [were] show­ hard task of announcing to you that ered smiles plaudits and flowers, but the hour is at hand which closes my beyond them I saw troubles and connection with the United States." thorns innumerable. We are without The following day he rose to bid his machinery without means and Senate colleagues an emotional threatened by powerful opposition farewell, telling them "I hope . . . but I do not mean to despond and for peaceful relations with you, will not shrink from the task im­ though we must part," adding that posed upon me." Although one re­ good relations "may be mutually porter observed that the occasion beneficial to us in the future, as they "had nothing of mishap to mar it, have been in the past, if you so will everything of rejoicing to gladden it. The reverse may bring disaster on it," the New York Herald recorded every portion of the country." that on taking the oath of office "the On his return to Mississippi, stern President himself bowed his Davis was appointed major general head in tears." of the Mississippi state forces, a More than most of his fellow command he held only from January The Papers of Jefferson Davis Southerners, Davis had seen seces­ 23 to February 12, but a position that sion as a last resort, and he entered he said then and later was his prefer­ Six volumes of a projected four­ that course reluctantly. He had no il­ ence. He was, after all, a graduate of teen are in print, all published lusions about a peaceful separation West Point and had served for seven by the LSU Press, Baton Rouge. from the Union, nor did he believe years in the United States Army. He Volume 1 (1808- 40), 1971. that, for all the fire-eaters' bravura, had been a colonel of the First Mis­ Volume 2(1841- 46), 1974. the South was prepared to defend it­ sissippi Regiment in the Mexican Volume 3(1846- -48), 1981. self. So it was with deep regret that War, where he won laurels at the bat­ Volume 4 (1849- 52), 1983. he had joined Southern senators and tle of Buena Vista. And yet when Volume 5 (1853- 55), 1985. representatives on December 14, queried about whether he wished to Volume 6 (1856- 60), 1989. 1860, in a public letter informing serve the Confederacy in a military constituents that "the argument is or political capacity, Davis equivo­ Forthcoming cated. If the border states joined the Confederacy, the separation might Volume 7 (1861), 1991. Mary Seaton Dix is associate editor and be peaceful and the civil career the Volume 8 (1862). Lynda L. Crist, editor, of The Papers of more useful; otherwise, war was Volume 9 (1863). Jefferson Davis at Rice University. The probable and the military of para­ Volume 10 (1864). project will result in a complete edition of mount importance. Volume 11 (1864-69). Davis's works and papers, including im­ "If the provisional government Volume 12-14 (1870-89). portant correspondence to him. gives to the chief executive such

HUMANITIES irr o Congress ofLibrary

Davis's letter to his wife two days after his inauguration describes joyous spectators at the event, "but beyond them I saw troubles and thorns innumerable." The lithograph depicts the inauguration.

power as the Constitution gives to assume general command, and, in and organizing its defense was con­ the President of the U .S.," Davis fact, the first reports of the battle of suming Davis's time and energy, and wrote in a revealing letter only re­ Manassas (Bull Run) in July stated the notion of the president's actually cently discovered, "then he will be that the president had led the Con­ assuming field command faded. the source of military authority and federate forces to victory. A New Or­ That he ever considered it is one of may in emergency command the leans paper asserted that Davis went the most surprising revelations army in person. . . . The post of to Manassas with the intention of found thus far among the docu­ Prsdt. of the provisional government taking command. Davis did indeed ments of the Civil War period. If is one of great responsibility and dif­ go to Manassas, but, as he wrote Davis never actually took the field, ficulty, I have no confidence in my years later, an obligation to address he did actively involve himself in capacity to meet its requirements. I Congress prevented him from reach­ military matters. Indeed, his critics think I could perform the functions ing the battlefield before the fighting faulted him for being too engaged. of genl. if the Executive did not crip­ had ended. What he would have But the same was said of Lincoln. ple me in my operations by acts of done had he arrived earlier he did Critics point to Davis's copious commission or omission. . . . I not say. correspondence with his generals would prefer not to have either In August, Joseph E. Johnston, and the succession of secretaries of place, but in this hour of my coun­ one of the top-ranking Confederate war— there were six— as evidence of try's severest trial will accept any generals, exhorted Davis to leave the Davis's penchant to control, or at place to which my fellow citizens drudgery of civil duties for two least to interfere with, military mat­ may assign me." months: "Command the army. . . . ters. Close scrutiny of the correspon­ The idea of combining the roles of Occupy yourself merely with the dence during Davis's first year as president and general was not Campaign itself— & win the high president finds the generals regular­ Davis's alone. During May 1861, glory of achieving the independence ly bypassing the secretary of war. In Davis received letters urging him to of our country." contrast, for the same period there is take the field. Newspapers North By this time, however, the enor­ almost no exchange of letters be­ and South predicted that he would mous task of forging a new nation tween Lincoln and his generals; the

16 MARCH/APRIL 1990 War Department was used as the ticipate the time when it would seem could be even more trying. A nota­ channel for such communications. to be proper to withdraw you from ble case was the feud that raged be­ But Lincoln conferred regularly with the position with which you are so tween two former Virginia governors General Winfield Scott and called on intimately acquainted and for which who became generals in 1861. Gen­ George B. McClellan daily after he you have shown yourself so emi­ eral Henry A. Wise complained that replaced Scott as general in chief. nently qualified. Nor have I felt that while he was "treading on the The Confederacy had no general in to another could be transferred the snakes of treason," General John B. chief, and Davis was unable to make moral power you have over the Floyd not only failed to cooperate regular visits to his far-flung armies. troops you have commanded." Soon with him but treated him in a man­ In May 1861, he made his only visit after, Davis entreated Beauregard to ner "offensive" and "stinging." "All to General Braxton Bragg at Pensacola, end his quarrels with the secretary I ask," pleaded Wise, "is a supply of and in July and October he conferred of war: "The country needs all of 1500 percussion muskets & rifles & a with Generals P. G. T. Beauregard and your mind and your heart; you have separation from Genl. Floyd." Johnston in Virginia. But for the given cause to expect all which man Officers protested their ranks and most part, Davis, whose war quickly can do, and your fame and her inter­ assignments. Others, joined by involved such distant points as Flor­ ests require that your energies many civilians, charged that Davis ida, Missouri, and Texas, was more should have a single object." Davis favored his friends from the "old dependent on letters, telegrams, and also buried his distrust of Missouri's army," from West Point, or from the messengers than was the President General Sterling Price for the good Mexican War, charges for which of the United States. of the Confederacy, reassuring him there is considerable substantiation. Only someone who has not read that the general's letter "was not Critics overlooked Davis's wisdom in the Confederate president's 1861 cor­ needed to make me appreciate the selecting men whose measure he respondence could fail to sym­ difficulties and embarrassments un­ had taken, but Davis overlooked the pathize with him as he dealt with his der which you have labored, nor the validity of complaints when old col­ generals. Often described as imper­ sacrifices and devotion displayed in leagues proved incompetent yet re­ ious and impatient, Davis showed the cause of Missouri and the South. mained in command. more restraint and diplomatic skill For all this, you have not only my Equally trying were several gover­ than is usually recognized. Despite thanks and those of the good people nors of the Confederate states who Beauregard's use of allies in the Con­ of your own State; but, also, those of regularly resisted calls for troops federate Congress to incite dissatis­ the whole South." and arms, insisted on controlling faction with the administration, If Davis sometimes found relations military and civil appointments, Davis was able to respond calmly to with his generals difficult and time- complained that their states were the general's request to be trans­ consuming, sorting out disputes being abandoned to the enemy, and ferred to New Orleans: "I cannot an­ among the generals themselves protested the central government's ainl otat alr, mtsna Institution Smithsonian Gallery, Portrait National

Jefferson Davis stands amidst his generals, in a composite portrait lithograph, ca. 1861.

HUMANITIES 17 policies. Georgia's governor, Joseph (assassination and kidnapping plots correct procedure and the chain of E. Brown, was continually at odds notwithstanding), walking from command, Davis read his mail, as with Davis, but he was not alone; at Richmond's White House to his of­ his endorsements show. Apparently one time or another the governor or fice, dressed in gray homespun, ac­ he believed it was addressed to him legislature of every state stymied the cessible to passersby. Letters came to and not just to the office of president administration's policies and caused Davis from every corner of the Con­ and commander in chief. He apolo­ Davis grief. Although Lincoln experi­ federacy addressing every imagin­ gized to old friends whom he was enced occasional problems of this able topic: diplomatic strategies, too busy to answer, regretting that sort, the South's very existence was rumored invasions and plans for de­ he had "no time for friendly corre­ predicated on states' rights, which fense, offers to raise thousands of spondence" but requesting that they fenced the narrow path Davis was men at home or to recruit abroad, re­ keep in touch. forced to tread. ports of spies and schemes for covert Because he left a long paper trail, Thus, to Governor John Letcher: activities in the North, inventions of including interviews and speeches "Permit me to express my regret that fearful and often fanciful instru­ as well as letters and telegrams, and . . . there should have been any in­ ments of war, calls for days of prayer because that trail is gradually being terference with your unquestionable and fasting, plans for organizing made available in published form, authority and commendable efforts sewing societies and establishing with support from the National En­ to increase the military power of Vir­ hospitals. Sometimes amusing, more dowment from the Humanities, re­ ginia." And to Governor Francis W. often poignant, letters from the searchers for the first time can evalu­ Pickens: "Your recommendations "plain folk" poured out their grief ate a massive volume of material and [are] regarded with the respect given and cares as the war consumed their view Davis and his presidency in a to everything you propose in rela­ sons, brothers, husbands, and de­ fresh light. Several biographers and tion to the defense of S. Carolina." stroyed the fabric of their lives. other scholars are currently weigh­ Examples of Davis's tact cannot ob­ The parallel with the early presi­ ing the evidence; new insights and scure the instances of his irascibility dency of George Washington is un­ interpretations of Jefferson Davis's and insensitivity. His impatience, mistakable. Just as hundreds of presidency are sure to follow. □ even testiness on occasion, sprang Washington's countrymen wrote to from overwhelming responsibilities, him with their hopes, fears, and Since 1981, Rice University has received a deep sense of duty, and, most of plans for the new republic, so did $178,840 in matching funds from the all, his fragile constitution. Fre­ Davis's fellow Southerners. And, as Texts program of the Division of Re­ quently ill and occasionally unable to happens with all United States presi­ search Programs to support The Papers leave home for days at a time, Davis dents, the volume of incoming mail of Jefferson Davis. NEH's Division of was actually reported to have died in far exceeds the outgoing. Thus the Fellowships and Seminars is also sup­ September 1861, a story that re­ correspondence reveals as much or porting Louisiana State University pro­ ceived national attention and per­ more about the new nation than fessor William Cooper's biography of sisted for weeks. about its leader. Jefferson Davis, and the Office of Chal­ Despite his cares, however, ob­ People felt that Davis was ap­ lenge Grants is supporting humanities servers noted that the president proachable, and he was. Far from programs at the Museum of the Con­ lived plainly and moved the stiff martinet of War Department federacy in Richmond, located in the re­ about unguarded days, a bureaucrat who insisted on stored Confederate White House.

Richmond in 1865, showing the devastation wrought by the war.

18 MARCH/APRIL 1990 A HOUSE DIVIDED:

BY KATHI ANN BROWN America in The Age of Lincoln

N 1858, the fledgling Illinois Re­ tween the North and the South. A and-evil showdown between a publican party pinned its hopes portrait of the North's rapid indus­ "civilized" North and its "backward" Iof winning a key U.S. Senate trialization and nascent free labor neighbor to the south, but a complex seat on a soft-spoken former con­ philosophy in the early nineteenth drama in which actors black and gressman from Springfield. The century is juxtaposed against a cor­ white, North and South, put the young politician had lost a similar responding picture of the South's Constitution's principles of equality race just three years earlier. Despite agrarian tradition and slave-labor and self-determination to the su­ the party's vote of confidence, his system. preme test. second try for a berth in the Senate By elucidating the regions' anti­ was no more successful than the thetical ideals of labor and proper first. The campaign might easily social order, the curators hope to Current Scholarship have been forgotten— one of hun­ deepen public understanding of the dreds of such political disappoint­ ideological chasm that separated The exhibition's focus on slavery re­ ments— save for the hauntingly pro­ these competing visions of American flects the influence of two decades of phetic words of the loser. life. Visitors are reminded that the scholarship that have effectively re­ "A house divided against itself Civil War was not a simple good- stored the "peculiar institution" to cannot stand," warned Abraham center stage in interpretations of the Lincoln in accepting his party's sen­ a causes of the Civil War. Although atorial nomination. "I believe this | contemporaries of the conflict point- government cannot endure, perma­ 1 ed readily to slavery as the primary nently half slave and half free." >2 agent, other schools of thought Two years later, in the bitterly con­ n about its causes gained ascendancy tested 1860 presidential election, | as the war receded into the past. By Lincoln and the Republicans re­ 5 the 1920s and 1930s, a primarily eco- versed their fortunes by winning the | nomic theory of the war, advanced White House. Within weeks, the gby Charles A. Beard and Arthur C. South seceded from the Union, and £ Cole, all but dismissed slavery as a the nation was plunged into the significant factor. Later schools tend­ bloodiest conflict in its history. ed to focus on the crisis of national Today the Civil War and the two political leadership of the 1850s. Not opposing cultures that took up arms until the 1970s was slavery itself re­ to fight it are revisited in a new exhi­ appraised as a major force in the so­ bition, supported by the National cial processes of the antebellum peri­ Endowment for the Humanities, at od and the primary cause of the war. the Chicago Historical Society. "A One of the earliest of his genera­ House Divided: America in the Age tion of historians to call for a reas­ of Lincoln" opened in February. It sessment of slavery, Eric Foner, offers visitors a panorama of the DeWitt Clinton Professor of History complex social, cultural, and political at Columbia University, was a natu­ matrix of the period from 1820 to 1877. ral choice to collaborate with the Chicago Historical Society on "A House Divided." As cocurator, Foner Competing Visions has been instrumental in incorporat- At the heart of the exhibition is an examination of how slavery drove an Kathi Ann Brown is a freelance writer in irreconcilable ideological wedge be­ the Washington, D .C., area.

