Foundations Fall 2013 by JHU Foundations

Vol. VII, No. I • Fall 2013

FOUNDATIONS

An Undergraduate Journal in History

Volume VII Number 1

Fall 2013

Foundations is printed in the U.S.A. and published biannually at The Johns Hopkins University, in Baltimore, Maryland. Foundations disclaims responsibility for statements, whether of fact or of opinion, made by contributors. Manuscript submissions, books for review, Letters to the Editor, and correspondence concerning those and all other editorial matters should be emailed to foundations@jhu.edu. For subscription information and information on joining the Faculty Advisory Board, visit jhu.edu/foundations.

Volume VII, Number 1 FALL 2013

ÂŠ 2013 by Foundations. Fall 2013 cover design by Foundations. Fall 2013 cover image courtesy of Ian Riley / CC-BY-SA-3.0.

Editor-in-Chief Yonah Reback

Managing Editors Jake Cappuccino Will Dorman Alexander Dragone Rachel Hollander Karen Reitman

Copy Editor Bianca Biberaj

Faculty Advisory Board Kevin Borg, James Madison University Rory T. Cornish, Winthrop University Jordana Dym, Skidmore College Gary Edwards, Arkansas State University Mark E. Grotelueschen, United States Airforce Academy Jeffery R. Hankins, Louisiana Tech University Andrew L. Johns, Bringham Young University Stephen J. Leonard, Metropolitan State College of Denver James Matray, California State University – Chico David Meier, Dickinson State University Martin Nesvig, University of Miami Gene Preuss, University of Houston – Downtown Robyn L. Rosen, Marist College Glenn Sanders, Oklahoma Baptist University H. Michael Tarver, Arkansas Tech University William Wei, University of Colorado – Boulder Jonathan R. Zatlin, Boston University In

association with the and sponsored by

Johns Hopkins University Department of History The Zanvyl Krieger School of Arts and Sciences

Table of Contents Articles Editorializing Creek Removal: Newspaper Coveage and Politics in the Aftermath of the 1825 Treaty of Indian Springs by Grace Hart Dartmouth College

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Between Illustration and Idolatry: Foxe’s Book of Martyrs and the Evolution of the Cult of Images in Reformation England by Carlie Penleton Randolph-Macon College

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Grinding Away the Past: the Minneapolis Mill District

The Adaptive Re-Usage of by George P. Klevorn University of Minnesota

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Expressions of National Identity in Twentieth Century Chairs

by NadiaWestenburg Fordham University

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INTERVIEWs ANGUS BURGIN

Assistant Professor, The Johns Hopkins University

Staff Interview byYonah Reback

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Editorializing Creek Removal

Newspaper Coveage and Politics in the Aftermath of the 1825 Treaty of Indian Springs Grace Hart Dartmouth College

Abstract The 1825 Treaty of Indian Springs ceded Creek homeland in Georgia and Alabama to the United States and initiated the tribe’s removal. After the Senate ratified the treaty, America’s expanding partisan press vigorously debated its legitimacy and implementation. Despite developing sectionalism, newspapers across the country similarly condemned the treaty as fraudulent and criticized its implementation. Newspaper coverage, however, was not homogenous and editorials in Georgia and Virginia reflected state and national political interests. Newspaper coverage of the treaty thus highlights the contingency of Creek removal and the role of state and national political context in the treaty’s aftermath.

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Between 1827 and 1838, nearly 23,000 Creeks emigrated from their traditional homelands to present-day Oklahoma, the majority of whom were forcibly removed under the supervision of the United States military.1 Although the Creeks had signed a number of land cession treaties during the colonial and early national period, the 1825 Treaty of Indian Springs was the key document that initiated Creek removal. The treaty ceded all Creek lands in Georgia and two-thirds of the Nation’s territory in Alabama to the United States, and in exchange the federal government agreed to provide the Creeks with territory of equal size west of the Mississippi River.2 The United States would provide compensation for Creek lands, but this compensation, as well as the annuities owed to the Creek Nation, would be split evenly between the Creeks emigrating and those remaining.3 The date for removal was set for September 1, 1826, and until that deadline, the federal government pledged to protect the emigrating party from the “incroachments, hostilities and impositions of the whites, and all others”.4 The treaty contained an additional note providing $25,000 of compensation to General William McIntosh, the fifth-highest ranking chief on the National Council, in recognition of the extensive improvements on his property.5 Even though there were four hundred Creek headmen present at the negotiations, only fifty-two Creeks signed the treaty. The Creek signatories included McIntosh, chiefs from only eight of the fifty-six Creek towns, and several others without positions in the Creek government.6 Furthermore, the spokesman for the Nation’s Principal Chief spoke against the treaty and argued those present lacked the authorization to sell tribal land.7 The United States Senate nevertheless ratified the Treaty of Indian Springs on March 7, 1825.8 In April 1825, Creek Agent John Crowell returned from Washington and informed the Creeks of the treaty’s ratification. The National Council declared 1 Christopher D. Haveman, “The Removal of the Creek Indians from the Southeast, 18251838,” (PhD diss., Auburn University, 2009), 2. 2 “Treaty with the Creeks, 1825,” February 12, 1825, Indian Affairs: Laws and Treaties, vol. II (1904): 214. 3 Ibid, 214-215. 4 Ibid, 215. 5 Ibid, 216-217. 6 Benjamin W. Griffith, McIntosh andWeatherford, Creek Indian Leaders (Tuscaloosa, Alabama: The University of Alabama Press, 1988), 239-40. 7 Michael D. Green, The Politics of Indian Removal: Creek Government and Society in Crisis (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1982), 87. 8 James W. Silver, “General Gaines Meets Governor Troup: A State-Federal Clash in 1825.” The Georgia Historical Quarterly 27, no. 3 (September 1943): 250 http://www.jstor.org (accessed February 23, 2013).

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the Nation would not recognize the treaty nor leave their homeland, and sentenced McIntosh and three others to death for violating the Creek law forbidding unauthorized land sales; in accordance with the law, these executions were carried out in late April.9 Georgia Governor Troup, however, was determined to begin implementing the treaty immediately, and assembled the state legislature to obtain authorization to begin a survey of the ceded Creek land. President Adams did not want to become involved in the brewing controversy, but many believed a Creek war was imminent a and the treaty pledged the federal government’s protection.10 As a result, in May, Adams appointed two special agents, General Edmund Gaines and Major Timothy Andrews, to investigate the dispute and gave them broad discretionary power to maintain order.11 Over the summer and fall of 1825, Troup quarreled with Gaines and others in the federal War Department. Gaines concluded the treaty was a fraud and Troup did not have the legal grounds to proceed with the survey, prompting Secretary of War Barbour to order Gaines to prevent the survey using military force if necessary.12 Even though Troup eventually agreed to suspend the survey, he insisted Georgia would accept nothing short of all Creek lands within the boundaries of the state.13 The Creeks continued to resist the treaty and sent a delegation to Washington to negotiate in the fall of 1825, and after months of debate, an agreement was reached in January 1826 on a new Treaty of Washington, which abrogated the Treaty of Indian Springs.14 Newspaper articles provide insight into public opinion in the period between the ratification of the Treaty of Indian Springs and the signing of the Treaty of Washington. There was extensive newspaper coverage of the aftermath of the Treaty of Indian Springs as American journalism was rapidly expanding at the start of the 19th century. While there were only about two hundred newspapers published nationwide in 1801, by 1833 there were 1,200 newspapers in circulation, which was more than any other nation

in the world.15 This expanded American press focused increasingly on political issues.16 Starting in the early 19th century, many states implemented reforms to democratize political institutions, such as abolishing property qualifications for voters and mandating direct popular elections for state and local officials, and newspapers emerged as a key forum for policy debates and electoral mobilization.17 Partisan editorials became a standard feature of American newspapers during this period, but editors also published official documents and correspondence and re-printed articles from other newspapers.18 America’s growing, politically-minded press covered the aftermath of the Treaty of Indian Springs throughout 1825, and newspapers across the country contributed to a vigorous debate about the treaty with frequent editorials. Many newspapers editorialized against the Treaty of Indian Springs, depicting the treaty as invalid and criticizing Troup’s efforts to implement it. Despite the development of sectionalism in the early 19th century, newspapers from all regions of the nation published articles with similar arguments, revealing widespread opposition to the treaty. Newspaper coverage of the aftermath of the treaty, however, was not homogenous and there was some diversity in coverage, particularly in Georgia and Virginia, reflecting the influence of state and national politics. Newspapers across the country depicted the Treaty of Indian Springs as fraudulent and opposed Governor Troup’s efforts to execute the treaty. Although their initial coverage largely related the contents of the treaty without editorializing, newspapers began to publish articles in May 1825 contending the treaty had been obtained through illegitimate means. The press focused in particular on the small number of Creek signatories to the treaty and argued these men lacked authorization to sell tribal land. For example, the National Intelligencer asserted the Commissioners procured the treaty by negotiating with only a pro-removal faction even though the number of Creeks who opposed removal “far outnumbered those who agreed

9 Richard J. Hryniewicki, “The Creek Treaty of Washington, 1826.” The Georgia Historical Quarterly 48, no. 4 (December 1964): 425 http://www.jstory.org (accessed January 23, 2013); Green, 95-6. 10 Hryniewicki, 425. 11 Silver, 251. 12 Green, 113. 13 Ibid, 113-116. 14 Haveman, 35-6.

