Engage! Teens, Art & Civic Participation
A guide to engaging young Engage! adult library audiences through home visual art
Introduction Themes American Community Growing Up Participation Signs and Programs Closing Dreams Symbols _01 This project builds on the Engage! Teens, Art Engage! Teens, Art National Endowment for and Civic Participation and Civic Participation the Humanities’ Picturing was implemented in targets young adult America art initiative by cooperation with the audiences through developing supplemental Chicago Public Library, the resources that utilize the visual North Suburban Library dynamic discussions arts as a springboard to civic System, the Arlington that utilize the visual engagement. Through the Heights Public Library, arts as springboards The objective for thematic selections of visual art, and the Evanston Public to civic engagement. participants are led in facilitated Library. Project funding has these resources is to discussions on and interactions been provided by the with the depth and history of Engage! was piloted Searle Funds at the deepen participants’ American civic life. Resources in summer 2010 in have been specifically designed eight Chicago Public Chicago Community knowledge and for opt-in youth audiences in Library branches and Trust and from the public library settings. the YOUmedia center at Terra Foundation for appreciation of Harold Washington Public American Art. ALA thanks project consultants Library; in fall 2010 by American Sarah Alvarez, Associate Arlington Heights (Ill.) Director of Teacher Programs, Memorial Library; and art and Department of Museum in fall 2010 and spring Education, The Art Institute of 2011 at Evanston (Ill.) its relationship Chicago; Adam Davis, Director, Public Library. Images and Center for Civic Reflection; and program models from to American history independent art historians many of these sites can Wendy Greenhouse and Lisa be found in the following and civic life, and Meyerowitz for their work in pages. shaping the project. to contribute to the development of informed and discerning voters. ngage! E
Home Introduction Themes American Community Growing Up Participation Signs and Programs Closing Dreams Symbols _02 The images
and related How is it that some resources What gives images are rise to dreams? designed to What would it for Engage! represent take to realize When it What did and to have have been them? comes to you most like meaning? How language, food, to do when do some organized clothes, you were images manners, younger? into five instruct us art, What made in what to opportunities, these thematic feel and think? and limits, what moments groupings: do you possible? recognize What limited These suggested themes are as yours? them? meant to take a participant through a five part program series that starts with an examination of universal experiences of growing up and community, moving outward into aspirations and interpretation of imagery and symbols in art and everyday life, and then ending by looking at various ways teens may want to impact their communities
through participation. Participation
What kind of change can we make, and how can Themes: Dreams American Growing Up Growing
Community we make it? Signs and Symbols
Home Introduction Themes American Community Growing Up Participation Signs and Programs Closing Dreams Symbols _03 1 2
Sample Icebreakers and Opening Exercises We hear a lot about the As a little kid, what did you want to be American Dream. In its when you grew up? Why? If you changed standard form, it involves your mind, why? And 2 what do you want to be ascension from humble now?
1 >>Think of someone who beginnings to glorious embodies what you think of as the American Dream. heights—from poverty Who is it, how does he or to wealth, anonymity Hip she embody it, how did you come to know about Hop this person, and what is to fame, oppression to Project the dream? freedom. Images and Discussion © issues See pg 5 for The images to the left of But a deeper look reveals that American dreams details. the page are also links do not always follow this trajectory, that 3 that contain the selected 4 Obama image (or image details, if our dreams are neither so simple nor simply the image is unavailable American. And if we each have our own dreams, American Hope for this guide), background we also have shared dreams—about ourselves Dream information, “Looking Images Portrait Without as a nation, about where we have 1. George Questions,” further Washington © issues discussion questions, dreams, come from and where we are (The Lansdowne See pg 7 for Portrait) activity ideas, and resources. what’s headed. This group of images helps 2. Tar Beach details. 3. Retroactive anything us consider all kinds of American 4. Hip Hop Project 5 worth? 5. Obama Hope dreams. What gives rise to these Portrait Dreams become dreams? What would it take to reality. realize them? And what, in any case, –Evo Morales makes them so dreamy? American Dreams American
Home Introduction Themes American Community Growing Up Participation Signs and Programs Closing Dreams Symbols _04 American Dreams Background Hip Hop Project ( (
Background Information Credits >> This photograph is part of a adopting its manners, dress, >> Born Lee Seung-Hee in Korea project of photographer Nikki and pastimes. She spends in 1970, Lee moved to New Artist: Nikki S. Lee S. Lee in which she immersed several weeks participating York in 1994 to attend the Hip Medium: herself in the culture of in the group’s activities, Fashion Institute of Technology, Photographic print American hip hop, adopting blending seamlessly into her and renamed herself Nikki. Citation: Hip Hop Project the persona of urban youth. environment and convincingly (2), 2001. Nikki S. Lee (b. 1970). Photographic becoming one of the group. >> She has noted one important Hop print, 21 1/5 x 28 1/5 >> All three youths in this image She then asks a member of the cultural difference between East inches (53.9 x 71.6 cm.). stare at the camera, daring the group to take snapshots that and West. “Identity in a Western Leslie Tonkonow Artworks + Projects Gallery, New viewer to engage or comment: document her performance. society is more like, ‘I am myself,’” Project York. Lee at the center with her hands she says; “‘I think, therefore I
on her hips and her elbows >> Lee adopts the dress of a exist.’ In Eastern cultures, it is Due to copyright restrictions we aren’t able to include this image, jutting out; the young man on specific subculture ot expose more ‘we think about group.’” but it can be found online. the left with his arms crossed; the malleability of identity. Hip Lee’s image, by showing how Nikki S. Lee, Hip Hop Project, 2001. Photograph. Image #2. and the young man on the right hop is only one of the many group identity is created by © NikkiS. Lee wearing reflective eyeglasses personas she has assumed for affiliation and choice, suggests so you can’t see his eyes. her artwork. She has immersed that an integral part of the herself in the identity of a American Dream is the ability >> Part performance artist and part skater, a yuppie, a Hispanic to create or re-create oneself. anthropologist, Lee researches girl, a schoolgirl, a lesbian, a and then introduces herself punk, a senior citizen, and an to a community or group exotic dancer—to name a few.
Home Introduction Themes American Community Growing Up Participation Signs and Programs Closing Dreams Symbols _05 American Dreams Looking
Hip Hop Project questions
Looking Questions Resources 1. What do these three people want with these two guys, what do should be. This contrasts with >>Biography/ us to know about them? What you think she is saying about the concept of identity in Korea, Hip description in are they telling us through their American identity? where she grew up. Based on Museum of clothing, hair, and body language? your experience, do you share her Contemporary Photography, 3. The artist believes that part of understanding about America? Chicago. 2. The girl in the center—who is also the American Dream is about What social cultures do you Hop >>Carol Kino, “Now the artist—is wearing a T-shirt becoming who you want to belong to? Do you feel you have in Moving Pictures: The with an American flag and an be rather than what a group the freedom to change this? Multitudes of Nikki S. Lee,” New York Times, eagle. As she stands in the street or another person thinks you Oct. 1, 2006 (film review Project of AKA Nikki S. Lee). Due to copyright restrictions we aren’t able to include this image, but it can be found online.
Nikki S. Lee, Hip Hop Project, 2001. Photograph. Image #2. Further Discussion Questions and Activity Ideas © NikkiS. Lee http://amst130.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/ Hip Hop Project is just one of many with photographs. She has also in America might you want to lee_hiphop-project1.jpeg similar “performances” by this artist immersed herself in the culture experience or join, if only for a few in which she embeds herself into a of skaters, yuppies, Hispanic girls, weeks? particular social culture for a time lesbians, punks, and senior citizens, and documents the experience among others. What social cultures
Home Introduction Themes American Community Growing Up Participation Signs and Programs Closing Dreams Symbols _06 American Dreams Background Obama Hope Portrait ( (
Background Information Credits >> Graphic designer and illustrator to pre-existing imagery, this >> For the poster, Fairey cropped Obama Artist:: Shepard Fairey is a self- time searching on Google for a the original photo to focus in Shepherd Fairey proclaimed street artist, often news photograph of the then- on Obama’s head and gaze, borrowing images from popular senator. He found an Associated reduced the detail of lines Hope culture and transforming Press picture taken of Obama and tones, and limited the them graphically as subversive and actor George Clooney at colors to red, white, and blue, comments about mass media a 2006 panel discussion about making it appear almost like Portrait Due to copyright restrictions we aren’t able to include this image, and corporate marketing. He the genocide in Darfur. a stencil. No longer is there but it can be found online. plays on the familiarity of images any specific link to the context in order to express his political >> Fairey did not obtain permission of the original photograph. Frank Shepard Fairey, Obama Hope Poster. and social views. Fairey’s work from the Obama campaign © Shepard Fairey/ObeyGiant.com http://www.vectors1.com/media/obey/ is not confined to the fine-art to produce the poster, which >> Additionally, Fairey added the obey-giant-22-obama-hope.jpg museum, but is more often he disseminated in his usual word “HOPE” at the bottom (he found on the Internet and grassroots fashion. Soon after originally used “PROGRESS” on T-shirts, free posters, and its initial release, however, the but the Obama campaign stickers pasted guerilla-style all campaign contacted Fairey and asked him to change it to over a neighborhood or city. asked him to create an official “HOPE”) creating a symbolic campaign version of the poster, link between the word and the >> During the campaign leading which was released in February man. The candidate seems to up to the 2008 presidential 2008. Hundreds of thousands of gaze, determined but hopeful, election, Fairey wanted to use versions of the image, on both beyond us toward the future. his art to support Democratic the official and unofficial posters, candidate Barack Obama. When stickers, T-shirts, and electronic he decided to produce a poster media were disseminated over for Obama, he turned again the course of the campaign.
Home Introduction Themes American Community Growing Up Participation Signs and Programs Closing Dreams Symbols _07 American Dreams Looking Obama Hope Portrait questions
Looking Questions Resources 1. Explain to the group that many in this portrait? Look at his pose what we see. It is hard to separate Obama >>Shepard Fairey’s website. of us are already very familiar and facial expression, his dress, and our additional knowledge of with this image and its historical the space and colors that surround Obama and his presidency from a >>Information about the copyright-infringement context. We are going to try to him. What evidence is available to red, white, and blue portrait of a Hope suit filed against Fairey break down our familiarity with you in the image alone? man with the word HOPE written by the Associated Press. the visual image itself and see below his image. >>National Portrait Gallery, what lies behind this iconic poster 4. Ask the group to share their Portrait Smithsonian Institution/ and our perceptions of it. words written earlier by saying 6. This poster can be understood Due to copyright restrictions we aren’t able to include this image, (Use the “search them aloud. And, with each one, as a campaign promise of a collections” function but it can be found online. to locate the fine-art 2. Spend some time looking at the examine whether that word is hopeful American future. If the Frank Shepard Fairey, Obama Hope Poster. version of Fairey’s image in silence. Write down specifically visible in the image. word “HOPE” were not included image). © Shepard Fairey/ObeyGiant.com an adjective or noun (besides (For example, if someone says in the image, how might you http://www.vectors1.com/media/obey/ “hope”) that you associate with “presidential,” ask if there is any understand that message? obey-giant-22-obama-hope.jpg the image. Set the word aside for specific evidence of the American Does the image effectively the moment. presidency in the image.) communicate the idea of hope? Why or why not? (As above, 3. What can you say definitively 5. Acknowledge that there is more ask the group to consider the the background or space around about this man by looking at him meaning to this image than just position and gaze of the figure, him, and the colors.)
Further Discussion Questions and Activity Ideas
Like Gilbert Stuart’s Lansdowne to change it to “HOPE.” What is a drawing of this person, place, or and stickers on public or private civic engagement? Why or why portrait of George Washington, word (or phrase) that embodies your thing and fill in areas with the colors property*—he was mimicking the not? How might you disseminate Shepard Fairey’s image of Obama personal dream for America? What you selected. Include your word or way our consumer culture puts your American Dream poster or the was widely disseminated to suggest a colors do you associate with this phrase somewhere on the page and advertising brands and logos in message it embodies? particular vision for America’s future. word or phrase? Select one thing then write a brief description of your our faces all the time in an effort In fact, Fairey shared Obama’s political from your life (a portrait of yourself American Dream poster. to manipulate us. Can you think of *Fairey was sued for copyright and social ideals for the nation, or of a friend or family member, a examples of this kind of advertising? infringement over his use of an although he initially preferred the personal possession, a building or Shepard Fairey has gotten into Fairey sees his work, and the legal Associated Press photograph of word “PROGRESS” for the poster and location you know well) that is a part trouble with the law on a number of troubles, as evidence of his civic Obama to create his iconic poster; was asked by the Obama campaign of that dream. Make a simple outline occasions when pasting his posters engagement. Do you think this is the suit was settled out of court.
Home Introduction Themes American Community Growing Up Participation Signs and Programs Closing Dreams Symbols _08 American Dreams Background Retroactive 1 ( (
Background Information Credits Artist: >> The central image of this painted astronaut floating in space, and from Eden. The yellowed fruit Artist: and printed composition the theme of flight is echoed opposite it may symbolize Robert Rauschenberg is a press photograph of in the bird feathers suspended American abundance—possibly Medium: John F. Kennedy taken at his from the top of this work. extending the allegory to Oil and silkscreen ink on presidential inauguration in the president pointing or canvas. 1961. JFK is surrounded by a >> Yet this work was made the leading the country out of Citation: Robert Rauschenberg, combination of material culled year following JFK’s 1963 the Garden of Eden and into Retroactive I. 1963. Oil from various printed sources and assassination and can also great and unknown frontiers. and silkscreen ink on silk-screened onto the canvas. remind the viewer of the canvas. 84 x 60 in. Gift of Susan Morse Hilles. country’s deep sadness >> Pop Art is often seen as the 1964.30. Wadsworth >> Pop artist Robert Rauschenberg about the loss of a great bringing together of high Atheneum Museum of was known for his innovative leader. The moon landing art (such as Renaissance Art/Art Resource, NY. Art © Estate of Robert combinations of media and didn’t occur until 1969, well painting)—and popular Rauschenberg/Licensed borrowings from popular after the president’s death. culture (President Kennedy, by VAGA, New York, NY. imagery. The borrowings in Nevertheless, his dream for the astronaut). Rauschenberg Rights Holder: Gift of Susan Morse Hilles. this work, which combines space travel had been realized. used popular imagery to reach 1964.30. Wadsworth silk-screen printing and oil beyond the art world elite and Atheneum Museum of painting, demonstrate the >> On the lower left, Rauschenberg directly address a wide public, Art/Art Resource, NY. Art © Estate of Robert role media images play in repeats the fragment of reflecting the populism of the Rauschenberg/Licensed defining a national identity Kennedy’s pointing hand, rapidly changing 1960s era. by VAGA, New York, NY. or mood; here they appear to emphasizing his gesture evoke the patriotic optimism of presidential leadership >> The title, Retroactive, may that prevailed in America at that encouraged innovation signal how Rauschenberg’s Kennedy’s inauguration. and challenged Americans thinking about the work But after JFK’s assassination, to do their best. itself changed while he was Rauschenberg reconceived >> For instance, Kennedy’s bold working on it. The work, which the image as an elegy to a lost pledge that the United States >> In the lower right is a blurred Rauschenberg began while president. Retroactive became would land a man on the moon fragment of what looks like an Kennedy was still alive, calls a memorial to Kennedy after it within ten years is referenced Italian Renaissance image of to mind the barrage of images was begun, laden with an air in the top left image of an Adam and Eve being expelled Americans encounter every day. of nostalgia and mourning.