HUMANITIES 19 ing slavery into the exhibition as a "Neither side had a monopoly on the table from Appomattox on which main interpretive theme. virtue," says Foner. "We've tried to Grant and Lee signed the terms of "The African-American story is re­ show the weaknesses and strengths surrender. The acquisition was crit­ ally central to the exhibition," says of both. Not everyone is going to ical in replacing the museum's origi­ Susan Page Tillett, the museum's di­ agree with all of our interpretations. nal Civil War manuscript collection, rector of curatorial affairs. "That's We want to challenge people to which was destroyed in the Great one of the things that makes this think about slavery, about the war, Chicago Fire of 1871, including one show unique. Traditionally, muse­ and about the long-term conse­ of Lincoln's handwritten copies of ums have focused on the battles of quences of the conflict." the Emancipation Proclamation. the Civil War, with little or no exam­ ination of the institution of slavery, A Novel Approach the lives of the slaves themselves, or A Rare Collection the contributions and experiences of With that goal, cocurators Foner and "A House Divided" opens with an black abolitionists and soldiers. But Olivia Mahoney, the museum's as­ overview of the country's evolution in the past twenty years, Civil War sociate curator of decorative and in­ after the American Revolution. Rare historians like Eric Foner have shift­ dustrial arts, culled the Chicago His­ Indian materials from the Black ed the emphasis toward a multi­ torical Society's massive holdings for Hawk war, color lithographs depict­ cultural approach to interpreting the dramatic artifacts to illustrate the ex­ ing the transportation revolution, past. Museums for the most part hibition's seven major sections. and early machine-made objects have not yet taken into account this In addition to items given by more highlight the period's commercial change in scholarship. than 100 donors, many of the the ex­ development in the North and grow­ "As far as I know," continues hibition's artifacts come from the ing western expansionism. Tillett, "we're the first major Civil Gunther collection, a dazzling array The first section also introduces War show to incorporate pluralistic of antebellum and Civil War relics visitors to the exhibition's novel perspectives into our interpretive assembled by a successful Chicago treatment of the era's central char­ framework. To give just two exam­ candy manufacturer at the turn of acter: Abraham Lincoln. The tradi­ ples in A House Divided,' blacks are the century. A student of the Civil tional Lincoln-as-icon approach has portrayed as actors, as soldiers and War, Charles Gunther turned a per­ been supplanted by an attempt to in­ abolitionists, not just as victims or sonal interest in American history tegrate the sixteenth President into beneficiaries of whites. And visitors into a museum filled with a vast col­ the context of his times. Beginning are reminded that Northerners could lection of nineteenth-century memo­ with a depiction of Lincoln's young be every bit as racist as their South­ rabilia. The Gunther holdings, ac­ adulthood in New Salem, Illinois, ern counterparts." quired by the museum in 1920, and ending with his deathbed in the include John Brown's Bible, aboli­ final section, the exhibition chrono­ tionist Elijah Lovejoy's printing logically examines the themes of press, Lincoln's deathbed, the bricks from Richmond's Libby Prison, and

John Brown's Bible, with passages marked by him while he was imprisoned in Charleston, Virginia (now West Virginia); and the table on which Lee's surrender at Appomattox was signed.

MARCH/APRIL 1990 westward expansion, the rise of pop­ abolitionist martyr John Brown's Bi­ The exhibition ends by identifying ular politics, the debate over slavery, ble, and materials depicting the Con­ the many questions about race and and the bitterness of war as reflected federate assault on Fort Sumter and politics that the war left unsettled: in the course of Lincoln's life. the secession of the Southern states Who should control the South? The second section profiles the after Lincoln's election. What should be the status of former "peculiar institution," exploring slav­ The next and largest section draws slaves? What labor system should re­ ery's centrality to Southern life and visitors into the thick of the period's place slavery? The epilogue looks at its crucial contribution to the nation­ military drama. The colorful opti­ the Reconstruction period and the al economy. Visitors encounter com­ mism of gigantic recruitment posters fundamental changes wrought in the pelling images and evidence of slav­ and flags quickly gives way to brutal nation's constitutional system in the ery: shackles, slave tags, slave-sale evidence of the devastation of the war's aftermath— the establishment broadsides, reward posters for country's first modern war. Visitors of the principles of emancipation fugitive slaves, and materials ex­ behold representations of the crude and civil and political equality with­ pounding the proslavery argument. hospital facilities, unsanitary camp out regard to race, and the federal The rise of the abolition movement life, and harsh prison conditions en­ government's empowerment to en­ in concert with Jacksonian democ­ dured by common soldiers. Weap­ force the rights of American citizens racy and the religious revivals of the ons and uniforms are complemented against violations by the states— 1830s are the themes of the third sec­ by photographs and tintypes of while pointing to the war's legacy of tion. As the debate over the exten­ army camp life and letters by en­ racism and inequality. sion of slavery into western territo­ listed men. Life on the home front "The exhibition is intentionally ries became central in national and the work of benevolent associa­ open-ended," says Tillett. "We felt politics, supporters and detractors tions are also depicted. our responsibility was to offer the employed the marketing tactics of The end of the war, the emancipa­ public a more complex and inclusive commercialism to sell their ideas and tion of the slaves, and the racial history than museums have tradi­ candidates to the masses. Biographi­ legacy of the conflict are the focus in tionally presented. To do so meant cal sketches of prominent black and the last section and in the epilogue. raising lots of interesting, troubling, white abolitionists, a first edition of Lincoln's presidency and assassina­ and perhaps unanswerable ques­ Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's tion are vividly represented by the tions about the Civil War, its legacy, Cabin, and the printing press of mur­ table on which he reportedly drafted and our ability as a nation to live up dered abolitionist Elijah Lovejoy are the Emancipation Proclamation and to the ideals of the Constitution." □ among the featured objects. the bed in which he died after re­ Audio recreations of the great de­ ceiving a gunshot wound to the The Chicago Historical Society has re­ bates between Lincoln and Stephen head. ceived $439,512 from the Humanities A. Douglas in 1858 dominate the Projects in Museums and Historical Or­ fourth section's examination of the ganizations program of the Division of political crisis of the 1850s. Artifacts General Programs to support “A House include campaign items from the Divided: America in the Age of Lincoln." heated presidential race of 1860, the

Ozvner-identification tags worn by slaves when they were rented out to work; and Elijah Lovejoy's printing press. y the time Confederates broke out. Yet most of them, North studio and onto the field where the opened fire on Fort Sumter on and South, relied mainly on two armies were to be found. ■ P April 12, 1861, photography, methods of image making: the collo­ In the four years of the conflict, though only twenty-two years old, dion, or so-called "wet-plate," pro­ probably more than one million ex­ had already come a long way in cess, in which a gelled film on a posures were made by cameramen America. Gone were the days of the glass plate produced a negative; and North and South, the overwhelming daguerreotype with its elusive image the ambrotype, or so-called "tin­ majority of them being soldier por­ obtained only after minutes of te­ type," which was a one-of-a kind traits taken in studios in the larger dious exposure. A host of successor print made on a sensitized iron towns and cities, or made by itiner­ processes had come and gone, sev­ plate. Both required only a few sec­ ant photographers who followed the eral of which were still practiced by onds' exposure and produced sharp, armies and set up darkroom tents. some of the more than 3,000 photog­ detailed images, often of startling Most were ambrotypes or the call- raphers, ambrotypists, daguerreo- clarity. Though each required some ing-card-sized cartes-de-visite pro­ typists, calotypists, melainotypists, cumbersome developing equipment, duced from wet-plate negatives. and others who made their living neither was so clumsy or complex Quite simply, for the photographers, with cameras when the Civil War that it could not be taken out of the who were after all businessmen, IMAGES OF WAR BY WILLIAM C. DAVIS ainl Archives National

Jay D. Edwards, pioneering Confederate photographer, captured this scene of newly enlisted Rebels manning a battery at Pensacola, Florida, in April 1861, before the onset of military confrontation at Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina. portrait photography was where the money was to be made. Every sol­ dier wanted to have his portrait in uniform to send to family and friends back home, and because some three million men served at one time or another, an estimate of one million portraits taken is not unduly liberal. Far less numerous, perhaps fewer than 10,000, were the outdoor scenes and "war views" that very few photographers produced. These images required larger cameras as a rule, a field wagon to take the darkroom and developing materials to the scene, more time to set up a shot, and consequently a good deal of exposure and risk to cameraman and equipment. Moreover, the mar­ ketability of the images was uncer­ tain. While soldier and officer por­ traits provided sure income for the photographer because he made the image and was paid at once, war views, scenes of camps and battle­ fields, landmarks associated with the armies, and images of the armies Osborn and Durbec, who photographed Fort Sumter and Charleston immediately after the themselves were a speculative ven­ outbreak of war, made this image of Sullivan's Island defense, with Fort Sumter in the distance. ture. The photographer who made Below: Soldiers of the Second Rhode Island Infantry perform the ages-old camp duty of the them took it on faith that he could soldier, cooking and cleaning. mass-produce such images, selling them to the public as cartes-de-visite, larger cabinet photos, dual-image stereo views, or even as huge impe­ rial prints suitable for framing or ex­ hibition. In fact, few entrepreneurs earned more than enough to cover their expenses. Of the 3,000 or so photographers who practiced their craft during the war, no more than a few dozen made any serious attempt to take their cameras out of their portrait studios. The first true "war" photographers were Southerners. Well before all of