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15 Frank Luther Mott, American Journalism, A History: 1690-1960 (New York: The MacMillan Company, 1962), 167-8. 16 Ibid, 200. 17 Joel H. Silbey, “Thomas Ritchie,” American National Biography Online. http:// www.anb.org/ articles/03/03-00419.html (accessed February 20, 2013); Mott, American Journalism: A History, 200. 18 Mott, 200.

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to the Treaty”.19 Some editorials compared the process by which the Treaty of Indian Springs was conducted to that of other treaties between the Creeks and the United States. For example, the South Carolina State Gazette noted the Creek Nation consisted of 86 towns, each of which was represented on the National Council, and in the past, all national laws and land cession treaties required the approval of a majority of the towns.20 In contrast, only “4 or 5 of the 86 districts were represented at the proposed treaty, the other Chiefs refusing to attend”.21 Furthermore, most of the Creeks who signed the treaty were not even Chiefs but were instead “men of straw,” created by McIntosh to give the fraudulent treaty an appearance of legitimacy.22 A wide range of newspapers, including the Salem Gazette, Western Carolinian and Charleston Courier, published articles similarly depicting the treaty as fraudulent and criticizing McIntosh and the other Creek signatories as an unauthorized minority faction.23 Many newspapers depicted the murders of the McIntosh party in April 1825 as further proof that the treaty had been obtained through illegitimate means. Newspapers such as the American and Augusta Chronicle, noted the Creek government had passed a law establishing the death penalty for unauthorized land sales, and McIntosh knowingly signed the treaty in violation of this decree.24 Furthermore, the Eastern Argus noted it had been long understood that the Creeks were an independent tribe with the right to self-government, and McIntosh’s death was the legal punishment for violating the Nation’s laws.25 The press thus depicted the April 1825 murders as in accordance with Creek law and further evidence that the McIntosh faction was unauthorized to sell tribal land. Some articles speculated about McIntosh’s motivations for signing the illegal treaty. For example, the South Carolina Gazette commented McIntosh had so little Creek blood that he was “nearly a white man himself and rather an agent of the white

people”.26 By suggesting McIntosh was essentially a white American and only nominally Creek, the Gazette cast further doubt on his authorization to sell land on behalf of the Creek Nation and thus the treaty’s legitimacy. Other newspapers suggested McIntosh signed the treaty for personal financial gain. For example, an August 1825 New York Review article that was republished in the Vermont Gazette argued that to secure McIntosh’s support, the Commissioners included a treaty provision granting him $25,000 for his property at Indian Springs.27 Not all newspapers offered explanations for why McIntosh signed the treaty, but across the country, the press argued that McIntosh was executed under Creek law for illegally selling land to the United States, thus re-affirming the illegitimacy of the Treaty of Indian Springs. The press emphasized that while this small, unauthorized faction illegally signed the treaty, the Creek government and vast majority of the Creek Nation in fact firmly opposed removal and rejected the treaty. A number of newspapers, including the Charleston Courier and Norwich Courier, published articles noting that the Creek National Council unanimously rejected a removal treaty during a December 1824 conference at Broken Arrow.28 Furthermore, the newspapers argued, after the McIntosh faction signed the treaty, the Creeks refused to recognize the treaty. For example, a June 1825 Eastern Argus article reported that the Creek government met and decided to reject all money owed to them under the treaty.29 In addition, the article commented that the Creek people were united in their resolve to resist removal, and while they would not attack whites, they would rather “die at the corner of their fences…rather than they would abandon the land of their forefathers”.30 A number of articles recognized the Creeks held a spiritual and cultural attachment to their land, and were thus unwilling to relinquish their homeland to the United States. 31 Furthermore, the press published the results of General Gaines’ investigation during the summer

19 National Intelligencer, “The Creek Massacre,” Rhode Island American, May 27, 1825. 20 South Carolina State Gazette, “Creek Indians,” Salem Gazette, June 3, 1825. 21 Ibid. 22 Ibid. 23 “The Creeks,” Salem Gazette, June 7, 1825; “Indian Disturbances,” Charleston Courier, May 24, 1825; “The Creek Treaty,” Western Carolinian, August 9, 1825. 24 “Creek Indians,” Augusta Chronicle, May 21, 1825; “McIntosh and the Creeks,” Eastern Argus, June 9, 1825; “The Creeks,” American, May 31, 1825. 25 “McIntosh and the Creeks,” Eastern Argus, June 9, 1825.

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26 South Carolina State Gazette, “Creek Indians,” Salem Gazette, June 3, 1825. 27 The NewYork Review, “Examination of the Controversy Between Georgia and the Creeks,” Vermont Gazette, August 23, 1825. 28 “Creek Indians,” Charleston Courier, June 14, 1825; “Copy of a Letter to the Editor of the Southern Intelligencer,” Norwich Courier, July 6, 1825. 29 “McIntosh and the Creeks,” Eastern Argus, June 9, 1825. 30 Ibid. 31 “The Creeks,” Evening Post, June 7, 1825; “McIntosh and the Creeks,” Eastern Argus, June 9, 1825.

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and fall of 1825, which provided further evidence of the widespread Creek opposition to removal. For example, the Ohio Monitor and Rhode Island American cited Gaines’ conclusion that forty-nine fiftieths of the Creek Nation opposed removal to argue the treaty was not valid.32 Without Creek consent, these newspapers argued, the Treaty of Indian Springs could not be considered valid. A Columbia Telescope article noted that the 1802 Compact, in which Georgia ceded its central and western lands to the United States, stipulated the federal government would obtain Indian lands for Georgia but on reasonable terms and through a treaty agreement with the Indians.33 Furthermore, an August 1825 Alexandria Gazette editorial argued that with regard to land sales, “the United States recognize in the Creeks a sovereign power, and treat with that power in the same manner as they would with France for Louisiana, or Spain for Florida”.34 As a result, to obtain Creek land, the United States had to negotiate a treaty with the Creek Nation, and both governments needed to approve the agreement.35 These newspapers emphasized, however, that the Creek Nation never accepted the Treaty of Indian Springs and it was only signed by a small group of unauthorized signatories. As a result, the Alexandria Gazette, along with other newspapers such as the Vermont Gazette and the South Carolina State Gazette, argued that it could not be considered valid.36 It is noteworthy that a considerable number of newspapers depicted Creek consent as a requirement for the validity of a treaty since some American leaders had already begun to denounce the sovereignty of Indian nations. For example, Andrew Jackson advised President Monroe to discontinue the “absurdity” of recognizing Indian sovereignty and instead to start “legislating for, rather than treating with, Indians”.37 While not all American leaders held Jackson’s

views, it is nevertheless significant that many newspapers recognized the Creek rejection of the Treaty of Indian Springs as grounds for its illegitimacy. Editorials depicted the treaty as illegitimate not only because it lacked the Creek Nation’s consent but also because it violated treaty guarantees made by the United States government. A number of newspaper articles examined the treaty history between the United States and the Creeks to determine the rights of the Creek Nation. For example, a June 1825 Charleston Courier article analyzed all land cession treaties the Creeks signed beginning with the 1790 Treaty of New York, and concluded the United States had consistently encouraged the Creeks to work toward civilization on their current lands. Furthermore, the Courier found that the 1814 Treaty of Fort Jackson “expressly guaranteed the integrity of all the Creek territory” and concluded that the United States had entered into a contract pledging not to dispossess the Creeks of their land.38 The Treaty of Indian Springs, however, broke this guarantee because it claimed Creek lands without the consent of the Nation. The Charleston Courier thus argued that the Treaty of Indian Springs violated the United States’ treaty pledges to the Creeks, rendering it invalid. A New York Review editorial, which was republished in the Vermont Gazette, further argued that even though the United States pledged to obtain Indian land for Georgia in the 1802 Compact, the Creeks were not party to the agreement so it could not be considered binding on their Nation.39 As a result, this agreement did not change the territorial rights guaranteed to the Creeks in other treaties with the United States.40 Because the Treaty of Indian Springs lacked Creek consent and violated treaty guarantees to the Creeks, many in the press argued the treaty could not be executed without diminishing America’s national honor. For example, an August 1825 editorial in the Vermont Gazette argued that enforcing this illegitimate treaty was at odds with American republican values and instead analogous to the atrocities the Spanish inflicted upon Indian populations in Mexico and Peru.41 Enforcing the fraudulent Treaty of

