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Postage Stamps and Historical Memory.pptx
- 1. Richard Welty 2021-09-28 Postage Stamps and Historical Memory (History may not be precisely what you think it is)
- 2. Interactive Presentation • Pretend you are in a discussion group back in school • That is, if you remember school • I will pose questions from time to time
- 3. History vs Historical Memory • conceptually, been around a long time • Literature: William Faulkner, Absalom, Absalom! • Film: Kurosawa, Rashomon • recollections often at variance with facts • societal “memory” can be stronger than actual history
- 4. Historical Memory becomes a major field • David W. Blight, Race & Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory • 2001 • inspired a more formalized study of historical memory • examines the aftermath of the Civil War and how different groups in the US chose to remember it
- 5. History and Stamps • What is a commemorative really? • Something that someone or some group selects as worthy of commemoration • Historical memory or Real history? • Society or some group from society thinks this thing is important • The stamp by its nature imposes an interpretation on whatever is being commemorated
- 8. From the Postal History Museum • The Smithsonian one, that is “On October 14-15, 1948, Native Americans of the Five Civilized Tribes of Oklahoma - Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Muscogee and Seminole - would gather in Muskogee, Oklahoma to commemorate the centennial of their forced move [the Trail of Tears] by the United States government from their tribal lands on the East Coast to Indian Territory [later Oklahoma].”
- 9. From the Postal History Museum “But by April 23, 1948, the stamp issuance was put in jeopardy by the protests of "some Indians" who were asking Pres. Truman to veto the bill because of misunderstandings concerning the Centennial. Mr. DeBajligethy wrote William Zimmerman, Jr., Acting Commissioner of the Office of Indian Affairs, begging him to intercede with the President. The Centennial and stamp were not meant to celebrate the tragic relocation of the Native Americans but to honor "their remarkable progress and achievements.””
- 10. Pivot to Civil War & Aftermath • 1866 • First Lincoln stamp • Aftermath of war and assassination
- 11. What’s Happening at this time • per Joan Waugh, Grant is most popular man in the US from 1866 until his death • certain “unreconstructed” confederates (notably Jubal Early) formulate and promote “The Myth of the Lost Cause” • Federal government and popular sentiment in the North are largely anti-Confederate • no confederate burials in National Cemeteries • pensions for Confederate veterans are from State governments
- 13. small Bank Notes • 1890 • Grant & Sherman
- 14. 1903 - Farragut joins the party • Second Bureau issue • Still no Confederates
- 15. 1922 - Fourth Bureau issue • an Indian on a stamp!? • single portrait representing “all Indians” from North America
- 16. 1922 - Fourth Bureau issue • Hiding in plain sight • Wilson tends to be remembered for internationalist issues (League of Nations) • Blatantly racist administration
- 17. 1936 - Army & Navy issue • Confederates finally appear on stamps • Stratford Hall • “Lee’s Ancestral Home”
- 18. 1954 - Liberty Issue • Lee finally gets his own stamp • Run up to sesquicentennial • reconciliation narratives are generally dominant
- 19. 1970 - Stone Mountain Memorial issue • Jefferson Davis enters the picture • Stone Mountain itself is a large but otherwise uninteresting geological feature • Nothing happened there before 1915
- 20. 1970 - Stone Mountain Memorial issue • Park opened 100 years to the day after Lincoln’s assassination • "the sacred site to members of the second and third national klans.”
- 21. 1970 - Stone Mountain Memorial issue • 1914 - proposal for Confederate memorial first appears • 1915 - Cross burning on summit inaugurated the second national clan
- 22. 1970 - Stone Mountain Memorial issue • Memorial was pushed by the United Daughters of the Confederacy • Many KKK members on the board • Gutzon Borglum, a klan member, selected to design and sculpt
Editor's Notes
- Questions were these 5 tribes originally from Oklahoma? if not, where were they from and how did they end up in Oklahoma? what is this the centennial of exactly? why does the stamp refer to them as “civilized”?
- Does the Trail of Tears identification tell us anything? forced relocation ended ca. 1842, 1848 is 6 years later
- “Some Indians” is dismissive language. who were “Some Indians” and how many is “Some”? what were the complaints? need to see what kind of archives are in the Postal History Museum
- U S Grant by Joan Waugh - excellent work on Grant and how he was and is remembered.
- Grant and his Generals
- notable for what’s missing reconstruction is over white southerners have taken control over their state governments again Jim Crow is starting to spin up radical republicans have burned out, republican pivot towards big business occurring with end of reconstruction, pivot to reconciliation narratives
- as a historian, Wilson was firmly devoted to lost cause narratives came to prominence during the rise of Jim Crow had Birth of a Nation screened in the White House
- Lee did not live in his ancestral home very long Family fell into reduced circumstances, his father fled the country and Lee’s mother was reduced to charity from wealthier relatives Lee went to West Point in part because it was free
- series of stamps issued over 5 years of sesquicentennial
- Borglum proposed a ring of 65 mounted sculptures surrounding the mountain, prominently featuring Nathan Bedford Forrest. he would have a falling out with the board, and have to leave the state to avoid legal entanglements. he would eventually sculpt Mt. Rushmore