William C. Davis is author of more than twenty-five books on the Civil War peri­ od, most recently Rebels & Yankees: The Fighting Men of the Civil War (1989). He received Pulitzer nominations for Breckinridge: Statesman, Soldier, Symbol (1974) and Battle at Bull Run (1977), and received the 1978 Fletcher Pratt Award for Continuing Contribu­ tions to Civil War History. the future Confederate states had se­ ceded, New Orleans artist Jay D. Ed­ wards took his camera to Pensacola, Florida, where he recorded some seventy images of the Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi volun­ teers training there. He did attempt to manufacture and sell large-format reproductions of his photographs, though most were subsequently lost and only a few survive. Edwards might be called the "photographer of the Confederacy," for he left behind more views of the common soldiers in camp and field than any other Southern artist. But after his April 1861, foray to Pensacola, he would not be heard from again in the war. A few months earlier, South Car­ olina photographer George S. Cook took his camera out to Fort Sumter in Charleston harbor, and there pho­ tographed some of the Yankee offi­ cers who would later defend it when Rebel guns opened fire. As soon as Fort Sumter fell, however, photogra­ phers flooded in from everywhere. Again, the Confederates were the first. The partnership of James Os­ born and F. E. Durbec went into Fort Sumter three days after its surrender and made an epic— and long-forgot- ten—series of more than thirty im­ ages of the fort and the surrounding Confederate installations. In New Orleans, J. W. Petty began photographing new Confederate re­ cruits on their way to war, and in small towns and cities all across the South local photographers took their instruments outside to capture scenes of volunteers parading in the streets and squares. After this brief flurry of activity, the scarcity of chemicals and raw materials became such in the South that Confederate photographers never again emerged from their studios. Only Cook made a brief sortie to Fort Sumter again in 1863 to make a few images. For him and for the rest, the balance of the war was spent struggling to survive, and that meant indoor portrait work. Infinitely more fortunate were those cameramen north of Mason and Dixon's line. For them, almost limitless opportunity afforded itself, with no restrictions on raw mate­ rials, a huge market in the large ar- mies to support their craft, and few held a card containing two almost limitations on their movement when identical images made simultaneous­ they chose to follow the armies. ly by the same camera. The result Most made the bulk of their living was a three-dimensional effect that from soldier portraits, but a few could put some life into scenes of came to be recognized not just in the battlefields of Antietam or Get­ their own time but as fabled pio­ tysburg, the piles of dead at Pe­ neers in the world of photography. tersburg, or the tranquility of sol­ Samuel Cooley, G. W. Houghton, diers bathing in a Virginia or David Woodbury, and a host of oth­ Tennessee stream. Many photogra­ ers helped turn their passion into an phers, unwilling or unable to as­ industry; a few of the truly great, sume the risk of manufacturing and like Alexander Gardner and Timothy marketing themselves, sold their im­ O'Sullivan, turned that industry into ages to major distributors such as E. an art. & H. T. Anthony of New York; they, Ironically, towering above them all in turn, sold them through stores, in the public mind then and for pos­ photo studios, and even the mail. terity was a man who was probably The public itself was anxious to too nearsighted to have posed a sin­ see almost everything connected gle one of the thousands of images with the war. Groups of generals attributed to him, Mathew Brady. and their staffs posing outdoors at The nation's leading portrait photog­ their quarters, mountains of sup­ rapher before the war, he became its plies at a commissary wharf, war­ An unidentified photographer captured General U. S. Grant and leading photographic entrepreneur ships plying Southern rivers, sol­ a council of war at Massaponax in 1861 and later. Always a bit care­ diers relaxing over rations during a Church on May 21, 1864. less with the truth, he would later dusty march— all were the sort of claim that when war broke out "a images that found their way into Below: Symbolic of the iron spirit in my feet said 'go,' and I monsters plying the rivers and seas Northern homes. Unfortunately, cir­ in this first "modern" war, the USS went." In fact, he rarely left Wash­ cumstances dictated that in most Mahopac stands before the camera ington. Those who "went" were his cases the cameras could record on the James River. assistants—Gardner, O'Sullivan, and events only after the fact. In a few a dozen more. They took the battle­ happy cases, such as a council of war field and campside images that at Massaponax Church in 1864, a showed the people at home what the cameraman was able to record a his­ war looked like. Yet the images sim­ toric occasion as it happened. Most ply said "Brady & Co.," not credit­ often, however, the photographer ing the individual artists themselves. got his equipment to the scene of Craving recognition, many of great happenings afterwards. Brady's most talented photographers Thus it was that the pinnacle of left him during the war to go it alone. warfare, the battle, was recorded Apart from the great quantity of only in artists' sketches during the portraits of common soldiers, in­ Civil War. Battles erupted too quickly tended solely for friends and family, and shifted about the landscape too the financial success of all photog­ fast for a photographer to keep up raphy intended for public consump­ with them. Because photographic tion depended chiefly on public chemicals required that the photog­ tastes. Safest of all were the mass- rapher develop an exposed plate produced portraits of leading gen­ within less than a minute, camera erals and politicians. Collectors' and portable darkroom could never albums designed to hold carte-de- be more than a few yards apart. This visite-sized images proved popular meant that photographer, instru­ throughout the North, and thou­ ment, and wagon/darkroom had to sands of generals' portraits were be right on the battle line to capture kept in them by civilians who a battle scene as it occurred. Not thrilled to the battle reports in the only was the risk too great, but the newspapers that made national he­ rapid movement of men and animals roes out of these men. would likely have blurred most im­ Nearly as popular was the ster­ ages anyway. Consequently, no bat­ eoscope, the hand-held viewer that tle images are known to have sur­ The photographer at work. Here, at the end of the war, in the rubble of Fort Sumter, Samuel Cooley completes his coverage of the Civil War. vived. Considering their potential ple at home, as reminders of a trag­ the photographs themselves. The commercial popularity, it seems cer­ edy that touched every family. scenes of carnage and destruction tain that if any were taken, they Besides the images intended for aroused too many unhappy memo­ would have been mass-produced im­ commercial consumption, the Civil ries. Thousands of plates were de­ mediately. The conclusion is ines­ War photographers pioneered in stroyed through intent or neglect, capable, therefore, that none was other areas. The "microdot" was in­ some suffering the ignominy of hav­ taken successfully. vented, though little used, for intel­ ing the film scraped from the glass The photographers did capture, ligence purposes. Cameras were for its silver content, while others however, endless heart-rending im­ used to enlarge and make multiple became eyepieces in goggles or glass ages of the wounded and the dead prints of maps and plans. Aerial for gas meters. A century and a once the armies had fought and photography was attempted, appar­ quarter after Appomattox, probably moved on. Gardner's photographs of ently unsuccessfully. For the first no more than 200,000 plates remain the dead at Gettysburg are among time in America, mass-produced in existence, all but a few thousand the most moving images of the war. portraits were affixed to "wanted" of them portraits. Only in this cen­ They were also the most graphic, posters and used to help run down tury has interest revived in these old which perhaps explains their failure Lincoln's assassins. It was a time of images. Resurrected from attics and to be commercially successful. The unbridled innovation. archives, they have returned to us a photographers saw them as histor­ Once the war ended, though, in­ picture of our nation and our an­ ical and artistic documents; the peo­ terest in its images faded as fast as cestors in crisis. □ Letters of a Slave Turned Union Soldier

Emblem on the regimental flag of the Third U.S. Colored Infantry.

T THE START of the Civil War, the prospect of thousands of black men put into uniform and armed against white Americans was unthinkable Ain the North as well as in the South. But by 1865, the Union army's black soldiers, having won the grudging respect of their white comrades despite continuing dis­ crimination, had become accepted and welcomed in the North, if deeply resented in the South. After Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation in January 1863, efforts to recruit black soldiers into the Union army accelerated rapidly. By the end of the war, nearly 179,000 blacks fought on the Union side, about 10 percent of the army's total strength. While many black soldiers enlisted from the free community in the North, the vast majority were former slaves who crossed into Union lines in pursuit of freedom. One such soldier was Private Spotswood Rice of the 67th U.S. Colored Infantry, in the army's Department of the Missouri. A former slave, he had enlisted in Feb­ ruary 1864, at Glasgow, Missouri. Hospitalized in St. Louis with chronic rheumatism, he wrote in September of that year to his enslaved daughters, Mary and Caroline, who were held in Glasgow by two different owners. The letter assured his daughters that he would soon take part in an expe­ dition that would set them free. Rice also wrote an an­ gry letter to Mary's owner, Kitty Diggs, vowing ven­ Private Hubbard Pryor, Forty-fourth U.S. Colored Infantry, before and geance against her. His letters reflect both a deep after his enlistment. conviction of the fundamental wrong of slavery and a sense of strength and authority born of his new stand­ ing as a Union soldier. When Kitty Diggs's brother, postmaster F. W. Diggs, who owned Rice's daughter Caroline, read the two let­ ters, he dashed off an indignant protest to General Wil­ liam S. Rosecrans, the federal commander in Missouri, asserting his loyalty to the Union and his magnanimity toward his slaves, and demanding that Private Rice be deported from the state.

Letters reprinted from Freedom: A Documentary History of Emancipation 1861-1867, Series II, The Black Military Experience, eds. Ira Berlin, Joseph P. Reidy, and Leslie S. Rowland (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1982). Original source: National Archives of the United States. The volume is part of the multivolume Freedmen and Southern Engraving of black soldiers and a white officer used on a popular Society Project, which receives NEH support. recruiting poster of the period.

HUMANITIES 27 Spotswood Rice to His Enslaved Daughters

[Benton Barracks Hospital, St. Louis, Mo., September 3, 1864]

My Children 1 take my pen in hand to rite you A few lines to that I had some respect for them but now my respects is worn let you know that I have not forgot you and that I want to see out and have no sympathy for Slaveholders. And as for her you as bad as ever now my Dear Children I want you to be cristianantty I expect the Devil has Such in hell You tell her contented with whatever may be your lots be assured that 1 from me that She is the frist Christian that I ever hard say will have you if it cost me my life on the 28th of the mounth. that aman could Steal his own child especially out of human 8 hundred White and 8 hundred blacke solders expects to start bondage up the rivore to Glasgow and above there thats to be jeneraled You can tell her that She can hold to you as long as she by a jeneral that will give me both of you when they come I can I never would expect to ask her again to let you come to expect to be with, them and expect to get you both in return. me because I know that the devil has got her hot set againsts Dont be uneasy my children I expect to have you. If Diggs that that is write now my Dear children I am a going to close dont give you up this Government will and I feel confident my letter to you Give my love to all enquiring friends tell that I will get you Your Miss Kaitty said that I tried to steal them all that we are well and want to see them very much you But I'll let her know that god never intended for man to and Corra and Mary receive the greater part of it you sefves steal his own flesh and blood. If I had no cofidence in God I and dont think hard of us not sending you any thing I you could have confidence in her But as it is If I ever had any father have a plenty for you when I see you Spott & Noah Confidence in her I have none now and never expect to have sends their love to both of you Oh! My Dear children how I And I want her to remember if she meets me with ten thou­ do want to see you sand soldiers she [will?] meet her enemy I once [thought] [Spotswood Rice]

Rice to Kitty Diggs

[Benton Barracks Hospital, St. Louis, Mo., September 3, 1864] I received a leteter from Cariline telling me that you say I Child but I am glad now that you did not accept it Just hold tried to steal to plunder my child away from you now I want on now as long as you can and the worse it will be for you you to understand that mary is my Child and she is a God you never in you life befor I came down hear did you give given rite of my own and you may hold on to hear as long as Children any thing not eny thing whatever not even a dollers you can but I want you to remembor this one thing that the worth of expencs now you call my children your pro[per]ty longor you keep my Child from me the longor you will have to not so with me my Children is my own and I expect to get burn in hell and the qwicer youll get their for we are now them and when I get ready to come after mary I will have makeing up a bout one thoughsand blacke troops to Come up bout a powrer and autherity to bring hear away and to exac­ tharough and wont to come through Glasgow and when we ute vengencens on them that holds my Child you will then come wo be to Copperhood rabbels and to the Slaveholding know how to talke to me I will assure that and you will know rebbels for we dont expect to leave them there root neor how to talk rite too I want you now to just hold on to hear if branch but we thinke how ever that we that have Children in you want to iff your conchosence tells thats the road go that the hands of you devels we will trie your [vertues?] the day road and what it will brig you to kittey diggs I have no fears that we enter Glasgow I want you to understand kittey diggs about geting mary out of your hands this whole Government that where ever you and I meets we are enmays to each gives chear to me and you cannot help your self orthere I offered once to pay you forty dollers for my own Spotswood Rice

F. W. Diggs to General Rosecrans

Glasgow Mo Sept. 10" 1864 Sir Enclosed I send you two Letters written one to my Sister and I may say all I had was in slave property which I con- the other to two colo girls one beloning to her & the other to nclud at the commencement was defunct never to be resusi- myself, and I write this to ask the favour of you to send the tated Six men are in the United States service and I have told scoundrel that wrote them down to the army I do not think the bal[ance] when they wished to go just say so and I would that he should be allowd to remain in the state he wrote to give them a pass and under all these circumstances my fami­ my sister to let his child come down to see him and he would ly all being of the same politics of myself and to be thus in­ send her back she was hired out she went to see the person sulted by such a black scoundrel is more that I can stand for that hired her to let he go but they refused. The scoundrels refference Mr John D Perry B.W. Lewis James T Bunch & wife & ten children were alowed to go to him and the other William Spear of firm of Wm Spear & Co Tobaconists hope- would have been sent whenevr I could be satisfied that her ing You will give this subject the attention it deservs I remain Mother had goton in situation to support her. I am and have Your obt Servt been [loyal] from the commencement of this wicked rebellion F W Diggs

Since 1982, the University of Maryland, College Park, has received $494,262 in outright and matching funds from the Texts pro­ gram of the Division of Research Programs to support the Freedmen and Southern Society Project. Other recent projects include a fellowship to study the Freedmen's Bureau and reconstruction in Georgia, and a research grant to support microfilm and print editions of black abolitionist papers.

28 MARCH/APRIL 1990 CALENDAR March ♦ April irr o Cnrs Promn At rhvs Uiest o Minnesota of University Archives, Art Performing Congress of Library

"Byron and the Drama of Ro­ manticism" is the topic of a con­ A classic Grimm folktale tells ference at Yale University the story of "Soldier Jack" and March 3 0 -April 1. the stranger who gives him power over death. Airs in April on PBS.

"Reappraising Benjamin Frank­ lin: A Bicentennial Perspective" will be discussed April 17-19 in sessions at the University of Delaware and nearby sites.

McKissick Museum University of South Carolina

Alkaline-glazed stoneware and its influence on southern folk pottery are examined in "Crossroads of Clay," an exhibi­ tion opening March 17 at the McKissick Museum in Colum­ bia, South Carolina.

