Honoring Martin Luther King in Stone: The John Wilson Sculpture in the Capitol Rotunda

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busts, Capitol Art, Capitol artists, John Wilson, Martin Luther King Jr., MLK bust, MLK Day, sculpture, U.S. Capitol artwor

by Ronald M. Johnson

On January 16, 1986, Coretta Scott King unveiled a memorial bust of her husband in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda. The unveiling, a moving event unto itself, helped inaugurate the larger observance of the first federal holiday honoring his life. Resting on a black marble base, the bronze sculpture reflected the strength that Martin Luther King, Jr. embodied throughout his short life. The day marked a major step forward in advancing the legacy of a man who Congress and President Ronald Reagan had honored just three years earlier with legislation establishing a national holiday in his honor.

Courtesy Architect of the Capitol

The King sculpture immediately became an important part of the large grouping of federal statuary that is on display in the Rotunda, a room with the feel of sacred setting for those who visit. In this space, art and politics merge. There are statues of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Dwight David Eisenhower, Ulysses S. Grant, Thomas Jefferson, and Alexander Hamilton, among others, as well as the Portrait Monument to Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Susan B. Anthony. The lives represented by this statuary remind all Americans of the nation’s long and illustrious history.

At the same time, each of these works of art had brought recognition to the artists who created them. The artistry of Antoine Houdon, Vinnie Ream, Jim Brothers, Franklin Simmons, Pierre-Jean David d’Angers, Horatio Stone, and Adelaide Johnson, among many others, reflect a wide and diverse array of sculpture stretching back to the early nineteenth century. In this space, at the very center of the U.S. Capitol, artists sought to portray in stone individuals who had played critical roles in the shaping of American society.

The King memorial bust added a new artist to this group. Born in Roxbury, Massachusetts, in 1922, African-American sculptor John Wilson brought a unique perspective to his work. Initially trained at Tufts University and then an art student in both Paris and Mexico City, he had been a professor at Boston University since 1964. His work could be found in major museums and galleries throughout the nation, such as the DeCordova Museum and the Museum of Modern Art. He pursued his art with a strong sense of purpose. “Essentially, he felt that his main objective as an artist was to deliver a message to people about black dignity, about racial justice, about poor people trying to get a better deal in life,” his wife Julie Kowitch noted.

In early 1983, John Wilson joined the competition with other sculptors in response to House Concurrent Resolution 153, which sought to memorialize the famous civil rights activist. In 1985, the selection committee, including Coretta Scott King, chose John Wilson’s submission and awarded him a commission to cast his winning model for the memorial bust in bronze.

Over the next year, Wilson steadily worked on this task. His son Roy remembered that he “moved with tremendous energy. Each stroke seemed decisive.” Finally, by year’s end, the bust was completed. Then in early 1986, before the unveiling, he covered his work with an old sleeping bag, placed it in the back of his car, and headed to the Capitol Rotunda.

This 1997 Boston Globe photo by Barry Chin shows John Wilson with one of his sculptures.

Up to this point, he had never visited the U.S. Capitol. “Somehow it seemed like the epitome of the seat of power, and it alienated me,” he later recalled. “I never felt part of it. But when I delivered the sculpture, that changed. I felt,

‘A piece of me is in that building.'” The King memorial bust continues to both convey the greatness of King and the creative effort of the sculptor, which he hoped would “stimulate people to learn more about King, to perpetuate his struggle.” At the bust’s unveiling, Sen. Charles “Mac” Mathias, Jr. noted that the sculpture assured that “Martin Luther King Jr. takes his rightful place among the heroes of this nation.” (New York Times, Jan. 17, 1986)

When John Wilson died in January 2015, almost thirty years had passed since the bust took its place in the Rotunda. In a review of his life, Boston Globe writer Bryan Marquard wrote about Wilson and the King bust. He noted that like “much of his most important work, the bust brings viewers to the intersection of art and politics, of pure creativity and the desire to examine social injustice.” These words help us understand that in creating the memorial bust, John Wilson invites the viewer to see Martin Luther King as both a man of protest and a great American patriot.

Note on Sources: The Architect of the Capitol website provides ample information on the Martin Luther King Memorial Bust. Regarding John Wilson’s remarkable life, see Bryan Marquard’s summary of his life and work in the Boston Globe (January 26, 2015). All unattributed quotations used in this blog can be found in the Marquard obituary. Robin Toner authored the New York Times article, “Best of Dr. King Joins Others of Nation’s Heroes” for the Jan. 17, 1986 edition.

 

 

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Montgomery Meigs’ Vision of Arlington Cemetery

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Arlington National Cemetery, Congressional Cemetery, military burial grounds, Montgomery Meigs, national cemeteries, Ron Johnson

–by  Ronald M. Johnson

Among the individuals who played prominent roles in the building of the United States Capitol was Montgomery Meigs (1816-1889) who, as a Captain in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, served as the financial and engineering supervisor of the Capitol extension between 1853 and 1859. That effort, and others on his part before the Civil War, would lead President Lincoln to appoint him as the Quartermaster-General of the Army after hostilities broke out. He served long and honorably in that critically important assignment. One of his lasting accomplishments was the founding, in 1864, of the Arlington National Cemetery. During the last year of the conflict, and in the initial years after it ended, Arlington became a major burial site for thousands of the fallen dead, many of them unidentified remains.