32 “Creek Indian Affairs,” Rhode Island American, August 9, 1825; “The Creeks,” Ohio Monitor, August 13, 1825. 33 “Creek Indians,” Charleston Courier, June 14, 1825. 34 “Georgia and the Creeks,” Alexandria Gazette, August, 30, 1825. 35 Ibid. 36 “Georgia and the Creeks,” Alexandria Gazette, August, 30, 1825; The NewYork Review, “Examination of the Controversy Between Georgia and the Creeks,” Vermont Gazette, August 23, 1825; South Carolina State Gazette, “Creek Indians,” Salem Gazette, June 3, 1825. 37 Quoted in Tim Alan Garrison, “United States Indian Policy in Sectional Crisis: Georgia’s Exploitation of the Compact of 1802, in Congress and the Emergence of Sectionalism: From the Missouri Compromise to the Age of Jackson, ed. Paul Finkelman and Donald R. Kennon (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2008), 103.

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38 “Creek Indians,” Charleston Courier, June 14, 1825. 39 The NewYork Review, “Examination of the Controversy Between Georgia and the Creeks,” Vermont Gazette, August 23, 1825. 40 Ibid. 41 The NewYork Review, “Examination of the Controversy Between Georgia and the Creeks [Concluded],” Vermont Gazette, August 30, 1825.

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Indian Springs would harm not only national honor but also the perception of the United States abroad. For example, a June 1825 Columbia Telescope editorial, which was re-published in the Essex Register, argued that obtaining Indian land without the consent of its owners would “prostrate, both at home and abroad, the proudest part of our national character, an inflexible adherence to the maxims of Justice”.42 In addition, a National Journal editorial re-published in the Middlesex Gazette editorial praised Adams’ investigation of the Creek controversy, arguing it was necessary to “elevate our character amongst foreign powers, as a nation sedulous to preserve the faith of its treaties”.43 Furthermore, the press disputed the necessity of Georgia obtaining Creek land, arguing that the state had extensive territory that was thinly populated and that land speculators led efforts to seize Indian land.44 In enforcing this treaty to obtain Creek land for Georgia, the United States would thus be sacrificing the nation’s honor and image abroad, the press argued, without a compelling justification. When Troup attempted to execute the Treaty of Indian Springs by beginning the survey of Creek lands, newspapers across the country denounced his efforts as a violation of the terms of the treaty. Many newspapers, such as the Charleston Courier, the Middlesex Gazette, and the Ithaca Journal, cited Article Eight of the treaty, which guaranteed Creek possession of their lands until September 1826, as grounds for denying Troup’s survey.45 Furthermore, the treaty pledged the federal government to protect the Creeks from white encroachment until that date, so under the terms of the treaty, President Adams had a duty to prevent Troup from surveying the lands early.46 The Easton Gazette and other newspapers rebutted Troup’s assertions that he could begin the survey immediately because he obtained McIntosh’s consent, contending that because the United States and the Creeks were the only parties to the treaty, the state of Georgia could not interfere.47 Therefore, even if Troup obtained McIntosh’s agreement to

begin the survey, this could not supersede the federal government’s treaty pledge to protect the Creeks from white encroachments until September 1826. Newspapers denounced not only Troup’s efforts to begin the survey immediately but also the tenor of his relations with Gaines and officials in the War Department.48 For example, an August 1825 Nashville Republican editorial that was re-published in the Arkansas Gazette commented that in his desire to obtain Creek land during his term as governor, Troup “has been grossly and causelessly disrespectful to the general government”.49 In addition, the Centinel of Freedom reprinted an article from the Baltimore Herald commenting that Troup’s correspondence with the War Department “tarnished and sullied the splendour of the American name” and would “render us the scoff and scorn of the allied Potenates of Europe”.50 Newspaper opposition to the Treaty of Indian Springs and Troup’s efforts to execute it was widespread, and editorials published in all regions of the United States demonstrated a remarkable degree of consensus in objecting to the treaty. Newspapers in every New England state as well as many mid-Atlantic and northwestern states openly charged the treaty was obtained through illegitimate means in violation of the United States’ treaty guarantees and argued Troup lacked the legal right to start surveying Creek lands. In addition, southern newspapers, particularly the Charleston Courier and the Alexandria Gazette, and some western newspapers, such as the Arkansas Gazette, published editorials with almost identical arguments. There was also at least one Georgia newspaper, the Augusta Chronicle, that openly objected to the treaty despite the state’s strong interest in ensuring its implementation. Even if individual newspapers had different motivations for editorializing against the Treaty of Indian Springs, it is nevertheless noteworthy that a considerable number of newspapers across such a wide geographic range advanced similar arguments. It is particularly significant that opposition to the Treaty of Indian Springs crossed regional lines given the development of sectionalism in the United States in the early 19th century. Historians frequently refer to

42 Columbia Telescope, “Creek Indians,” Essex Register, June 27, 1825. 43 National Journal, “From the National Journal,” Middlesex Gazette, August 31, 1825. 44 “Creek Indians,” New Bedford Mercury, May 27, 1825; Columbia Telescope, “Creek Indians,” Connecticut Courant, July 5, 1825. 45 “National and State Rights,” Charleston Courier, August 17, 1825; National Journal, “From the National Journal,” Middlesex Gazette, August 31, 1825; “Georgia Against the General Government,” Ithaca Journal, August 24, 1825. 46 Alexandria Gazette, August 23, 1825; Alexandria Gazette, September 1, 1825. 47 Alexandria Gazette, August 23, 1825; National Journal, “From the National Jour-

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nal,” New Hampshire Patriot. September 5, 1825; “Georgia,” Easton Gazette, September 3, 1825. 48 “Georgia and the United States,” Western Carolinian, July 12, 1825; “General Summary,” Scioto Gazette, June 23, 1825. 49 Nashville Republican, Arkansas Gazette, August 30, 1825. 50 Baltimore Herald, “Georgia,” Centinel of Freedom, August 23, 1825.

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Monroe’s presidency from March 1817 to March 1825 as an “Era of Good Feelings,” in which both the North and the South largely supported the Democratic-Republican Party in a period of one-party rule, but this unity masked the underlying roots of sectionalism.51 The two regions had been developing along different economic, cultural and political lines since the colonial era, and these differences became more pronounced during the early 19th century.The North underwent a market revolution in which its economy became increasingly industrialized, and the region developed transportation and commercial infrastructure to facilitate long-distance trade.52 In the South, however, Eli Whitney’s 1793 invention of the cotton gin enabled cotton cultivation across the Deep South, leading to the emergence of a cotton-based plantation economy and deepening the region’s commitment to slavery.53 These differences in northern and southern economies and cultures led to different political interests and thus sectional tensions. Many in the North believed the Constitution’s ‘three-fifths compromise’ unfairly enabled the South to capitalize on its rapidly growing slave population to gain representatives in Congress.54 Tensions over the sectional balance of power peaked during the 1820 controversy over the admission of Missouri, a slave state, into the Union. Even though members of Congress brokered a compromise, the episode highlighted the different political interests of the two regions and convinced many southerners of the North’s hostility toward slavery and lack of respect for Southern honor and property.55 Federal Indian policy was an important component of this developing sectionalism. Indian removal was debated throughout the 1820s, and the debate at the end of the decade divided along regional lines and became so contentious that some southern politicians raised the possibility

of secession.56 President Jackson advocated Indian removal, but the policy had limited support in the North, even among members of his own party.57 After Jackson introduced the Indian Removal Bill to Congress, northern senators and representatives spoke against the bill and introduced proposals to block it, while southerners and westerners supported the bill and defeated northern proposals.58 In addition, northern churches, missionary societies, abolitionists and other reformers led a popular movement against the Indian Removal Act. 59 Even though Indian removal became a point of sectional contention by the end of the 1820s, in 1825, opposition to the Treaty of Indian Springs crossed sectional lines. While they may have had different motivations for criticizing the treaty, newspapers from every region in the country nevertheless published nearly identical arguments against the treaty. This 1825 consensus is particularly remarkable given the development of sectionalism in this era and the heated sectional debate over Indian removal that took place only four years later. While newspaper opposition to the treaty crossed sectional lines, editorial coverage of the aftermath of the Treaty of Indian Springs was neither completely homogenous nor divorced from politics. In Georgia, many newspapers, such as the Georgian, Milledgeville Republican, and Macon Messenger, supported the treaty and Troup’s efforts to execute it. While Georgians had a clear interest in promoting the treaty to obtain Creek land, the state political context is also reflected in the Georgia press’ coverage of the treaty’s aftermath. There was heightened interest in Georgia state politics throughout 1825 in anticipation of the November 1825 gubernatorial election. Even though state politics in Georgia had not yet developed largescale, organized political parties during the early 19th century, there were two main factions centered around Governor Troup and John Clark.60 There were not consistent significant differences on state or national policy between Troup and Clark, and instead the factions generally split along family feuds, personal vendettas and historic rivalries.61 In addition, Troup