Lacemakers from Denison House in Boston are included in "Folk Roots, New Roots," an ex­ hibition at Strong Museum in Rochester, New York, coincid­ ing with the 100th anniversary of the American Folklore Society. This 1929 miniature of a theatrical backdrop is part of a University of Minnesota historical collection on display through April at the McNay Art Museum in San Antonio. — By Kristen Hall

HUMANITIES 29 TAMPERING WITH POETIC GENIUS The Early Editing of Emily Dickinson

BY JUDITH FARR N MAY 19, 1886, the body strange retirement. And, because Lavinia realized that what she held of a delicate, fifty-five-year- everyone knew she composed what in her hands was the work of her sis­ Oold woman whom towns­ were assumed to be occasional vers­ ter's lifetime. For Emily's handwrit­ folk called "The Myth" was lowered es, these, too, were recalled as ing had changed over the years: a into a grave filled with flowers in "tantalizing fancies" "tossed" off be­ running, spidery style in the late Amherst, Massachusetts. Her simple tween gardening and baking. As the 1850s, rounder and bolder in the six­ funeral had provided for many sun set upon the West Cemetery ties, and at the end, like print— guests the first opportunity in twen­ that Wednesday evening, the minis­ every letter separate and as isolated ty years to see her face, for the spin­ ter's wife declared that Emily Dickin­ from the others as Emily herself. The ster daughter of the Honorable Ed­ son would "never . . . be forgotten" poems in the booklets were in her ward Dickinson had lived since the because her hermetic life was some­ hand of the 1860s; and the meticu­ 1860s as a recluse in her lawyer- how so "dramatic." lousness with which they had been father's mansion on Main Street. She The drama was not ended, how­ copied (sometimes six or seven vari­ could be glimpsed at night, moving ever. For a few days after Emily's fu­ ant word choices were included for among her plants in the garden, neral, Lavinia Dickinson was in the one word in a poem) told Lavinia dressed always in white. Children process of completing the protective that Emily had been deeply earnest had seen her smile as she lowered New England ritual of destroying about her writing. The odd jumble gingerbread to them from a bed­ her sister's correspondence when of scraps with lines written every­ room window. But only her brother she discovered a locked box. As she where, anyhow, in the later hand Austin and sister Lavinia were famil­ opened it, her astonishment was ap­ said something else. Emily had iar with the true lineaments of Emily propriate to one of the most startling stopped cataloguing the poems sys­ Dickinson's face, said by her eulogist stories in American literary history. tematically. Had she become dis­ and "Preceptor" Thomas Wentworth For the box did not contain more let­ couraged? One of the poems de­ Higginson to be tranquil and beau­ ters but 700 poems. They had been scribed artistic inspiration, declaring tiful in the white coffin. carefully inscribed on sheets of sta­ that she was never "Alone": "For As a tribute to their long friend­ tionery which were pricked on top Hosts— do visit me— ." Obviously ship, the celebrated Wentworth Hig- and bottom and sewn with silk darn­ she had noted her thoughts as soon ginson (to whom Dickinson had ing thread to make forty little book­ as they came to her and then tucked turned for literary advice in 1862) lets. Besides the booklets, there were them into the pocket her dressmaker came from Boston to read Emily loose poems in Emily's bureau. Some always set in her white frocks. She Bronte's immortality ode at the ser­ were scribbled on torn notebook had been writing all the while they vice. Although he had counseled pages. Others were crowded on the lived together and to a much greater Dickinson against publishing the re­ backs of recipes. Still more appeared extent than Lavinia surmised. markably original poems she kept on brown paper bags, used envelopes, Fiercely proud of the older sister sending him about love, death, sun­ bills, and advertisements. Altogether, she once called "the only one of us rises, the solitary soul, and the sea, there were almost 1,800 poems. who had to think," Lavinia deter- he respected her exceptional mind. He thought her rare spirit attuned to Mass. Amherst, Library, Jones eternity rather than to this world. It was of her otherworldliness that he spoke on May 19, as did her sister- in-law in an obituary notice for the Springfield Republican. There, Emily Dickinson's reclusion was explained as the life pattern of a "sensitive nature" which "shrank from much personal contact with the world." Readers were reminded of the or­ chids, cakes, wine, notes, and letters the dead gentlewoman had sent to friends and neighbors despite her

Judith Farr's book, Emily Dickinson: A Life in Art, is to be published in the spring of 1991 by Harvard University Press. Farr is an associate professor of English at Georgetown University and the author o/The Life and Art of Elin­ The Homestead, the Dickinson family home. The second-floor corner room in the right fore­ or Wylie. ground is Emily Dickinson's bedroom, where she is said to have written her poems.

HUMANITIES 31 mined immediately that the poems she copied tediously on two primi­ Till when around a Hight must be published, but realized that tive typewriters. Ninety poems were It wasted from my sight— she would need editorial help. She thus transcribed. The first poem Increased beyond my utmost scope decided to appeal to Austin's culti­ Mabel copied was "I live with Him— I learned to estimate— vated wife Susan, whom Emily loved I see His face— ," a lyric which, fervently in girlhood, and to whom many thought, summarized Dickin­ Mabel kept, and repunctuated, the she had sent (and dedicated) many son's whole life— one consecrated to first stanza, although it included in poems. Once, Sue had been Emily's art and perhaps also to God and a the word "sudden" an example of most receptive critic. Recently she forbidden lover: Emily's perplexing recourse to what constituted an often malicious pres­ rhetorical textbooks called "Antimer- I go no more away ence in her house next door, for her ia," using one figure of speech for For Visitor— or Sundown— marriage to their brother was unhap­ another, in this case, an adjective for py. Nevertheless, Sue was "literary" an adverb. But she altered the sec­ I live with Him— I hear His voice— and knew Ralph Waldo Emerson. ond quatrain to read I stand alive— Today— Excitedly, Lavinia brought her the To witness to the Certainty Till when, around a crag, box. Then, more than a year went Of Immortality— It wasted from my sight by. Sue read the poems at dinner Enlarged beyond my utmost scope parties but did nothing to have them Three hundred poems had been I learned its sweetness right. published. She had taken to calling selected and transcribed by 1888. As her dead sister-in-law "Poor Emily" she worked, Mabel "regularized" Like all the changes Mabel made and was far more interested in the Emily Dickinson's punctuation and to achieve a conventional prosody, poetic effusions of her twenty-one- orthography. She substituted lower­ her emendations of the lines re­ year-old daughter Martha. case letters for the ubiquitous cap­ vealed a basic but insufficiently sub­ Her patience at an end, Lavinia re­ itals Dickinson used in the manner tle comprehension of Dickinson's po­ trieved the box and carried it to a of the Elizabethans. She omitted etic vision and method. "I had a woman whom Susan Dickinson de­ most of the liberal dashes which daily Bliss" is one of hundreds of tested. She was Mrs. Mabel Loomis made poems look like telegraph Emily Dickinson's lyrics on the Todd, the talented wife of an Am­ messages or, as Emily said, "Bullet­ theme of understanding through herst College astronomy professor— ins from Immortality." The sub­ loss. The speaker has insufficiently and Austin Dickinson's not-so-secret stituted commas, periods, and even valued an experience (or person). mistress. Well-educated, pretty semicolons gave the poems a more She watches it abandon her, growing Mabel Todd (who had played Bach conventional, correct, and "smooth" in size or importance as she regrets and Scarlatti on the parlor piano aspect, destroying—Mabel hoped— and pursues it; then "sees" it go out while the frail recluse Emily listened the impression that Emily was un­ of sight, "wast[ing]" from view. As above-stairs) had been engaged for educated. (For, after all, she knew the poem ends, the chastened several years in an ardent, ill-con- some Latin and French; had studied speaker realizes that her lost bliss cealed, and (to most) scandalous me­ botany, chemistry, and algebra in was so great that it transcends her nage a trois with her husband David Mary Lyons's Seminary at Mount ability to appreciate it. But the lesson and Emily's brother Austin, whom Holyoke; and had much of Shake­ she has "learned" is reported in met­ David admired and who, as college speare, the Bible, and Keats by aphors of size: the bliss grows, treasurer, paid David's salary. Al­ heart.) Mabel also attempted to ef­ wastes, and—paradoxically—in though she wore a wedding ring fect rhymes where Emily Dickinson wasting, becomes "increased" so from each man, Mabel regarded had made off-rhymes. Probably no that, were she herself to become of Austin Dickinson as her "King" and publisher would approve of the od­ "utmost scope" or size, she could had come to revere the poems his dly indeterminate, minor tones of not approximate or define it. enigmatic sister sent her. But Mabel off-rhymes like "friend" and "word" Dickinson's last words are often professed literary ambitions of her or "still" and "Goal" when every­ telling. Here, the word "estimate" own; Austin was reluctant to bring one's ear was accustomed to Ten­ with its overtones of the conditional his shy sister "before the public"; nyson's roundly sonorous exact and contingent indicates the in­ and both were genuinely horrified rhymes like "glow" and "know." conclusiveness of her experience. by the state of the manuscripts with In doing so, however, Mabel often Her "daily Bliss" was incompletely their difficult handwriting and inter­ had to reconstruct whole quatrains. acknowledged; now she can only linear corrections. Finally, there was For example, in order to replace the "estimate" it. Furthermore, as she the poetry itself. Mabel recalled fear­ last word "estimate" in "I had a daily seems to do in other poems, Emily ing that its "unconventionality might Bliss" with "right" so as to rhyme Dickinson probably intended her last repel publishers." To their objections with "sight" in a preceding line, she lines to have two meanings. On one Lavinia cried, "But they are Emily's was forced to recast the stanza. hand, characteristically employing poems!" Touched, Mabel at last "Creative editing," she called it. elision, she says "I learned [that it agreed to become Emily Dickinson's Thus, Emily had written was] increased beyond my utmost first editor. And so work began. scope to estimate"; as well as "I I had a daily Bliss By November 13, 1887, Mabel was [was] increased beyond my utmost I half indifferent viewed devoting four hours each morning to scope I learned." That is, the experi­ Till sudden I perceived it stir— a task that seemed to her endless. ence of loss enlarges Dickinson—as It grew as I pursued First, she transcribed by hand; next she says again and again.

32 MARCH/APRIL 1990 By sacrificing "estimate" and sub­ literary advice "to a Young Contrib­ his seven-stanza "Decoration.") stituting the idea "I learned its utor" in the Atlantic Monthly. It had Good-natured, however, he accepted sweetness right," Mabel sacrificed so impressed Emily Dickinson that the role of mentor, only counseling the mournful message of unfulfill­ she sent him a query on April 15, that Dickinson not publish until ment which Dickinson's language es­ 1862: what he called her "spasmodic gait" tablishes so early with "half indif­ was corrected. Mr. Higginson, ferent" in line two. "Estimate" was a There is probably little doubt that Are you too deeply occupied to say if provisional verb. With her off-rhyme Higginson's reservations—and the my Verse is alive? that accomplished an imperfect indifference of friends like Samuel The Mind is so near itself— union of sounds, Dickinson had Bowles and Josiah Holland, editors it cannot see distinctly— made the music of her poem serve of the Springfield Republican— kept an and I have none to ask— its meaning. Mabel's intentions, already diffident Emily Dickinson however, were always good. She She enclosed four poems, includ­ from striving for publication and wanted to ensure that some pub­ ing one now often anthologized, "I'll fame during her lifetime. Indeed, lisher— perhaps Thomas Niles of tell you how the Sun rose— ." They she wrote a proud lyric condemning Roberts Brothers, Boston, a corre­ gave him, he said later, "the impres­ publication as "the Auction / Of the spondent of Emily Dickinson?— sion of a wholly new and original Mind of Man— ," a sale of "the Royal would be willing to print the tough, poetic genius." But he was baffled Air / In the Parcel." Using the royal powerful but (she thought) eccentric by her terse and elusive perceptions "we" like the white-robed queen of and "rough" poems of her lover's and annoyed by her disobedience to language which she sometimes sister. traditional poetic rules. Higginson's imagined herself, she declared, In winter 1889, Mabel undertook own verse was decorative, leisurely, to solicit Thomas Wentworth Higgin- fulsome, and mild. (Eventually his We— would rather son's sponsorship of her project. "pupil" Dickinson would send him, From our Garret go Novelist, poet, critic, and public fig­ as an apparent tribute, one quatrain White— unto the White Creator ure, Higginson had once proffered that redacted the thin substance of Than Invest— Our Snow— mes Clee Library College Amherst

The painting of Indian pipes by Mabel Loomis Todd was used on the cover of first editions of Dickinson's poems, published in 1890.

HUMANITIES ogtn irr, avr University Harvard Library, Houghton

"Because 1 could not stop for Death- in Dickinson's own hand. Well-meant efforts of early editors Higginson and Todd diluted the beauty of this and other Dickinson poems.

She had not destroyed her poems, author "Todd-Higginson-Dickinson." has seldom seen." The English however. Surely that was evidence Nevertheless, Higginson had used scholar-translator Andrew Lang that, though dissuaded from pub­ his influence in persuading the re­ fulminated in a brutal review that lication, she believed in them. luctant Thomas Niles to agree to a Dickinson's "muse was super gram- Surprisingly receptive to the idea first—and, he thought, last—print­ maticum." The popular American of a volume by Emily Dickinson, ing (provided Lavinia paid fifty dol­ poet Thomas Bailey Aldrich pre­ Higginson eventually selected 115 lars for the plates). And Higginson dicted, "Oblivion lingers in the im­ from about 200 Mabel gave him. He wrote a clever, promotional "Preface,' mediate neighborhood." But the im­ arranged them in subject categories: citing the "freedom" and "daring portant critic William Dean Howells "Life," "Love," "Nature," "Time and thoughts" that characterized Emily's came stoutly to Dickinson's defense Eternity." He also provided elaborate poetry despite its "unconventional in Harper's. He praised her art as "of or fancy titles, fashionable during utterance." The little five-by-seven- the loftiest," and announced with re­ the Aesthetic movement of the 1890s inch volume, bound in white and markable insight, "If nothing else though out of keeping with Dickin­ stamped in gold and silver with a had come out of our life but this son's austere diction: e.g., "Rouge et cover featuring Mabel's drawing of strange poetry we should feel that in Noir," "Rouge Gagne," "Astra Cas- white Indian pipes (Emily's favorite the work of Emily Dickinson Amer­ tra." Finally, he collaborated with flower), appeared on November 12, ica . . . had made a distinctive addi­ Mabel in "regularizing" fifty of 1890, to Lavinia's delight, Sue tion to the literature of the world." Dickinson's poems even further. Dickinson's surprised chagrin, and Most unexpected of all, however, Now whole stanzas were stricken Mabel's satisfaction. was the public reception of the from some lyrics. When Poems by What would the critics say? De­ poems. As if uninterested in reviews Emily Dickinson ultimately appeared, spite her editors' surgery, the Boston good or bad— overall, they were they really should have listed as the Herald cried "Madder rhymes one good—people bought up the first

The poem, "Because I could not stop for Death— ," as originally written by Emily Dickinson, is reprinted by permission of the publishers and the Trustees of Amherst College from The Poems of Emily Dickinson, Thomas H. Johnson, editor, Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Copyright 1951, @ 1955, 1979, 1983, by the President and Fellows of Harvard College.