As the numbers increased, and as the years passed, Meigs sought to elevate the site to a special status. Essentially, he proposed to broaden Arlington National Cemetery into a “national public burial ground.” In his 1879 Annual Report to the Secretary of War, he urged that “the attention of Congress be invited to the propriety of making this [site] the National Public Cemetery, and authorizing the interment therein of any public officer, Senator or Member of Congress dying in office in the vicinity or elsewhere . . .” Over the next two years, he more forcefully declared that Arlington should “be declared by law a national public cemetery” and that it “be used for the burial of officers of the United States, legislative, judicial, civil, and military . . .” He envisioned that Arlington become a national shrine for all who had served in the national government.

Gen. Montgomery Meigs during the Civil War (Library of Congress)

Where did this idea of a national “public” cemetery originate? The story is complex and fascinating, and very much involves Congress and the federal government. The origins can be traced, in part, to the emergence of Congressional Cemetery after 1812, when the Congress sought to create an antebellum version of a national memorial site at a privately-owned burial ground near the Capitol. Beginning that year and continuing into the 1850s, Members of Congress, all branches of the military, Vice Presidents, and even three United States Presidents received either permanent or temporary burial at the cemetery, which became known as Congressional. Impressive private and public monuments were placed over these graves, including the congressional cenotaphs designed by Benjamin Latrobe that marked members of the House and Senate who died while serving in office.

With regard to military burials, Congressional served as the first national military burial ground, including two Generals of the Army, and officers and enlisted from all American conflicts, particularly the War of 1812 and the Mexican War in 1846-48. In the latter, three officers—Colonel Truman Cross, Colonel William Montrose Graham, and Captain Charles Hanson—were honored with full military funerals and public processions to Congressional Cemetery accompanied by President James Polk, members of his cabinet, and Members of Congress. Indeed, the military processions to Congressional established its status as being in part the nation’s first national military cemetery.

Montgomery Meigs was intimately familiar with Congressional Cemetery. Many members of his family rested there, including his prominent father-in-law, Commodore John Rodgers; his mother-in-law, Minerva Rodgers; his brother-in-law Frederick Rodgers; and his uncle John Forsyth, who served as Secretary of State during 1834-41. In addition, numerous professional associates and friends had been interred at Congressional. Standing at the graves of John and Minerva Rodgers, he was just a short distance from the other major military burials there as well as the graves of Vice Presidents George Clinton and Elbridge Gerry. In Congressional Cemetery, Meigs found a compelling model for his later vision of a national public cemetery.

Thus, as he reached the end of his term of Quartermaster-General, Meigs sought a course for Arlington that would transform it into a national memorial site, one that would be inclusive of both military and civil leaders who had served the nation. And in so doing, he turned to what Congress had attempted in the development of Congressional Cemetery during the antebellum period. He was aware, of course, that Congressional was, in fact, a privately-owned cemetery. Thus, he sought to utilize a government-owned site to establish a national public cemetery, and Arlington’s location and role as a national military cemetery served that purpose very well.

In the end, however, Montgomery Meigs’ vision for Arlington did not materialize. The cemetery would remain a site under control of the U.S. Army, and limited to those who had served in the military. Popular sentiment dictated that “national” meant “military,” largely as a result of the Civil War. Any return to the antebellum attempt at creating a “national public cemetery” no longer had support in either Congress or the military ranks, particularly within the Army. Today, Congressional—located only a mile and half from Congress and maintained by the Association for the Preservation of Historic Congressional Cemetery—still contains the antebellum monuments from its period as America’s first national cemetery. Meanwhile, Arlington serves as the nation’s memorial and emotional center as those who die on the battlefield are laid to rest by their fallen comrades. Few today know of the historic connection between the two sites or that Meigs once sought to shape Arlington into a “public” national cemetery based on the Congressional Cemetery model.

Note on Sources:  The documentation for this blog can be accessed in Abby and Ronald Johnson, In the Shadow of the United States Capitol:  Congressional Cemetery and the Memory of the Nation (Washington, DC: New Academia Publishing, 2012), see chapters 3 and 4, pp.  96-104 and 144-49.

The Temporary Insanity of Rep. Daniel Sickles

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Congress, Daniel Sickles, Edward Stanton, Lafayette Park, Philip Barton Key, temporary insanity defense, Teresa Sickles

–by Clare Whitton, USCHS intern

Philip Barton Key (Harper’s Weekly, March 1859, Library of Congress)

On a chilly winter evening, U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, Philip Barton Key II was taking his usual evening walk around Lafayette Park, just behind the White House. Apparently, this was Key’s custom for most evenings, most likely because of the signal he was trying to send to the upper window of the apartment building across the way. Specifically, it was the residence of the young and beautiful Teresa Sickles and her husband Senator Daniel Sickles. Sickles and Key ran in the same social circle, thanks to their jobs and families’ social prominence. At the time, Philip was a well known lawyer and a widower, with four fairly young children under his care. More importantly, he had a prominent family legacy starting with his father, Francis Scott Key, who wrote “The Star-Spangled Banner,” which became the nation’s national anthem. He was the nephew of Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger Taney, who in 1857 defended the decision of the Dred Scott v. Sanford case, which asserted that slaves, even if freed, could never be made citizens. On top of all this, Key was known to be one of the best-looking men in town, and Key never denied the attention. Unfortunately for Key, his good looks and important position in society could not save him from falling in love with a married woman. The Sickles couple and Key were both invited to James Buchanan’s 1857 Inaugural Ball, presumably where the pair met. Recognizing the danger they were putting themselves in, Philip would signal Teresa by waving his handkerchief in the park; she would in turn place her handkerchief in the window; and the two would meet in their secret spot.