51 Paul Finkelman, “Introduction: Congress, the Rise of Sectionalism, and the Challenge of Jacksonian Democracy,” in Congress and the Emergence of Sectionalism: From the Missouri Compromise to the Age of Jackson, ed. Paul Finkelman and Donald R. Kennon, 1-16 (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2008), 3. 52 John Lauritz Larson, The Market Revolution in America: Liberty, Ambition, and the Eclipse of the Common Good (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 58-63. 53 Ibid, 127-8; Adam Rothmann, Slave Country: American Expansion the Origins of the Deep South (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2005), 48-50. 54 Finkelman, 5-6. 55 Robert P. Forbes, “The Missouri Controversy and Sectionalism,” in Congress and the Emergence of Sectionalism: From the Missouri Compromise to the Age of Jackson, ed. Paul Finkelman and Donald R. Kennon (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2008), 81-2.

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56 Garrison, 98. 57 Ibid, 118. 58 Ibid, 118-121. 59 Ibid, 118. 60 Anthony Gene Carey, Parties, Slavery and the Union in Antebellum Georgia (Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 1997), 20-2. 61 Harvey H. Jackson, “John Clark,” American National Biography Online, http:// www.anb.org/ articles/03/03-00098.html (accessed February 18, 2013); Carey, 22.

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tended to represent aristocratic planters while the Clark faction identified with the interests of yeomen farmers and frontiersmen, inserting an element of class conflict into the state political discourse.62 These factional divisions began to consolidate in the early 1820s, especially in the months leading up to the November 1825 gubernatorial election.63 This election was particularly significant because it was the first popular governor election after an 1824 constitutional amendment changed the state electoral system from an election by the legislature to a direct popular election.64 The expanding partisan press in Georgia supported Troup’s reelection campaign throughout 1825.At the start of the 19th century, there was an expansion of newspapers across the state. In 1800, only five newspapers were published in Georgia, and all five were concentrated in the older cities of Savannah, Augusta, and Louisville. By 1812, however, there were eighteen new newspapers based in the newer communities in Georgia’s northern and western regions, and during the 1820s and 1830s, more newspapers were established all over the state.65 As it expanded throughout Georgia, the state’s press also became increasingly political. Newspapers published not only the speeches and opinions of political leaders but also editorials advancing specific political interests.66 The Georgia press, however, almost unanimously supported the Troup faction since Clark supporters were largely yeomen farmers living in scattered frontier communities and thus could not provide the funds or readers to support newspapers.67 In contrast, Troup’s supporters tended to be wealthy planters and coastal aristocrats, so the Troup faction was able to take advantage of the press as a party organ.68 The Georgia press’ pro-Troup partisan interests are reflected in its editorial coverage of the aftermath of the Treaty of Indian Springs. Many newspapers in the state defended the validity of the treaty and supported Troup’s efforts to execute it by starting the survey immediately. Beginning in the spring of 1825, Georgia newspapers published a number of editorials arguing the treaty was legitimate. The Georgian and Georgia Journal

emphasized that the Treaty of Indian Springs merely represented the federal government’s long overdue fulfillment of its 1802 pledge to obtain Creek lands for Georgia.69 Furthermore, the Georgia press argued, the treaty had passed the ratification process outlined in the United States Constitution, making it the official law of the land. For example, a Milledgeville Republican editorial noted the treaty was negotiated by United States Commissioners, submitted to the Senate by President Monroe with his tacit approval, ratified by the Senate, and signed by President Adams, giving it “the approbation of two Presidents and of the Senate of the United States”.70 Furthermore, the Georgian and Augusta Constitutionalist argued the Senate and President Adams received all documents relating to the treaty, including a protest from Agent Crowell, and after a full consideration of these documents, still decided to ratify the treaty.71 When the General Gaines completed his investigation of the Creek controversy and concluded the treaty was fraudulent, the Georgia press published editorials discrediting Gaines and his investigation. For instance, the Macon Messenger argued the investigation was so biased that “the case was determined before the evidence was heard,” while the Georgian emphasized that Gaines took the unsubstantiated claims of ‘hostile’ Creeks as definitive evidence.72 The Georgia press not only depicted the treaty as valid but also beneficial to the Creeks. Asserting it has always been American policy to remove Indians to make way for the expanding white population, the Georgian argued removal was the only ‘humane’ policy for the Indians and would enable them to survive and become ‘civilized’.73 This sentiment is reflected in the language of the Treaty of Indian Springs’ preamble, which stated that it was the federal government’s policy to promote removal of Indian tribes to west of the Mississippi “for the better protection and security of said tribes,

62 Green, 66-7. 63 Carey, 22. 64 Green, 66-7. 65 Griffith, Louis Turner. Georgia Journalism, 1763-1950 (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1951), 21 and 29. 66 Ibid, 21. 67 Ibid, 29. 68 Ibid, 29.

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69 “An Appeal to the People of the United States by a Georgian. No. IV,” Georgian, August 18, 1825; Georgia Journal, “To George M. Troup, Governor of Georgia,” Georgian, September 6, 1825; Georgian, September 27, 1825. 70 Milledgeville Republican, “Domestic,” Richmond Enquirer, May 31, 1825. 71 8/20/1825 Georgian; Augusta Constitutionalist, Richmond Enquirer, August 23, 1825. 72 “Exposition of the United States Commissioners, To Be Continued,” Georgian, November 29, 1825; Macon Messenger, “From the Macon Messenger,” Richmond Enquirer, July 29, 1825. 73 “Exposition of the United States Commissioners, To Be Continued,” Georgian, November 29, 1825.

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and their improvement in civilization”.74 A May 1825 editorial argued the United States has pursued this policy of Indian removal with only the best intentions for the Indians, and there was nothing about the situation with the Creeks in Georgia to exempt them.75 Furthermore, the Georgia press argued the Creeks received particularly generous terms under the Treaty of Indian Springs. For example, the Georgian remarked that the United States had not negotiated a more generous land cession treaty with any other tribe, and an Augusta Constitutionalist editorial, which was reprinted in the Richmond Enquirer, described the treaty as “exceedingly advantageous to the red people”. 76 Furthermore, the Milledgeville Republican remarked that the treaty preserved some Creek land in Alabama, so those who preferred not to move to the west would have sufficient land to remain.77 Furthermore, the Georgia press argued Creek opposition to this valid and beneficial treaty was purely the result of the interference of Creek Agent Crowell. Following the execution of the McIntosh faction in April 1825, Georgia newspapers quickly identified Agent Crowell as the cause of Creek resistance and instability. For example, a May 1825 article in the Georgian reported that Agent Crowell directed the Creek chiefs to have McIntosh murdered and declared in an address to the Creeks, Crowell “said that he had done all he could for them, but that if they did not kill McIntosh, he would never do anything more for them”.78 Furthermore, the Georgian noted the government agent held tremendous influence among the Creeks, so Crowell’s remarks would have been particularly consequential.79 Without this interference, the Milledgeville Republican insisted, the Creeks would have undoubtedly given up their lands without resistance and perhaps on even more favorable terms to the United States.80 Throughout 1825, the Georgia newspapers continued to depict Crowell as the source of Creek resistance.81