34 MARCH/APRIL 1990 printing of two thousand books in Because I could not stop for Death— ing the power of time, that it is six weeks and were clamoring for He kindly stopped for me— "Centuries" since she entered into more. Thomas Niles marveled to The Carriage held but just Ourselves— "Eternity." Mabel at Dickinson's "emphatic" And Immortality. Wentworth Higginson and Mrs. popular success. He hastened to re­ Todd made a number of changes in We slowly drove— He knew no haste pay the cost of the plates and ex­ publishing what they called "The And I had put away tended to Lavinia a royalty of 10 per­ Chariot." By their title they dis­ My labor and my leisure too, cent on the next two thousand pensed with Dickinson's homely For His Civility— volumes. As Emily's legal heir, Lav­ courtship buggy and the suggestion inia— always dependent before on We passed the School, that Death was not ceremonial but her father and then her brother— where Children strove just a "kindly" gentleman. They was now earning the first income of At Recess— in the Ring— dropped the dashes, expressive in her life. She sent Mabel in search of We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain— this poem of a kind of breathless, as­ a new mahogany lowboy for her We passed the Setting Sun— tonished comprehension. They de­ parlor. Meanwhile, regretting her leted stanza four, with its annihila­ Or rather— He passed Us— own lost opportunity, Susan Dickin­ tion of earthly time and allusion to The Dews drew quivering and chill— son began sending poems in her deathly chill. Their stanza three be­ For only Gossamer, my Gown— possession to magazines like the gan, effetely, My Tippet— only Tulle— Century and made fifteen dollars We passed the school here and there as Emily's earliest in­ We paused before a House that seemed where children played, timate friend. A Swelling of the Ground— Their lessons scarcely done; During the 1890s, Mabel Todd The Roof was scarcely visible— brought out three separate volumes The Cornice— in the Ground— (thus Dickinson's acknowledgment (1890, 1891, 1896) of Emily Dickin­ that in this hard life even children Since then— 'tis Centuries—and yet son's poems. Long after Austin and were forced to strive at what ought Feels shorter than the Day Lavinia were dead and before and to have been "Recess" was excised). I first surmised the Horses' Heads after Mabel and Susan died, Susan's The penultimate quatrain, with its Were toward Eternity— daughter Martha Dickinson Bianchi perfect rhyme of "Ground/Ground," published her own collections: The Dickinson's lyric depicts the event seems to have offended them; so Single Hound (1914), Further Poems central to her poetry: a passage into they made the last line read "The (1929), and Unpublished Poems (1935). eternity. She imagines it as a buggy cornice but a mound." In that way Mabel's daughter Millicent Bingham ride taken by a courting couple. they defeated the figure of the sunk­ countered by printing Bolts of Melody Death is "Civil," and, seeing that she en headstone which completed (1945). Thus the hatred and rivalry is busy, waits for her with Immor­ Dickinson's surreal image of a grave between Austin Dickinson's wife and tality, the mute and shadowy third unkempt after many centuries and his mistress continued into a second traveler. The poem compresses time yet made that very day. "Because I generation, preventing the publica­ and space in order to dramatize the could not stop for Death— " proves tion in one volume of the works of a difference between life and death. how superior Dickinson's poetry is woman recognized by 1920 as Dickinson's third stanza, for in­ in its original form. among the greatest American poets; stance, surveys three stages of exis­ For all this, however, those who one who is perhaps the greatest tence: childhood (when ring games love Emily Dickinson's poems owe woman poet since Sappho. are played), maturity (fields of Mabel Todd and Thomas Wentworth After her death, the manuscripts grain), and old age (setting sun). Higginson a great debt. For they held by Mrs. Bianchi went to Har­ Time's periods, however, are irrele­ took great pains over many years to vard University while Mrs. Bing­ vant to a passenger in Death's car­ — as Higginson said— "open the ham's collection was given to Am­ riage; so the sun, arbiter of earthly public's ear." And they would have herst College. In 1955, Thomas H. time, "passe[s]" them and she is in rejoiced on the centennial anniver­ Johnson—a teacher and Dickinson no place and out of time. Cold as a sary of the publication of the poems scholar—brought out an annotated corpse, being dressed (with weird to know how entirely successful edition of 1,775 poems, drawn from inappropriateness) in the silk mesh they have been. □ both sources. At last the world was suitable for a wedding or a ball, she able to read the words Emily Dickin­ feels the "Dews" of what could be son had written, as she herself had morning or also evening. The written them. "House" to which Death drives her In its twenty-five year history, NEH has The effect for an appreciation of is a new-made grave: a "Swelling of supported more than twenty projects on Dickinson's genius may be judged the Ground." Yet she perceives that the life and works of Emily Dickinson. by contrasting two versions of one its "Roof," the earth, is covered over This year NEH is supporting a summer famous poem, "Because I could not (with grass?) and the "Cornice," or institute in Amherst, Massachusetts, for stop for Death— ." The poet Allen upper edge of the tombstone, is secondary school teachers; a fellowship Tate had called it among the greatest sunken. Therefore, arriving at her for individual study by University of in the English language; but he had grave, Dickinson's speaker sees like Maryland professor Martha Smith; and a seen only the Todd-Higginson- Scrooge in A Christmas Carol that she summer seminar for college teachers at Dickinson version. This was the has been buried for many years. Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, original: And she concludes, further cancel­ Minnesota.

HUMANITIES DEFINITIVE

BROOKLYN BY MAGGIE RIECHERS N 1898 BROOKLYN was the The exhibition is housed in the re­ chological impact of the team's de­ third largest city in the United stored Shellens Gallery on the first parture in 1957 and the urban prob­ States, with thriving industries floor of the Brooklyn Historical Soci­ lems that led to their leaving in the and a professional baseball ety in Brooklyn Heights. It is orga­ first place. team. That was the year Brook­ nized around five well-known icons The history of Coney Island leads lyn joined New York City. The phys­ of the borough: the Brooklyn Bridge, to an exploration of leisure in Brook­ ical connection to Manhattan had Brooklynites, the Dodgers, Coney lyn, focusing on the activities of the taken place five years earlier with Island, and the Brooklyn Navy Yard. middle and working classes and of the completion of the Brooklyn "These five symbols automatically women at the turn of the century. Bridge; the political annexation made and forcefully identify Brooklyn, just The part on the Navy Yard deals the connection complete. as cable cars identify San Francisco with industry, labor, and Brooklyn's But to many, Brooklyn will always or the French Quarter, New Or­ changing economic picture. remain separate in spirit and identi­ leans," says project director Ellen "Structuring the exhibition in this ty. Its history reflects the history of Snyder-Grenier. "By putting each of fashion gave us the opportunity to many urban centers, with a period the symbols in a historical context, address broad issues such as urbani­ of flourishing culture, a slide into in­ the exhibition helps explain their sig­ zation, ethnicity, community identi­ dustrial decline, and an attempt at nificance to the community and ty, work, and leisure from a series of renewal. helps to explore broad related issues interesting perspectives," says In an effort to capture that history in Brooklyn's history. Snyder-Grenier. "The structure also and its significance to the lives of "Visitors are led from what they Brooklynites today, the Brooklyn know— or in some cases what they Society Historical Brooklyn of courtesy Photos Historical Society, with assistance think they know— to a consideration from an NEH grant, has created a of other topics." permanent exhibition, "The History The section on the Brooklyn of Brooklyn from the Seventeenth Bridge, for example, addresses the Century to the Present." economic and political links between It addresses broad issues such as Brooklyn and New York, the devel­ urbanization, ethnicity, community opment of an urban transportation identity, work, and leisure. It also network, and the borough's real es­ charts the cycle of Brooklyn's rise, tate boom and physical expansion. decline, and struggle for revival in The section on Brooklynites looks the course of the nineteenth and at the diversity of the population, twentieth centuries. Brooklyn today, past and present; the way in which with a population of 2.2 million— residents have been stereotyped; greater than that of eighteen states— and the adaptation of cultural tradi­ is New York's largest borough. tions by different ethnic groups. The part dealing with the Dodgers offers the opportunity not only to ex­ Maggie Riechers is a freelance writer liv­ plore Brooklyn's love affair with The newly completed bridge from the ing in the Washington, D.C., area. baseball but also to examine the psy­ Brooklyn side (ca. 1883).

Opposite: The people of Brooklyn. Above: The entrance to the "Brooklyn Bridge" section. Right: The Brooklyn Bridge display includes the wheel used to spin the bridge cables.

HUMANITIES Hard times in Brooklyn in the fifties and sixties are explored in terms of the Dodgers' departure. While many may have seen the flee­ ing of the Dodgers to Los Angeles in 1957 as the reason for Brooklyn's de­ cline, the exhibition puts it in the context of general urban decline, with factories closing and people flocking to the suburbs. Brooklyn was not immune. Its famous news­ paper, The Eagle, had stopped pub­ lishing two years before the Dodgers left. The exhibition uses the Dodg­ ers' old war cry, "Wait Till Next Year," with a new meaning in Brook­ lyn's current struggle to renew itself. Each section of the exhibition is designed to evoke a sense of the real place. In the Brooklyn Bridge sec­ tion, viewers walk through arches like those on the bridge; in the Con­ Above: Joe Medwick, Billy Herman, Pee Wee ey Island section they walk through Reese, Pete Reiser, and Mickey Owen of the the structure of a roller coaster. 1941 team. Left: Jackie Robinson slides into Each section is filled with artifacts base on the cover of a 1950 comic book. and memorabilia of Brooklyn. Ac­ cording to Snyder-Grenier, about 60 percent of the objects were already in the historical society's collection, pride of Brooklyn's men and women but most had to be kept in storage shipbuilders. for lack of gallery space. Creating a The Navy Yard opened in 1801 permanent exhibition took more along the East River shorefront. than three years, beginning with the Some of the nation's most famous renovation of the society's first floor ships were built there, including the into museum space. battleship Maine, blown up in During the process, citizens Havana Harbor in 1898; the Arizona, brought in pieces they had been sav­ sunk with the loss of more than ing and offered them to the society. 1,500 men at Pearl Harbor in 1941; "We did not have much of an ac­ allows a wide array of other impor­ and the Missouri, the ship on which quisitions budget and relied on pub­ tant topics to be raised again and the Japanese surrendered in 1945, licity in local papers to acquire ob­ again from a number of different ending the war in the Pacific. At its jects," says Snyder-Grenier. "Some­ vantage points." peak during World War II, the Navy one walked in with a base from Eb- The story of blacks in Brooklyn, Yard employed more than 70,000 bets Field. We got hard hats, over­ for instance, runs through all five men and women working in three alls, and I.D. badges from the Navy symbolic sections: In the Brook­ shifts around the clock. Yard. The daughter of a ventriloquist lynites portion there is a display on As symbols go, probably the most who performed at Coney Island at West Indians and black immigration noted symbol of Brooklyn after the the turn of the century gave us the in general, and an exhibit on slavery Brooklyn Bridge is the stereotype of dummy her father used in his act." and the Dutch. In the Dodgers sec­ the Brooklynite himself, embodied "Everyone thinks their own com­ tion of the exhibition, the career of in Jackie Gleason's portrayal of Ralph munity is unique," says Snyder-Gre­ Jackie Robinson is retold. In the Kramden in "The Honeymooners." nier. "Brooklynites are no exception. Brooklyn Bridge and Brooklynites The exhibition includes the set We hope through this exhibition we sections, housing issues are raised; where "The Honeymooners" was can help people understand what and in the Navy Yard and Coney Is­ filmed for television. But the stereo­ makes Brooklyn, Brooklyn." □ land portions, employment. type is used as a means of introduc­ One of the main goals in design­ ing real Brooklynites— too diverse a ing the project, according to Snyder- population to be reduced to a single In 1987, the Brooklyn Historical Society Grenier, was to emphasize the caricature— from Walt Whitman to received $100,000 in outright funds from human element. Oral histories from Woody Allen. A mirror on the wall the Humanities Projects in Museums workers in the Brooklyn Navy Yard carries a label asking "Are you a and Historical Organizations program of during World War II are1 included in Brooklynite?" to inspire visitors to the Division of General programs to sup­ the wall text to give viewers a sense see themselves as part of the Brook­ port "The History of Brooklyn from the of working conditions and of the lyn that is being discussed. Seventeenth Century to the Present."