Teresa Sickles (Harper’s Weekly, March 1859, Library of Congress)

However, on February 27, 1859, something was off. That night, Daniel Sickles had received a “poisoned pen”, or a letter detailing Philip and Teresa’s affair. Senator Sickles was enraged to hear about his wife’s affair. In fact, he was so angry that he forced Teresa to give a written confession to the affair which he would use to get a divorce. Now, his anger would have been completely warranted, if he was not notorious for being unfaithful. For example, he once brought a prostitute with him on his visit to London to meet the Queen of England. To make it worse, Teresa was pregnant with their daughter at the time. Nonetheless, Sickles was still fuming at the “embarrassment” and sent his wife packing to her father’s home in New York.

Two nights later, Philip Key took his walk, gazing up at the windows of his lover’s apartment. Teresa’s handkerchief was there, in its usual place. Key made his way back towards the Gentleman’s Club, on the other side of the park. Little did he know, Sickles himself had placed the handkerchief in the window, catching Philip at his own game. (It seems Sickles had a flare for the dramatic, since he could have simply confronted Philip at the Capitol or the Gentlemen’s Club). Sickles followed Key towards the Gentleman’s Club, pulled a revolver from his pocket and shouted: “Key, you scoundrel, you have dishonored my home; you must die!” He fired three shots, one of which scuffed Key’s hand; the second hit his inner thigh, sending him to the ground. After an attempt to stop Sickles by throwing his opera glasses at him, Key tried to drag himself behind some bushes. Sickles followed him and fired his third bullet, straight into Philip’s chest. A crowd quickly formed, since a famous senator was shooting a famous attorney right behind the White House. In the chaos, Sickles slipped the gun back into his pocket and simply walked away. Philip was brought into the clubhouse he had just left. His death followed soon after.

Sen. Daniel Sickles in prison (Harper’s Weekly, March 1859, Library of Congress)

This was no fairy tale romance, although it sounds like something straight out of Hollywood. Teresa would die of tuberculosis eight years later, at her father’s home. Daniel Sickles, ironically, lived a long and somewhat happy life. Edward Stanton, Abraham Lincoln’s future Secretary of War, defended the murderer and had him acquitted, even though he was found guilty for murder. How? Temporary insanity. Stanton would become the very first lawyer to use temporary insanity as a real defense, and, it worked.

The Civil War was only a few years away, and Sickles rose to the position of Union Commander. He was not particularly good at this either, however. He was sent to Gettysburg in July of 1863, where he not only sent hundreds of his own troops to die when he gave up the high ground but also had his leg blown off by a canon. Being as dramatic as he was, Sickles graciously sent his amputated leg and the cannon ball to the Army Medical Museum, where it remains to this day. Sickles was awarded the Medal of Honor for his “bravery,” served as a diplomat in Mexico and Spain, and was reelected to Congress for one term in 1893. On the bright side, he passed a bill through the legislature that provided for the preservation and commemoration of Gettysburg, allowing thousands of people to visit the battlegrounds today. He died in 1914, at the age of 94.

Works Consulted
“The Actors in the Homicide” The Chicago Tribune. March 5, 1859. Accessed June 20, 2016.

“Daniel Sickles’s Temporary Insanity.” Murder by Gaslight. Last Modified November 10, 2009. Accessed June 20, 2016.

“Representative Daniel Sickles of New York.” House Office of the Historian. Accessed October 20, 2016.

Sickles, Daniel. Biographical Directory of the United States Congress. Accessed October 20, 2016.

“Tragedy at Washington.” Farmer’s Cabinet. March 2, 1859: 2. Accessed June 20, 2016.

George Washington’s First Principles of Executive Leadership

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First Congress, George Washington, Kathleen Bartoloni-Tuazon, presidency, title controversy 1789

Editor’s note:
On Wednesday, August 3, our summer lecture series continues with Dr. Kathleen Bartoloni-Tuazon’s book talk about her recent publication For Fear of An Elective King: George Washington and the Presidential Title Controversy of 1789. Here, she offers a preview of her work. A limited number of books will be available for purchase at the talk. Pre-registration is requested.

–by Kathleen Bartoloni-Tuazon

I should like to be informed … of the public opinion of … myself—not so much of what may be thought the commendable parts, if any, of my conduct, as of those which are conceived to blemishes. … If they are really such, the knowledge of them … will go more than half way towards effecting a reform.

So wrote George Washington to his son-in-law and confidant David Stuart in July of 1789, in the early months of his presidency. He asked Stuart to be his confidential informant about his conduct as president and to write to him “without any reserve.” Washington realized the difficult and controversial position he had inherited with the office of the presidency. His continued popularity derived from more than his war hero status—it also stemmed from his ability to apprehend and reflect the pulse of popular opinion. Importantly, Washington comprehended the importance of the will of the people under the Constitution. He told Stuart that he wanted to know about local attitudes toward his leadership and correct any misunderstandings since “at a distance from the theatre of action, truth is not always related without embellishments.” He understood that calming public fears about the presidency—by mirroring public opinion when he agreed with it or considering a modification of his positions if the people demanded it—was an integral part of his leadership and even pledged to Stuart that he would reevaluate his stances and “effect a reform” if the public deemed his actions misguided. Washington recognized that “the eyes of America—perhaps of the world—are turned to this Government.” Perhaps no one was watched more closely than Washington.