Unlike newspapers from other parts of the country, which recognized the execution of the McIntosh party as due punishment under Creek law, the Georgia newspapers depicted it as murder committed “in the madness of savage rage” because of Crowell’s interference.82 Some editorials further argued that Crowell encouraged Creek opposition to promote his own interests. For example, an August 1825 editorial in the Georgian argued that Crowell was motivated by his hatred of McIntosh, opposition to Governor Troup, and desire to protect the lucrative financial benefits of serving as the Creek Agent that he might lose if the Creeks removed to the West.83 Maintaining the treaty was not only valid but also beneficial to the Creeks, the Georgia press strongly supported Troup’s efforts to begin surveying Creek land. Georgia newspapers argued that Troup had the right to begin surveying after the treaty was concluded. An August 1825 editorial in the Georgian asserted, “the right of soil was vested in Georgia at the conclusion of the treaty”.84 Furthermore, the Georgian cited correspondence between McIntosh and Troup as evidence that McIntosh met with the Creek Council and obtained the Council’s permission to begin surveying the lands.85 When the federal government became involved and informed Troup that he was not permitted to begin surveying Creek lands ceded in the treaty, the Georgia press asserted the federal government did not have the right to halt Troup’s survey. For example, the Georgian argued that under the 1802 Compact, the United States agreed to cede the title to all Indian lands within the state to the government of Georgia.86 Troup thus had a legal title to the land ceded in the treaty, and because he obtained Creek consent to begin the survey, the federal government lacked the right to interfere. The Georgia press also responded to arguments that the state could not interfere with a treaty made between the Creeks and the United States. Newspapers such as the Georgian questioned how Troup could lack the authority to ask

74 “Treaty with the Creeks,” 214. 75 “The Creek Outrages,” Georgian, May 18, 1825. 76 “The Creek Outrages,” Georgian, May 18, 1825; Augusta Constitutionalist, Richmond Enquirer, August 23, 1825. 77 Milledgeville Republican, “Domestic.” Richmond Enquirer, May 31, 1825. 78 “The Creeks,” Georgian, May 17, 1825. 79 “An Appeal to the People of the United States by a Georgian. No. V,” Georgian, August 20, 1825. 80 Milledgeville Republican, “Domestic.” Richmond Enquirer, May 31, 1825. 81 “An Appeal to the People of the United States by a Georgian. No. V,” Georgian, August 20, 1825.; Milledgeville Recorder, “Troup and the Treaty Against Clark, Crowell,

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etc.,” Georgian, September 1, 1825. 82 “An Appeal to the People of the United States by a Georgian. No. V,” Georgian, August 20, 1825. 83 Ibid. 84 Ibid. 85 “An Appeal to the People of the United States by a Georgian. No. V,” Georgian, August 20, 1825; Richmond Enquirer, “Georgia and the United States,” Georgian, August 27, 1825. 86 Richmond Enquirer, “Georgia and the United States,” Georgian, September 24, 1825.

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the permission of a tribe within the state’s borders to perform a survey of lands the Indians only temporarily occupy.87 Editorials in the Georgia press defending the validity of the treaty and Troup’s efforts to implement it reflected the newspapers’ pro-Troup partisan interests in the months leading up to the November 1825 election. This election was fiercely contested, and Creek removal emerged as a key issue during the campaign. Even though Troup was the incumbent, his re-election was uncertain; Clark had defeated Troup in the 1819 and 1821 elections, and Troup won only a narrow victory in the 1823 contest largely because Clark’s name was not on the ballot.88 Troup’s faction had an elitist reputation, and the governor understood he needed to counteract Clark’s influence among yeomen farmers and frontiersmen before facing his first popular election.89 As a result, Troup had a strong motivation to obtain Creek lands for Georgia and make them available to settlers during his term in office. Furthermore, the structure of the state’s land lottery system gave Troup an added incentive to begin surveying Creek land before the election. Unlike every other state in the Union, Georgia distributed public lands in 200½-acre plots by lottery to the state’s citizens.90 Because ordinary citizens directly benefitted when the state acquired new land, the Treaty of Indian Springs presented Troup with a significant opportunity to gain support among yeomen farmers before the 1825 election. The Georgia press’ vehement defense of the validity of the treaty and strong support for his right to begin surveying Creek lands thus promoted Troup’s interests and reflected a pro-Troup partisan stance. Newspapers in Georgia also supported Troup’s political interests by publishing articles that discredited Crowell. The Creek Agent was a political position, and Crowell had been appointed with the task of influencing the Creeks in ways that would support the federal government’s policy goals.91 Crowell, however, was a known Clark supporter, and the governor believed Crowell would use the influence of his position to undermine Troup’s efforts to obtain Creek land for Georgia.92 The two men also hated one

another, which further strengthened Troup’s desire to replace Crowell as Creek Agent.93 By depicting Crowell as the cause of Creek opposition to removal and working to inhibit the acquisition of valuable land for the state, the Georgia press discredited the Creek Agent and consequently served Troup’s political interests. In reality, however, Crowell had signed the treaty as a witness, and even though he sent a letter of protest to Secretary of War Calhoun after the treaty was signed, he urged the Creeks to accept the treaty after it was ratified.94 The Georgia press’ unwavering insistence that Crowell provoked Creek opposition to the treaty was thus not based in fact but rather reflected the newspapers’ pro-Troup partisan stance. Georgia’s newspaper coverage of the aftermath of the treaty reflected the state political context not only in the pro-Troup arguments advanced in editorials but also through the strong states’ rights rhetoric used to justify Troup’s right to start surveying Creek land. During the summer and fall of 1825, the federal government became increasingly involved in the Creek controversy in Georgia as President Adams sent special agents to Georgia to investigate the dispute and maintain order.95 When Gaines tried to prevent Troup from surveying Creek lands, the Georgia press argued the federal government was violating Georgia’s rights as a sovereign state. For example, a Richmond Enquirer editorial, which was re-published in the Georgian, argued that in preventing Troup from beginning the survey, the federal government had extended civil and military jurisdiction over the state of Georgia.96 The Georgia press also criticized the tenor of Gaines’ correspondence with Troup, and an editorial in the Macon Messenger argued Gaines had treated Troup disrespectfully throughout the whole affair in an attempt to bully and intimidate Troup into submitting to the federal government’s will. 97 Newspapers in Georgia depicted this perceived affront on Georgia’s sovereignty as highly consequential. For example, the Georgian re-published a Richmond Enquirer editorial arguing that the federal government’s conduct during the Creek controversy indicated a growing belief that “…the constitution confers no powers and secures no rights but

87 Richmond Enquirer, “Georgia and the United States,” Georgian, August 27, 1825. 88 Green, 67. 89 Ibid, 93. 90 Ibid, 93. 91 Ibid, 67. 92 Silver, 255.

93 Green, 60. 94 Louis Turner Griffith, 238; Green, 95. 95 Green, 100-1. 96 Richmond Enquirer, “Georgia and the United States,” Georgian, September 24, 1825. 97 Macon Messenger, “From the Macon Messenger,” Richmond Enquirer, July 29, 1825.

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Grace Hart the National Government. Everything is tending to one great consolidated, National Government, which according to the prophetic language of Patrick Henry, ‘will swallow up the liberties of the people’… We have for a long time seen the tendency of the Federal Government to consolidation. The rights of the states are becoming less venerated every day”98 The Georgia press thus framed the debate over the implementing of the treaty in terms of states’ rights, depicting the federal government as disrespectful and tyrannical toward Georgia. This type of rhetoric likely would have resonated in antebellum Georgia; during the 1820s, a strong states’ right sentiment was developing in the state, and even though few were willing to accept the Nullification doctrine, it was widely acknowledged that the federal government should not challenge a state’s sovereignty.99 The Georgia press’ use of states’ rights rhetoric to support the implementation of the Treaty of Indian Springs thus reflected the state’s political context. While the state political context in Georgia was significant in influencing how the state’s newspapers editorialized the aftermath of the Treaty of Indian Springs, in Virginia, the Richmond Enquirer’s coverage reflected the national political context. The newspaper initially presented balanced coverage, but as Georgia came into conflict with the federal government during the summer and fall of 1825, the Richmond Enquirer’s position solidified around supporting Troup’s efforts to implement the treaty using strong states’ rights rhetoric. In the wake of the treaty’s ratification in March 1825 and the execution of the McIntosh party in April 1825, the newspaper published editorials criticizing the treaty as well as articles defending it. For example, on June 3, 1825, the Enquirer re-printed a Montgomery Republican article noting the treaty was not negotiated in the customary Creek fashion, and the principal Chiefs of the Creek Nation did not sign the treaty.100 Furthermore, the same edition featured an editorial re-published from the South Carolina State Gazette arguing that the treaty was only signed by an unauthorized minority faction, most of whom were later executed under Creek law for their participation in the treaty.101 During 98 Richmond Enquirer, “Georgia and the United States,” Georgian, August 27, 1825. 99 Louis Turner Griffith, 32; Green, 113-4. 100 Montgomery Republican, “Creek Nation,” Richmond Enquirer, June 3, 1825. 101 South Carolina State Gazette, “Creek Indians,” Richmond Enquirer, June 3, 1825.