Home Introduction Themes American Community Growing Up Participation Signs and Programs Closing Dreams Symbols _09 American Dreams Looking Retroactive 1 questions
Looking Questions Resources 1. President John F. Kennedy is media and are connected to JFK’s this collage represent. In addition >>Roni Feinstein, Robert portrayed in the center of this dreams for the American people— to using images from popular Rauschenberg: The image and there is an astronaut the central photo shows him on culture and media, why do you Silkscreen Paintings, just above him. Identify another his inauguration day. What images think the artist chose to use this 1962–64. With a contribution by Calvin part of this collage and think about from popular culture would you technique? What might it say Tomkins. (New York: what it says about the president. use to demonstrate the hopes and about American culture in the Whitney Museum of Art, Share with the larger group. dreams of America today? 1960s? and Boston: Bullfinch Press, 1990). >>Museum of 2. The images in this collage largely 3. It’s hard to make out what some of Contemporary Art, come from popular culture and the details or specific elements in Chicago, teacher resource. >>John F. Kennedy, Profiles in Courage (1956). >>Robert Dallek, An Unfinished Life: John Further Discussion Questions and Activity Ideas F. Kennedy, 1917–1963 (2003). This work of art was begun when JFK expect from our president? Our the hopes and dreams of America >>History of the Apollo was newly elected, but reworked leaders? How do these leaders define today. What dreams do you want to mission on NASA’s following his assassination in 1963. or guide our shared dreams? Does a highlight? What images, people, or Web site (with links to additional resources and Rauschenberg created a number nation need strong leaders to define places help represent that dream? a link to audio versions of similar works,all with the title its dreams? What are your dreams of JFK’s speeches about Retroactive—this one is Retroactive I. for yourself, for your community, for space exploration). Why do you think he used this title? your country? What dreams are held >>Andrew Graham Dixon, “In the Picture,” Sunday in common, and how do they come Telegraph, Jan. 14, 2001. Compare Rauschenberg’s image to be shared? to the Obama HOPE portrait and Gilbert Stuart’s portrait of Create a collage using images from Washington. What do Americans popular culture to demonstrate
Home Introduction Themes American Community Growing Up Participation Signs and Programs Closing Dreams Symbols _10 American Dreams Background Tar Beach ( (
Background Information Credits
>> This story quilt painting is part of problems of urban life below, blanket reiterate the comforting Artist: a series of works about a young dreaming about what it would and nurturing environment Faith Ringgold African American girl, Cassie be like to live in the city without where dreams can grow. Medium: Louise Lightfoot. In this scene, the restrictions of prejudice Acrylic on canvas with fabric borders Cassie lies on a blanket with her and bigotry. Cassie’s journey >> Ringgold was born and raised in Citation: brother on a rooftop in Harlem, evokes the African American New York and graduated from Faith Ringgold, Tar Beach, which is ironically called “Tar trope of flying as a metaphor City College of New York with 1988, Series # 1, Woman on a Bridge. Acrylic Beach,” while her parents play for escaping slavery; here, a master’s degree in 1959. on canvas with fabric cards with neighbors nearby. flying becomes a symbol of borders, 74 x 69 in. The freedom and self-possession. >> Her mother was a fashion Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. © Faith >> She imagines herself flying over designer and sparked Ringgold’s Ringgold the George Washington Bridge, >> Ringgold’s painting shows interest in fabric. The story Rights Holder: The taking possession of it. “Sleeping Cassie safely dreaming in the quilts combine the “high art” Solomon R. Guggenheim on Tar Beach was magical,” company of her extended of painting with “craft work” of Museum. © Faith Ringgold explains Cassie in the text on the family. Laundry dries on the quiltmaking and are based on quilt: “only eight years old and in clothesline, food covers the Buddhist thangkas, which were the third grade, and I can fly. That table, and adults socialize. painted on fabric and rolled means I am free to go wherever The cityscape under twinkling up for storage and transport. I want for the rest of my life.” stars both beckons and fades This story quilt is reproduced into background as if it were a in her book Tar Beach, which >> In the narrative, Cassie describes blanket covering the rooftop was awarded the Coretta her father’s struggles to find picnic. The image itself is quilted Scott King Award (given to work and join a union. She flies and bordered with additional African American authors above the city, escapingthe quilt squares. The patches of and illustrators) in 1992.
Home Introduction Themes American Community Growing Up Participation Signs and Programs Closing Dreams Symbols _11 American Dreams Looking Tar Beach questions
Looking Questions Resources 1. What is going on in the central which ones might you imagine storytelling. What objects from >>Faith Ringgold, Tar Beach scene? The artist called this image for Cassie? Where do you go to your childhood or from your (New York: Dragonfly “Tar Beach”—what do you think escape or feel free from life for a family tradition might have the Books, 1996). she means by that? while? What do you do there? same function or associations? >>Faith Ringgold, We Think about the American Flew Over the Bridge: The Memoirs of Faith 2. The image is from a story about 3. The artist has actually added Dream—what does that mean to Ringgold (Durham NC: young Cassie, an African American quilted cloth to the border of you? What are your dreams for Duke University Press, girl growing up in Harlem, who the painting and shows Cassie yourself? With whom do you share 2005). imagines flying vero the city lying on a blanket, imagining your dreams? Do you think that >>Gwendolyn Brooks, A Street in Bronzeville below and all the struggles of herself flying verhead.o In Cassie’s dream for herself might (1945), and We Real Cool urban life. What struggles are African American culture, quilts come true? Why or why not? (1966). suggested in the image, or are strongly associated with >>Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969). >>Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye (1970). Further Discussion Questions and Activity Ideas
What does the American flag Think about how that symbol would ways you outwardly display this symbolize to you? Does your answer capture a sense of identity within patriotism? If not, how might you change based on where you see the that particular group. do so? What signs and symbols from flag or how it is displayed/used? Are American culture would you use and there flags or symbols ot identify a We are again in a time of war. how would you use them? Design community or group that you are What ways have you seen people something that visually displays a part of? If not, how might you expressing their patriotism? your patriotism (or lack of it, if that is develop and display such a symbol? How patriotic are you? Are there the case).
Home Introduction Themes American Community Growing Up Participation Signs and Programs Closing Dreams Symbols _12 American Dreams Background George Washington (The Lansdowne Portrait) ( (
Background Information Credits Artist: >> In his life-size, full-length >> Other details proclaim the both for his contemporaries image of George Washington, distinctive character of the and in posterity. Artist: Gilbert Stuart Irish-born American portrait new republic: the titles of the Medium: painter Gilbert Stuart gave books on the table and floor, >> By associating himself with Oil on canvas symbolic expression to the for example, affirm its basis the nation’s most visible Citation: aspirations of the newborn in institutional, procedural, and important leader as the George Washington (The Lansdowne Portrait), American nation as embodied and legal foundations rather embodiment of national 1796. Gilbert Stuart in its Revolutionary hero than the will of any individual ideals and identity, Stuart (1755–1828).Oil on and first president. leader. In the background, laid claim to an important canvas, 97 1/2 x 62 1/2 inches (247.6 x 158.7 cm.). storm clouds yielding to blue role for American artists National Portrait Gallery, >> The portrait is called the sky and a rainbow in the in the new nation. Smithsonian Institution, Lansdowne Portrait for the upper right evince the nation’s Washington, D.C. Rights Holder: Marquis of Lansdowne, hopes for a glorious future >> Adopted for the dollar bill, National Portrait Gallery, an English supporter of after the turmoil of its birth. Stuart’s iconic portrayal Smithsonian Institution, the American Revolution of Washington remains Washington, D.C for whom the portrait was >> Stuart’s elaborate, dignified universally recognizable. . commissioned by grateful portrait spoke to the Stuart, who was trained in Americans. This representation anxieties of his countrymen the conventions of European drew on European aristocratic that their young nation be aristocratic portraiture, prototypes of state portraits in granted due respect from made a virtual industry of such features as Washington’s established European powers, painting portraits of the new magnanimous gesture and especially Great Britain. nation’s most revered leader. the setting of richly elegant furniture, billowing drapery, >> Stuart made numerous copies >> The symbolic language of and classical columns. of his portraits of Washington, the Lansdowne portrait now Washington himself, however, and these in turn were seems foreign, yet Americans is simply dressed in the widely disseminated through still invest likenesses of generic garb of an American inexpensive reproductive individual leaders and citizen, albeit clearly depicted prints, making Stuart’s heroes with their dreams as a member of the social elite. interpretation the standard for their nations’s future. image of Washington’s visage
Home Introduction Themes American Community Growing Up Participation Signs and Programs Closing Dreams Symbols _13 American Dreams Looking
George Washington (The Lansdowne Portrait) questions
Looking Questions Resources 1. What kind of future do you think portraiture well known to If President Washington were >>Picturing America (brief the artist was suggesting for the viewers in the late eighteenth replaced in this image by description, teacher nation as led by this man? What century—especially the pose President Obama, would the resources). do the setting—the furnishings, of the figure and setting of the message change? Why? >>Smithsonian National the sky beyond, and the portrait. Compare and contrast Portrait Galler (extensive description, historical architectural space he occupies— this portrait of Washington with background). his pose, and his dress suggest? Shepard Fairey’s HOPE portrait of >>Gilbert Stuart biography. Barack Obama, which is familiar to 2. Does this vision for America and understood by viewers today. appeal to you? Why or why not? 4. Based on the images themselves, 3. The image of Washington relies do you think these two presidents on conventions of European have similar hopes for America?
Further Discussion Questions and Activity Ideas
American presidents set forth president—and we are reminded What other ways can you think of goals and dreams for the nation of these facts when we see images to show leaders and the values that often include innovations of them. Similarly, in Robert they represent? Do you have or new directions. For example, Rauschenberg’s collage, President pictures of heroes and leaders in both George Washington and John F. Kennedy is associated with your home/school/community? Barack Obama represent “firsts” in space travel and the first man on Which ones inspire you and why? American politics—Washington the moon. What innovations or was the first president and Obama “firsts” would you like to see for is the first African American this country?
Home Introduction Themes American Community Growing Up Participation Signs and Programs Closing Dreams Symbols _14 The people closest to us, Sample Icebreakers and Opening Exercises those with whom we are >>Think of a group or community you belong to. How did most familiar and in some 1 you come to belong to cases most comfortable, this group? What’s good about belonging to it? are often those we see Are there any challenges to this belonging? 2 least clearly. This group of >>Have you ever tried to join a group that wouldn’t images helps illuminate a have you? Why did you want to join and why range of communities, to couldn’t you? Or, on the other side, have you ever highlight where they differ been part of a group that 3 kept someone out? Why? and to suggest what they The Images and Discussion may share. The following pages damas contain the selected image When it comes to language, food, clothes, manners, (maids (or image details, if the art, opportunities, and limits, what do you image is unavailable for of honor) this guide), background recognize as yours? What strikes you as foreign, or © issues information, “Looking 4 belonging to someone else? Is there See pg 24 for Community Questions,” further details. Living Images discussion questions, a certain logic to or reason for the 1. Gay Pride Parade, together New York City, June activity ideas, and various communities you belong 5 is an 28, 2009 resources. to? When have you resisted joining 2. Home of the Red, art. White and Blue 3. Nearing the Issue at –William Pickens new communities? When have you the TheCockpit damas resisted accepting other people into 4. Many(maids Mansions of honor) 5. The damas (maids yours? When have you felt yourself joining new of honor) communities and accepting others into yours? Community
Home Introduction Themes American Community Growing Up Participation Signs and Programs Closing Dreams Symbols _15 Community Background Gay Pride Parade, New York City, June 28, 2009 ( (
Background Information Credits >> This is a documentary and marked by a parade, for a different element related photograph by James Estrin, among other events. to LGBT identity: hot pink for Artist: James Estrin a staff photographer for the sexuality; red for life; orange Medium: New York Times. The photo, >> Gay Pride began in response for healing; yellow for the Photograph along with others of the to the Stonewall Riots in New sun; green for nature; blue Citation: parade depicting both its York’s Greenwich Village in for art; indigo for harmony; James Estrin, Gay Pride Parade, New participants and spectators, June 1969. All along, Gay Pride and violet for spirit. York City, June 28, accompanied an article has been characterized as a 2009. Photograph, about New York Governor colorful and very public means >> In his photo, Estrin has New York Times. Courtesy Redux Pictures. David Patterson’s support of voicing and embracing captured the truly diverse Rights Holder: New for legislation regarding gay one’s sexual orientation, as nature of the Gay Pride York Times. Courtesy marriage that was printed in well as a venue for growing community. It is not made Redux Pictures. the Times on June 29, 2009. political activism around gay up of all white men, a rights and the AIDS epidemic. stereotype held by many. >> Gay Pride is an annual Rather, there are different celebration of lesbian, gay, >> The rainbow flag, designed by races, ethnicities, genders, bisexual, and transgendered artist Gilbert Baker, appeared and ages participating in (LGBT) identity. It is typically for the first time as the symbol the parade, suggesting not held in June in the United of Gay Pride in San Francisco only the diversity of the LGBT States and at other times of in 1978. Originally of eight community but also of those the year around the world colors (now six), each stood who support their rights.
Home Introduction Themes American Community Growing Up Participation Signs and Programs Closing Dreams Symbols _16 Community Looking Gay Pride Parade, New York City, June 28, 2009 questions
Looking Questions Resources 1. How would you describe this parade? Why? What is the photograph was taken by a staff >>New York Times article, crowd? In what ways do they difference in your mind between photographer at the New York June 29, 2009. identify as a group? In what the two? What does each look Times to accompany a story about >>New York City Pride— ways are they different from one like? Can they be one and the gay rights. How do you think he Heritage of Pride. another? same? wanted the reader/viewer to feel >>PRIDEChicago—Chicago about this parade? Annual Pride Parade. 2. What is the general mood of the 3. Where is the photographer crowd? Do you think this group positioned? How does the angle is on the streets of New York for of the photograph make you a protest march or a celebratory feel in relation to the crowd? This
Further Discussion Questions and Activity Ideas
Despite the positive mood of the come together on this particular parade? Get together and think This photograph was taken by a to promote gay rights? Why or why crowd in this photograph, this occasion to publicly celebrate and about a cause you believe in, and New York Times photographer to not? Think about a community that particular community—the LGBT demonstrate their support for decide whether a parade or a protest document the event and accompany you believe in but may not belong community—has experienced a their identity. What communities march would be more effective in a story in the newspaper. The parade to; how can you show your support great deal of discrimination. The do you belong to? How do those getting your voice heard. Write a itself is an act of civic engagement for this community? community is inclusive of anyone communities identify themselves justification about your decision by a particular community. who supports LGBT rights, but tends publicly? As part of a community, or design a flier to announce the However, by virtue of publishing the to be made up of people excluded have you ever participated in a event to other members of your photograph, is the photographer from other communities. They have protest march or a celebratory community. also complicit in an activist effort
Home Introduction Themes American Community Growing Up Participation Signs and Programs Closing Dreams Symbols _17 Community Background The Home of the Red, White and Blue ( (
Background Information Credits >> The union of America’s the wounded Union veteran middle-class, native-born disparate class and ethnic in the shadows on the left, are family as the foundation and Artist: Lilly Martin Spencer groups is a central theme of exhausted and incapacitated. poor European immigrants Medium: Lilly Martin Spencer’s painting, as intruders. The gracious Oil on canvas a hopeful allegory of the >> In the kindly gesture toward welcome the mother and Citation: Lily Martin role of women in restoring the organ grinder, rendered children offer them would Spencer, The Home of the Red, White and Blue, the Union following the as a stereotypically Italian have struck art consumers of c. 1867–1868. Oil on devastation of the Civil War. figure, and the inclusion, at Spencer’s day as generous canvas, 24 x 35in. Terra the right, of what the artist’s rather than patronizing, Foundation for American Art, Daniel J. Terra Art >> It pictures an extended family contemporaries would have and they would have been Acquisition Endowment offering refreshment to a poor recognized as an Irish servant, untroubled by the stereotyping Fund, 2007.1 organ grinder and his shy Spencer indicates that women of the Irish and Italian Rights Holder: Terra barefoot daughter. Dominant also can bridge the divides figures by their clothing, Foundation for American Art, Daniel J. Terra Art at the composition’s center, between America’s different physiognomies, or occupations. Acquisition Endowment the white-clad matron of ethnic groups and between the Fund, 2007.1 the family is a self-portrait native-born and immigrants. >> Radical in its day for its of Spencer, who was both relatively sympathetic a professional artist and >> Tying the figures together, the portrayal of immigrants and the mother of thirteen. milk, in goblet and pitcher, its hopes for cross-cultural further symbolizes the notion relations, Spencer’s image >> In the foreground, a torn Stars of feminine nurturing as nonetheless affirms ideals and Stripes and a sewing box the key to the future social of domestic femininity, suggest that women, through health of the nation. notwithstanding the their natural abilities to heal, artist’s personal defiance of will bind up the nation’s >> Spencer’s painting presents conventional prohibitions on wounds at a time when a nineteenth-century view of women as professionals. American men, represented by American society, with a white,
Home Introduction Themes American Community Growing Up Participation Signs and Programs Closing Dreams Symbols _18 Community Looking
The Home of the Red, White and Blue questions
Looking Questions Resources 1. Who are these women? Why are are the women responding to >>Terra Foundation for they together here and what are this? According to the painting, American Art website they doing? What different roles what roles can women play Search for artist’s do the women have? How do they in repairing the divisions in name for biography relate to the men in the image? American society? and descriptive interpretation of this artwork. 2. This was painted in the years 3. What roles do women play in immediately following the Civil your community? How are they War, when many men were different from the roles women returning home from battle and play in the painting? the nation felt beleaguered. How
Further Discussion Questions and Activity Ideas
The artist has depicted a number woman in the red dress is an Irish just your neighborhood today, who of social classes and ethnicities servant. To our twenty-first-century would be included? And, like the in this scene; while most of the eyes, this doesn’t seem like a women in this painting, who would figures are middle class, the organ particularly diverse group. If you you depict as trying to bridge the grinder is meant to be an Italian were to create an image of the divide between different American immigrant, and the redheaded American population, or even of communities?