38 MARCH/APRIL 1990 IN FOCUS Carolynn Reid-Wallace BY CAROLE ANNE PARISH

y/ JL CCESS AND excellence are support teachers, ZJm not antithetical," says Car- but her years as an J L . M l . olynn Reid-Wallace. "I am administrator have absolutely determined that all stu­ shown her the othe] dents, no matter who they are, have side of the story. a right to an education, but those "I do believe that same students must be challenged to there must be stan­ perform— not minimally but dards of accountability exceptionally." in teaching just as there must be in Reid-Wallace faces this challenge the corporate world or anywhere else." struggle. "I came to understand it re­ both in her position as vice chancel­ These views on core, minority ed­ ally isn't as simple as saying my de­ lor for academic affairs for the City ucation, and teaching standards re­ partment needs five more faculty University of New York and in her sult from a long and varied career in people," she says. "As an adminis­ position as the newly elected vice education in both the public and the trator you see the larger picture." chairman of the National Council on private sector, including five years During these years, Reid-Wallace the Humanities. with the National Endowment for developed what she calls her In these roles, Reid-Wallace makes the Humanities. Reid-Wallace, who "tough-nosed" attitude of adminis­ known her views on some of educa­ has a Ph.D. from George Washing­ tration. "If you have people that sim­ tion's most controversial topics. She ton University in Washington, D.C., ply are not good at teaching, then strongly favors core curriculum, for began at Fisk University in Nash­ you have to exercise the necessary instance. "A core curriculum allows ville, Tennessee. She credits teachers decision-making authority to remove one to be certain that the majority of for her interest in the humanities. that teacher from the school," she students have had uniform exposure "Robert Hayden, a Library of Con­ says. "Likewise, if administrators are to the central ideas, topics, and texts gress poet and a fine professor, not good, they should be removed." which shape civilization," she says. taught me a great deal not only From her teaching and administra­ "We need to develop a solid plan de­ about poetry, but about the inextrica­ tive positions, she says she has signed to produce students who will ble link between the issues and top­ learned that "students, no matter have the intellectual strengths that ics that are central to the everyday who they are, whether they're from are necessary to strengthen the soci­ life of human beings," she says. the upper income brackets or the ety at large." She first taught at Talladega Col­ lower income brackets, have the A core curriculum can bring to­ lege in Alabama, then moved to same kinds of aspirations and gether diverse populations by Bowie State College in Maryland. "I needs." She has found that "you can­ providing a common knowledge, started off where I could find a job," not wait until a student gets to be a Reid-Wallace says. It should provide she says. "It was not very easy for a freshman in college to start address­ each student with access to the female student, fresh out of graduate ing the problem." Finally, she recog­ basics of Western civilization, but not school in the 1960s, to get a job on a nizes the need for ties between the exclude other cultures. She adds, college faculty." private and public worlds. "I under­ "There's no excuse for putting in bad It was at Bowie State that Reid- stand much better how the govern­ works by minority groups just to say Wallace moved into administration. ment and the private sector, together you have representation. "I made that move because I reached with the academy, produce the strong CUNY has named her to head its the point where as a faculty member citizens that we need. We can't do it Task Force on Cultural Pluralism and I found myself complaining about without those three groups working Diversity: An Examination of the the administration," she says. "I was almost hand in hand." Curriculum. This group will look at complaining bitterly about the needs Reid-Wallace thinks she is in one curricula across the university to de­ of the faculty, and at some point of the best positions in the country termine whether they are balanced someone said, 'Why don't you put to face these challenges and make and representative. your money where your mouth is? necessary changes. "This is a grand Reid-Wallace also concerns herself Here is a job. Apply for it. See if you time to be an educator. It's the right with teacher accountability. She un­ get it.' And I did." time because change is needed; and derstands the need to recognize and In making the move to administra­ if we can just manage to keep our tion, Reid-Wallace promised herself goals very clearly defined, I think and her colleagues she would not that the contribution that we make to Carole Parish is an editorial assistant in become co-opted by the system, but society will have long-lasting effects, the NEH Office of Publications. she acknowledges that it became a well into the twenty-first century." □

HUMANITIES 39 night, the library cleared $136,000— money then put towards a $400,000 challenge grant. A variation of that effort, a Great Authors series, is currently being NOTEWORTHY put on by the Friends of the Univer­ sity of California, San Diego, Li­ brary. Eudora Welty was the first speaker, five months ago. Wallace Stegner appears in April. Under the series, authors attend a private luncheon and dinner, read their works at a large public event, and address university creative writ­ ing classes. Lucie Clark, Friends of the Library The April Selection Sadat, widow of the slain Egyptian coordinator, said the Friends were president, netted $136,000 for the The Guide to Civil War Battlefields has wonderfully surprised but frustrated manuscript library at Saint John's by been chosen as the April selection of the ofFriends reciting some of her writing set to the Book-of-the-Month Club and the music. Writer Eudora Welty's ap­ History Book Club. The guide, pro­

pearance at the University of Califor­ UCSD duced by the Conservation Fund, in­ nia, San Diego, sold out three weeks cludes both historic and present-day in advance, and the sponsor intends Library maps of the fifty-nine most signifi­ to raise ticket prices next year. cant battlefield sites. The modern Minnesotan composer Libby maps, with overlays of battle action, Larsen set the writings Sadat gave allow the reader to guide themselves her to music for a collaborative per­ through the battle on existing roads formance in St. Paul. "Her messages and trails; historic maps provide pri­ —although quite candid and honest mary source material. and sometimes horrifying— always Scholars and historians have writ­ culminate in peace and hope ten narrative essays of the battles as through understanding," Larsen was a supplement to the maps. Also in­ quoted as saying. The occasion was a cluded are six modern analyses of fund raiser for the Hill Monastic the war, photos, statistics, biblio­ Manuscript Library at Saint John's graphic material, and conservation University. "It was really a glorious status of the sites. Eudora Welty on stage in San Diego. event," says Julian G. Plante, direc­ The guide, with the support of a tor of the library, "a big social affair publication subvention grant from when they sold out the theater three of the Twin Cities, carried off with the Division of Research Programs, weeks in advance of Welty's reading. great elan and great class." is part of the Conservation Fund's Tickets for general admission cost effort to raise awareness about pre­ $15 and attendence to a reception af­ serving historic battlegrounds. All terwards, $50. "Nothing else we've but two acres of the Chantilly battle­ ever done has been as successful as field site in Virginia, for example, is this," Clark says. The $14,000 it net­ now a housing development, while ted has gone toward an $875,000 the fate of nearby Brandy Station bat­ challenge grant. tlefield is being negotiated between a developer and the National Park Ser­ New Newsletter for States vice. Proceeds of the book will go to­ wards protection of areas like these. The Endowment has a new newslet­ According to project director ter directed toward the governing Frances Kennedy, the Fund hopes to boards of the fifty-three state hu­ introduce Civil War buffs to the con­ manities councils. Update will be servation issue. "With this guide, published several times a year by the we've had the opportunity of com­ Division of State Programs at NEH. bining an activist role with signifi­ Jehan Sadat at Saint John's University. According to editor Kathryn Gibson, cant scholarship." the publication will go to some 1,200 Sadat had expressed interest in volunteers. It will cover the work of reading a variety of writings that the state councils, report on the divi­ 'Names' and Raising Money would spread a message of peace; sion's annual meetings, and provide Prominent names are proving to be the library's fund raiser provided an information on NEH initiatives, successful fund raisers for NEH chal­ avenue. The evening drew 600 peo­ deadlines, and grants. lenge grants. In Minnesota, Jehan ple with tickets costing $250. In one — Kristen Hall

MARCH/APRIL 1990 for those who are thinking THE GUIDE of applying for an NEH grant

For Museums and Historical Organizations

BY MARSHA SEMMEL

HIS YEAR the Endowment be­ The program encourages museums but they do not support initial research gins supporting two-to-four- to organize seminars for museum pro­ on an exhibition topic. Applicants week seminars for museum pro­ fessionals who participate in the inter­ must present a conceptual framework T fessionals on subjects in the human­pretation of collections, including edu­ for an exhibition by suggesting their ities. The new grant category, adminis­ cators and designers. A proposal approach and identifying exhibition tered by the Division of General should describe the seminar's goals themes. Programs through its program for Hu­ and rationale; its relevance to the col­ In addition to sections on themes, manities Projects in Museums and His­ lections; its content or curriculum, in­ resources, and potential formats for torical Organizations, is called cluding proposed faculty; and the in­ the finished project, a proposal must "Seminars, Symposia, and Other Proj­ tended audience. Applicants should include a bibliography of the scholar­ ects." It replaces the "Improving the call to discuss their proposals. ship supporting the project and a de­ Interpretation of Collections" category. The new category is part of the re­ tailed plan of work. Designed to strengthen the abilities cently revised guidelines for Human­ Institutional Self-Study Grants. Major of museum professionals to present ities Projects in Museums and Histor­ change: The award limit has been humanities programs to the public, the ical Organizations. Modifications in raised from $15,000 to $20,000. category offers support to museums, other categories are as follows: These grants allow an institution to consortia of museums and universities, Planning Grants. Major change: evaluate its collections and other hu­ and museum-professional associations Awards are limited to $50,000. manities resources, assess the effec­ for projects that emphasize humanities These grants support planning of ex­ tiveness of its current programming in content or promote critical dialogue hibitions, related interpretive materials relationship to its mission, and devel­ about museum philosophy and prac­ and programming, and conservation op long-range plans for interpretive tice regarding public programming. surveys of exhibition material. They humanities programs. Eligible activi­ may also support planning for the in­ ties include bringing consultants to the terpretation of historic sites and living history programs. Planning grants allow ap­ Marsha Semmel is assistant director for plicants to advance both the the Museums and Historical Organiza­ conceptual and logistical tions program in the Division of Gen­ development of a project, eral Programs.

The University Museum The University of Pennsylvania

HUMANITIES 41 grantee institution and staff visits to ing interpretive exhibitions, publica­ mains central to implementation appli­ other sites with model programs. The tions, and educational programs. cations. Applicants must integrate ren­ proposal must articulate the rationale, Funds can support consultation by derings of the exhibition design and goals, and activities of the self-study subject area specialists and technical sample gallery interpretation in the project. experts, as well as costs of data entry walk-through. personnel, photography, and software. In general, the revised guidelines in­ Documentation Grants. Major clude more explicit application in­ changes: The "Planning for Computer­ Implementation Grants. No major structions for each grant category. ized Documentation" category has changes in this category. They specify page limits for different been eliminated, and the limit for doc­ These grants support the final devel­ portions of the grant application, re­ umentation awards has been raised opment and production of exhibitions quire that applicants identify proposed from $25,000 to $50,000. and related interpretive materials and audiences, and note that evaluation This category supports the docu­ programming, including catalogues, expenses are eligible for support as mentation of collections of signifi­ brochures, audiovisual presentations, part of planning and implementation cance to the humanities when the ap­ lecture series, symposia, and educa­ projects. plicant can demonstrate the potential tional programs. Funds are also avail­ For guidelines and information, use of the collections in public hu­ able for conservation treatment of ob­ write or call: manities programs. Awards enable an jects to be displayed and for formative Division of General Programs institution not only to improve its and summative evaluation. Room 420 physical control over a collection but The exhibition "walk-through," a National Endowment for the Humanities also to strengthen its understanding of descriptive tour of the proposed exhi­ 1100 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W. and intellectual access to the collec­ bition that links the objects (or site) Washington, DC 20506 tion— the necessary steps for develop­ with the main themes and ideas, re­ 202/786-0284.

HUMANITIES for minds that know no bounds.

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SUBSCRIBE TODAY! MAIL T O : Superintendent of Documents, Government Printing Office only $9 for 6 issues W ashington, D .C . 20402-9371

42 MARCH/APRIL 1990 RECENT NEHRECENT GRANTS BY DISCIPLINE Some of the items in this list are offers, not final awards.

Grant amounts in each listing are designated as U. of Arkansas, Fayetteville; Allyn A. Lord: FM (Federal Match) and OR (Outright Funds). $3,318. To plan for computerized documenta­ Classics Division and program are designated by the two tion of the anthropological collections at the letter code at the end of each listing. University Museum. GM Boston U., MA; Kevin Ryan: $294,050. To sup­ U. of California, Los Angeles; Doran H. Ross: port a two-year project on ethics education for Division of Education Programs $59,377. To plan a traveling exhibition, cata­ 200 New Hampshire elementary and secondary EH Higher Education in the Humanities logue, and programs that will explore gift ex­ school teachers and administrators. ES ES Elementary and Secondary Education in change in five cultures. GM Coppin State College, Baltimore, MD; William the Humanities U. of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia; Ruben E. Re- J. Carroll: $122,036 OR; $60,000 FM. To sup­ ina: $275,000 OR; $100,000 FM. To support an port a two-year collaborative project on Dante's Division of General Programs exhibition, catalogue, and programs that explore Divine Comedy for 120 Baltimore junior and se­ GN Humanities Projects in Media the social significance of adornment through nior high school teachers. ES GM Humanities Projects in Museums and featherwork in South America. GM Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State U., Historical Organizations Wake Forest U., Winston-Salem, NC; Beverlye Blacksburg; Nicholas D. Smith: $133,150. To GP Public Humanities Projects H. Hancock: $14,779. To conduct a self-study support a statewide institute on ancient Greek GL Humanities Programs in Libraries and that will assess exhibition resources at the Muse­ religion for 30 elementary and secondary school Archives um of Anthropology. GM teachers of history, language, and literature. ES

Office of Preservation PS Preservation PS U.S. Newspaper Program Arts —History and History —Non U.S.