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Editorializing Creek Removal the spring of 1825, however, the newspaper did not exclusively publish editorials criticizing the treaty but also published articles in favor of the treaty. For instance, the May 31, 1825 edition of the Enquirer re-printed an editorial from the Milledgeville Republican, which argued that the Treaty of Indian Springs was valid because it had gone through the ratification process as outlined in the Constitution.102 In addition, editorials in the May 27, 1825 and May 31, 1825 editions of the Richmond Enquirer depicted the McIntosh executions as the result of Crowell’s interference, without which the Creeks would have accepted the Treaty of Indian Springs.103 The Richmond Enquirer thus did not initially take a definitive position in its early coverage of the Treaty of Indian Springs and presented both pro-treaty and anti-treaty arguments. Despite publishing balanced coverage of the treaty in the spring and early summer, starting in August 1825, the Richmond Enquirer began to frame the Creek controversy as an issue of states’ rights and printed editorials supporting Troup’s efforts to implement the treaty.When Georgia came into conflict with the federal government during the summer and fall of 1825, the Richmond Enquirer defined the dispute as a struggle of state sovereignty against federal power. For example, in an August 1825 editorial, the newspaper reviewed the correspondence between Troup and General Gaines and concluded, “it seems that it is no longer a controversy between Georgia or the U. States and the Indians; but between the U. States government and Georgia”.104 Throughout the fall of 1825, the Enquirer published editorials depicting the federal government as despotic in its dealings with Troup and Georgia. A number of articles echoed the arguments of editorials published in Georgia’s newspapers contending that the United States took large amounts of extremely valuable land from Georgia in 1802, but the federal government neglected its obligation to obtain Indian lands for Georgia.105 Furthermore, after the state finally gained title to Creek lands within the state, the federal government infringed on Georgia’s rights by trying to prevent Troup from surveying the lands. The Enquirer argued that the fee 102 Milledgeville Republican, “Domestic,” Richmond Enquirer, May 31, 1825. 103 “Domestic: The Creeks,” Richmond Enquirer, May 27, 1825; Milledgeville Republican, “Domestic,” Richmond Enquirer, May 31, 1825. 104 “Georgia and the Creeks,” Richmond Enquirer, August 9, 1825. 105 “Georgia and the U. States,” Richmond Enquirer, August 23, 1825; “Georgia and the Creeks,” Richmond Enquirer, August 9, 1825; “Georgia and the United States,” Richmond Enquirer, August 19, 1825.

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simple of Creek land was vested in Georgia following the ratification of the Treaty of Indian Springs.106 Despite Troup’s clear authority to survey Creek land, Adams sent special agents to Georgia that not only tried to prevent Troup from exercising this right but also demonstrated an outrageous lack of respect for the governor.107 Editorials in the Enquirer also commented on the wider implications of these affronts on Georgia’s sovereignty. For instance, an August 1825 editorial warned if the federal government’s exercise of power went unchecked, the states would be transformed into “obedient corporations” and “the government will soon become an oligarchy; and the transition to monarchy will be easy”.108 This shift in the Richmond Enquirer’s coverage of the aftermath of the treaty from balanced to firmly in support of Troup reflected the newspaper’s stance in national politics. Thomas Ritchie, a Democratic-Republican Party activist, founded the Richmond Enquirer in 1804 to serve as an organ of Thomas Jefferson’s administration. In its early years, the Enquirer depended on Democratic Party patronage and even though Ritchie exercised autonomy in determining the newspaper’s editorial content, he did not conceal his objective of speaking for the Jefferson administration. Ritchie remained active in national politics throughout the 1820s, and served as a strong spokesperson for Virginia and states’ rights.109 During the 1824 presidential election, he supported Crawford and viewed Adams’ victory with indignation as a ‘corrupt bargain’.110 These political interests are evident in how the Enquirer editorialized the aftermath of the Treaty of Indian Springs.While the Enquirer did not initially take a definitive position on the Creek controversy, when the federal government came into confrontation with Troup and Georgia, Ritchie consistently published editorials supporting Troup using strong states’ rights rhetoric. Furthermore, the Enquirer featured a number of editorials depicting Adams as despotic, reflecting Ritchie’s states’ rights stance and dislike of Adams. In the aftermath of the Treaty of Indian Springs, newspapers across the country published editorials denouncing the treaty as invalid and

criticizing Troup’s efforts to execute it by surveying Creek lands. Newspaper opposition to the treaty was widespread, and the press from all regions of the nation published editorials with similar arguments, emphasizing that the treaty was obtained through illegitimate means and violated guarantees made to the Creeks in earlier treaties with the United States.The press argued that the treaty could not be considered valid, and to enforce a treaty obtained through illegitimate means would harm America’s national honor. As a result, when Troup attempted to implement the treaty and begin surveying Creek lands, newspapers across the country denounced his actions. This consensus against the treaty and Troup is particularly noteworthy given the divergence of northern and southern interests and development of sectionalism during the early 19th century. Newspaper coverage of the aftermath of the treaty, however, was not homogenous and there was some diversity in editorials published, reflecting the influence of state and national politics. In Georgia, the state’s expanding partisan press weighed in on the Treaty of Indian Springs, which emerged as a key issue in the months leading up to the 1825 gubernatorial election. Georgia newspapers largely backed the Troup faction, and aided his campaign by defending the validity of the treaty, criticizing Crowell, and supported his survey of Creek lands using states’ rights rhetoric. While the state political context was significant in how the Georgia press covered the treaty’s aftermath, the national political context influenced the Richmond Enquirer’s coverage. While the newspaper did not initially take a definitive stance on the treaty, as Georgia came into conflict with the federal government during the summer and fall of 1825, the Enquirer’s position solidified around supporting Troup’s efforts to implement the treaty. The Enquirer published a number of editorials explicitly defining the controversy as an issue of states’ rights and depicting the federal government as despotic, reflecting the national political stance of the newspaper and its editor, Thomas Ritchie. Coverage of the aftermath of the Treaty of Indian Springs in the Richmond Enquirer and Georgia press thus demonstrates that while there was widespread opposition to the treaty in all regions of the nation, the debate surrounding the treaty remained tied to both state and national politics. After a year of heated debates in both the press and government offices in Washington, D.C., a new treaty with the Creeks, the Treaty of

106 “Georgia and the Creeks,” Richmond Enquirer, October 25, 1825. 107 “The Creeks,” Richmond Enquirer, September 30, 1825. 108 “Georgia and the U. States,” Richmond Enquirer, August 23, 1825. 109 Silbey. 110 Charles Henry Ambler, Thomas Ritchie: A Study inVirginia Politics (Richmond, Virginia: Bell Book & Stationary Co., 1913), 99.

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Washington, was signed on January 24, 1826.111 The Treaty of Washington abrogated the Treaty of Indian Springs, marking the only time in American history the federal government has nullified a treaty made with an Indian tribe.112 The Creeks not only succeeded in convincing the federal government to disregard a ratified, yet fraudulent, treaty, but also regained lands in Alabama and received new guarantees of protection from white encroachments; in exchange, however, the Creeks agreed to cede the Nation’s lands within the boundaries of Georgia. 113 Even though the Creeks were ultimately unsuccessful in their struggle to keep their homeland, the months following the ratification of the first Creek removal treaty in 1825 emphasize the contingency of their removal. The Creeks received strong support in the editorial columns of newspapers throughout the United States, which contributed to political pressure on President Adams and the federal government to take action to resolve the controversy. At the same time, newspaper coverage in Georgia and the Richmond Enquirer highlights the role of state and national political context in the debate over Creek removal. Creek removal was thus not inevitable or predetermined, but rather a hotly debated issue tied to partisan politics at the state and national level.

bibliography

111 112 113

Hryniewicki, 434. Green, 125. Ibid, 125.