Home Introduction Themes American Community Growing Up Participation Signs and Programs Closing Dreams Symbols _19 Community Background Nearing the Issue at the Cockpit ( ( (
Background Information Credits >> The diverse, often contentious do onlookers (including the doubtful that Bonham could Artist: community of the American artist himself as the top-hatted have induced such a diverse Horace Bonham electorate is the implied gentleman on the left) are on group of men to actually Medium: subject of Horace Bonham’s the periphery of the crowd pose together. Painters of Oil on canvas painting. Ostensibly picturing of working-class men, who his day would have used Citation: Horace Bonham, Nearing the cross-class bonding include recent immigrants models dressed as they liked, the Issue at of men through sport, the from Europe and Asia as rather than “real” types, for the Cockpit, 1870. Oil on image is said to be a political well as newly enfranchised such composition; using canvas, 20 1/4 x 27 1/8 in. Corcoran Gallery of Art, allegory inspired by the close African Americans. photos of social types (real or Washington, DC. Museum presidential race in 1876 costumed) was simply cheaper. Purchase, Gallery Fund between Samuel Tilden and >> Bonham included thirteen 99.6. Rights Holder: Rutherford B. Hayes. At the individuals, a number that >> The diversity of the spectators Corcoran Gallery of Art, time, intense political contests his contemporaries would reflects both contemporary Washington, DC. Museum such as this were often have recognized as symbolic debate over immigration Purchase, Gallery Fund 99.6. compared to the brutal sport of of the 13 original American (which had resulted in the cockfighting, which was widely colonies. Like the colonies, first restrictive legislation, outlawed in Bonham’s day. Bonham implies, the diverse in 1870) and the recent American electorate must ratification of the Fifteenth >> His image focuses not on the unite to function as one nation. Amendment, guaranteeing bloody fight but on a motley male residents the right to group of spectators whose >> Contemporary observers vote regardless of “race, common excitement in its note a Photoshop quality to color, or previous condition “issue” (outcome) transcends some of the figures in the of servitude.” Women, who their obvious differences of painting, probably the result would not win the right to race, social standing, and of the artist’s dependence vote for several decades, are ethnic origin. Three well-to- on photographs. In fact, it is absent from the picture.
Home Introduction Themes American Community Growing Up Participation Signs and Programs Closing Dreams Symbols _20 Community Looking Nearing the Issue at the Cockpit questions
Looking Questions Resources 1. What do you think has captured connects them as a group? What sport. The sign on the wall marked the attention of all these men? differentiates them? “Rules” is a further reminder of >> Of Time and Place: American Figurative Have you seen a group so the metaphor. What important Art from the Corcoran captivated before? How do you 3. These men are gathered to await political or social issues of our Gallery (Washington, think the men feel about what the outcome of the contentious own time might cause diverse D.C: Smithsonian they see? presidential election in 1876. At Americans to unite like this? Institution Traveling the time, the intense political Exhibition Service and Corcoran Gallery of Art, 2. Who are these guys? Other than campaigns were often compared 1981), p. 61 (descriptive looking at the same thing, what to cockfighting, an outlawed interpretation of artwork with some information on the artist). >>Ask Art biography of Horace Bonham (available online in full Further Discussion Questions and Activity Ideas to non-subscribers on Fridays).
Women are conspicuously missing ultimately achieving the vote in 1920 from both sides—for and against. from this image. In 1878, the (see the Suffrage parade image, Prepare and conduct a debate with Fifteenth Amendment had only part of the Participation theme). others in the group, making sure to recently been ratified (1870), giving What rights are still being fought for set rules for the debate, like the rules all male citizens, including African today? Select an issue that you know that govern the electoral process Americans, the right to vote. Women about or that is important to you and referenced in the painting. continued to fight for this privilege, your community; research the issue
Home Introduction Themes American Community Growing Up Participation Signs and Programs Closing Dreams Symbols _21 Community Background Many Mansions ( (
Background Information Credits >> African American artist Kerry the scene with a blue ribbon that the 1969 Watts neighborhood Artist: James Marshall’s large painting reads, “Bless Our Happy Home.” riots from his Los Angeles home. Kerry James Marshall Many Mansions depicts a public Easter baskets rest at their feet Medium: housing project, Stateway and a phantom flowering tree >> The ironic title, Many Mansions, Acrylic on paper mounted Gardens, in the Bronzeville grows out of the monogram points to the unfulfilled promise on canvas. neighborhood of Chicago. “SG” (for Stateway Gardens). of public housing to provide Citation: Kerry James Marshall, Built in 1955, Stateway welcoming, safe homes, despite American, born 1955, Gardens was demolished >> The brightly colored image, the “Welcome” sign and bucolic Many Mansions, 1994, between 2006 and 2007. with its puzzling combination name of the housing project. Acrylic on paper mounted on canvas, 289.6 x 342.9 of real and artificial elements, The title comes from a biblical cm, Max V. Kohnstamm >> While public housing projects highlights the contradictions phrase inscribed in the red Fund, 1995.147, The are often viewed as dangerous, of growing a garden in a public ribbon at the top: a variation on Art Institute of Chicago. Photography © The Art crime-ridden communities, housing development. The Jesus’ oft-quoted remark found Institute of Chicago. © Marshall’s painting contradicts emphatically black figures in John [14:2]: “In my Father’s Kerry James Marshall. this perception, showing the are intended to function as house there are many mansions.” Rights Holder: Max V. Kohnstamm dedicated residents of Stateway rhetorical devices that pridefully Fund, 1995.147, The Gardens, dressed in their and powerfully reclaim >> The first public housing units Art Institute of Chicago. Sunday best for Easter, working blackness from the history of in the United States were built Photography © The Art Institute of Chicago. © to beautify their community. stereotype and degradation. in the 1930s as part of the New Kerry James Marshall. Deal. Under local government >> The public housing high-rises >> Marshall was born in supervision, tenements were loom in the background as three Birmingham, Alabama, and destroyed and low-income well-dressed young black men in grew up in Los Angeles. Having residents were displaced in crisp white shirts and black pants lived in public housing projects order to create new housing that tend to the public garden. They in both cities, he knew the was intended to address urban weed and rake, while animated struggles of the civil rights problems, in specific areas. bluebirds fly above and adorn movement firsthand, witnessing
Home Introduction Themes American Community Growing Up Participation Signs and Programs Closing Dreams Symbols _22 Community Looking Many Mansions questions
Looking Questions Resources 1. Why do you think these three complex in Chicago. How does there are many mansions,” which >>Terrie Sultan, Kerry men in shirt and tie are digging the artist’s representation of the is a variation on a biblical quote. James Marshall (New around in a garden? place match or not match your Where are the mansions here? York: Harry N. Abrams, understanding of public housing? Why do you think the artist has 2000). 2. Where is their garden? There is chosen to use this quote? >>Art Institute of Chicago a “Welcome” sign—what are we 4. We might say the men are in their Teacher’s Resource (PDF). being welcomed to? Does the “Sunday best,” and we see Easter >>Biography of Kerry garden fit in this environment? baskets near them on the ground. James Marshall, with What other ways are we being Why do you think Marshall sets interview and essays. welcomed to this place? this painting on Easter? >>Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man (1952). 3. The painting depicts Stateway 5. The red banner across the top >>National Public Housing Museum, in planning Gardens, a public housing reads, “In my mother’s home stage, to be located in Chicago
Further Discussion Questions and Activity Ideas
Compare this painting to Grant garden, how else can members of Wood’s Tree Planting Group. How do a community come together to the figures in each image relate to or overcome or defy the negative? belong to their environment? What Discuss whether there is a visible connects the people to one another? space in your community that could benefit from beautification or some What is the role of a public garden? other project and create a plan to Who tends it? Who uses it? How does carry it out. it help build community? Besides planting and tending a public
Home Introduction Themes American Community Growing Up Participation Signs and Programs Closing Dreams Symbols _23 Community Background The damas (maids of honor) ( (
Background Information Credits
>> The damas, or maids of honor, event, often compared to the and self-image. She has Artist: riding in this limousine are sweet sixteen, bat mitzvah, taken countless photographs The Lauren Greenfield the attendants for Ruby, not or debutante ball as the of young girls, capturing Medium: a shown, on the occasion of mark of a girl’s transition into their fascination with their Photograph Citation: her Quinceañera, the coming womanhood and coming appearance, one another, damas Lauren Greenfield, The of age celebration held on out into society, just as and consumer culture. damas (maids of honor) her fifteenth birthday. her wedding will mark her go from the church to the reception in a Ford transition into society as >> The image of the damas in Explorer limousine at >> The damas wear shiny lavender a married woman. With or this photograph is reflected in Ruby’s Quinceañera, (maids of Huntington Park, dresses and tiaras because, without religious affiliation, the roof of the limousine, as if California, 2001. as Ruby explained, “I wanted such affairs can be elaborate to suggest there are twice as my damas to look like little and costly. For example, Ruby’s many of them, highlighting the princesses, Cinderella-style parents had saved for five importance of the perception of honor) … Every girl dreams about years to pay the $16,000 price abundance in this celebration. Due to copyright restrictions we aren’t able to include this image, being a princess and being tag for her Quinceañera. but it can be found online. pampered. You want to grow into being pretty and loved.” >> Photographer Lauren Lauren Greenfield, The Damas (Maids of Honor) go from the church to the reception in a Ford Explorer limousine at Ruby’s Greenfield is interested in Quinceanera, Huntington Park, California, 2001. >> The Quinceañera is a youth culture and its habits, © Lauren Greenfield traditional Latin American especially related to money www.fwaphoto.com/#/2009-05-27/
Home Introduction Themes American Community Growing Up Participation Signs and Programs Closing Dreams Symbols _24 Community Looking
The damas (maids of honor) questions
Looking Questions Resources 1. Who are these girls, all dressed 3. They are attendants, or maids her attendants and how do they >>Lauren Greenfield’s the same? What do you notice of honor, for fifteen-year-old reflect her identity? Why do you The website. about them? Ruby on the occasion of her think the photographer decided >> “Quinceañera!” from Quinceañera celebration. Ruby is not to include Ruby in the photo? Voices, The Journal of 2. Where do you think they are not included in the photograph, the New York Folklore going in this limousine? Are they but what do you know about Society (Fall-Winter, damas 2002). enjoying themselves? her from this image? Who are (maids of Further Discussion Questions and Activity Ideas honor) What kinds of coming-of-age really mixed feelings about the story Interview women and girls in your celebrations take place in your of Cinderella. Of course, it’s every community or family about what it Due to copyright restrictions we aren’t able to include this image, community? Have you ever been girl’s dream to find Prince Charming means to them to “come of age” and but it can be found online. a part of them? How does such an and marry and have a nice life. But what their expectations are for being Lauren Greenfield, The Damas (Maids of Honor) go from the event change someone’s role in the Cinderella can’t do anything for a grown woman in the community. church to the reception in a Ford Explorer limousine at Ruby’s community? herself. She’s dependent on the fact Share and discuss as a group what, Quinceanera, Huntington Park, California, 2001. that Prince Charming’s gonna come if any, changes have taken place in © Lauren Greenfield Ruby, the Quinceañera celebrant, and take her, and if it weren’t for him, perceptions from one generation to www.fwaphoto.com/#/2009-05-27/ wanted all her maids of honor to she would probably stay there.” Are the next, and speculate as to why look like princesses, “Cinderella- there traditions or expectations in things have changed (or not). style.” However, she also said, “I have your community that have changed?
Home Introduction Themes American Community Growing Up Participation Signs and Programs Closing Dreams Symbols _23 Sample Icebreakers and Opening Exercises We become what we are >>Take a couple of minutes to think of some project you in no small part because worked on in elementary 5 1 or middle school. Think of where we have been, of “project” in a general sense—simply something Growing UP Images where we come from. you worked on, maybe with other 1. Migrant Mother people, maybe on your own. and Children 2. The Dove This group of images is Try to remember as much 3. Kalounna in about the project as you can, Frogtown 2 intended to open up our and then talk to someone else 4. Making Empanadas in the group (preferably 5. Tree various backgrounds someone you don’t know well) Planting Group about it. What were you working for consideration and on? How old were you? How did you come to be involved 3 with the project? Was it a good exploration. or bad experience, and why? Making What foods do you remember eating? What did you >>Pass out pens and index cards. Empanadas most like to do when you were younger? When were Ask participants to write “My © issues See pg 33 for you working, when were you playing, and when did roots are” at the top of the details. page and then fill in whatever you become aware of the difference? Looking back suits them. You may want to 4 on your own earlier years, what do you see most read a quick example, such Images and Discussion Tools clearly, what do you want to see more clearly, and as the following: “My roots are … New York City; Poland >The following pages contain the what, if anything, would you rather forget? How and Lithuania; humid Chicago selected image (or image details, if does your childhood resemble those summers; shoe salesmen; the image is unavailable for this of the other people? How does it The names I cannot pronounce; too guide), background information, beginning much food and too little space.” “Looking Questions,” further differ? How much do the resemblances The important thing is to get discussion questions, activity ideas, and differences affect your capacity is more participants to just go with the and resources. to understand and work with one than half. prompt. After a few minutes, –Aristotle have them pair or triple up and another? share what they’ve written. Growing Up Growing
Home Introduction Themes American Community Growing Up Participation Signs and Programs Closing Dreams Symbols _26 Growing Up Background Migrant Mother and Children ( (
Background Information Credits
>> Documentary photographer shipping thousands of pounds (Florence Owens Thompson) Artist: Dorothea Lange took this of food to feed the migrants. and their encounter: “I saw and Dorothea Lange photograph of a poverty- approached the hungry and Medium: stricken mother of thirty-two >> Almost instantly, this particular desperate mother, as if drawn Photograph and three of her children in portrait of a migrant family by a magnet. I do not remember Citation: Migrant Mother and a migrant workers’ campsite became an iconic image of how I explained my presence Children (Destitute pea in San Luis Obispo County, the Great Depression. While or my camera to her, but I do pickers in California, a California, during the Dust none of the details of the pea remember she asked me no 32 year old Mother of seven children), February Bowl of the Great Depression. pickers’ campsite beyond the questions. I made five exposures, 1936. Dorothea Lange mother and children are visible working closer and closer from (1895–1965), Black-and- >> Lange was commissioned in the image, Lange has still the same direction. I did not ask white photograph. Farm Security Administration, by the Federal Farm Security captured elements of this family her name or her history. She Office of War Information Administration (FSA) to that suggest the arduousness told me her age, that she was Photograph Collection. document the poverty of migrant of their lives, as well as their thirty-two. She said that they had Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, workers and demonstrate the pride, strength, and spirit. been living on frozen vegetables Washington, D.C. need for federal assistance; from the surrounding fields, and Rights Holder: Library of she was one of a group of >> Lange carefully constructed the birds that the children killed. Congress FSA photographers whose image. A makeshift tent in the She had just sold the tires from mission was to “introduce campsite creates a backdrop her car to buy food. There she America to Americans.” for the photo, and the lighting sat in that lean-to tent with her and pose draw attention to children huddled around her, >> In fact, the image shocked the woman, highlighting and seemed to know that my Americans who saw it in her worried expression and pictures might help her, and so their morning newspapers tattered dress. Lange coached she helped me. There was a sort accompanying stories about her to pose with her right hand of equality about it.”—Dorothea the plight of the destitute pea touching the side of her face, Lange, “The Assignment I’ll Never pickers; many were astonished emphasizing her furrowed brow. Forget: Migrant Mother,” Popular that farm workers might not Photography, February 1960. have enough food. The federal >> Lange offered this background government responded by information about the woman
Home Introduction Themes American Community Growing Up Participation Signs and Programs Closing Dreams Symbols _27 Growing UP Looking
Migrant Mother and Children questions
Looking Questions Resources 1. Spend a moment looking at this 3. The photographer has left a great woman and her three children. deal out of this image—we do not >>Picturing America: (brief description, teacher What can you say about their life? see any of the campsite in which resources). the migrant workers’ makeshift >>The Library of Congress 2. Do you feel sympathy for this tent stands. Why do you think the prints and photographs family? If yes, how has the artist photographer cropped the image collection includes all created this feeling? If not, how do this way? What do you think she the shots Lange took you feel toward the family? Why? wanted us to think about? that day as well as a discussion of Migrant Mother. >>Anne Whiston Spirn, Daring to Look: Dorothea Lange’s Photographs and Reports from the Field Further Discussion Questions and Activity Ideas: (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008). >>David C. King, Dorothea Do you have family photographs? demonstrates that photographs Lange: Photographer of How are they composed? What do interpret a scene as paintings and the People (Armonk, NY: they say about your family, about the drawings do. Compare this image to Sharpe Focus, 2008). place and time in which you live? the other photographs Lange took >>Getty Museum Web site that day and consider why Lange for the exhibition “About Lange’s photograph challenges chose this image rather than any of Life: The Photographs of Dorothea Lange” (with the perception that a photograph the others to represent the story. information, images, represents unmediated truth. It timeline, and lesson plans). >>John Steinbeck, Grapes of Wrath (1939), Of Mice and Men (1937). >>Susan Sontag, On Photography (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1977).