Detail of George Washington, Arriving in New York City, April 30, 1789 (sic) by Arsene Hippolyte Rivey (New-York Historical Society)

Yet, in the spring of 1789, within weeks of the beginning of the first Congress under the new Constitution and even before Washington had been inaugurated, the House and the Senate became embroiled in their first dispute—how to address the president. The Senate majority favored a lofty title, while the House stood unanimously and adamantly opposed to anything more than the simple and unadorned “President.” The debate spilled far beyond the chamber doors and raged all summer long—Congress, the press, and individuals throughout the country debated more than thirty titles, most with royal overtones. Indeed, the eventual resolution in favor of the modest title of “President,” without an exalted introduction like some form of “Highness” or “Majesty,” was far from certain in a world that remained full of monarchs.

In 1789, much of America recognized the need for presidential authority and energetic leadership despite the ever-present alarm over the potentially abusive power or weak corruptibility of the office. Nothing signaled these apprehensions over the presidency more than the unanimous election of universally trusted George Washington as the new nation’s first president. To his credit, Washington understood this. Although his celebrity encouraged an elite court-like atmosphere wherever he went, Washington counteracted these tendencies early on with his opposition to a regal title. During the title controversy, he brought to his leadership both a widely admired perspective of republican reserve and a willingness to take cues from the people. By consciously mirroring the views of the majority of his countrymen and women, who disdained regal titles as he did, he encouraged public acceptance of the presidency, which added political legitimacy to the office and the new national government. During the unsettled early days of the Constitutional era, Washington imagined a course for the emerging nation’s executive that calmed public fears about the office by embracing the principles of modesty and a nod to the people. The republican resolution of the title controversy, a simple civic title of “President,” which both Washington and the people supported, established an approach to leadership and authority that fledged the presidency’s power by not flaunting it.

 

[1] George Washington to David Stuart, July 26, 1789, William Wright Abbot, Dorothy Twohig, Philander D. Chase, David R. Hoth, Christine Sternberg Patrick, and Theodore J. Crackel, eds. The Papers of George Washington: Presidential Series (PGW; Presidential). 14 vols. (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1987—), 3:321–27.

Constantino Brumidi: Immigrant or Refugee Pt. 2

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Capitol Art, Capitol artists, Constantino Brumidi, immigration history, Montgomery Meigs

We’re marking the anniversary of Brumidi’s birth by revisiting remarks from a 2015 celebration. See here for Part 1.

–by William C. diGiacomantonio

So, what role did his experiences have in Constantino Brumidi’s removal to America? Did it really make him a “refugee” rather than just an “immigrant”? In other words, did he feel that he had a choice in whether to stay or go, after his release?

Instead of hearing Brumidi invoke human and civil rights like freedom of expression, we find him bargaining with the Vatican for his release—within months of his arrest, and well before his conviction—so that he can go to America to broaden his commercial opportunities as an artist. It is not a promise to remove a political thorn from the backside of Pius’ restored and increasingly reactionary regime.

Maybe Brumidi just expressed his bargaining position this way because it sounded more noble than groveling for forgiveness for the consequences of supposed political crimes. But there is no evidence that Brumidi remained under any police surveillance, much less sanctions, following his pardon. It certainly can’t be said that his flight to America constituted an indictment of the corruption of Church governance. And in fact, from almost the moment he arrived in the New World, his steady flower of art commissions for religious institutions comprise a kind of “seal of approval” by high churchmen who could not have been ignorant of Brumidi’s prior run-ins with the Church.

Here’s what I think: there is no reason to believe that Brumidi resented the Papacy—much less the Pope himself—as much as the administration of justice wielded in its name. Note that he was not prosecuted for treason, but for a criminal charge of larceny. (The pardon resulted from affidavits that Brumidi was simply removing the art work to more secure locations, away from rioters.)

Another way to think about the question of “refugee” versus “immigrant” is to consider what America was offering as an alternative to the world Brumidi was leaving behind.

Gen. Montgomery C. Meigs in the 1860s (Library of Congress)

Brumidi disembarked in New York City in September 1852—one of the 45,000 Italians who would arrive in America by 1870, during the first wave of Italian Immigration. (A second “great wave” of Italian immigration, the one we associate with old family photos from Ellis Island, lasted from the 1890s to the 1920s—when a young Italian farmboy named Carmen diGiacomantonio landed there, whose grandson is speaking to you now. There are others here today with similar stories, I know.) Brumidi’s work in the U.S. Capitol followed his personal introduction to Montgomery Meigs two years later, in December 1854. We all know that Brumidi would become a favorite among the many foreign artists whom Meigs employed and his preferment must seem to us, from this vantage point, as one of those inevitabilities of history. But of course nothing in history is inevitable. And in fact, Brumidi’s employment on the Capitol faced a serious backlash against what was seen as an over-reliance on foreign-born artists, to the exclusion of native born artists.

