Western Michigan University ScholarWorks at WMU Dissertations Graduate College 6-2004 “Imagined Communities” in Showcases: The Nationality Rooms Program at The University of Pittsburgh (1926-1945) Lucia Curta Western Michigan University Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/dissertations Part of the United States History Commons Recommended Citation Curta, Lucia, "“Imagined Communities” in Showcases: The Nationality Rooms Program at The University of Pittsburgh (1926-1945)" (2004). Dissertations. 1089. https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/dissertations/1089 This Dissertation-Open Access is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate College at ScholarWorks at WMU. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks at WMU. For more information, please contact [email protected]. “IMAGINED COMMUNITIES” IN SHOWCASES: THE NATIONALITY ROOMS PROGRAM AT THE UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH (1926-1945) by Lucia Curta A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of The Graduate College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of History Western Michigan University Kalamazoo, Michigan June 2004 “IMAGINED COMMUNITIES” IN SHOWCASES: THE NATIONALITY ROOMS PROGRAM AT THE UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH (1926-1945) Lucia Curta, Ph.D. Western Michigan University, 2004 From the inception of the program in 1926, the Nationality Rooms at the University of Pittsburgh were viewed as apolitical in their iconography. Their purpose was primarily didactic. Designed as classrooms meant for lectures and seminars, they were however ad-hoc museums for the display of symbols of national identity. In many ways, they constitute an excellent illustration in terms of the decorative arts of Benedict Anderson’s concept of “imagined communities.” The identity referent of the symbolism attached to the decorative arrangements of these rooms was not that of the ethnic communities in Pittsburgh, for whom the rooms were supposedly designed to serve as repositories of national traditions. The examination of five of the six earliest classrooms considered in this dissertation (the Romanian, Hungarian, Yugoslav, Czechoslovak, and Polish Classrooms) reveals that governments overseas saw the Nationality Rooms program as an opportunity to showcase their version of national identity. However, through the sustained efforts of Ruth Crawford Mitchell (1890-1984), who initiated the program, the original designs proposed by architects and artists overseas were adapted to the context of the Cathedral of Learning, with further changes implemented in some cases by committees set up by ethnic communities. Soon after their inauguration, some rooms rapidly turned into national shrines, as the “imagined communities” they represented were confronted with occupation and mayhem brought by World War II. Others became loci for redefinition of the identities of ethnic communities in Pittsburgh and America, especially in cases when the countries represented in the classrooms were at war with the United States. Hence the design of the Nationality Classrooms is inextricably linked to the idea of “imagined communities” as museum showcases. UMI Number: 3163213 ________________________________________________________ UMI Microform 3163213 Copyright 2005 by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ____________________________________________________________ ProQuest Information and Learning Company 300 North Zeeb Road PO Box 1346 Ann Arbor, MI 48106-1346 Copyright by Lucia Curta 2004 To my husband, Florin, and my daughter, Ana Andreea ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The debts incurred in the process of researching and writing this dissertation are numerous. In what follows I can only acknowledge a few specific and particularly important contributions. The members of my dissertation committee, Dr. John O. Norman, Dr. Kristin Szylvian, Dr. Barbara Brotherton, and Dr. Maria Todorova, have been especially generous with advice and support. Without their guidance, this dissertation would have probably never been completed. Thanks for financial support are due to the Department of History at Western Michigan University, especially to Dr. Marion Gray; and to the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, for awarding me a Scholars-in Residence Program grant in 2001/2002 for research in the Pennsylvania State Archives. I am particularly grateful to Linda Shopes and the staff at the Pennsylvania State Archives. Special thanks are also due to the director of the Nationality Rooms Program at the University of Pittsburgh, E. Maxine Bruhns, for encouragement and permission to use photographs from her lavishly illustrated book on the Nationality Rooms; to Sarah Sherrill, for comments and corrections of an earlier version of one this dissertation’s chapters; to Scott Robinson, who made possible my first visit to Pittsburgh. Finally, I must thank my husband, Florin, for helping me see this dissertation to completion, and my daughter Ana, for her patience and resilience. Lucia Curta ii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ...................................................................................... ii LIST OF FIGURES ................................................................................................ v CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................... 1 II. NATIONS, “IMAGINED COMMUNITIES” AND MUSEUMS: PROBLEMS OF APPROACH ................................................................... 9 III. PITTSBURGH AND THE PITTSBURGH COMMUNITIES................... 38 IV. THE CATHEDRAL OF LEARNING AND THE NATIONALITY ROOMS PROGRAM.................................................................................. 71 The University..................................................................................... 72 The Cathedral of Learning .................................................................. 76 The Nationality Rooms Program......................................................... 87 The True Founder: Ruth Crawford Mitchell ....................................... 95 V. ROOMS OF RELIGIOUS INSPIRATION: THE RUSSIAN AND ROMANIAN CLASSROOMS................................................................... 103 VI. ROOMS OF FOLK INSPIRATION: THE HUNGARIAN, YUGOSLAV, AND CZECHOSLOVAK CLASSROOMS ....................... 141 Hungarians and the Hungarian Classroom.......................................... 141 Croats, Serbs, and Slovenes in the Yugoslav Classroom.................... 165 Czechs and Slovaks in the Czechoslovak Classroom ......................... 191 VII. A ROOM OF ROYAL INSPIRATION? THE POLISH CLASSROOM ............................................................................................ 211 VIII. CONCLUSION........................................................................................... 236 iii Table of Contents—continued APPENDIX A ........................................................................................................ 249 APPENDIX B ......................................................................................................... 285 BIBLIOGRAPHY................................................................................................... 314 iv LIST OF FIGURES 1. The Cathedral of Learning at the University of Pittsburgh. .......................... 82 2. The Cathedral of Learning, Commons Room................................................ 85 3. Cathedral of Learning. First-floor plan with Commons Room and surrounding classrooms ................................................................................. 86 4. Russian Classroom. View toward the vyshivka, with krasnyi ugol’ icon...... 105 5. Russian Classroom. Inscription on the wooden frame of the vyshivka ......... 119 6. Romanian Classroom. View of mosaic on the rear wall................................ 127 7. Romanian Classroom View toward the entrance........................................... 129 8. Hungarian Classroom. View toward the blackboard wall ............................. 149 9. Yugoslav Classroom. View toward the entrance........................................... 170 10. Yugoslav Classroom. Vojta Braniš, Post-War Motherhood.......................... 185 11. Czechoslovak Classroom. View toward the window bay.............................. 194 12. Polish Classroom. View toward the rear wall................................................ 215 v CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION “Once I had an idea, I thought to myself: If we were to sing some of our songs and explain what they were about—would it surprise them to learn that we sang about such things and had such feelings? If we told them how we lived in the old country, how we worked the land, the crops we grew, the little money we saw from one year’s end to another, our holidays and festivals—would they realize that even though we spoke different languages we were still men like themselves, with the same troubles, the same hopes and dreams?” (Thomas Bell, Out of This Furnace, 1941) In Pittsburgh, perhaps more than anywhere else in America, the word “immigrant” for a long time conjured up a picture of steel-mill workers covered in sweat and dirt, inhuman working conditions, and ethnic neighborhoods. Much like Mike Dobrejcak, one of the main characters in Thomas Bell’s novel Out of This Furnace, those born to the first immigrants arriving