Home Introduction Themes American Community Growing Up Participation Signs and Programs Closing Dreams Symbols _28 Growing Up The Dove Background ( (
Background Information Credits
>> African American artist Romare hands, legs, and feet, joined Renaissance—a literary, Artist: Bearden used the medium of but disjointed—and faces of musical, and artistic flowering Romare Bearden collage to depict the fractured, people you may recognize of African American culture Medium: syncopated rhythms of urban but not necessarily know. centered in Harlem. Cut-and-pasted photo-reproductions and life in New York City. Made from papers, gouache, pencil cut-up newspapers, magazines, >> The collage technique >> Bearden’s 1960s artwork was and colored pencil on and colored paper glued to conveys the freedom of increasingly inspired by the cardboard Citation: cardboard, The Dove shows the improvisation and the rhythms civil rights movement. He and The Dove, 1964. Romare many faces and characters in a of jazz, resulting in an artistic a number of other black artists Bearden (b. Charlotte, neighborhood in Harlem, the style that evokes African formed the group Spiral in 1963 NC, 1911–d. New York, 1988). Cut-and-pasted upper Manhattan enclave long American popular culture. in order to highlight the role photo-reproductions and known as a vital center of urban of black artists in American papers, gouache, pencil African American life and culture. >> The dove, a symbol of hope and society at a time when most art and colored pencil on cardboard, 13 3/8 x 18 3/4 peace, is poised above the center critics and buyers did not treat in.; Museum of Modern >> The viewer’s eye moves all door, while two cats lurk below, black and white artists equally. Art, New York. over the busy street scene, suggesting that even though life Rights Holder: as the composition’s lack of is busy, a certain kind of harmony >> The lack of focus on any one Museum of Modern Art, New York a clear focal point replicates of the street can be achieved. individual creates an image the experience of walking of a community of the street. down the crowded sidewalk. >> Bearden was born in North Bearden depicts a crowded city Carolina, and moved with his block where everyone shares and >> Bearden’s urban landscape is family to Harlem in 1914. He helps shape the environment. filled with fragments of heads, grew up during the Harlem
Home Introduction Themes American Community Growing Up Participation Signs and Programs Closing Dreams Symbols _29 Growing UP Looking The Dove questions
Looking Questions Resources 1. Describe this scene: What peace and safety. Does the rest of >>Picturing America (brief elements of urban life does the image seem safe or peaceful description, teacher Bearden choose to include? What to you? Why or why not? Are there resources). does he leave out? any symbols of peace or safety in >>Ruth Fine, ed., The Art your neighborhood? Of chaos or of Romare Bearden 2. Is there a mood or particular danger? (Washington, D.C.: energy in this image? Describe it. National Gallery of Art, 2003). Where does it come from? How 4. Bearden has used symbolic is this similar to or different from animals and a collage of faces >>Gail Gelburd and Thelma Golden, Romare the mood or experience of your and people to show us this Bearden in Black and neighborhood? neighborhood. What symbols White: Photomontage would you use to depict your Projections, 1964 (New 3. Bearden has included a dove neighborhood? Would it blend in, York: Whitney Museum in the top left of this image of like Bearden’s dove, or be more of American Art, 1997). Harlem. The dove is a symbol of prominent? Why or why not? >>Portal to a selection of Harlem Renaissance Web sites (also includes sites for Duke Ellington, Langston Hughes). >>Poetry by Langston Hughes, The Weary Blues Further Discussion Questions and Activity Ideas (1926). >>Fiction by Ralph Ellison, Who are the people/faces in your Bearden was interested in music, the tempo of urban life in Bearden’s Invisible Man; Richard neighborhood? What would a jazz in particular. Do you connect image? How? Shoot a video or Wright; and Ann Petry, collage of the street where you live jazz to this scene and the collage photo sequence to document your The Street (1946) and “In Darkness and Confusion” look like? How does your community format? What other kinds of music neighborhood (or the library’s (1947). move, sound, feel? Are there symbols do you think of? What music neighborhood) and choose music to >>Jazz by Duke Ellington, (like the dove) that represent your could provide the soundtrack to play in the background. John Coltrane, Miles block? Create a collage of your own your neighborhood? Play some Davis, Thelonius Monk. neighborhood, using newspapers jazz—possibly John Coltrain’s “Blue and magazines and other found Train”—and other types of music elements. (like rap); does the music capture
Home Introduction Themes American Community Growing Up Participation Signs and Programs Closing Dreams Symbols _30 Growing Up Background Kalounna in Frogtown ( (
Background Information Credits
>> In Kalounna in Frogtown, Jamie the quintessentially American >> Framed against a pale but Artist: Wyeth explores the mingled red-shuttered wood-frame house overcast sky, Kalounna is Jamie Wyeth longing and alienation of in the left distance, the red Ford positioned as if slightly above Medium: the outsider, conditions semitrailer truck on the right, the viewer, whom he fixes with Oil on masonite Citation: doubled for the immigrant and his own matching red T-shirt a steady gaze, his expression Jamie Wyeth (James who is also an adolescent. emblazoned with the logo of the both vulnerable and defensive, Browning Wyeth), television drama Dallas, the most embodying the unease of one Kalounna in Frogtown, 1986. Oil on masonite. >> Frogtown is a small community popular such series at the time caught between worlds. 36 x 50 1/8 in. Terra in southeastern Pennsylvania Wyeth painted this work. The Foundation for American not far from the artist’s farm; tension between the boy and his >> Born into a distinguished Art, Daniel J. Terra Collection. 1992.163. Kalounna was the eleven- surroundings, and between his family of artists, Jamie Wyeth © Jamie Wyeth. Terra year-old son of a newly arrived desire to fit in and his discomfort follows the family tradition Foundation for American family of Laotian “boat people” in a strange setting, is suggested of realist painting but infuses Art, Chicago/Art Resource, NY. (refugees who fled to the in his hands: one tightly clenched his haunting depictions of Rights Holder: Terra United States in the early 1970s in a fist, the other open with everyday rural scenery, people, Foundation for American as a result of their country’s fingers awkwardly splayed. and animals with provocative Art, Daniel J. Terra civil war) who worked as juxtapositions and sly humor. Collection. 1992.163. © Jamie Wyeth. Terra caretakers on Wyeth’s farm. >> Likewise, in the background, Foundation for American the starkly sheared tree Art, Chicago/Art >> Stiffly, self-consciously posed, branches contrast strangely Resource, NY. Kalounna dominates a flat with the material abundance landscape, his Asian features implied by the large house an incongruous complement to and powerful truck.
Home Introduction Themes American Community Growing Up Participation Signs and Programs Closing Dreams Symbols _29 Growing UP Looking Kalounna in Frogtown questions
Looking Questions Resources 1. Based on your first impressions, from Laos. They had come to What made you feel that way? do you think this boy belongs rural Pennsylvania and worked Could you control those things? >>An American Vision: Three Generations or feels like he belongs in on the artist’s farm. How does the What do you do to belong? of Wyeth Art, exhibition this setting? Why or why not? artist tell us about how Kalounna catalogue (Boston: Little What does he share with his is trying to fit into his new 4. What advice would you give Brown and Company, surroundings and what is different environment? Kalounna about adjusting to his 1987), p. 161. between them? new home? 3. Have you ever felt like an outsider 2. The boy depicted, Kalounna, in the place you live—in your was part of an immigrant family home, neighborhood, or city?
Further Discussion Questions and Activity Ideas
Interview someone in your family paint a new background based on you would change to adjust to a new or your community who moved somewhere in their daily lives. It setting? from one country to another, or one could be a school, a park, a friend’s state to another, or even one city house, or even the local library. Ask Create a neighborhood survival kit: to another. Talk to them about their participants to think about what what would a teenager coming to experiences. Some questions you connects (or disconnects) them to your neighborhood need to succeed might want to ask: What did they their community. Place the photo on in your community? Imagine expect before they got here? What top of the background—how does that you are part of a welcoming surprised them? How did they adjust the figure belong or not belong? If committee and think of the clothing, to their new home? When did it there is still time, trade background music, books, or other accessories begin to feel like home? settings with other participants— that most youth share. Create a list use your body on someone else’s or a collage of the items that might Ask students to bring in a photo background. What do you notice? help a newcomer understand your of themselves, and cut out around How easy is it to move from one community. the body like a paper doll. Next, setting to another? Are there things
Home Introduction Themes American Community Growing Up Participation Signs and Programs Closing Dreams Symbols _32 Growing Up Background Making Empanadas ( (
Background Information Credits >> Carmen Lomas Garza’s image garden. Her memory of the small 1960s, corresponding with a Making Artist: of her own multi-generational house was that it was filled with prolonged period of exploration Carmen Lomas Garza family gathered in her aunt both people and empanadas— of identity for the broader Medium: and uncle’s kitchen reflects on literally every surface, as she Chicano culture—mostly Gouache on cotton paper. Empanadas Citation: the strong sense of family has depicted in the painting. people of Mexican descent Making Empanadas, 1991. Due to copyright restrictions we aren’t able to include this image, within the Chicano culture of She includes her mother and born in the United States. Her Carmen Lomas Garza Texas, where she grew up. father—drinking coffee—and own family had come to the but it can be found online. (b. 1948, Kingsville, TX). even herself, in a blue dress. U.S. in the early twentieth Gouache on cotton paper. Carmen Lomas Garza, Making Empanadas, 20 x 28 inches. Collection >> The family is depicted making century to escape the Mexican © Carmen lomas Garza of Romeo Montalvo, MD, empanadas, a traditional >> In this and many of her images, Revolution. Everyday traditions http://carmenlomasgarza.com/artwork/paintings/ Brownsville, Texas. Latin American pastry stuffed she employs a folk art style— and memories of family, religion, with various fillings. Other reduced modeling, bold colors, and food were and continue signs of Latino family culture and a somewhat flattened sense to be celebrated by artists, include the small retablo, or of space—to capture a broad writers, and other Chicanos. altar, above the stove and the range of subjects. This style image of the Mayan temple calls on recognized traditional >> The notion of memory is very hanging near the door. painting from Mexico but is also important to Lomas Garza’s intended to appeal to a broad work. This and other images >> Lomas Garza recalls that every audience, reinforcing the hope have been gathered together year her Aunt Paz and Uncle that her images will educate with written descriptions as Beto—shown rolling the and inform all Americans picture books for children, to dough—would gather family and about Chicano culture. allow them to reflect on their friends in their home to make own childhood memories the turnovers filled with sweet >> Lomas Garza’s career as and family experiences. potato or squash from their own an artist began in the late
Home Introduction Themes American Community Growing Up Participation Signs and Programs Closing Dreams Symbols _33 Growing UP Looking
Making Empanadas questions
Looking Questions Resources 1. What is going on in this scene? is the girl in blue, a Chicana who crisp and clear or maybe a bit Making >>Carmen Lomas Did or does your family ever get grew up in south Texas. She fuzzy or something else? What are Garza’s website: click together like this? Where? Why? portrays the scene—the space the colors and spaces like? Do you on Research Links and the people—as somewhat feel as if you could step back into for further online 2. What about the kitchen itself? flat. Why do you think she chose those spaces? Are there sounds Empanadas information about the artist and her work What might it tell us about this to depict this family moment this or smells that you associate with Due to copyright restrictions we aren’t able to include this image, >>Arte Latino: Treasures family? way? your memories? but it can be found online. from the Smithsonian American Art Museum. 3. This is an image of the artist’s 4. How do you envision memories Carmen Lomas Garza, Making Empanadas, family from her childhood—she from your childhood? Are they © Carmen lomas Garza http://carmenlomasgarza.com/artwork/paintings/
Further Discussion Questions and Activity Ideas
Carmen Lomas Garza began her this identity and used their work contributed to who you are today? If career as an artist at a time when as a means to educate the broader you were going to create an image to the Chicano community sought American population; Lomas Garza’s educate others about these things, to defend its cultural identity— clear and direct images illustrate the what would it look like? Would you characterized by a strong sense of experience of growing up a Chicana. want it to appear like a past memory, family, traditional foods, religious as Lomas Garza presents it, or would practices, and other aspects of daily What family or ethnic traditions from you depict it differently? life. Many artists in the Chicano your childhood have influenced movement celebrated and defended you the most? How have they
Home Introduction Themes American Community Growing Up Participation Signs and Programs Closing Dreams Symbols _34 Growing Up Background Tree Planting Group ( (
Background Information Credits
>> In Grant Wood’s idyllic image, >> The expectant mood of Tree one-room schoolhouses. Yet Artist: an Arbor Day celebration Planting Group underscores the its message about the power Grant Wood at a rural Iowa school links importance of tree planting of example, engagement, and Medium: education of the young with to the community and the investment retains its currency Lithograph the labor of planting a tree importance of the boys’ labors in American education. Citation: Grant Wood, Tree Planting as investments that will yield not only for the planting Group, 1937, lithograph, rewards far into the future. itself, but as an example to >> In the mid-1930s, Grant Wood 8 3/8 x 10 7/8 in., Cedar their younger peers and a was one of a number of artists Rapids Museum of Art, Museum purchase in >> Two older male students, foundation for their own adult from whom the New York-based memory of Bea Ann wielding their shovels with sense of responsibility. publisher Associated American Huston, 88.11. Art © Figge concentrated attention, Artists commissioned prints of Art Museum, successors to the Estate of Nan Wood shoulder the grown-up work >> The studied perfection of the subjects that would appeal to a Graham/Licensed by of digging the hole as the smoothly rounded forms, such broad-based American public. VAGA, New York, NY. teacher and her younger as the perfectly conical mound Published typically in editions Rights Holder: Cedar Rapids Museum of Art, charges look on. Two more of turned earth, mirrors the of 250 print impressions, these Museum purchase in boys, one also equipped with idealism of Wood’s image of prints were sold by mailorder memory of Bea Ann a shovel, stand ready to help. respectful cooperation. for $5 each (about $75 in Huston, 88.11. Art © Figge Art Museum, successors today’s currency)—a modest to the Estate of Nan Wood >> In the distance, the bare >> Created during the Great price for a fine art print. Graham/Licensed by rolling hills are without Depression, the print reflects not VAGA, New York, NY. shade, in contrast to the the uncertainty and dislocations protection from the summer of that era but the artist’s sun the newly planted childhood memories of close- sapling will one day afford. knit rural communities and their
Home Introduction Themes American Community Growing Up Participation Signs and Programs Closing Dreams Symbols _35 Growing UP Looking
Tree Planting Group questions
Looking Questions Resources 1. The boys in the foreground suggest certain American values >>Cedar Rapids Museum of are digging a hole to plant a in the 1930s, during the Great Art (biography on Grant tree. Why do you think they are Depression. What values do you Wood) planting a tree? see represented? >>Dubuque Museum of Art (on Wood’s lithographs, 2. Does the artist suggest to us who 4. We are again in a time of with a note about Tree will benefit from the boys’ work, in recession. Why might you want Planting Group). what ways, and when? How? an image like this today? Where >>Wanda M. Corn, Grant would you display it? Are there Wood: The Regionalist Vision (New Haven, 3. This image was printed in editions similar values important to us Conn.: Yale University of 250 and available for purchase today? Press, 1983), pp.49–51 via mail order. It was intended to (background on circumstances under which Tree Planting Group was made).