Recall that Brumidi’s first years in America coincided with the high-water mark of the Know-Nothing movement. In 1854—the very year Brumidi was first introduced to Meigs—the Know-Nothings reached the height of their political influence as a nativist, “America first,” anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic movement—owing in no small part to the notoriety of Pio Nono’s “un-American” form of political repression.

The 1850s was not the first time, and it wouldn’t be the last time, that native-born American workers would resent foreign hires. (Peter L’Enfant had been pilloried in the press for hiring too many fellow Frenchmen when he converted New York’s old city hall into the nation’s first Capitol—Federal Hall—in 1788.) But to an artist seeking freedom of expression, it must come as rude awakening, whenever it happens.

We have Brumidi’s own word for it, that he eventually came to regard America as a land of unequaled political freedom and economic opportunity. The commemorative plaque we passed coming into the cemetery today is testimony that as early as 1855 Brumidi considered his new mission in life “to make beautiful the capitol of the one country on earth in which there is liberty.” I would only suggest that perhaps that sense of mission was forged less out of fear of the past that optimism for the future. It does no disservice to Brumidi’s unquestioned sense of patriotism to say that his immigrating had less to do with being driven into a forced exile from a land of despotism, than freely seeking and embracing new, liberal traditions of political freedom and economic opportunity.

Constantino Brumidi: Refugee or Immigrant?

–by William C. diGiacomantonio

To mark the 211th birthday of the Capitol’s premier artist, Constantino Brumidi, we are posting the remarks presented at last year’s 210th birthday observance in a ceremony at Brumidi’s gravesite in DC’s Glenwood Cemetery (2219 Lincoln Rd., NE). There, a small but devoted and enthusiastic fellowship gathered to hear the USCHS’s chief historian, Chuck diGiacomantonio, talk about Brumidi’s coming to America. The group then laid flowers at Brumidi’s grave, shared thoughts about the artist, and afterwards re-convened at a local pizza joint for celebratory food and drink. The Constantino Brumidi Alliance and the USCHS hope to make the observance an annual event. Stay posted for announcements on the USCHS website as next July rolls around….

Part 2 will be published on Wednesday.

The title’s word choice is more than just boilerplate. It is meant to focus some perspective not on what Brumidi was coming to, but what he was leaving behind. As Brumidi’s “Apotheosis of Washington” goes into exile behind sheets and scaffolding, we might ask whether Brumidi’s removal to America was also a form of exile, as it is usually described. Then we might each play amateur art critic and better speculate how Brumidi’s Old World experience influenced his artistic themes and motives once he was here.

Brumidi, late in life (Credit: Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs, Brady-Handy Collection)

The image that often comes to mind of Brumidi the man is that of a short (5’5”), stocky, dark-complexioned, vaguely foreign looking middle-aged man, sporting a hefty Karl-Marx-like beard. But picture, if you can, Brumidi a few decades younger than that. The probably much more dashing artist, half-Greek and half-Italian, was barely thirty when he executed his first major art commissions at the Palazzo Torlonia in his native Rome. The Torlonia family was so impressed that they retained him to work on the Villa Torlonia as well. In 1840 he attracted the attention of connoisseurs in the Curia, who hired him to rework some of the High-Renaissance era Loggias in the Vatican. He was already being regarded as one of Rome’s greatest artists by the time he painted Pius IX in 1847.

Pius IX became a major character in the story of Brumidi’s relocation to America, so he deserves more than just passing reference. His election in 1846 was regarded, justifiably, as a liberal turning point for the Church both spiritual and temporal. Peter’s successor, we’ll recall, was the ruling autocrat of a large swath of central Italy. And although the Papal States had already come to be seen as a plaything in European geopolitics, the Pope’s powers at home were more than just those of a figurehead. In time, Pius IX would become known as “Pio Nono”—which by a slight twist of pronunciation, can be made to mean not only “Pius the Ninth” but “Grandfather Pius”—which was an especially apt description of the man who would become the longest-reigning Pope in history. At his election, he was also one of the youngest popes—a quality that Brumidi captures in his portrait of the energetic, debonair looking Pius in 1847, one year in his papacy.

Pio Nono became the first Pope actually to step on U.S. sovereign territory when he alighted on the deck of the USS Constitution off the coast of Gaeta, Italy, in August 1850. History found Pio Nono in Gaeta as an exile from his experiment in liberalization gone awry. Infected by the so-called “Revolutions of 1848” against the post-Napoleonic reactionary settlement of Europe, Rome rose up against the Pope and established a Republic in 1849.

Brumidi, who had been serving as captain in the city’s militia under the old regime, naturally transferred his allegiance to the new regime. The Republic was suppressed after just a year (thanks, in part, to the pious intervention of Napoleon’s own nephew, Napoleon III), and Brumidi continued his painting uninterrupted—even completing one of his masterpieces, Rome’s Church of the Madonna dell’Archetto, within months of the Republic’s downfall. But by the time critics were praising his latest masterpiece, declaring Brumidi second only to the great painters of the High renaissance, he was already in jail on accusations of stealing art work from convents and monasteries during the short-lived revolt. He was found guilty in January 1852 and sentenced to 18 years—which was quickly reduced. He was pardoned altogether just two months later. And five months after that, he embarked for America.

So, what role did this experience have in Brumidi’s removal to America? Did it really make him a “refugee” rather than just an “immigrant”? In other words, did he feel that he had a choice in whether to stay or go, after his release?