Division of Research Programs Criticism American Institute for Contemporary German RO Interpretive Research Projects Studies, Washington, DC; Robert G. Livingston: RX Conferences Asia Society, Inc., NYC; Andrew J. Pekarik: $180,000. To endow seminars, lectures, a bien­ RH Humanities, Science and Technology $275,000 OR; $75,000 FM. To support a travel­ nial conference in the humanities, two staff posi­ RP Publication Subvention ing exhibition examining the concept of king­ tions, and library acquisitions; and to fund li­ RA Centers for Advanced Study ship in Indonesia and its effect on artistic patron­ brary acquisitions and fund-raising expenses. CS Rl International Research age and production. GM Arts Foundation of New Jersey, New RT Tools Center for African Art, NYC; Susan M. Vogel: Brunswick; Carol F. Dickert: $218,717. To sup­ RE Editions $248,555. To support a traveling exhibition, cat­ port a four-week summer institute for 40 New RL Translations alogue, and educational programs on the rela­ Jersey elementary and secondary school teach­ RC Access tionships among traditional, popular, and mod­ ers and administrators on the life and times of ern art in 20th-century Africa. GM Leonardo da Vinci. ES Office of Challenge Grants Dallas Museum of Art, TX; Carolyn E. Tate: Facing History and Ourselves National Foun­ CA Museums $60,000. To plan an exhibition, catalogue, and dation, Brookline, MA; Margot Strom: CC Four-year colleges public programs on Olmec art. GM $400,000. To expand teacher training and gen­ CH Historical societies and houses Jewish Museum, NYC; James E. Young: eral education programs in the history of World CK Research libraries and archives $44,000. To plan an exhibition and public pro­ War II in Europe that will emphasize the Holo­ CO Professional organizations and societies grams that will explore how memorials of the caust and to provide development costs. CX CL) Universities Holocaust reflect and shape memories of that Five Colleges, Inc., Amherst, MA; Carolyn P. CX Other nonprofit organizations and event. GM Collette: $33,184. To conduct a study on Chau­ societies Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA; Peter C. Sut­ cer's Troilus and Criseyde and Shakespeare's ton: $50,000. To plan an exhibition, publica­ Troilus and Cressida for 14 area high school En­ tion, and programs on the art of the Flemish Ba­ glish teachers. ES roque period that focuses on the work of Peter History Teaching Alliance, Gainesville, FL; Jane Paul Rubens, 1577-1640. GM L. Landers: $225,000. To endow a cash reserve Archaeology and Oregon Art Institute, Portland; Donald Jenkins: fund to expand community-based programs and $40,000. To plan an exhibition and catalogue to strengthen the teaching of history in schools Anthropology on Japanese Ukiyo-e prints, paintings, and relat­ through teacher training programs. CX ed works and the literary and social milieux of Kauffman Museum, Bethel College, North Florida Museum of Natural History, Gaines­ Edo Japan. GM Newton, KS; John M. Janzen: $39,409. To plan ville; Thomas P. Bennett: $530,000. To con­ Seattle Art Museum, WA; Bonnie Pitman- an exhibition, catalogue, and educational pro­ struct an education and exhibition center where Gelles: $400,000 OR; $125,000 FM. To support gramming on the furniture and domestic mate­ research project products can be disseminated a permanent exhibition and related inter­ rial culture of Mennonite immigrants to the cen­ to a wider public audience.CA pretative programs and materials on the arts of tral plains of the American West, 1870-1920. Institute of Nautical Archaeology, College Sta­ Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. GM GM tion, TX; George F. Bass: $225,000. To endow U. of Kansas, Lawrence; Stephen H. Goddard: Modern Language Association of America, one staff position for New World excavation sites $22,500. To plan an exhibition, catalogue, and NYC; John J. Morrison: $120,000 OR; $60,000 and another in Turkey for Old World sites and interpretive programs on the graphic art of the FM. To revise Volume 1 and partial compilation the renovation and maintenance of the head­ Belgian avant-garde from 1880 to 1900. GM of indexes to Donald G. Wing's Short-Title Cata­ GRANTS quarters in Turkey. CK Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN; Martin logue, a three-volume guide to works printed in Oakland Museum/Museum of California Foun­ Friedman: $375,000 OR; $125,000 FM. To sup­ English and to all works printed in lands under dation; L. Thomas Frye: $25,000. To document port a traveling exhibition, catalogue, and pub­ British rule, 1641-1700. RC the museum's North American ethnographic col­ lic programs that examine the constructivist art U. of California, Riverside; Henry L. Snyder: lections. GM movement in Russia from 1914 to 1932. GM $600,000. To support the continued preparation

HUMANITIES 43 of the Eighteenth-Century Short-Title Catalogue, National Trust for Historic Preservation, Wash­ U.S. Newspaper Program, the project has cata­ which records all publications produced in ington, DC; Paul W. Ivory: $14,974. To conduct logued a total of 4,750 titles and microfilmed Great Britain and its dependencies during the a self-study of the public programming at 800,000 pages. PS years 1701-1800. RC Chesterwood, home of sculptor Daniel Chester U. of Wyoming, Laramie; Keith M. Cottam: French. GM $33,045. To plan Wyoming's participation in the National Trust for Historic Preservation, Wash­ U.S. Newspaper Program. PS ington, DC; Sarah S. Shaffer: $16,000. To con­ Valentine Museum, Richmond, VA; B. Frank History —U.S. duct a self-study of the resources and inter­ Jewell: $38,358. To conduct a conference on pretive programs at Decatur House and their the relationship of museums and historical soci­ Baltimore City Life Museums, MD; John W. relationship to American political and architec­ eties to recent issues and scholarship in urban Durel: $250,000 OR; $200,000 FM. To support tural history. GM history. GM an exhibition and public programs on the history New York State Education Department, Al­ Washington State Historical Society, Tacoma; of Baltimore. GM bany; Christine W. Ward: $271,983 OR; David L. Nicandri: $300,000 OR; $65,000 FM. Bisbee Council on the Arts and Humanities, $50,000 FM. To support a project that will mi­ To support a traveling exhibition and catalogue AZ; Larry B. Tanner: $100,000 OR; $25,000 crofilm 518 cubic feet of New York State docu­ on the history of Russian America, 1741 -1867. FM. To support an exhibition on the history of ments on events in American political, social, GM urban development in Bisbee, Arizona, from and cultural history and will prepare a report on Worcester Historical Museum, MA; William D. 1877 to 1917. GM archival preservation for national distribution. Wallace: $360,000. To renovate the museum Brazilian Cultural Foundation, Inc., NYC; Iza C. PS building for expanded gallery space and an en­ Sessler: $75,000 OR; $75,000 FM. To support Old South Association in Boston, MA; Cynthia dowment to sustain humanities programming. CA an exhibition with an interpretive catalogue, lec­ S. Stone: $15,085. To document Old South's tures, and a traveling exhibition about Por­ collection of historic artifacts and the analysis of tuguese contributions to the Age of Exploration, their use in exhibitions and educational pro­ including the discovery of Brazil in 1500. GL grams. GM Interdisciplinary Cliveden, Philadelphia, PA; Jennifer Esler: Old Sturbridge Village, MA; John O. Curtis: $117,000. To endow humanities programming $35,936. To plan an exhibition, publication, American Council of Learned Societies, NYC; positions and an honorarium for a scholar in and related programs on the emergence of mass Allen H. Kassof: $1,200,000 OR; $1,275,000 residence. CA portraiture in early 19th-century New England. FM. To support activities of the International Re­ Cliveden, Philadelphia, PA; Jennifer Esler: GM search and Exchanges Board: advanced research $20,505. To conduct a self-study of Cliveden, a Oregon Historical Society, Portland; Samuel E. exchanges with the USSR and eastern Europe historic house in the Germantown area of Phila­ Johnson: $125,000 OR; $100,000 FM. To sup­ and related activities in the humanities. Rl delphia, that will examine its potential for inter­ port a traveling exhibition, publications, and American Indian Archaeological Institute, pretive exhibitions and public programming. GM programs on Spain's early explorations of the Washington, CT; Lynne B. Williamson: Conservation Fund, Arlington, VA; Frances H. Northwest Coast of North America. GM $91,744. To support a permanent exhibition on Kennedy: $7,000. To publish a guide to the re­ Pasadena Historical Society, CA; Bradley B. the cultural history of the Algonkian Indians in maining Civil War battlefields in the United Williams: $225,000. To support the construction southern New England. GM States. RP of a new history center for the interpretation of Atlanta-Fulton Public Library, GA; Lauren K. Edison Institute, Dearborn, Ml; Donna R. Pasadena history in the context of American ur­ Lee: $400,000. To support intensive collection Braden: $200,000. To support an exhibition, ban history. CH development for a branch that will serve as a publication, and related public programs inter­ Rancho Los Alamitos Foundation, Long Beach, noncirculating research library with collections preting the changing role of vacations as an im­ CA; Pamela L. Seager: $225,000. To support the on the African-American experience. CQ portant leisure activity in America. GM costs of restoring the historic house museum and Bostonian Society, MA; Thomas W. Parker: Germantown Historical Society, Philadelphia, constructing an interpretive orientation center. CH $46,643. To plan an exhibition and public pro­ PA; Ann M. Hermann: $202,500. To renovate a Reno County Historical Society, Hutchinson, grams on the history of urban development and new headquarters for the society and the provi­ KS; Michael S. Knecht: $45,000. To support a renewal through a case study of two Boston sion of an endowment for maintenance costs series of educational seminars for the personnel neighborhoods. GM and a new staff position. CH of seven historical societies in Kansas on the his­ Brown U., Providence, Rl; Merrily E. Taylor: Historic Rugby, Inc., TN; Barbara J. Stagg: tory of their communities and the nation during $5,909. To plan an exhibition that will trace the $200,000. To endow positions for a historian/ar­ World War II. GM effect of printing on the transmission of scientific chivist and an education director and the costs Research Libraries Group, Inc., Mountain View, knowledge as indicated in a major collection of of three renovation and construction projects. CH CA; Patricia McClung: $724,814. To preserve 15th- and 16th-century scientific and technical Historical Society of Princeton, NJ; Emily C. the intellectual content of 25 archival collec­ books. GL Wallace: $225,000. To renovate the 1766 tions (at 13 institutions) important to research in CUNY Research Foundation/Graduate School Bainbridge House, enlargement of the exhibition American history, and to produce guidelines for and U. Center, NYC; Grace M. Caporino: galleries, and the creation of an endowment to future cooperative preservation projects. PS $23,597. To support a study project on the Hol­ support curatorial staff and programs. CH Rhode Island Historical Society, Providence; ocaust in literature and film for 11 middle and Huntington Museum of Art, WV; Beth A. Paul G. Bourcier: $55,218. To plan a temporary secondary school teachers of social studies and Hager: $39,515. To plan a traveling exhibition exhibition, catalogue, and lecture series on the English. ES on the impact of the railroad on West Virginia. Dorr Rebellion of 1892. GM Carnegie Public Library/Delta Blues Museum, GM Rochester Museum and Science Center, NY; Clarksdale, MS; Sid F. Graves, Jr.: $250,000. To Litchfield Historical Society, CT; Catherine A. Richard C. Shultz: $52,005. To plan a perma­ renovate the Delta Blues Museum and establish Keene: $40,000. To plan an exhibition, cata­ nent exhibition on the history of Rochester from an endowment for the recruitment of a curator logue, and symposium that will examine the its founding in 1812 to the 1970s. GM and appointment of scholarly advisers. CA growth and development of women's education State Historical Society of Wisconsin, Madison; Center for American Studies, Concord, MA; in the early republic through a focus on Carolyn J. Mattern: $140,926. To microfilm rec­ Barbara Mossberg: $145,483. To support a five- Litchfield Female Academy, 1792-1835. GM ords from the McCormick Harvesting Machine week statewide institute for 30 elementary and Manitowoc Maritime Museum, Wl; Lox A. Log­ Company and the Singer Sewing Company col­ secondary teachers on the romantic writers of an: $51,583. To plan a traveling exhibition and lections and of the 1880 Wisconsin manufactur­ Concord: Emerson, Thoreau, Fuller, and Alcott. public programs on the history of commercial ing and agricultural census. PS ES fishing on the Great Lakes. GM U. of Alabama, Tuscaloosa; Robert j. Norrell: Children's Museum of Boston, MA; Leslie Bed­ Mississippi State Historical Museum, Jackson; $212,774. To support a collaborative project on ford: $46,785. To plan a long-term exhibition, Patti C. Black: $27,962. To plan an exhibition Alabama history for 80 Alabama elementary and catalogue, and educational programs that will on the history of Mississippi, 1500-1800. GM secondary school history teachers. ES examine adolescence, modernization, cultural Museum of the Confederacy, Richmond, VA; U. of Arkansas, Fayetteville; Stephen P. Foster: borrowing, and the educational system in con­ Kym S. Rice: $250,000. To support a traveling $273,146. To catalogue approximately 2,100 temporary Japan. GM exhibition and public programs on the history of newspaper titles for the Arkansas Newspaper College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, African-Americans in the South between 1790 Project, part of the U.S. Newspaper Program. PS VA; David J. Lutzer: $500,000. To endow four and 1865. GM U. of Georgia, Athens; Barry B. Baker: $80,283. chairs in the humanities that will strengthen in­ NYC Department of Records and Information To support the Georgia Newspaper Project. Part terdisciplinary programs in American and inter­ Services, NYC; Kenneth R. Cobb: $109,646. To of the U.S. Newspaper Program, the project will national studies. CC microfilm II00 deteriorating volumes of minutes catalogue 1,105 additional titles and microfilm Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, VA; James and docket books from the New York Criminal 400,000 pages. PS M. Gaynor: $51,946. To plan an exhibition, Courts, 1683-1930, and 188 volumes of the U. of Kentucky Research Foundation, Lex­ publications, and educational programs of trade correspondence of the New York City District ington; Paul A. Willis: $137,563. To complete tools of 17th- and 18th-century British America. Attorney, 1898-1937. PS the Kentucky Newspaper Project. Part of the GM