Further Discussion Questions and Activity Ideas
Have you ever been involved in a with your family, neighborhood, or tree planting or in work on a family, community that would have long- neighborhood, or community term benefits to all of you? As an garden? Have you ever taken part in activity, plan a project and figure out a project that benefited your school, how you would carry it out. neighborhood, or community? Have you ever volunteered? What was What values would you want to that like? symbolize from your family or community? What kinds of other projects can you imagine getting involved in
Home Introduction Themes American Community Growing Up Participation Signs and Programs Closing Dreams Symbols _36 Sample Icebreakers and 1 Opening Exercises Through it all there is >> Think of a group or think of 3 someone who is involved the question of what we in some meaningful way with your community. do. Whatever shapes our How is this person involved, what is he actions and whatever is or she doing, and how did the involvement come done to us, always there is about? How did you come to know about this person? the question of what we >> Think of a time when you did something that felt “civic” or do—and with that, the 2 Participation “participatory” in some way. Images What were you doing and question of why we do it. 1. The County why were you doing it? What Election, 1852 We can vote, protest, and serve. We can run, walk, 2. The Migration of felt “engaged” or “involved” and sit. We can fight and we can work and we can the Negro, Panel or “civic” about it? How did #59: In the North play. We can join up, drop out, and toil in fields of they had the it feel to be doing this? freedom to vote The first duty our own choosing. Which of our 3. The “We Can Do Images and Discussion It” Poster—War of a human actions serve personal ends and Production The following pages contain the Coordinating 4 selected image (or image being is to as- which serve more community- War Production Coordinating details, if the image sume the right oriented ends? What does it Committee, is unavailable for this 1942–1943 functional mean to participate, to engage? 4. Selma-to- guide), background information, relationship to Montgomery “Looking Questions,” further What kind of change can we March for Voting 5 society—more Rights in 1965 discussion questions, activity make, and how can we make it? 5. Suffrage parade, ideas, and resources. briefly, to find women march to your real job, win their right to vote in New York and do it. City, May 6, 1912 –Charlotte Perkins 6. The Veteran in a Gilman New Field
6 Participation
Home Introduction Themes American Community Growing Up Participation Signs and Programs Closing Dreams Symbols _01_37 Participation Background The County Election, 1852 ( (
Background Information Credits
>> George Caleb Bingham’s The by the red-shirted man at the top two boys play a dangerous knife- Artist: County Election captures the of the pyramid of figures, whose game of chance, a sly commentary George Caleb Bingham triumphs and hazards of American red hair and snub nose identify him on the election’s outcome. Medium: Oil on canvas participatory democracy and its as a stereotypical Irishman; he is Citation: founding principle that every voter shown taking an oath that he has >> This is one of a series of paintings The County Election, 1852. is entitled to a single vote regardless not already cast a ballot in the race. Bingham made to show George Caleb Bingham of wealth, education, or influence. American democracy in action, (1811–1879). Oil on canvas. 38 x 52 inches >> Women are virtually absent from based on his often-bitter direct (96.5 x 132.1 cm.). Saint >> The painting shows a wide range the scene, and the only African experience as a Whig politician Louis Art Museum. of voters gathered to campaign, American is the servant marginalized in Missouri in the 1840s. Rights Holder: debate, cast their ballots, and even behind a table at the far left. Saint Louis Art Museum brawl in a local election taking >> Both the American electorate and place in a generic frontier town. >> In The County Election, Bingham the electoral process itself have celebrates American democracy changed greatly since Bingham’s >> The voters reflect the widening even as he points up its pitfalls: day, yet the fundamental principles of the electorate in Jacksonian a wily campaigner turns his of democracy, as well as its America to include poor laborers charm on a country bumpkin; practical shortcomings, persist. as well as prosperous gentlemen an intoxicated voter is hauled to and even immigrants, represented the polls; and in the foreground,
Home Introduction Themes American Community Growing Up Participation Signs and Programs Closing Dreams Symbols _38 Participation Looking The County Election, 1852
questions
Looking Questions Resources 1. In this image of a county election 3. In the early- to mid-nineteenth Who else would we see in an image of >>Picturing America (brief from 1852, what kinds of people have century, the ideas of Jacksonian a county election today? description, teacher shown up to campaign, debate, or democracy prevailed, and white men resources). vote? Who is not here? of all sorts—regardless of wealth, >>George Caleb Bingham education, or influence—had the (detailed biography, discussion of artworks 2. What is the overall tone of this right to vote. Previously, “universal including The County election? Why do you think the artist male suffrage” had really applied only Election). included all these different men? What to educated men of a certain class. >>George Caleb is he saying about elections at the How have we extended this broader Bingham (artist biography, descriptive time? concept of universal suffrage today? interpretation of artwork).
Further Discussion Questions and Activity Ideas
Consider what it means to have the right matter what? Are there groups that are Over the course of American history, Find people from these groups in your to vote. Is it a responsibility, an honor? Do still disenfranchised today? If so, should varioht to vote: black males and all community and interview them about we have to deserve the right or should they be granted the right to vote? Why or women, most notably, as well as any what it means to have the right to vote in it be inherently ours as Americans, no why not? immigrant who becomes a citizen. America.
Home Introduction Themes American Community Growing Up Participation Signs and Programs Closing Dreams Symbols _39 Participation Background The Migration of the Negro, Panel # 59: ( ( In the North they had the freedom to vote
Background Information Credits
>> The Fifteenth Amendment to the order or to intimidate. The tilted from the jar. Lawrence worked Artist: U.S. Constitution granted African floor creates a perspective that with one hue at a time on Jacob Lawrence Americans the right to vote in puts the viewer next in line to all sixty panels to create a Medium: 1870. Yet, in practice, many African vote—encouraging our vicarious unified look and seamless Casein tempera on hardboard Americans in the South were stopped participation in the electoral process. narrative. He used bold Citation: from voting by prohibitive poll shapes and solid color forms. Jacob Lawrence taxes, literacy tests, and violence. >> Lawrence’s Great Migration series (1917-2000), The Migration of the Negro, details the hardships and injustices >> An African American, Panel # 59: In the North >> The Great Migration of African African Americans faced in the South Lawrence was born in New they had the freedom to Americans from the rural South through images of barren cotton Jersey and settled in Harlem vote., 1940-1941. Casein tempera on hardboard, to northern urban centers in fields and a noose in a tree that at age 13. He grew up during 18 x 12 in. (45.72 x 30.48 the early twentieth century was evokes lynching. He shows African the Harlem Renaissance, a cm.). Acquired 1942. motivated by opportunities Americans boarding trains and flowering of African American The Phillips Collection, Washington, D. C. © 2010 for political participation and arriving in industrial centers in the culture centered in New York, The Jacob and Gwendolyn economic advancement. Voting North—Chicago, New York, Detroit, and he directly witnessed Lawrence Foundation, was one of the freedoms sought Cleveland, and Pittsburgh—in search the influx of blacks from the Seattle/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. by the many African Americans of employment and opportunity. In South. He collected family Rights Holder: who moved to the North. the North, they find jobs in steel and anecdotes and researched Acquired 1942. The other industries, homes in high-rise historical events in the library Phillips Collection, >> In this the second-to-last panel in apartments, and access to education. to piece together this epic Washington, D. C. © 2010 The Jacob and Gwendolyn a series about the Great Migration Lawrence also describes the story of blacks participating Lawrence Foundation, by artist Jacob Lawrence, six downsides of urban life, depicting in civic and urban life. Seattle/Artists Rights African Americans line up to vote overcrowding and segregation. Society (ARS), New York. in front of a booth. The somber hues of the polling place contrast >> The Great Migration series is with a stern white policemen comprised of sixty small boards who may be present to maintain painted with tempera colors straight
Home Introduction Themes American Community Growing Up Participation Signs and Programs Closing Dreams Symbols _40 Participation Looking The Migration of the Negro, Panel # 59:
In the North they had the freedom to vote questions
Looking Questions Resources 1. What do you think the experience of are quite small and, in this image, we >>Picturing America (brief voting was like for the people lined look down on the scene from above description, teacher up in this image? Why do they put up and cannot see the faces of the people resources). with the fearful and intimidating tone in line. >>The Phillips Collection, of the policeman? Jacob Lawrence: The Migration Series 3. Why do you think the artist gave us >>Over the Line: The 2. This is one of sixty images in a series this particular perspective? What Art and Life of Jacob about the Great Migration of African do you think he is saying about the Lawrence. Edited with Americans from the South to the struggle to win African Americans the an introduction by Peter T. Nesbett and Michelle North in the first half of the twentieth right to vote? DuBois. (Seattle and century. All the images in the series London: University of Washington Press, 2000). >>Elizabeth Hutton Turner, ed. Jacob Lawrence: The Migration Series. Introduction by Henry Further Discussion Questions and Activity Ideas Louis Gates Jr. (Urbana, Va.: Rappahanock Press in association with The struggle to win the vote was just in society. If not a group to which you voting, that may feel insignificant on its The Phillips Collection, one of many that African Americans belong, do you know of a group or own but is often most powerful when Washington, D.C., 1993). faced during the civil rights era. All the community whose rights are limited? engaged in by many people.Refer to the >>Fifteenth Amendment (1870) things that they (and their supporters) Draft a letter to your local alderman, discussion questions and activity ideas >>National Voting Rights fought for concerned the ability to congressman, or any government official for George Caleb Bingham’s The County Act of 1965: The African freely participate in American society. about the issue and what you would like Election for additional ideas. American Odyssey: Think about the ways you are able to, or to see done about it. By writing the letter, A Quest for Full Citizenship, exhibition by are restricted from, freely participating you are exercising an American right, like the Library of Congress.
Home Introduction Themes American Community Growing Up Participation Signs and Programs Closing Dreams Symbols _41 Participation Background The “We Can Do It” Poster—War Production ( ( Coordinating Committee, 1942–1943
Background Information Credits
>> J. Howard Miller produced this poster >> During the U.S. involvement in the flexed arm pointing up toward Artist: specifically for the ecruitmentr war, more than six million women her simple but powerful words. War Production efforts of the Westinghouse Airships entered the workforce for the first Coordinating Committee Company in 1942. It was intended to time. While many others had been >> Though hard to make out, the Medium: poster be posted from February 15 through working in factories and the service button on her collar is likely another Citation: 28 and may have been intended for industry since before World War recruitment image, with a similar The “We Can Do It” the company’s Midwest factories. I, the recruitment efforts in the slogan of encouragement. Poster—War Production Coordinating Committee, 1940s targeted married, middle- 1942–1943 >> This and many posters like it were class women who had traditionally >> This image is often thought Rights Holder: commissioned by the U.S. War been “employed” in the home. of as representing the ideal National Archives and Production Coordinating Committee female worker, Rosie the Riveter, Records Administration, Wash. DC. and were part of a large effort by >> Miller’s female factory worker popularized by a 1942 song and a the federal government between directly appealed to this type Norman Rockwell cover illustration 1942 and 1944 to recruit women of woman, both unused to and from the May 29, 1943, Saturday into the workforce. The women potentially uncomfortable with Evening Post. However, Miller did were needed because many men the prospect of working outside not specifically indicate that the were drafted into military service the home. Her feminine makeup woman in his Westinghouse poster during World War II, and American and painted nails soften her red was meant to be Rosie. Rather, manufacturing companies were bandanna and blue coveralls with following the popularity of the being called on to supply all manner sleeves rolled up, ready for work. song and Rockwell image, the press of equipment for the war effort. The highlighted the stories of many slogan “We Can Do It!” reminds the >> Miller has used bold colors and female factory workers (riveters intended female viewer that joining a tight composition to catch the and otherwise) named Rose from the working world was seen as viewer’s attention. His female across the country, and any images patriotic, as a way of contributing to figure with her direct stare seems working women contributing to the the nation’s success in the conflict. to reach out into our space, her war effort were linked to Rosie.
Home Introduction Themes American Community Growing Up Participation Signs and Programs Closing Dreams Symbols _42 Participation Looking The “We Can Do It” Poster—War Production
Coordinating Committee, 1942–1943 questions
Looking Questions Resources 1. Who might this woman be, who looks might the women she’s appealing to to having a job outside the home, >>Lyrics and music for right at us and flexes her arm muscles see themselves in her? encouraging them to participate in “Rosie the Riveter”. for us? What is the “It” that she says the war effort because it was patriotic. >>Rosie the Riveter: World “We Can Do”? Are we a part of the 3. This poster was made to recruit Would this image persuade you? If War II/Homefront “We” she is addressing? women during World War II to go to not, how would you change the image National Historical Park (Richmond, Calif.). work in factories, to take the places of (but keep the words)? >>National Park Service 2. Her message is directed to other men who had been drafted to fight online exhibit, “Rosie the women. Do you think she’s speaking the war abroad. It was likely meant to Riveter: Women Working to a specific type of woman? How appeal to women who were not used During World War II”. >>Transcript of webcast by Sheridan Harvey, women’s studies specialist, Humanities and Social Science Further Discussion Questions and Activity Ideas Division, Library of Congress.
Although this image was not specifically (or look at Norman Rockwell’s image of of them filling jobs that men had left meant to represent Rosie the Riveter, a Rosie from 1943). Think of a cause for in order to go fight in the war, and popularized image of the hard-working, which you would like to recruit help from specifically helping ot manufacture patriotic woman who helped build your community. How would you appeal airplanes and other war materials. What airplanes during the war, she embodies to your community? Write a song like is going on today in our nation or in many of the same characteristics. A song, “Rosie the Riveter” to help promote your your community that might require written and publicized around the time cause. people to participate in new ways? that this poster was produced, told the Besides working, what other means of story of Rosie the Riveter and her work. More than six million women went to participation can you think of? Read the words of the song and think work for the first time in factories and about how it corresponds to this poster other jobs during World War II, many
Home Introduction Themes American Community Growing Up Participation Signs and Programs Closing Dreams Symbols _43 Participation Background
Selma-to-Montgomery March for Voting Rights in 1965 ( (
Background Information Credits
>> In this photograph, individuals composition is filled with dark participants. This point of view Artist: march from Selma to the state clouds and the great expanse of emphasizes the drama of the James Karales capital of Montgomery, Alabama, an impending storm, a metaphor marchers’ defiance of nature and Medium: to demonstrate for access to for the threat of violence. Karales’s prejudice to pursue their rights. Photographic print Citation: political rights. Photographer photograph documents the third The challenge of the long journey, Selma-to-Montgomery James Karales covered the four- attempt to hold this march, the as indicated in the endless line of March for Voting Rights day march for voting rights along first two having been halted by marchers, also reminds viewers of in 1965, 1965. James its 54-mile journey, illustrating the violence or the threat of violence. the difficulties African Americans had Karales (1930-2002). Photographic print. determination of civil rights workers. to overcome to attain equal rights. Located in the James >> On the third attempt, 25,000 Karales Collection, Rare >> At the front, four figures march in participants gathered at the Alabama >> Karales was born to Greek Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections step, setting a brisk pace for the rest state capitol on March 25, 1965. The immigrants in Canton, Ohio, trained Library, Duke University. of the line, which seems to have no march garnered national attention for as a photojournalist, and in the Photograph © Estate of end. As they traverse a grassy hill, a its cause and helped push President 1960s worked for Look Magazine, James Karales. Rights Holder: Located few wave American flags just above Lyndon Johnson to sign the Voting where this photo was originally in the James Karales their heads—symbols of the freedom Rights Act on August 7, 1965. published. It quickly became an Collection, Rare Book, and equal rights they strive to claim. icon of the civil rights movement. Manuscript, and Special Collections Library, Duke >> Karales places the camera below University. Photograph © >> Yet, despite the group’s bold and at an angle to the action so Estate of James Karales. advance, two-thirds of the that the viewer looks up to the
Home Introduction Themes American Community Growing Up Participation Signs and Programs Closing Dreams Symbols _44 Participation Looking
Selma-to-Montgomery March for Voting Rights in 1965 questions