Come back for Part 2 on Wednesday! In the comments, let us know if what you think about Brumidi’s status as an immigrant or refugee.

Francis Doughty: Visionary or Trouble Maker?

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Dutch antededants for US Constitution, early American history, Francis Doughty, James Madison, Mau van Duren

Today we welcome Mau van Duren to the USCHS blog! He will be discussing his new book, Many Heads and Many Hands: James Madison’s Search for a More Perfect Union, in Washington, DC on Wednesday, April 13 at noon. The event is free and open to the public, though pre-registration is requested, and will be held in Ketchum Hall in the VFW Building at 200 Maryland Ave. NE, Washington, DC 20002.

 

Francis Doughty, Visionary or Trouble Maker?:
Concepts Developed in Europe, Tested in Colonial America, and Implemented in the United States’s Constitution

–by Mau van Duren

James Madison added concepts to our Constitution that found their origins in Continental Europe. The Dutch Republic proved a major conduit and originator of innovations in governance and civil liberties. Taxation with Representation was enshrined in the Dutch Constitution of 1477. Freedom of Religion and Freedom of the Press (free speech) were introduced in 1568. Secular Marriage and an Independent Judiciary existed in the Republic well before others introduced them.

In the late 16th century and first half of the 17th century, the Republic was a refuge for Europeans who had escaped religious persecution in countries as diverse as England, Germany, France, Spanish Netherlands, Poland, and Sweden. All were Protestants of one flavor or another, and they brought with them the languages and cultures of their people. Many settled in Amsterdam and many in Leyden. That small city was then the center of the cloth trade and manufacture but, perhaps more importantly, it was the center of enlightenment, education, and science. Descartes, Grotius, and other greats taught there. Isaac Newton published all his books there.

Many of the foreign settlers were country folk and could not get used to city life and made use of the opportunity life in the New World might afford them. Affected by the sophistication around them, they carried the patently Dutch concepts and values with them and implemented what they could in their new environment. Strongest among them were the Separatists whom we now know as the Pilgrim Fathers. Other denominations settled in New Netherlands, Jamestown, and Rhode Island. Religious refugees who had no connection with the Dutch Republic were the settlers of Massachusetts Bay, the Puritans. And they brought with them patently English concepts and values.

One man and his young family came to America in the early 1630s. He set foot among the Pilgrims in Plimoth Plantation, preached among the Puritans in Plimoth’s Cohannet, briefly settled among the Free in Rhode Island Plantation, became a civil liberties advocate in New Amsterdam, preached on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, founded a school further south in Virginia, farmed along the Rappahannock, and eventually disappeared in the fog of time.

In every colony Doughty set foot, he experienced the birth, infancy, and growing pains of virtual republics. He saw the development of the rule of law and democracy. He suffered the small-mindedness of religious intolerance in Massachusetts, lived among the free in Rhode Island, learned about the powers, and limitations, of the people of New Netherlands, and witnessed the evolution of participatory government in both Virginia and Maryland. Mostly he followed in the footsteps of others, but in New Netherlands he was, briefly, a pioneer. He mixed with the movers and shakers, and quite literally, lived the beginnings of what would become the American Nation.

Government Girls

Tags

Cindy Gueli, Earl Wilson, Government Girls, Hattie Caraway, USCHS book signings, WWII in Washington

UPDATE: Gueli’s talk has been rescheduled, for Wednesday, May 18. See our website for more information about her book.

On Wednesday, March 16, the U.S. Capitol Historical Society will host Cindy Gueli for a noon brown bag. She’ll be speaking about her book, Lipstick Brigade: The Untold True Story of Washington’s World War II Government Girls. Join us for this free event (but pre-register here if possible), or simply read on to learn more about one episode pitting the women against some Members of Congress.

–by Cindy Gueli

They were young. Most were single. They were colloquially known as Government Girls. And during World War II, this clerical corps almost 200,000 strong kept Washington’s federal agencies functioning. The massive bureaucratic demands of running a war sent recruiters all over the country seeking adventurous young women willing to relocate to the nation’s capital. Joining the war effort as a civilian or with the military offered women a chance to patriotically serve their country and explore personal and professional prospects for the future. Over the course of the war, Government Girls would turn the usually sedate capital into a rollicking boomtown.

Government girls and their dates play tourist on the Capitol lawn in 1943.

However, not everyone was happy with the thousands of young women let loose in Washington. Conflicts over expectations of how these women—most in their early twenties—should dress, act, and socialize erupted between barrier-breaking Government Girls and more conservative local and federal officials. One such public battle originated in Congress.

Representative Earl Wilson (R-IN), a former high school principal, viewed
Government Girls’ unrestrained social lives as both improper for respectable young women and detrimental to the war effort. In 1942 he proposed a 10 pm nightly curfew for all (and only) female federal workers. This, he claimed, would keep the women “healthier, frisky and fine.” He suggested that boarding house owners and federal dorm managers could enforce the women’s bedtime.

Outraged Government Girls responded immediately by calling Wilson an “ogre” in the press and labeling the curfew as “childish, ridiculous, and impossible.” Instead of blaming women’s wild social lives for lagging productivity and worker exhaustion, they suggested Wilson investigate terrible housing and transportation conditions, inadequate training, and long hours with reduced lunch breaks. Wilson dismissed the women’s complaints and condemned their resistance as “thinking only of their own pleasure.”

