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
6.
7.
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
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