Looking Questions Resources 1. In one word, how would you participants marched 54 miles from magazine—but it is not totally >>Picturing America (brief describe this image? Share your Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. unbiased. The photographer description of image, word either with the person next Where is the photographer in suggests to us his perspective— teacher resources). to you or with the larger group relation to the scene depicted? literally and figuratively—of >>Steven Kasher, The Civil and explain why you chose the What do you think he is telling us the event, but invites our Rights Movement: A word. about this event? consideration of it as well. Do you Photographic History, feel drawn into this image or kept 1954–68. Foreword by Myrlie Evers-Williams. 2. This photograph captures a 3. The photograph was meant to at a distance? Why? (New York: Abbeville moment during the four-day document the event—it was Press, 1996). march for voting rights in 1965. The eventually published in Look >>Christopher Wren, “Turning Point for the Church.” Look 29 (May 18, 1965): 31. >>Martin Luther King Jr. “I Have a Dream” speech Further Discussion Questions and Activity Ideas (1963); “Letter from Birmingham Jail” (1963). Why do people choose to make a parade. All three images suggest engaged. Is there a place for it? >>1965 Voting Rights Act political statement by marching? that parades and marches are How would your reaction to these >>National Voting Rights How and why is it effective? Is there peaceful, yet we know that’s not three iconic images—all reflecting Museum and Institute, a difference between a protest always the case. In fact, the march major social and political struggles Selma, Alabama. and a parade? Compare Karales’s from Selma to Montgomery was for equality in America—change if >>Nina Simone, photograph to other images in the halted twice due to violence or the aggression were depicted? “Mississippi Goddam,” Engage! set depicting parades—the threat of violence. Think about the 1964. Gay Pride parade and the Suffrage role of aggression in being civically
Home Introduction Themes American Community Growing Up Participation Signs and Programs Closing Dreams Symbols _45 Participation Background Suffrage parade, women march to win their right to ( ( vote in New York City, May 6, 1912
Background Information Credits
>> This photograph depicts women broadsides) of the suffrage peacefully, even chatting Artist: marching in New York City in movement in 1912 often with each other as they walk. Unknown May 1912 for the right to vote—a included nine stars, for the nine Similarly, the brief glimpse of Medium: Photograph campaign known as the suffrage states that had already granted the crowd gathered on the curb Citation: Suffrage parade, movement. The parade was one voting rights to women. alongside the parade route women march to win their right to vote in New was one of many around the shows that a calm demeanor York City, May 6, 1912 country leading up to the final >> The women’s white attire is prevailed. However, there Library of Congress. approval and 1920 adoption of related both to the overall were instances when suffrage Reproduction Number: LC-USZC4-5585 the Nineteenth Amendment to color scheme used by the parades were not received so Rights Holder: Library of the U.S. Constitution. American suffrage movement—purple, civilly—most notably, a parade in Congress. Reproduction women had been organizing white, and gold, with white Washington, D.C., in March 1913. Number: LC-USZC4-5585 and appealing to lawmakers suggesting purity—and to for voting rights since the the iconic, classically dressed >> The inclusion of children in the mid-nineteenth century. female goddess who heralds parade was more than a sign the dawning of a new day with of the civility of the event. It >> The women are all dressed women’s right to vote. This type served as a call to uncommitted in white and carry pennants of figure had been a familiar mothers, as well a reminder that bear the phrase “Votes one in American culture since of one of the main political for Women” and feature a the Revolution, representing positions of the movement: series of stars. It is likely that everything from America itself that, as nurturing mothers and the pennants were gold with to freedom, democracy, justice, homemakers, women were nine stars. Gold had been the liberty, and other civic virtues. inherently “social housekeepers” recognized color of the women’s and needed the vote to fulfill suffrage movementsince the >> The overall scene is restrained. that role in the larger society. post-Civil War years, and the The parade participants, with imagery (in flags, pins, and their children in tow, march
Home Introduction Themes American Community Growing Up Participation Signs and Programs Closing Dreams Symbols _46 Participation Looking Suffrage parade, women march to win their right
to vote in New York City, May 6, 1912 questions
Looking Questions Resources 1. Spend a minute looking at this something, is it as an individual symbolic imagery of the suffrage group of women participating or as part of group? Why? Give movement widely in American >>National Women’s History Museum online in a march for the right to vote. some examples from your life culture. Why do you think the exhibit, “Motherhood, What do experience. photographer chose to capture Social Service, and you notice about them as a this moment for such a purpose? Political Reform: Political group? How do they visually 4. Based on the women’s Culture and Imagery identify themselves as a group? appearance and actions, to whom of American Woman Suffrage”. do you think they are sending 2. Now, focus in on a few of the their message? Is it the crowd >>Library of Congress: Women’s Suffrage individuals. In what ways are they gathered on the curb or someone Primary Source Set for individualized? else? Why? Teachers. >>Women’s Rights National 3. Let’s think about how civic 5. Taking a photograph of this event Historical Park, Seneca participation works. When you and printing it in newspapers or Falls, N.Y. think about participation in other media spread the ideals and
Further Discussion Questions and Activity Ideas
The act of marching in a parade is participation? What cause would you suffrage? Why is suffrage important symbolic of the suffrage movement march for? How would you visually to them as individuals? Why are in the early twentieth century. communicate your beliefs? they choosing to participate in a The earliest suffrage parade was march? Use your research and the in California in 1906. Suffragists Do further research about the evidence in the photograph to write had been inspired by the political suffrage movement using the the dialogue. If time permits, each parades of nineteenth-century resources listed above. Working team should perform its dialogue for presidential campaigns and adopted in small teams, create a dialogue the rest of the group, with time for the practice to serve their social between the two women at the front discussion afterward. and political goals. How does left of this photograph. What might marching work as a form of civic they be saying to each other about
Home Introduction Themes American Community Growing Up Participation Signs and Programs Closing Dreams Symbols _47 Participation Background The Veteran in a New Field ( (
Background Information Credits
>> Painted at the close of the Civil in for any discharged veteran wartime metaphors of corpse- Artist: War, Winslow Homer’s The returning to his civilian life. strewn battlefields as “harvests Winslow Homer Veteran in a New Field shows one of death” and by Lincoln’s Medium: Oil on canvas kind of service to the nation— >> Ever since George Washington’s recent assassination. Haunted Citation: The Veteran in a New Field, 1865. Winslow military—exchanged for example, Americans had by the specter of war, Homer’s Homer (1836–1910). Oil another, the cultivation of food. honored the ancient Roman ideal ostensibly peaceful image on canvas. 24 1/8 x 381/8 of the soldier who voluntarily suggests that the sacrifices inches. (61.3 x 96.8 cm.). Metropolitan Museum of >> Homer portrays the solitary lays down his arms to go back made in military service are Art, 67.187.131. man as if having just cast off to the farm. Here, the veteran psychic as well as physical, Rights Holder: The his uniform to resume the farm harvests a bountiful crop. individual as well as national. Metropolitan Museum of work he abandoned at the start Art, 67.187.131. of the war. The brass buttons on >> By showing this harvester using >> A northerner who began his his discarded coat at the lower a single-bladed scythe rather career as an artist-reporter right identify it as his army than the more usual so-called during the Civil War, Homer uniform; his particular affiliation cradle scythe, Homer also made numerous images of with the Union cause is shown subtly evokes the conventional camp life among the Union by the red cloverleaf, the mark personification of death as the forces. Launching his career as of a New York volunteer corps, “grim reaper.” The association a painter of Civil War scenes, on his canteen nearby. With his was all the more potent at the he focused with nonpartisan back turned to the viewer, the time the painting was made realism on the generic lot featureless man is anonymous, because news of a record harvest of ordinary soldiers and the an “everyman” who might stand was colored both by oft-invoked universal costs of the conflict.
Home Introduction Themes American Community Growing Up Participation Signs and Programs Closing Dreams Symbols _48 Participation Looking The Veteran in a New Field questions
Looking Questions Resources 1. Who is this man cutting wheat 3. The artist has depicted the man >>Picturing America (brief at harvest time? Do we have any turned away from us, giving us description of image, clues? no individual identity; his form teacher resources). almost mirrors the tall wheat >>“Winslow Homer 2. The brass buttons on his coat on blowing in the wind. Why do you (1836–1910)” in Timeline the ground indicate that it is part think the artist does this? of Art History. of a military uniform. In fact, the >>Nicolai Cikovsky Jr., man was a solider in the Civil War 4. What do you think the soldier’s “A Harvest of Death: and has returned to his farm after return to his farm work after the The Veteran in a New Field,” in Marc Simpson the war. Do you know returning war suggests about America’s et al., Winslow Homer: veterans? What’s it like for them to future? Paintings of the Civil War, go back to their old lives? exh cat. (San Francisco: Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, 1988), pp. 83-94. >>Steven Conn, “Narrative Trauma and Civil War History Painting, or Why Are These Pictures so Further Discussion Questions and Activity Ideas Terrible?” History and Theory 41 (Dec., 2 002), pp. 21–22, 35–37, T “participate” by serving their country. here are many Americans today 40–41. who have served in the military and If they will allow it, photograph fought in wars. Find out how you can them and create an exhibition in contact local veterans and interview the library, or even a set of videos or them about their experiences podcasts of the interviews. and what it means to them to
Home Introduction Themes American Community Growing Up Participation Signs and Programs Closing Dreams Symbols _49 Sample Icebreakers and Opening 1 The American flag: three Exercises >>Think of an instance when colors, thirteen horizontal you looked at or saw an 2 image—a symbol, picture, stripes, a small blue rectangle advertisement, poster, whatever—that moved containing fifty five-pointed you in some way—moved you to do something or caused 3 stars. Also a symbol that by you to feel something strongly. Signs and What was the image, and what Symbols law cannot be desecrated. did it move you to do or cause 1. George Washington you to feel? How did it do this, Carver Crossing An image that represents a how did it work on you? the Delaware: Page from >>Take a few minutes and sketch an American country of approximately 300 History out a picture that symbolizes Textbook something that matters to you. 2. Puerto Rican million people. Flag Don’t worry about the quality of 3. I Want You for the picture—consider it a rough U.S. Army The flag and the other images presented in this theme 4. Vietnam sketch, like an outline, but pay Veteran have come to mean a wide range of things to a wide attention to what you want it to Memorial 5. Whirligig, range of people. They are intended to mean say and how you think the picture entitled “Shoot, if some of these things, and they have come will explain it. Once you’re set, “America” you must, pair up with the person next to to mean a number of other things. How do this old gray you, share, and explain. 4 head, But some images instruct us in what to feel and think? When are we able to confer different Images and Discussion spare your The following links contain country’s meanings on these images? How do we the selected image (or flag,” she design symbolic images of our own? image details, if the image said. is unavailable for this guide), –John Greenleaf background information, “Looking Questions,” further discussion The damas questions, activity ideas, and (maids of honor) resources. 5 Signs and Symbols
Home Introduction Themes American Community Growing Up Participation Signs and Programs Closing Dreams Symbols _50 Signs and Symbols Background George Washington Carver Crossing the Delaware: ( ( Page from an American History Textbook
Background Information Credits
>> In subverting the high-minded >> The glaring offensiveness of the to heroic bombast, Colescott Artist: patriotism of Emanuel Leutze’s figures brings into question the presents an equally distorted Robert Colescott famous Washington Crossing fictive nature of Leutze’s “typical” representation of his own Medium: the Delaware (1851), African revolutionaries, a motley bunch African American cultural Oil on canvas American artist Robert Colescott of thirteen men intended to legacy, embodied in racist Citation: challenges our conventional represent the diversity of the symbols of black identity George Washington Carver Crossing the Delaware: “textbook” view of the American founding colonies that united imposed from without. Page from an American past as embodied in fossilized under Washington’s leadership History Textbook, 1975. icons of historical memory. to found a single nation. >> Provocative and discomforting, Robert Colescott (1925– 2009). Oil on canvas. 84 x Colescott’s painting underscores 108 inches (213.4 x 274.3 >> Building on the irony that >> An abolitionist himself, Leutze the subjectivity of the historical cm.). Collection of Robert America’s first prominent African did include one black figure, “record,” the political nature H. Orchard. American scientist, born a slave, an oarsman all but hidden of its messaging, and the Rights Holder: Collection was named after a slave-holding just to Washington’s right, but contest for its ownership. of Robert H. Orchard. son of Virginia’s elite, Colescott Colescott’s parody highlights substitutes George Washington by contrast the dominant Carver for his namesake at the tradition of American historical helm of a boat loaded with interpretation by white males. such racist stereotypes as a cook, a “mammy,” a barefoot >> Where Leutze’s gargantuan fishermen, and a cigarsmoking painting is notorious for minstrel strumming a banjo. sacrificing historical accuracy
Home Introduction Themes American Community Growing Up Participation Signs and Programs Closing Dreams Symbols _51 Signs and Symbols Looking George Washington Carver Crossing the Delaware:
Page from an American History Textbook questions
Looking Questions Resources 1. Look at the Leutze painting, indirect reference to an important Textbook,” suggesting that we >> Robert Colescott Washington Crossing the Delaware, moment from the past—General assume what we read and see in biography. for a few minutes. Now, look at George Washington’s famous our school textbooks is the only >>Sharon F. Patton, African- another version of the scene. crossing of the Delaware River version of history. He replaces American Art (Oxford What similarities and differences in December 1776. The later the symbolic figures of the and New York: Oxford do you notice? painting, by Colescott, is a thirteen American colonies in University Press, 1998), parody of the earlier one, relying Leutze’s image with thirteen racial pp. 236–38. 2. Both of these paintings depict on the viewer’s familiarity with stereotypes of African Americans. a uniformed leader in a small the earlier image. How do you Why do you think he did this? boat packed with people in think Leutze wanted you to feel Why is it important to question rough water, looking ahead to about America’s past? How about the way we interpret and present the opposite shore. Yet one of Colescott? the past? them was painted in 1851 and the other in 1975. In both cases, 3. Colescott’s image is subtitled they are making either direct or “Page from an American History
Further Discussion Questions and Activity Ideas
If you were to create another version does it mean to parody something? of this image today, who would be Think of a well-known image in your in the boat? How would they be community or American culture represented and why? and what it symbolizes—do you agree with that message? If not, What other examples have you seen how would you create a parody of of recognizable symbols of America, the symbol to suggest alternate or something else, parodied? What meanings or points of view?
Home Introduction Themes American Community Growing Up Participation Signs and Programs Closing Dreams Symbols _52 Signs and Symbols Background Puerto Rican Flag ( (
Background Information Credits
>> This image by documentary for his 1995 book, Spanish amid peeling paint, layers of Artist: photographer Joseph Rodriguez Harlem, which reveals “the grime, and boarded-up doors. Joseph Rodriguez is from a series called “Spanish capital of Hispanic America” Medium: Chromogenic Harlem,” begun in the mid-1980s. from the inside, documenting >> The strong sunlight reveals photograph on paper traditional activities such the blight of this building, and Citation: Joseph Rodríguez, >> Spanish Harlem, also referred to as dancing and religious also casts a shadow on the face Puerto Rican Flag, 1986. as El Barrio (“the neighborhood”) festivals and the joys as well of the girl, one of the few sign Chromogenic photograph or East Harlem, is in the as struggles of everyday life. of life in this image, making it on paper, 12 x 18 in. Smithsonian American northeast corner of New York’s Of the neighborhood in the difficult to read her expression. Art Museum z Gift of the borough of Manhattan. It mid-1990s, the publishers artist 1996.81.4. © Joseph has been home to immigrant wrote, “To live in Spanish >> The Puerto Rican flag, painted Rodriguez. Courtesty Gallery Stock. communities for much of its Harlem is to confront some onto the building within an Rights Holder: history, including Germans, of the city’s worst problems: outline of the main island of Smithsonian American Irish, Italians, and Russians. crime, drug abuse, AIDS, the Commonwealth, is clear Art Museum Gift of the Beginning in the 1960s, residents chronic unemployment.” and crisp; the paint is not artist 1996.81.4. © Joseph Rodriguez. Courtesty of Puerto Rican origin began to chipping and the white is still Gallery Stock. dominate the neighborhood’s >> In the photo, Rodriguez bright, not yet covered by the population. Today, the area is captures a view of the poverty dirt of the city. It serves as a largely Latino (not just Puerto and resulting dilapidation reminder of the vibrant presence Rican) and African American. of the neighborhood’s of the neighborhood’s large structures. A young girl with Puerto Rican population. >> Rodriguez’s photograph her head down and hands served as the cover image clasped stands on a stoop
Home Introduction Themes American Community Growing Up Participation Signs and Programs Closing Dreams Symbols _53 Signs and Symbols Looking Puerto Rican Flag questions
Looking Questions Resources 1. Who is the girl in this photograph? 4. The photographer included this > Joseph Rodriguez’s What do you notice about her? on the cover of a book of his website. photos called “Spanish Harlem.” > Smithsonian American 2. Why do you think the The image on the front of a book Art Museum: Artelatino photographer included her in can also be seen as a symbol or website. this street scene? Do you think sign of what we might find inside > Information about she belongs here? What is her the book. What might you expect Spanish Harlem; East connection to the space— to see inside the book with this Harlem History. physically, emotionally? image on the cover? Why do you think the photographer included 3. What do you notice about the the girl and the flag in this image? flag? How does the artist draw What might the cover image of a our attention to it? Do you think it book about your neighborhood belongs here? Why or why not? look like?
Further Discussion Questions and Activity Ideas
Walk around your neighborhood or photos together in book format. community and think about what Write a description for each image things are most symbolic of its and talk about what the element in character. If possible, photograph the photo symbolize to you and to some of these things and put the the larger community.