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Primary Sources: Alexandria Gazette, August 23, 1825. Alexandria Gazette, September 1, 1825. “An Appeal to the People of the United States by a Georgian. No. IV.” Georgian, August 18, 1825. “An Appeal to the People of the United States by a Georgian. No.V.” Georgian, August 20, 1825. Augusta Constitutionalist. Richmond Enquirer, August 23, 1825. Baltimore Herald. “Georgia.” Centinel of Freedom, August 23, 1825. “Copy of a Letter to the Editor of the Southern Intelligencer.” Norwich Courier, July 6, 1825. Columbia Telescope. “Creek Indians.” Essex Register, June 27, 1825. Columbia Telescope. “Creek Indians.” Connecticut Courant, July 5, 1825. “Creek Indian Affairs.” Rhode Island American, August 9, 1825. “Creek Indians.” Augusta Chronicle, May 21, 1825. “Creek Indians.” Charleston Courier, June 14, 1825. “Creek Indians.” New Bedford Mercury, May 27, 1825. “The Creek Outrages.” Georgian, May 18, 1825. “The Creek Treaty.” Western Carolinian, August 9, 1825. “The Creeks.” American, May 31, 1825. “The Creeks.” Evening Post, June 7, 1825. “The Creeks.” Georgian, May 17, 1825. “The Creeks.” Ohio Monitor, August 13, 1825. “The Creeks.” Richmond Enquirer, September 30, 1825. “The Creeks.” Salem Gazette, June 7, 1825. “Domestic: The Creeks.” Richmond Enquirer, May 27, 1825. “Exposition of the United States Commissioners,To Be Continued.” Georgian, FOUNDATIONS • Fall 2013

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November 29, 1825. “General Summary.” Scioto Gazette, June 23, 1825. “Georgia.” Easton Gazette, September 3, 1825. “Georgia Against the General Government.” Ithaca Journal, August 24, 1825. “Georgia and the Creeks.” Alexandria Gazette, August, 30, 1825. “Georgia and the Creeks.” Richmond Enquirer, August 9, 1825. “Georgia and the Creeks.” Richmond Enquirer, October 25, 1825. “Georgia and the U. States.” Richmond Enquirer, August 23, 1825. “Georgia and the United States.” Richmond Enquirer, August 19, 1825. “Georgia and the United States.” Richmond Enquirer, September 24, 1825. “Georgia and the United States.” Western Carolinian, July 12, 1825. Georgia Journal. “To George M. Troup, Governor of Georgia.” Georgian, September 6, 1825. Georgian, September 27, 1825. Georgian. “From the Georgian.” Richmond Enquirer, October 25, 1825. “Indian Disturbances.” Charleston Courier, May 24, 1825. Macon Messenger. “From the Macon Messenger.” Richmond Enquirer, July 29, 1825. “McIntosh and the Creeks.” Eastern Argus, June 9, 1825. Milledgeville Recorder. “Troup and the Treaty Against Clark, Crowell, etc.” Georgian, September 1, 1825. Milledgeville Republican. “Domestic.” Richmond Enquirer, May 31, 1825. Montgomery Republican. “Creek Nation.” Richmond Enquirer, June 3, 1825. Nashville Republican. Arkansas Gazette, August 30, 1825. “National and State Rights.” Charleston Courier, August 17, 1825. National Intelligencer. “The Creek Massacre.” Rhode Island American, May 27, 1825. National Journal. “From the National Journal.” Middlesex Gazette, August 31, 1825.

National Journal. “From the National Journal.” New Hampshire Patriot. September 5, 1825. The NewYork Review. “Examination of the Controversy Between Georgia and the Creeks.” Vermont Gazette, August 23, 1825. The NewYork Review. “Examination of the Controversy Between Georgia and the Creeks [Concluded].” Vermont Gazette, August 30, 1825. Richmond Enquirer. “Georgia and the United States.” Georgian, August 27, 1825. Richmond Enquirer. “Georgia and the United States.” Georgian, September 24, 1825. South Carolina State Gazette. “Creek Indians.” Richmond Enquirer, June 3, 1825. South Carolina State Gazette. “Creek Indians.” Salem Gazette, June 3, 1825.

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Secondary Sources: Ambler, Charles Henry. Thomas Ritchie: A Study inVirginia Politics. Richmond, Virginia: Bell Book & Stationary Co., 1913. Carey, Anthony Gene. Parties, Slavery and the Union in Antebellum Georgia. Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 1997. Finkelman, Paul. “Introduction: Congress, the Rise of Sectionalism, and the Challenge of Jacksonian Democracy.” In Congress and the Emergence of Sectionalism: From the Missouri Compromise to the Age of Jackson, edited by Paul Finkelman and Donald R. Kennon, 1-16. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2008. Forbes, Robert P. “The Missouri Controversy and Sectionalism.” In Congress and the Emergence of Sectionalism: From the Missouri Compromise to the Age of Jackson, edited by Paul Finkelman and Donald R. Kennon, 7596. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2008. Garrison, Tim Alan. “United States Indian Policy in Sectional Crisis: FOUNDATIONS • Fall 2013

Grace Hart Georgia’s Exploitation of the Compact of 1802. In Congress and the Emergence of Sectionalism: From the Missouri Compromise to the Age of Jackson, edited by Paul Finkelman and Donald R. Kennon, 97-124. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2008. Green, Michael D. The Politics of Indian Removal: Creek Government and Society in Crisis.Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1982. Griffith, BenjaminW. McIntosh andWeatherford, Creek Indian Leaders.Tuscaloosa, Alabama: The University of Alabama Press, 1988. Griffith, Louis Turner. Georgia Journalism, 1763-1950. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1951. Haveman, Christopher D. “The Removal of the Creek Indians from the Southeast, 1825-1838.” PhD diss., Auburn University, 2009. Hryniewicki, Richard J. “The Creek Treaty of Washington, 1826.” The Georgia Historical Quarterly 48, no. 4 (December 1964) http://www.jstory. org (accessed January 23, 2013). Jackson, Harvey H. “John Clark.” American National Biography Online. http:// www.anb.org/articles/03/03-00098.html (accessed February 18, 2013). Larson, John Lauritz. The Market Revolution in America: Liberty, Ambition, and the Eclipse of the Common Good. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010. Mott, Frank Luther. American Journalism, A History: 1690-1960. New York: The MacMillan Company, 1962. Parsons, Lynn Hudson. “’A Perpetual Harrow Upon My Feelings’: John Quincy Adams and the American Indian.” The New England Quarterly 46, no. 3 (September 1973) http://www.jstor.org (accessed

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Editorializing Creek Removal January 23, 2013). Rothmann, Adam. Slave Country: American Expansion the Origins of the Deep South.Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2005. Silbey, Joel H. “Thomas Ritchie.” American National Biography Online. http:// www.anb.org/articles/03/03-00419.html (accessed February 20, 2013). Silver, James W. “General Gaines Meets Governor Troup: A State-Federal Clash in 1825.” The Georgia Historical Quarterly 27, no. 3 (September 1943) http://www.jstor.org (accessed February 23, 2013). “Treaty with the Creeks, 1825.” February 12, 1825. Indian Affairs: Laws and Treaties, vol. II (1904). Publication Locations of Newspapers Cited: Alabama Montgomery Republican (Montgomery, Alabama) Arkansas Arkansas Gazette (Little Rock, Arkansas) Connecticut Connecticut Courant (Hartford, Connecticut) Middlesex Gazette (Middlesex, Connecticut) Norwich Courier (Norwich, Connecticut) District of Columbia National Intelligencer (Washington, DC) Georgia Augusta Chronicle (Augusta, Georgia) Augusta Constitutionalist (Augusta, Georgia) Georgian (Savannah, Georgia) FOUNDATIONS • Fall 2013

Grace Hart Macon Messenger (Macon, Georgia) Milledgeville Recorder (Milledgeville, Georgia) Milledgeville Republican (Milledgeville, Georgia) Maine Eastern Argus (Portland, Maine) Maryland Baltimore Herald (Baltimore, Maryland) Easton Gazette (Easton, Maryland) Massachusetts Essex Register (Salem, Massachusetts) New Bedford Mercury (New Bedford, Massachusetts) Salem Gazette (Salem, Massachusetts)

Rhode Island Rhode Island American (Providence, Rhode Island) South Carolina Charleston Courier (Charleston, South Carolina) Columbia Telescope (Columbia, South Carolina) South Carolina State Gazette (Columbia, South Carolina) Vermont Vermont Gazette (Bennington, Vermont) Virginia Alexandria Gazette (Alexandria, Virginia) Richmond Enquirer (Richmond, Virginia)

New Hampshire New Hampshire Patriot (Concord, New Hampshire) New Hampshire Sentinel (Keene, New Hampshire) New Jersey Centinel of Freedom (Newark, New Jersey) New York American (New York, New York) Evening Post (New York, New York) Ithaca Journal (Ithaca, New York) North Carolina Western Carolinian (Salisbury, North Carolina) Ohio Ohio Monitor (Columbus, Ohio) Scioto Gazette (Chillicothe, Ohio)

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Between Illustration and Idolatry

Foxe’s Book of Martyrs and the Evolution of the Cult of Images in Reformation England Carlie Pendleton Randolph Macon College

Abstract The publication of John Foxe’s Acts and Monuments, referred to more commonly as the Book of Martyrs, is the ultimate embodiment of political and religious propaganda under the Tudor dynasty. It is distinguished from other major Protestant martyrologies of the sixteenth-century by its heavy use of illustrative woodcuts, a use which not only successfully communicated the book’s message to a largely illiterate laity but established Protestantism as an integral part of English national identity. Its subsequent state-sponsored dissemination throughout English churches and cathedrals led to its popular use as a liturgical and devotional text.