Congressional debates over the issue crossed party and gender lines. Rep. Clare Hoffman (R-MI) supported the curfew because she once saw Government Girls smoking and fixing their nails outside of an office building. Congressmen Karl Stefan (R-NE) and Robert Ramspeck (D-GA) agreed that Government Girls lacked a sense of wartime urgency and supported a thorough investigation.

On the other side of the argument, Hattie Caraway (D-AR)—the only woman in the Senate—was the most ardent defender of Government Girls. She argued: “If the girls are old enough to be away from home to work here, they ought to be able to take care of themselves.” Caraway was backed by Congressmen Jennings Randolph (D-WV) and Victor Wickersham (D-OK) who spoke out against strict regulations because Government Girls were the backbone of the federal agencies.

As no hard evidence existed to support Wilson’s allegations, his attempt to rein in Government Girls like misbehaving schoolgirls failed. The women’s social lives would continue to cause local and official consternation throughout the war. However, Congress would make no more attempts to control them. Over half of all wartime workers who came to D.C. stayed in the city after the war. Former Government Girls found postwar clerical work within every department of the federal government, including the legislative offices on Capitol Hill.

Related: more information on one building where Government Girls lived in DC.

Gueli is an author and media professional who worked as a consultant on Showtime’s The Untold History of The United States, a reporter and producer for Associated Press Television News, VH1, and A&E, and host of the web series “Scandalous Washington.” She has written and lectured widely on American social, cultural, and pop culture history. She received a bachelor’s degree from Georgetown University and a master’s degree in communications and master’s and doctorate degrees in history from American University. For more about Gueli and Washington’s Lipstick Brigade, visit her website or find her on Twitter @historybyte.

Capitol Apples

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apples, Brumidi Corridors, Capitol Fellows, Constantino Brumidi, fruit painted in the Capitol, John Chapman, Johnny Appleseed, Shana Klein, U.S. Capitol

–Shana Klein, Ph.D., Art History, University of New Mexico; USCHS Capitol Fellow

An apple features in this cluster of fruit from the Brumidi Corridors. (Christiana Cunningham-Adams)

March 11 has been declared National Johnny Appleseed Day. What better way to celebrate the occasion than by looking to the history of the Brumidi Corridors in the United States Capitol, where depictions of apples and other fruits decorate the hallways. Italian artist Constantino Brumidi painted the majority of the Capitol’s north wing corridors between 1857 and 1859.  Unlike other spaces in the Capitol devoted to heavy-handed allegorical scenes and history paintings, Brumidi devoted these hallways walked by nineteenth-century congressmen and presidents to ornamental depictions of fruit and flowers. And not just any fruit: Brumidi depicted the apple 32 times according to scholar and former U.S. Capitol Historical Society Fellow Jamie Whitacre in 2007 (Endnote 1). After surveying all of the fruits and flowers depicted in the corridors, Whitacre found that apples were one of the most frequently depicted fruits, third only to grapes and plums (rendered 53 and 36 times, respectively). Since then, conservators have discovered other fruits represented in the Capitol Building, including a banana. (If painted in the mid-nineteenth century, this is a surprising discovery given that the tropical banana would have been unfamiliar to most Americans at the time.)

Brumidi and his team of painters likely rendered the apple 32 times in the corridors because the apple was considered a uniquely American fruit. Ralph Waldo Emerson agreed, writing, “the apple is our national fruit…Man would be less solitary, less friended, less supported..withheld [of] this ornamental and social fruit” (Endnote 2). Preacher Henry Ward Beecher felt similarly, saying, “the apple is, beyond all question, the American fruit…the true democratic fruit…” (Endnote 3). Not surprisingly, the apple was used for the nation’s most patriotic dishes, including a historic recipe for George Washington pie.

Apples, however, are not indigenous to North America. The fruit was brought over by English colonists in the 1700s, who likely imported the fruit to bring a sense of home to the New World. It would then take decades for the apple to be eaten raw since raw fruit was generally thought to be unsavory and poisonous before the Civil War. Apples, instead, were largely used for cider—an alcoholic beverage that displeased many supporters of the temperance movement who felt that all forms of alcohol were sinful.

Johnny Appleseed, née John Chapman, helped revamp the reputation of the apple as a patriotic, virtuous food. Born with an entrepreneurial spirit, Appleseed roamed the western frontier (in today’s states of Ohio and Pennsylvania), donating apple seedlings for Americans to grow their own orchards. While Appleseed’s donation of seeds has been historically viewed as an act of charity to help American farmers, it was also a clever strategy to advance national expansion through the cultivation of western land under the prevailing doctrine of Manifest Destiny. Appleseed, nevertheless, proclaimed that his mission was charitable and religious, encouraging people to cultivate “God’s fruit” on “God’s land” (Endnote 4).

Brumidi, late in life (Credit: Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs, Brady-Handy Collection)

More than 30 years later, Brumidi would paint the patriotic apple across the golden hallways of the Capitol’s south corridor. He painted the fruit in a neo-classical, trompe l’oeil style by manipulating elements of scale and shadow to make the fruit look three-dimensional. His application of red and yellow paint was so convincing that viewers no doubt felt tempted to pluck the fruit right off of the wall. (The dimensionality and tromp l’oeil effect of the apples has since been flattened because of varnishing done in the later twentieth century—a misdirection the today’s conservators are trying to correct.) Brumidi may have modeled the painting after real fruits and flowers, which would have been easily accessible to him with the U.S. Botanical Garden on the neighboring western property of the Capitol grounds (Endnote 5).