Home Introduction Themes American Community Growing Up Participation Signs and Programs Closing Dreams Symbols _54 Signs and Symbols Background I Want You for U.S. Army ( (
Background Information Credits
>> Graphic designer and illustrator image was appropriated by the haired, older man regularly Artist: James Montgomery Flagg government for the U.S. Army included his top hat, striped Unknown designed this image originally recruitment campaign with the pants, and overall red, white, Medium: for the July 16, 1916, cover caption so recognized today: “I and blue attire. Flagg’s physical Chromolithograph on of Leslie’s Illustrated Weekly Want You for U.S. Army.” By the features seemed to make him paper Newspaper and it bore the time of the Armistice in 1919, well suited to model for this Citation: James Montgomery title “What Are You Doing for more than four million posters symbol of American identity. Flagg, I Want You Preparedness?” Aware of the had been printed. So popular for U.S. Army, 1917. possibility of U.S. involvement during World War I, the image >> Whether the image was used as Chromolithograph on paper, sheet and image: in what was then called the re-emerged for recruitment magazine cover or independent 39 1/2 x 29 in. (100.4 x European War, the newspaper’s purposes during World War poster, Flagg was aware that he 73.8 cm). Smithsonian editors were hoping to inspire II, and continues to resonate had a mass audience for it, and American Art Museum. Gift of Barry and Melissa patriotic Americans to get in the minds of Americans knew that it needed to catch the Vilkin 1995.84.53. ready to serve their country. as a direct call to action. viewer’s eye and communicate Smithsonian American clearly. Uncle Sam looks straight Art Museum, Washington, DC/Art Resource, NY. >> In designing the cover >> Flagg claims that owing to out at the viewer with a stern illustration, Flagg had likely a tight deadline and a thin gaze, and his pointing finger Rights Holder: Smithsonian American been looking at a British wallet, he used himself as the leaves no doubt about who Art Museum. Gift of recruitment poster from model for the figure of Uncle is the target of his emphatic Barry and Melissa Vilkin 1914, which depicted Lord Sam. The persona of Uncle message, “I WANT YOU.” Flagg 1995.84.53. Smithsonian American Art Museum, Kitchener, the secretary of Sam was not a new one to the adds no extraneous details to Washington, DC/Art war and chief of military American viewer, dating to at the figure of Uncle Sam or the Resource, NY. recruitment, proclaiming, least the nineteenth century background, underscoring the “Your Country Needs You.” and likely originating with a direct message of an image that Troy, N.Y., merchant named was seen literally everywhere. >> Less than a year later, in spring Samuel Wilson, who supplied And he uses bold colors like red 1917 and after the U.S. had beef to the armies during the (in the bow tie) to connect the officially entered what we War of 1812. Illustrations of figure and his exhortation. now call World War I, Flagg’s him as a tall, lanky, bushy-
Home Introduction Themes American Community Growing Up Participation Signs and Programs Closing Dreams Symbols _55 Signs and Symbols Looking I Want You fo U.S. Army questions
Looking Questions Resources 1. The caption on this image states, 3. Other than his red, white, and on real people or elements of “I WANT YOU”; just looking at the blue attire, what else about the our experience. Based on your >>Smithsonian American Art Museum. gesture and facial expression of figure of Uncle Sam in this poster American experience, how would the figure, what does he want symbolizes America? Why would you envision Uncle Sam today? >>Smithsonian American Art Museum Posters from you? What’s your reaction to we trust or listen to his message? Is there someone in your life or American Style him and his message? broader American culture who exhibition website. 4. The artist used himself as the you think embodies the same >>James Montgomery 2. This figure is identified as Uncle model for Uncle Sam in 1916, ideas? Flagg biography. Sam, an iconic American symbol. and the persona of Uncle Sam is >>George Mason What do you associate with Uncle likely based on Samuel Wilson, University’s History News Sam? Who is he? What is his role? a beef merchant who supplied Network Why do you think we call him the armies during the War of “Uncle”? Does he look like your 1812. This reminds us that signs uncle? and symbols can be based
Further Discussion Questions and Activity Ideas
This image was used in military Despite the fact that this image is or community. What is something recruitment efforts during World not being used now for military that you want to promote or direct War I and again during World War recruitment, it’s very familiar to us people to do in your community? II. Today, we are at war again, and because it has been appropriated How would you appropriate either although we may see this image for other causes. The image this image of Uncle Sam or the of Uncle Sam in popular culture, and its “I WANT YOU” command phrase “I want you” to communicate it is not used by the U.S. military convey the powerful message your message? to recruit new soldiers. Why not? that our government, or some What might be an effective image authority, is imploring us to step for military recruitment in America up, to contribute, or even to make today? What slogan would go with a sacrifice for the good of the that image? nation or a particular organization
Home Introduction Themes American Community Growing Up Participation Signs and Programs Closing Dreams Symbols _56 Signs and Symbols Background Vietnam Veterans Memorial ( (
Background Information Credits
>> Chinese American, Ohio-born dips at the center to a depth most basic forms. Criticized by Artist: architect Maya Lin was a Yale of 10 feet, 3 inches below some veterans as a “black gash Maya Lin
undergraduate when she won ground level. As they move of shame” and “nihilistic slab Medium: the design competition for the along the wall, visitors sink of stone,” Lin’s design conveys Black cut-stone masonry Vietnam Veterans Memorial in below grade and then return the absolute finality of loss and wall 1981. Her design was selected to ground level, as if walking death. It does so on the National Citation: from over 1,420 other applicants. into and out of a grave. Mall in Washington, D.C., amid Vietnam Veterans Memorial, 1982. Maya Lin (b. 1959). monuments that commemorate Black cut-stone masonry >> The V-shaped wall is made of >> By including names, rather America’s great leaders and wall. 246 feet 9 inches than faces, of lost veterans, triumphs and museums x 10 feet 1 inch (75 x 3 black granite and inscribed meters). Washington, D.C. with the names of 58,261 Lin quantifies loss. The only that celebrate American Groundbreaking: March soldiers who died during the faces that visitors see are their history and innovation. 26, 1982; dedication: November 13, 1982. Vietnam conflict (1961–75) The own reflections, as they come wall points to the Washington to embody lost soldiers. The Rights Holder: Washington, D.C. Monument on one side and the multitude of names are listed in Groundbreaking: March Lincoln Memorial on the other. chronological, not alphabetical, 26, 1982; dedication: Lin has called it “a wound in the order; visitors often take pencil November 13, 1982. earth that is slowly healing.” to paper to make a rubbing of a loved one’s name. >> The wall is 493 feet, 6 inches long. At the entrance, it is only >> Lin’s sculpture is minimalist— 8 inches high, but it gradually art that is stripped down to its
Home Introduction Themes American Community Growing Up Participation Signs and Programs Closing Dreams Symbols _57 Signs and Symbols Looking Vietnam Veterans Memorial questions
Looking Questions Resources 1. The criteria of the design 2. Prior to Vietnam, V stood for important to remember their > Maya Lin, Boundaries competition stipulated that victory. What does the V shape service to the country? (New York: Simon and the monument was to: (1) be stand for here? Is victory glorified? Schuster, 2006): essays reflective and contemplative in 5. How would you want to be by Maya Lin about character; (2) harmonize with 3. What do we communicate about remembered? her work, especially the its surroundings; (3) contain America through our memorials? Vietnam Gregory Veterans Memorial. the names of those who died in What parts of history should be conflict or were still missing; and remembered and why? > Battcock, ed., Minimal Art: A Critical Anthology (4) make no political statement (Berkeley, CA: University about the war. How did Lin’s 4. Do you know any soldiers? Why of California Press, 1995). design address these criteria? did they become soldiers? Is it > John Bodnar, Remaking America: Public Memory, Commemoration and Patriotism in the Twentieth Century (Princeton, NJ: Princeton Further Discussion Questions and Activity Ideas University
Look at additional images of the and consider how the artist monument (search Google Images envisioned the viewer’s relationship or Flickr). Find photographs that to it. How does the relationship show people interacting with the between either memorial and its memorial wall. What kind of space viewer reflect the relationship of does this monument create? How citizen to fallen veteran? What do visitors move through it? What signs and symbols are used to activities take place there? memorialize lost veterans and honor the dead in the local example and in Compare the Vietnam Veterans Lin’s memorial? Memorial to a local war memorial
Home Introduction Themes American Community Growing Up Participation Signs and Programs Closing Dreams Symbols _58 Signs and Symbols Background Whirligig, entitled “America” ( (
Background Information Credits
>> Whirligigs are wind-powered feet tall and includes two Frank Memkus, who was not Artist: constructions characterized dozen American flags, with the formally trained as an artist but Frank Memkus by the spinning or “whirling” red, white, and blue palette rather worked in a tannery. Such Medium: Painted motion of figures, flags, or continued in the decoration art is often referred to as folk wood and metal. other details made of painted of the entire contraption. art and often expresses popular Citation: Frank Memkus, metal or wood. Whimsical The seaman at the top, interests, ideals, and values of American, 1895-1965, Whirligig, entitled “America”, animals and human figures whose arms rotate with the the American population. c.1938/42, Painted wood and are often depicted, animated wind, stands on an airplane metal, 205.1 x 73.7 x 101.6 further by their moving parts. with multiple propellers— >> Many immigrants coming to cm (80 3/4 x > 29 x 40 in.), Restricted gift of Marshall again, free to spin with the the United States in the early Field, Mr. and Mrs. Robert A. >> Whirligigs come in many sizes encouragement of the wind. twentieth century embraced Kubiceck, Mr. James Raoul and are typically found in their new home—the land of Simmons, Mrs. Esther Sparks, Mrs. Frank L. Sulzberger and gardens or yards, atop poles or >> Memkus, a Lithuanian immigrant the free—and expressed this the Oak Park-River Forest even rooftops. While they can who lived in Tomahawk, patriotism through various signs Associates of the Woman’s serve as weather vanes, their Wisconsin, began building and symbols. For Memkus, the Board of The Art Institute of Chicago, 1980.166, The primary function is one of visual his whirligig in 1938 as a sign American flag and its colors, as Art Institute of Chicago. entertainment rather than utility. of his patriotism for his new well as the image of the airplane Photography © The Art home. It took him four years to with propellers, all moving Institute of Chicago. >> First recorded in Europe in construct the whirligig. Once freely with the wind, suggest Rights Holder: Restricted gift the fifteenth century and completed—when the United the possibilities and promise of Marshall Field, Mr. and Mrs. Robert A. Kubiceck, Mr. seen as children’s toys, States was fully engaged in of living in the United States. James Raoul Simmons, Mrs. whirligigs became popular World War II—he displayed it in Esther Sparks, Mrs. Frank in Revolutionary America as his yard at special times of the L. Sulzberger and the Oak Park-River Forest Associates amusement for all ages. year, such as the Fourth of July. of the Woman’s Board of The Art Institute of Chicago, >> Frank Memkus’s Whirligig, >> Whirligig, entitled “America” is 1980.166 Photography © The Art Institute of Chicago. entitled “America” is over six the only known work of art by
Home Introduction Themes American Community Growing Up Participation Signs and Programs Closing Dreams Symbols _59 Signs and Symbols Looking Whirligig, entitled “America” questions
Looking Questions Resources 1. What do you think this is? Does which often uses recognizable 4. It took Memkus four years to build it have a function? How can you symbols or imagery to reflect the whirligig, completing it during >>>American Art Teacher Manual, Art tell? popular sentiment or tastes within World War II (1939–45), and he Institute of Chicago, a culture. displayed the finished product 2009. Soon available 2. This is a whirligig—a playful on his lawn at certain times of the online but currently contraption that moves with 3. Does it look like other art year, such as the Fourth of July. available only in print the wind—and it was made you have seen? Based on this Why do you think that Memkus, or CD format from the Art Institute’s Educator by a Lithuanian immigrant, definition, what kind of folk as a recent immigrant to the Resource Center Frank Memkus. Though he had art have you seen in your United States, might have chosen >>“Junkyard Poet no formal art training, he still community? Does it reflect, or to demonstrate his patriotism of Whirligigs and wanted to express himself and symbolize, patriotism or some this particular way? How exactly Windmills,” New York his patriotism creatively. This is an other community idea or belief? does his creation reflect a sense of Times article, April 5, example of what’s called folk art, How? patriotism? 2010. >> Fleishchman, Paul. Whirligig. Random House: 19999.
Further Discussion Questions and Activity Ideas
What does the American flag capture a sense of identity within signs and symbols from American symbolize to you? Does your answer that particular group. culture would you use and how change based on where you see the would you use them? Design flag or how it is displayed/used? Are We are again in a time of war. something that visually displays your there flags or symbols ot identify a What ways have you seen people patriotism (or lack of it, if that is the community or group that you are expressing their patriotism? How case). a part of? If not, how might you patriotic are you? Are there ways you develop and display such a symbol? outwardly display this patriotism? Think about how that symbol would If not, how might you do so? What
Home Introduction Themes American Community Growing Up Participation Signs and Programs Closing Dreams Symbols _60 Format template for Engage! programs. Total program time: 90 minutes–2 hours
1 The Program 3 4 Introduction Build your discussion theme by Wrap-Up Image Display Elements you may selecting an image (or images), Close with book talks, PowerPoint, web-based, want to include: evaluation forms, plans for color copies displayed welcome, purpose of working with the next session, and any gallery-style, handouts. project, goals, role as 2 between-session project Opener/icebreaker project website, your library, presentation work information. Use of project idea(s) > Image background own research and/or this format consistently information that of teen participants) or brainstorming of so that participants will Related5 Materials project ideas. know what to expect at > Looking questions >>Other thematic questions Use book displays, book talks, the conclusion of every recommended sites, reading, that you and/or project session. > Additional questions participants draft viewing and listening and activity ideas >> Poems, quotations >>Plan for project or other media activities (from planning session pre-work,
Engage! Programs Locations At Austin At Chinatown At Portage-Cragin Engage! was piloted in summer Public Library. Links to images teens. Many layered questions with At Sulzer 2010 in eight Chicago Public and program models from many background information and asked At Harold Library branches and the of these sites can be found in the teens to create their own questions, Washington, YOUmedia center at Harold navigation on the right. All of the bring in other media, present the YouMedia Washington Public Library; in fall participating libraries planned images to their peers, or view and pages and related webinars to see At Woodson 2010 by Arlington Heights (Ill.) series with the program format react to all the images from a theme how project directors adapted the At Arlington Heights Memorial Library; and in fall 2010 template provided in this guide and in a gallery-style display before program model to fit the needs of At Evanston
and spring 2011 at Evanston (Ill.) adapted it to best work in for their discussion. Check out the pilot site their teen participants. Programs
Home Introduction Themes American Community Growing Up Programs Closing Dreams _61 @ Austin Branch Library Engage! Librarian: JoAnne Grant Programs
Who the Teens Were Engage! session, teens brainstormed of the more successful projects Participating teens were part of a a list of inspirational words and included: summer program through Youth phrases that resulted from each >> Sidewalk chalk drawing, where Guidance that prepares them for meeting’s discussion; those words Participants discussed all the teens had the opportunity to employment and/or college. All of and phrases were then carefully five themes in four meetings. express themselves in a public the teens were part of an at-risk selected for use in the final design The teens participated in two setting by creating artwork with program at Frederick Douglass High of the totem pole by the students an inspirational theme behind it. public art projects, the first School that includes job-readiness, themselves. being the prayer flags and counseling, group therapy, conflict >> Free-form self portraits centered the second the urban totem management, and field trips. This Tangible Opportunities to Engage! around the theme of growing up, pole. Both were displayed program is treated much like a job with Ideas or Materials where teens could explore the in a community garden to itself, with teens attending from 9 to The Austin Branch determined that notion of their own identities and 5. The teens involved in the Engage! the over arching goals of the Engage! purpose within American society. serve as inspiration for other program were chosen for their project were to: >> Creation of prayer flags orf teens. See the Austin branch’s interest in art as recognized by their >> inspire teens to think about the the community garden. These supplemental Engage! reading art teacher at Douglass High School. importance of civic engagement consisted of illustrated banners list (PDF). in their lives through discussion, that the teens created containing Leadership Opportunities reflection, and project-based messages to send out to the The most significant leadership activities; deepen the teens’ community. The banners were opportunity afforded the teens in knowledge and appreciation of strung on a rope and erected in the Austin Branch program focused American art and its relation to the community garden.The final on the teens taking initiative in American history and civic life; and project was the creation of the the collective creative process. The contribute to the development of urban totem pole, which teens teens had control of every aspect informed and discerning voters. designed collectively and erected of the urban totem pole; they in the community garden as a collectively determined the direction Each of the Engage! sessions featured symbol of community unity and of its creation, including its overall a hands-on project that enabled the pride. message, design, and materials used teens to tangibly exercise the ideas for embellishment. During each discussed in each meeting. Some
Home Introduction Themes American Community Growing Up Participation Signs and Programs Closing Dreams Symbols _62 @ Chinatown Branch Library Engage! Librarians: Brandy Morrill and Caleb Nolan Programs
Who the Teens Were humane treatment of animals provided printed images of focusing on the humane Librarian Brandy Morrill contacted within their community. Each the library’s community. Teens treatment of animals. A table teens that had previously attended session the teens were asked also brought in pictures of the was then set up in front of book discussions and other library to do some work on the final neighborhoods and communities the library during a community Participants discussed all programs for the Engage! program. project. They began with a they lived in to share with the function, and the teens were able five themes in four meetings. She also introduced the program brainstorming session, and group. All of the images as well to interact with their community For the final meeting the to their junior volunteer group. the following week moved on as copies of the Engage! images and promote public awareness of teens participated in a public Librarian Caleb Nolan visited the to discussion of their plans. were then used as material for their issue. awareness campaign that local eighth graders at a local Finally, each participant had the the teens’ collages. elementary school in order to opportunity to report back to the highlighted the humane >> Another hands-on activity the encourage participation. The group on their ideas and findings treatment of animals. teens participated in was stamp majority of the students involved for the collective project. making. They were provided were teens who regularly attended foam shapes and symbols and teen programs at the library. Tangible Opportunities to Engage! asked to create a stamp that was with Ideas or Materials an expression of who they are. Leadership Opportunities >> At the beginning of each Engage! >> Brandy moderated and presented session Brandy arranged the >> For the final project, teens the artists for the discussions images used for the day’s theme, worked together to gather while allowing the teens to direct and the participants then used information and materials which images they wanted to their coding stickers in a gallery regarding public awareness of focus on. Teens utilized stickers walk of the pieces. Teens selected humane treatment of animals. of varying colors to participate in the images that resonated most Two teens volunteered to a gallery walk and judge which with them, and then Brandy led contact a local animal shelter images resonated most with them. the teens in a discussion of the and procure information and selected works. materials. Teens also created >> All of the students were very materials of their own by involved in researching their >> Teens participated in a collage designing posters and artwork group project regarding the activity where Brandy had