44 MARCH/APRIL 1990 Colorado School of Mines, Golden; Wilton E. new American Indian cultural center on proper­ $750,000. To develop library collections in his­ Eckley: $270,000. To endow a visiting pro­ ty donated by the Charter Township of Meridian. tory, the history of art and architecture, English, fessorship, library acquisitions in the humanities, CA Spanish, Italian, French, German, Russian lin­ and curricular development activities, including North Dakota Deptartment of Public Instruc­ guistics, classics, music, philosophy, and re­ summer grants, release time, guest speakers, in­ tion, Bismarck; Clarence A. Bina: $168,000. To ligion. CU structional materials, and faculty meetings. CC support an institute on religion in modern Amer­ U. of Michigan, Ann Arbor; James A. Winn: Colorado State U., Fort Collins; J. Edward ica for 40 North Dakota secondary school $600,000. To endow the programs of the Insti­ Schamberger: $210,000. To support an institute teachers of history and English. ES tute for the Humanities, which was established on the history, literature, and art of 19th-century Northeast Document Conservation Center, in 1987 to fund research and promote interdisci­ New England for 30 Colorado middle and sec­ Andover, MA; Ann E. Russell: $270,000. To en­ plinary exchange among faculty and students in ondary school teachers. ES dow operating costs, the Field Service Office, the humanities. CU Computer Museum, Boston, MA; Oliver B. R. and educational and training programs. CX U. of Northern Colorado, Greeley; Tomas N. Strimpel: $50,000. To plan an exhibition on the Ohio Dominican College, Columbus; Ronald Santos: $225,000. To endow a visiting pro­ history and social impact of the computer. GM W. Carstens: $180,000. To endow a teaching fessorship in the humanities, faculty workshops, Dillard U., New Orleans, LA; Clifford V. award, a sabbatical leave, mentorships for new a lecture series, and library materials. CU Johnson: $462,000. To endow a chair in Asian faculty, and small faculty grants to stimulate and U. of Southern Maine, Portland; David Davis: studies, faculty development, and library reward outstanding humanities teaching in intro­ $60,000. To publish papers from a symposium acquisitions. CT ductory undergraduate courses. CC examining the European encounter with New Exploratorium, San Francisco, CA; Thomas Philbrook Museum of Art, Tulsa, OK; Edwin L. England. GM Humphrey: $45,000. To plan a long-term exhi­ Wade: $270,000. To endow an assistant cura­ Vanderbilt U., Nashville, TN; V. Jacque Voegeli: bition on the interaction of culture, technology, tor's position and the costs of expanding human­ $480,000. To endow a fellows' program, visiting and ideas in the history of navigation. GM ities programs. CA scholars, research activities, seminars, and a Georgia State U., Atlanta; Ralph E. Russell: Portland-Falmouth School District, ME; Sarah program coordinator for the Center for the Hu­ $400,000. To develop collections in the depart­ E. Foelsche: $152,104. To support a three-week manities. CU ments of English, foreign languages, history, and institute on seminal humanities texts for 50 Wartburg College, Waverly, IA; Edwin H. philosophy through immediate acquisitions and teachers and administrators in southern Maine. Welch: $247,500. To endow a chair in ethics, a build an endowment. CU ES distinguished professorship in English, library Grout Museum of History and Science, Water­ Rhode Island Historical Society, Providence; acquisitions in the humanities, and provide fur­ loo, IA; Margo E. Dundon: $270,000. To add Deborah B. Brennan: $28,626. To plan a two- nishings and equipment for humanities gallery, educational, and storage space to the year, statewide series of programs in a variety of classrooms. CC museum and establish an endowment for oper­ formats that will examine the history and the in­ Winterthur Museum, DE; Philip D. Zimmer­ ating costs. CA fluence of Narragansett Bay on Rhode Island. GL man: $34,005. To plan a permanent exhibition Hagley Museum and Library, Wilmington, DE; Saint Mary's College of Maryland, St. Mary's on the formal and functional development of Michael H. Nash: $51,538. To microfilm the let­ City; Edward T. Lewis: $420,000. To endow hu­ American decorative arts from 1640 to 1860. GM ter books of the Philadelphia and Reading Rail­ manities library collections and a new pro­ road Company, 1833 to 1900. PS fessorship in classical civilization that will en­ Herndon Home, Atlanta, GA; Carole E. Merritt: rich a sequence of core humanities courses. CC $55,000. To plan an exhibition on the history of Saint Vincent College, Latrobe, PA; Sebastian A. Literature late 19th- and early 20th-century Atlanta from Samay: $270,000. To endow faculty develop­ the perspective of a prominent African-American ment, renovation of classrooms, equipment and family. GM materials, library acquisitions, and computer Brooklyn College Foundation, NY; Robert J. Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania, storage of the humanities collection. CC Viscusi: $400,000. To support the college's Hu­ Pittsburgh; Donald L. Haggerty: $22,477. To Science Museum of Minnesota, St. Paul; Orrin manities Institute by endowing fellowships and plan for reading and discussion groups, publica­ C. Shane, III: $480,000. To endow conservators' other programs related to the core curriculum in tion of a booklet of readings, and bibliographies salaries, refit a conservation lab, purchase the humanities. CC about the economic and social changes precipi­ equipment, and provide computer documenta­ Great Neck North High School, NY; Shela M. tated by the steel industry's decline since 1965. tion of the anthropology collections. CA Pearl: $20,565. To support a project for ten lo­ GL Seattle Art Museum, WA; Bonnie Pitman- cal teachers on the recurrence of biblical and Jackson State U., MS; Melvin Miller: $600,000. Gelles: $640,000. To establish an education en­ classical themes and motifs in later Western liter­ To renovate Ayer Hall and endow the center, dowment, the completion of a reference library, ary classics. ES which is devoted to humanities research. CT and the purchase of equipment. CA South Orange and Maplewood School District, Jewish Museum, NYC; Joan Rosenbaum: Seton Hall U., South Orange, NJ; Robert A. NJ; Helen Poole: $57,600. To support a two- $800,000. To endow exhibitions, educational Jones: $750,000. To develop library collections year collaborative project on contemporary po­ activities, and collections management. CA in the humanities and add funds for other library etry for 12 high school English teachers. ES Makah Cultural and Research Center, Neah acquisitions. CU Bay, WA; Ann M. Renker: $275,850. To con­ Snow College, Ephraim, UT; Marilyn S. Larson: struct a new storage-study space for 50,000 arti­ $258,157. To renovate a campus building as a facts dating from 1000 to 1450, a conservation humanities center with space for classrooms, of­ Philosophy laboratory with archives and study spaces, and a fices, and public programming. CJ classroom for public use. CH Society for the Preservation of New England Cambridge Public Schools, MA; Sandra G. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cam­ Antiquities, Boston, MA; Nancy C. Carlisle: Spooner: $20,507. To conduct a study project bridge; Jay K. Lucker: $125,220. To microfilm $25,000. To document the society's collection on ancient Chinese culture for 15 Cambridge 39 journals, published between 1820 and 1930, of costumes and accessories. GM school teachers. ES that are necessary for the study of the history of Social Science Research Council, NYC; Thomas Stanford U., CA; Charles G. Palm: $63,719. To technology. PS Lodge: $820,000 OR; $629,000 FM. To support microfilm the papers of Sir Karl Popper. PS Mid-Atlantic Preservation Service, Bethlehem, the International Postdoctoral Grants Program of PA; C. Lee Jones: $500,000. To establish a fund the Joint Area Studies Committees of ACLS and for research and development, equipment pur­ SSRC. Rl chases, and an endowment for the maintenance U. of Alabama, Tuscaloosa; Ralph Bogardus: Religion and operation of a new building. CX $158,873. To conduct a four-week institute on Museum of the City of New York, NYC; Rich­ 20th-century African-American literature for 48 American Academy of Religion, Syracuse, NY; ard E. Beard: $42,025. To plan a temporary ex­ Alabama high school English teachers. ES James B. Wiggins: $191,250. To endow the so­ hibition that will interpret the history of epi­ U. of California, Berkeley; Cary I. Sneider: ciety's programs and thus develop scholarly re­ demic disease in New York City during the past $250,000. To support a traveling exhibition, search, publication, and fund raising. CO 350 years. GM publication, and programs that examine Old New York Public Library, NYC; Paul J. Fasana: World knowledge underlying Columbus's explo­ $800,000. To endow staff positions for catalogu­ ration, the technology that made the voyages ing humanities materials that will reduce or pre­ possible, and the impact of the discoveries on vent cataloguing backlogs in the collections. CK the New World. GM Social Science Newark Museum, NJ; Valrae Reynolds: U. of California, Los Angeles; James B. Cuno: GRANTS $135,200. To install an orientation gallery and $25,000. To support the computerized docu­ George Washington U., Washington, DC; educational programs for the permanent exhibi­ mentation of the permanent collection of 35,000 Maurice A. East: $146,399. To conduct a sum­ tion, "Tibet: The Living Tradition." GM prints, drawings, photographs, and artists' books mer institute on America's role in post-1945 Nokomis Learning Center, Okemos, Ml; from the 15th through the 20th centuries. GM world affairs for 35 social studies teachers from George L. Cornell: $135,000. To construct a U. of Kentucky, Lexington; Paul A. Willis: the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area. ES

HUMANITIES 45 For projects Area code for all telephone numbers is 202. Deadline beginning Division of Education Programs/,,,, c Herbert, Director 786-0373

Higher Education in the Humanities—Lyn Maxwell White 786-0380 April 1, 1990 October 1, 1990

Institutes for College and University Faculty—Barbara A. Ashbrook, 786-0380 April 1, 1990 October 1, 1990

Core Curriculum Projects— Frank Frankfort 786-0380 April 1, 1990 October 1, 1990

Two-Year Colleges—Judith Jeffrey Howard 786-0380 April 1, 1990 October 1, 1990

Elementary and Secondary Education in the Humanities— Ralph Canevali 786-0377 March 15, 1990 January 1991

Teacher-Scholar Program for Elementary and Secondary School Teachers— Angela lovino 786-0377 May 1, 1990 September 1991

Division of Fellowships and Seminars-cu/neveret cnest, Director786-0458

Fellowships for University Teachers— Maben D. Herring 786-0466 June 1, 1990 January 1, 1991

Fellowships for College Teachers and Independent Scholars— Karen Fuglie 786-0466 June 1, 1990 January 1, 1991

Fellowships on the Foundations of American Society— Maben D. Herring, 786-0466 June 1, 1990 January 1, 1991

Summer Stipends—Joseph B. Neville 786-0466 October 1,1990 May 1, 1991

Travel to Collections— Kathleen Mitchell 786-0463 July 15,1990 December 1, 1990

Faculty Graduate Study Program for Historically Black Colleges and Universities— Maben D. Herring 786-0466 March 15, 1990 September 1, 1991

Younger Scholars—Leon Bramson 786-0463 November 1, 1990 June 1, 1991

Summer Seminars for College Teachers—Stephen Ross 786-0463

Participants March 1, 1991 Summer 1991

Directors March 1, 1991 Summer 1992

Summer Seminars for School Teachers— Michael Hall 786-0463

Participants March 1, 1991 Summer 1991

Directors April 1, 1990 Summer 1991

Office of Challenge Grants— Harold Cannon, Director 786-0361 May 1, 1990 December 1, 1989

OfflCe Of Preservation— George F. Farr, Jr., Director 786-0570

Preservation—Ceorge F. Farr, Jr. 786-0570 June 1, 1990 January 1, 1991

U.S. Newspaper Program—Jeffrey Field 786-0570 June 1, 1990 January 1, 1991

46 MARCH/APRIL 1990 For projects Area code for all telephone numbers is 202. Deadline beginning Division of General Programsoonaw Gibson, Director 7P,(,-

Humanities Projects in Media—James Dougherty 786-0278 March 16, 1990 October 1,1990

Humanities Projects in Museums and Historical Organizations— Marsha Semmel 786-0284 June 8, 1990 January 1, 1991

Public Humanities Projects— Wilsonia Cherry 786-0271 March 16, 1990 October 1, 1990

Humanities Projects in Libraries— Thomas Phelps 786-0271

Planning May 4, 1990 October 1, 1990

Implementation March 16, 1990 October 1, 1990

Division of Research Programs-R.cw Ekman, Director 786-0200

Texts— Margot Backas 786-0207

Editions— David Nichols 786-0207 June 1, 1990 April 1, 1991

Translations— Martha Chomiak 786-0207 June 1, 1990 April 1, 1991

Publication Subvention— Gordon McKinney 786-0207 April 1, 1990 October 1, 1990

Reference Materials—Jane Rosenberg 786-0358

Tools— Helen Aguera 786-0358 September 1,1990 July 1, 1991

Access—Jane Rosenberg 786-0358 September 1, 1990 July 1, 1991

Interpretive Research— Irving Buchen 786-0210

Projects— David Wise 786-0210 October 15, 1990 July 1, 1991

Humanities, Science, and Technology— Daniel Jones 786-0210 October 15,1990 July 1, 1991

Conferences— Christine Kalke 786-0204 January 15,1991 February 1, 1992

Centers for Advanced Study— David Coder 786-0204 December 1,1990 July 1, 1991

International Research— David Coder 786-0204 March 15, 1990 January 1, 1991

Division of State Programs —Marjorie A. Berlincourt, Director 786-0254 Each state humanities council establishes its own grant guidelines and application deadlines. Addresses and telephone numbers of these state programs may be obtained from the division. DEADLINES

Guidelines are available from the Office of Publications and Public Affairs by calling 202/786-0438 two months in advance of the application deadlines.

Telecommunications device for the deaf: 202/786-0282.

HUMANITIES 47 NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES SECOND CLASS MAIL POSTAGE & FEES PAID 1100 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW NATIONAL ENDOWMENT Washington, D.C. 20506 FOR THE HUMANITIES PUB. NO. 187526

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