The patriotic associations of the apple, however, did not prevent Brumidi from garnering criticism for his murals, which critics claimed were too ornate and without national history and character. A number of congressmen similarly felt that the muralled halls were snobbish and unlike the plainness and simplicity of the American spirit (Endnote 6). Brumidi faced the unique challenge of decorating the Capitol in a worldly style without compromising its distinctly American character. Unlike the representations of pineapples or recently-discovered banana in the Capitol, Brumidi’s depiction of apples would have represented American identity to its viewers and the rich legacy of the fruit left by the mythical Johnny Appleseed.

Capitol Fellow Shana Klein

Notes:
1. Jamie Whitacre, “The Fruits and Flowers of the Brumidi Corridors,” The Capitol Dome 44.2 (Spring 2007), 8-14.
2. These quotes were gathered by Bruce Webber in his text, The Apple of America: The Apple in Nineteenth-Century American Art (New York: Berry-Hill Galleries, 1993).
3. Ibid.
4. For a more thorough cultural history of Johnny Appleseed, see: William Kerrigan, Johnny Appleseed and the American Orchard: A Cultural History (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 2012); Michael Pollan, The Botany of Desire: A Plant’s Eye View of the World (New York: Random House Publishing Group, 2001); and Robert Price, Johnny Appleseed: Man and Myth (Bloomington: Indiana Univ. Press, 1954).
5. The U.S. Botanical Garden was formally established in 1822 from a collection of plant specimens and seeds amassed by naval officer Charles Wilkes during his journey in the Pacific. More information can be found in the archival files in the office of the Curator of the Capitol.
6. This information was collected by former Curator of the Capitol Dr. Barbara Wolanin on page 94 of her seminal and encyclopedic text on the artist, Constantino Brumidi: Artist of the Capitol (Washington, DC: United States Congress, 1998).

Mary McGrory, Congressional Columnist

Editor’s note: On Thursday, March 10, the U.S. Capitol Historical Society will host author John Norris in conversation with Don Ritchie, historian emeritus of the Senate. They’ll discuss Norris’s recent book, Mary McGrory: The First Queen of Journalism. Below, Norris writes about McGrory’s interactions with Members of Congress and her skills as a journalist and writer. If you’re in DC, please join us on Thursday for the event! It’s free and open to the public, but pre-registration is recommended.

 

–by John Norris

Mary McGrory, the pioneering columnist from first the Washington Star and later the Washington Post, was most famous for covering presidents and presidential politics. The first woman to win a Pulitzer Prize for commentary, she featured prominently on Nixon’s infamous Enemies List, and her column was syndicated in close to 200 papers around the country.

Mary McGrory at the Watergate Hearings (Library of Congress [M. Scott Mahaskey/Politico])

But McGrory always had a special place in her heart for Congress. For a woman who wrote four columns a week, and whose big breakthrough came because of her coverage of the Army-McCarthy hearings, McGrory knew that she could always find a story worth telling on the Hill.

But as one of the few women on the beat in the 1950s and 60s, her reception was not always a warm one. Journalist Russell Baker recalled that when he started out as a reporter, in the mid-fifties, a number of congressional graybeards pointed Mary out to Baker “as the very model of what I as a congressional correspondent should never be if I wanted to succeed covering the Hill.” Mary’s mortal sin: she had printed, verbatim, the harshly anti-immigrant views of a Pennsylvania congressman. “No reporter had ever before done him that discourtesy,” Baker recalled, explaining that most reporters in those days thought it unfair to accurately quote congressmen.

The great key to Mary’s success on the Hill was her dedication to spending long hours roaming the halls, talking to members and their staffs, and sitting through lengthy press conferences and hearings. “She was absolutely loyal to that proposition that if you didn’t see it yourself and ask questions about it yourself, you had no right to sit down and write about it,” observed anchorman Roger Mudd.

Mary would sit patiently on the leather benches below the oil portraits in the Speaker’s Lobby off the floor of the House of Representatives, lying in wait. That patience was usually rewarded. “Men naturally like to explain things to women,” Mary observed, “and I have given them exceptional opportunities in that regard.”

And equally important, Mary was able to find a certain poetry in politics and enliven even mundane proceedings on the Hill. She once described a debate on the senate floor between Everett Dirksen and Paul Douglas as looking like “two elderly polar bears negotiating the pas de deux from ‘Swan Lake.’” Efforts by a politician to restrain a freelancing underling during a hearing were akin to “a small man trying to take a large dog for a walk.”

Mary complained half-heartedly that she often played the role of a therapist to politicians eager to unburden themselves about wayward children and unhappy wives. But Mary’s were crocodile tears; she enjoyed the socializing as much as the politics. Understanding politicians as people allowed her to effectively build columns around personal observation. Many Republicans in Congress, accustomed to reading Mary’s sharp words, were pleasantly surprised to find Mary gracious in person. “The fact that I don’t raise my voice,” Mary remarked dryly, “seems to impress them favorably.”

John Norris is a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress and author of Mary McGrory: The First Queen of Journalism which was recently announced as a finalist for the LA Times Book Award.