Home Introduction Themes American Community Growing Up Participation Signs and Programs Closing Dreams Symbols _63 @Librarian: Portage-Cragin JoAnne Grant Engage! Engage!Branch Programs Library Librarian: Nanette Freeman Programs
the “I Can Do It” image of Rosie process was popular with the Each collaborator adds to a of art discussion and activity in the Riveter and gave detailed teens, and Nanette noticed a rise composition in sequence, either the program, were so inspired information regarding the time in attendance numbers as teens by following a rule (for example, that they initiated a project period of the image and the seemed eager to share with one the sequence “adjective noun themselves by asking Nanette if Participants discussed all five changing role of women during another in a safe space while adverb verb adjective noun”) they too could try their hand at themes in six meetings. wartime. The teens went so far making art. or by being allowed to see the turning a doll into a work of art. as to even prepare their own end of what the previous person Who the Teens Were discussion questions for the Tangible Opportunities to Engage! contributed. After members of the library Librarian Nanette Freeman recruited group and helped facilitate with Ideas or Materials The teens were then given the community donated dolls, teens by talking about the program discussion. At every single Engage! session, opportunity to create their own Nanette let the teens decide to various teens who utilize the teens were offered some type of collage images using actual what direction they would take library. She recruited participants >> Teens were given the reflective and hands-on activity. pictures of themselves. The results their own transformations in. based on their enthusiasm and opportunity to create their own Some stand-out projects included: reflected the same theme of dis- Teens worked on their creations likelihood to commit. She continued personal art at each session. One jointedness or collection. Having in their free time and brought her outreach by personally ongoing project was decorating >> A successful session focused on the ability to actually insert their them into sessions to share telephoning interested teens to cigar boxes that could then be the Romare Bearden image The own images into their creations with the group. One girl in the remind them of upcoming Engage! used to showcase the teens’ Dove, a collage piece. Nanette was an especially effective tool for Engage! sessions was so inspired meetings. The result was a group individual style and hold items was aware of the artist’s personal personalizing their creations. that she created a doll a week. of teens who hailed from Chicago that held meaning for them. love of jazz and used this session The girl’s mother claimed that public schools around the city. This project was introduced by to introduce the teens to some >> Another interesting activity she had not recognized any The age group was also varied, the visit of a local artist, who jazz while discussing the image that occurred as a result of the artistic talent or interest in the combining to create a group of teens presented a collection of her and how it related to the style Engage! program was triggered teen prior to the project. Teens from a multitude of backgrounds own cigar boxes and spoke to and tone of the music. Nanette by a piece of promotional utilized a multitude of materials and with a variety of different the teens about the importance shared supplemental images material Nanette had displayed to personalize their creations, experiences. of expressing oneself artistically. from artists also working in in the window of the library. and the dolls were displayed Teens gathered one hour prior the collage medium and teens She was inspired by a project throughout the library for the Leadership Opportunities to the regularly scheduled discussed the disjointedness of by artists from the Art Institute duration of the Engage! program. >> One week’s teens were asked Engage! meeting and listened the two art forms. In order to of Chicago, where members of to present a piece of art and/ to music while decorating their further the teens’ understanding the community donated old or information about the artist. boxes. It was a continued chance of the collage medium, they dolls that were then transformed Student volunteers researched for teens to talk about their participated in a game of Exquisite by the artists into works of art. and presented one of the creations and art itself without Corpse, which is a method by The artist’s doll in the window images to the group of teens adult interjection. The freedom which a collection of words or had been converted into a bug, for discussion. The teens chose inherent in this type of creative images is collectively assembled. and the students, after weeks
Home Introduction Themes American Community Growing Up Participation Signs and Programs Closing Dreams Symbols _64 @ Sulzer Regional Library Engage! Librarian: Amy Formanksi Programs
Who the Teens Were involved in civic engagement community events, and did so at Most of the participants were and were personally thanked by two large neighborhood festivals. summer reading program volunteers the neighborhood institutions, >> At one session, teens were who learned of the Engage! program the Old Town School of Music, taken to meet with a local artist from the children’s librarians during and the Lincoln Square Chamber Participants discussed all five in his workshop. They had the training sessions at the beginning of Commerce for their efforts. themes in three meetings. In opportunity to learn about his of summer. There were also teens an addition to these meetings, stained glass making as well as who participated because they Tangible Opportunities to Engage! teens went on a tour of local the charity the artist supports. art in their neighborhood and were intrigued by displays set up with Ideas or Materials met with a local stained glass in the library and some school-year >> At the beginning of each Engage! >> Finally teens were taken on artist who spoke to them about volunteers who were notified of the session librarians led icebreakers a guided tour of local art in his charity. program directly by librarians. in order to engage the teens with their community and given the the artwork. One activity focused opportunity to experience public Leadership Opportunities on the teens writing about art first-hand and discuss it in the >> Teens chose all of the specific their community and choosing moment. content for their art projects symbols that could be used to and were encouraged to voice represent themselves. their opinions on the art being >> At the final meeting, librarians discussed at each meeting. taped an Engage! image to the >> During service learning projects, teens’ backs and had each guess teens demonstrated leadership which image it was by asking by being responsible for only yes or no questions of the choosing the areas where they other teens. wanted to help during two large >> Teens participated in a several neighborhood events. They different hands-on art projects assisted in the kids’ events tent and utilized a variety of art and conducted surveys during materials. They colored and the Folk and Roots Festival. created Shrinky Dinks, made Teens also helped to monitor collages, and designed mosaics. an inflatable slide for kids at the Lincoln Square Block Party. In >> Teens were also introduced both cases, teens were actively to the idea of volunteering at
Home Introduction Themes American Community Growing Up Participation Signs and Programs Closing Dreams Symbols _65 @ YouMedia, Harold Washington Library Engage! Librarians: Marcus Lumpkin, Taylor Bayless, Erica Neal Programs
Tangible Opportunities to Engage! helpful during the later Engage! YouLit magazine that features with Ideas or Materials sessions. Instead of simply repeating poetry like what was created during Each Engage! session involved a what they’d previously been told to the programs. In addition to the five series of reflection activities and think about art, the teens were able prompted expository conversations embrace their own space and reflect Librarian Marcus Lumpkin was discussion meetings, students that centered on various American on the power behind the art and dedicated to making each program were treated to a visit to the art pieces. The teens were required what it means to them individually. into an individual workshop that Art Institute of Chicago. The to document each session. This could stand alone, but that was visit served as an excellent documentation included capturing Teens really got to set the tempo powerful and could build off of springboard into conversations moments of inspiration, steps in of their programs at YouMedia. A the others. Overall teens got the about art and was an the participant’s creation process Show & Tell program and a remixing message that art has power behind or group experience to be used to project were very successful. The it and can be taken back to their appropriate introduction to encourage reflection amongst the Show & Tell had teens find a work of communities and turned into the Engage! program. The teens. The teens were responsible for art that they love and discuss it with something useful. experience was photographed their documentation of the projects. the group. Some selected images and videoed by students. Some teens recorded footage of the already included in the Engage! During the final set of Engage! The program culminated in a museum visit and others created project and others selected items sessions teens worked on larger art final project of the students’ photo reviews of previous sessions such as the “Exit Through the Gift projects that were influenced by for absent teens. Shop” documentary by the street the images and experiences during choosing. artist Banksy. In the remixing project the Engage! sessions. The projects Prior to the teen group trips to the teens had the opportunity to remake completed during the end of the Art Institute, the librarians were a version of a famous work of art by Engage! were smaller scale and more able to visit the museum and talk putting their own spin on it. Teens concentrated projects that drew directly with the professionals on participated in another program from discussion and experiments strategies for how to describe art that focused on creating poetry that were done during the sessions. and get teens engaged in critical based around a chosen image. The discussion. Marcus found this very YouMedia center publishes an online
Home Introduction Themes American Community Growing Up Participation Signs and Programs Closing Dreams Symbols _66 @ Woodson Regional Library Engage! Librarian: Amber Creger and Shannon Arends Programs
Who the Teens Were Tangible Opportunities to Engage! They were asked to consider how Animoto videos based on their Teens were recruited through the with Ideas or Materials it would feel to be placed in a new “American Dream.” library’s junior volunteer program. At every single Engage session, community and how they would >> Signs and Symbols teens were offered some type of go about to fitting in. Reflective Teens recorded PSAs on July Reflective Writing: Participants Leadership Opportunities reflective and hands-on activity. List Group Activity: Participants did a 28, 2010, and there was a radio were asked to think about The two biggest leadership of offerings for each program: group brainstorming word map broadcast of them on Vocalo symbols and how images can opportunities the teens were given about their community, and Radio. PSAs in MP3 format by >> Growing Up be used to relay information were: included places and themes they Alexis, Josh, Marcellus, and Ryan. Reflective Writing: After looking at without using text. Then they might want featured in the mural >> PSA Project: Teens selected a Making Empanadas and reading were asked to sketch out a symbol project.Hands-on Activity: After In addition to the PSAs and the subject they deemed important a passage from House on Mango that would represent themselves looking at Tar Beach the teens five discussion meetings, Woodson for the community to know Street, teens were asked to take or a group they belong to. were give fabric squares and also created a mural project, about. Then they wrote a short a few minutes to write in their Hands-on Activity: Participants markers to create their own quilt meeting on August 11, 14, and PSA and recorded it. The teens journals about their own family chose a topic they felt passionate block based on their community. 16, with a reception on August 18, were responsible for the content traditions. And if they had to about and wrote a PSA, that was 2010. Woodson’s programming for of their recordings, as well as the portray these traditions in an >> American Dreams then recorded at YouMedia and each of the five themed sessions style and manner of delivery. PSAs art form of any kind, how would Reflective Writing: Participants were played on Vocalo Radio. was just as exemplary as the final were then played on Vocalo. they do so? Hands-On Activity: asked to answer the following >> Participation projects. Migrant Worker was the last image questions in a journal entry: What >> Mural Project: As a group the Hands-on Activity: The group we looked at for this session. The is the American Dream? What are teens brainstormed different participated in a brainstorming teens then built pinhole cameras your dreams for yourself? Reflective themes for the mural and were activity to determine a theme and were given the assignment Activity: A monograph of Shepard then given a week to sketch a for the mural in the children’s to document images of their Fairey’s artwork was explored mural based on the selected department. Participants then childhood. and his early guerilla art was theme. Teens presented their created sketches of potential discussed. Teens were given paper ideas to the collective group and >> Community designs and shared them with and colored pencils and asked to voted to select the one they liked Reflective Writing: Read Not the group. Teens voted on which design a sticker like Fairey that best. The artist of the selected Americans by Mara Testa and design they would like to pursue could be used to promote some design then worked with the asked the teens to think about for their mural. It took three cause or message they wanted other teens on color scheme and and write about how they are addition meetings to complete to make people aware of. Hands- layout. connected to their communities. the mural. on Activity: Participants created
Home Introduction Themes American Community Growing Up Participation Signs and Programs Closing Dreams Symbols _67 @ Arlington Heights Memorial Library Engage! Librarian: Tom Spicer Programs
Who the Teens Were Ladder For Booker T. Washington Those stories were then posted as Most of the participants were by Martin Puryear. She included blog entries on the teen website. generated from outreach that a very interesting background >> Each teen was given disposable librarian Tom Spicer did with five presentation on Puryear, including cameras after the program. Participants discussed all different area schools. a video of him interviewed about Rolling Meadows High School five themes in six meetings. Ladder For Booker T. Washington. photography teacher Amanda Completed projects for each Tangible Opportunities to Engage! The teens utilized balsa and bass Thomas examined six of the theme were displayed in the with Ideas or Materials wood, wood glue, and various photographs in the Engage! library for the general public. >> The teens were taught about the other materials to create a model and Picturing America resources technique of a value drawing. An based on a symbol of something (focusing on photographs from artist, Tricia Fuglestad, guided meaningful in their lives. the Signs and Symbols theme) the participants in the ir projects. >> In a creative writing program, a and also gave tips on how to Using a play on the word “value,” novelist, Charles Dickinson, spoke take effective pictures. Each the teens were then asked to about his short story writing and participating teen had their best collage and use mixed media to then read an original piece he three photos blown up into 8” x 10” put text in the background of their wrote based on County Election, images for display in the library. projects that reflected what they 1892. They had five preselected valued in their lives. images printed off on sturdy stock >> Another artist, Violet Jaffe, created paper that the teens took home a unique program based on and then wrote short stories on.
Home Introduction Themes American Community Growing Up Participation Signs and Programs Closing Dreams Symbols _68 @ Evanston Public Library Engage! Librarian: Christie Chandler-Stahl Programs
youth-serving social service agency in >> Another teen helped with on the questions for the teens’ keep so that they could actively Evanston, the city’s Youth Coordinator, the photography exhibit, the photography assignment. Some engage with ideas every week, and Latino Quest at ETHS. mounting of photographs, and the of the questions were: “Take a not just while they were in the This program was unique in set-up for the display. She is also picture of a place where you love class. They all took many pictures that it was divided into two Leadership Opportunities created the poster for the exhibit. connecting with people”; “Take a during the week also. >> Teens each researched an artist ‘looking back photo,’ such as an parts. In the fall, Christie >> One teen led a discussion on civic > In session four, all of the for the Growing Up theme, then oblique shot—if you loved the facilitated thirteen programs, participation and agreed to be a participants wrote poems about presented on that artist and image beach as a child, you could have with the majority of these liaison with the community service one of their photographs. to the rest of the group. someone take a distance picture initial programs being program at the high school. of the beach with you at the end > In the final session, all of the attended by a core group of >> Teens helped create the list of >> Another teen served as the tech of the shot.” participants wrote poems of their six teens. The second half of questions for the senior citizens assistance for creating instructions photographs that had been the program took place in home visit. > During the Signs and Symbols for uploading videos and helped selected for the exhibit. the spring and included the theme and while looking at the I >> One teen drew a picture of a falcon out with anyone who had any photography programming. Want You for the US Army picture, > During two of the sessions, we that served as the “Flat Stanley” for technology questions. There were three separate we stood in a circle, caught a ball went out to take pictures and we one of the public Engage! sessions exhibits of the photographs, and responded to the prompt: shared tips of good composition, on photography. This teen also Tangible Opportunities to Engage! and the teens will be present “someone telling you, perhaps camera settings, lighting, etc. helped to generate the questions with Ideas or Materials at each “exhibit opening” to sternly, that they want you to do for the first Growing Up project. >> We created a “community” sculpture > Each week the photographer talk about their experience. something right now. Give an in the Loft using objects present reviewed the pictures that the One of the exhibits was at the >> Teens created the designs for the example. while exploring the theme teens had taken throughout the Evanston Mayor’s Summer trash can painting on their own. Youth Safety Summit. Community. > After the Signs and Symbols week. Everyone uploaded their >> At one of the sessions, a teen program, students started work to Picasa so they could >> Three groups of Evanston teens brought all of the refreshments. working on a graphic design to comment on each other’s photos Who the Teens Were painted trash cans for the ninth One of the teens set up and integrate the theme of PeaceAble and be inspired by each other’s Participants for the first half of the ward. They created the designs managed a Facebook group page. Cities Evanston. perspectives. Engage! program were recruited after looking at the images from from the senior studies group from >> One of the participants organized the Community theme, then > In response to the Gay Pride > A Tribune staff photographer Evanston Township High School an impromptu gathering on painted them using spray and photo, participants wrote came to present pictures and (ETHS). Christie Chandler-Stahl also a Saturday that we were not other paint. narratives from the perspective of movies to the group of her recruited students she knew to the scheduled to meet (due to spring a young man in the parade/ experiences working with >> In the first Growing Up program, program, and had some participants break). The teens got together and photo. teenagers from Altgeld Gardens students shared photographs they from outreach she conducted through took pictures all around Evanston, and from visiting young adults in took the week before. Another > Every teen participant in the Youth Organization Umbrella, a then everyone met for pizza. a prison. student worked with Christie program received a camera to
Home Introduction Themes American Community Growing Up Participation Signs and Programs Closing Dreams Symbols _69 For more information about Engage! Teens, Art and Civic participation, visit www.ala.org/programming/engage- picturing-america-through-civic-engagement.
Engage! Closing
Home Introduction Themes American Community Growing Up Participation Signs and Programs Dreams Symbols _70