In John Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, Bishop John Hooper embodies the ghastly image of Protestant martyrdom under the Marian regime as one who slowly burned for his faith. In Foxe’s account, even when “he was blacke in the mouth and his toung swollen that he could not speake” he still cried out to Jesus for forgiveness.1 And even after “he knocked hys brest with hys handes vntill one of his armes fell of,” Hooper raised his other arm to continue his repentance.2 Even after burning for the better part of an hour, Hooper is recounted not as wailing in agony but instead as a lamb, whom even after his bowels had fallen out and his genitals were engulfed in flames, “he dyed as quietly as a child in his bed.”3 For his constancy in faith unto death and his steadfastness in the midst of torture, John Hooper is considered a martyr for the Protestant faith. The best part about John Hooper’s story is that anyone could understand it and need not read a single word. This was all due to the exquisite woodcut illustrations in the Book of Martyrs. The woodcut illustrations used in Foxe’s Book of Martyrs provided an emotionally evocative experience of martyrdom for the reader. They were used to communicate the new Protestant martyrology to an English laity who by and large was both illiterate and reluctant to take to the new faith. These illustrations ultimately resulted in the establishment of Protestantism as an integral part of English national identity. However, the use of such images to invoke a religious experience, while effective, flirted with the idolatry that the Reformation had so vehemently denounced. As with most books, religious or otherwise, first impressions matter to the reader. Foxe understood this well as he visually overwhelms the reader with his massive frontispiece woodcut. Foxe knew that he would need to clearly define and illustrate the terms of his book as to what constituted both the true religion and heresy. He also understood that influencing a laity with a low rate of literacy required the images that he used to be heavily detailed and allegorical in nature. The Book of Martyrs’ frontispiece is the epitome of these guidelines. It is impossible to absorb the enormity of this woodcut’s message by examining it as a whole. Instead it can be broken down into sections, each one juxtaposed with an example of faith and of heresy. The 1563 edition, as well as the subsequent editions, all contained a centered box of text that briefly outlines the 1 “The Martyrdom of John Hooper,” in The Unabridged Acts and Monuments Online or TAMO (1570 edition), by John Foxe (Sheffield: HRI Online Publications, 2011), 1723. http://www. johnfoxe.org (accessed November 11, 2012). 2 Ibid., 1723. 3 Ibid., 1723.

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scope and purpose of this work. According to this text, the book’s purpose is to describe “the great persecutions and horrible troubles, that have bene wrought and practiced by the Romine Prelates, Specialye in this realm of England and Scotlande.”4 These persecutions that have been wrought have spanned from 1000 AD “unto the tyme nowe present.”5 Therefore, Foxe is setting up the Catholic Church as the villainous torturers of those who ascribe to the true faith. Furthermore, Foxe affirms the accuracy of the accounts to follow by claiming they have been “gathered and collected according to the true copies and wrytinges certificatorie as wel of the parties themselves that suffered.”6 Thus all who read the Book of Martyrs may trust its veracity. However, for those who could not read, the true introduction began with the images themselves. The woodcut is thematically divided from left to right, with the images on the left showing those who are saved and the right displaying those who are damned. In fact, in the second edition of the Book, printed in 1570, Foxe elucidated this point further by placing the words “The Image of the persecuted Church” under the left half of the image and the words “The Image of the persecutyng Church” under the right.7 Regardless of the absence of these statements in the first edition of the woodcut, the left and right halves are then further divided into three parts each for a more clear theological parallel. Starting from the bottom, as this is the natural progression of the images, Foxe displays two pictures of church structure and ceremony for the Protestant and Catholic faiths. On the left, the Protestant church is distinguished by its simplicity and its more spiritual imagery. For example, in the foreground there are both men and women participating in a Bible study next to another group of men who can be seen both kneeling and standing with their eyes closed but their arms outstretched and their faces uplifted towards heaven. This image is illustrative of the Protestant call for greater inward piety and the use of the scripture to achieve a spiritual state. As these people can be assumed to be English laity, the reading of

scripture implies that it is in the vernacular which is another Protestant tenet. Furthermore, these people appear to be communicating with God themselves without the aid of a priest, demonstrating the reformist idea of acting as one’s own priest or confessor. The simplicity of the image is also representative of the diminished materiality of the Protestant church. The minister pictured is dressed in simple vestments, and there are no signs of any stained glass or statues. The most important part of this image is the background display of Hebrew letters which can be interpreted as a sign of the true church’s historical consciousness of and resemblance to the original, apostolic church. Therefore this church is the legitimate one. By contrast, the church depicted in the right bottom image is a false church of idols. Instead of reading Bibles, the people in the front left of this picture are holding rosaries and are not focused towards the sky or heaven but instead are either level or turned slightly downward. This represents the Catholic Church’s earthly focus and not the spiritual one illustrated in the adjacent image. The priest in this church is not modestly dressed either but is instead lavishly clothed in traditional Catholic robes. The priest is also heavier than the Protestant preacher, symbolizing the decadence and gluttony of the popish religion. The right half of this image is the most revealing as it shows a procession of people on a pilgrimage journeying to a shrine in the background. The people can be seen carrying things like a banner with a cross, a crucifix, and a tent. Not only does this underscore the image of materiality, but it also shows the Catholic route to salvation as one of good works, such as going on a pilgrimage. In between these two Protestant and Catholic images, a devil or a demon is inserted with his eyes oriented to the image on the right, as this is the one he favors. Another demonic figure is also present directly above the upper, right-hand corner of this image. The middle two images display how each side communes or intends to commune with God.The left image shows the followers of the true church chained to pyres and being burned at the stake. The seven figures however do not express pain or horror on their faces or bodies but instead are each seen blowing horns as their call to God. Such a disposition was vital to a Protestant martyr as they did not mourn their fate but instead welcomed it well, as they knew that their suffering for the true faith in this life meant eternal salvation in the next. Unlike Catholic martyrs, the Protestant

4 “Frontispiece,” in The Unabridged Acts and Monuments Online or TAMO (1563 edition), by John Foxe (Sheffield: HRI Online Publications, 2011). http://www.johnfoxe. org (accessed September 21, 2012). 5 Ibid. 6 Ibid. 7 Ibid.

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martyrs were not exalted because they performed miracles, had visions, or kept their virginity. It was now the piety in the face of persecution, the cause for which they died, that qualified them as martyrs. Foxe here is drawing a parallel with the early martyrs of the church, who, before Christianity was the established religion, were persecuted and canonized much the same for their suffering for their faith. When Christianity was no longer the renegade theology, martyrs were no longer needed and sainthood took the form of the aforementioned miracles and virginity. This connection represents the English Church’s belief that historically it is the legitimate religion, as Catholicism at some point had strayed from the true path, but England had not. The Catholic image on the right depicts the visual feast of the Mass. As opposed to lay people in the left image, those participating in the events to the right are all either monks or priests as can be seen by the presence of either a tonsure or a mitre.The six clergy in the foreground are seen kneeling on pillows and making their call to heaven by horns as well. However, in the background, four clergymen can be seen kneeling around an altar with one ringing a bell and another holding incense. Finally the priest in the middle is shown standing with his back turned to the congregation, lifting the host, and blessing the Eucharist. The separation between the congregation and God with the priest as a conduit is symbolized by the priest not facing the congregation. The Catholic Church was not a religion of transparency but mystery. The wafer itself is emblazoned with an image of a crucified Jesus, and the altar is decorated with long, tapered candles and the chalice for the wine. The image of the crucifixion on the host represents the Catholic belief in transubstantiation or the idea that when the Eucharist is blessed by the priest, the bread and wine becomes the body and blood of Christ. Such a notion explicates Catholicism as a religion of immanence or a temporal and spatial concept of God. The idea of calling the sacred down to earth is contrasted with the Protestant images’ depiction of transcendence or the idea of spiritually lifting oneself up to God. The consequences of using spirituality and martyrdom as opposed to materiality and superstition are manifested in the final group of images. On the left, the images of burning martyrs with horns and heads turned upwards to heaven result in them standing and kneeling with crowns in heaven with their horns upturned to God. Directly above them is a heavenly

procession of angels spanning both sides of the page, blowing their horns toward God as well. God is personified in the top-middle of this woodcut as a celestial figure sitting atop the earth. His hands are enough to tell the fate of both sides, with his left one pointing up while his right one points down. As such the top section of images to the right shows the fate of those who take part in the false religion of Catholic idolatry. Directly above the mass, the clergymen can be seen with their horns now blowing downward and their bodies intermixed with flying demons with forked tongues. Bolts of lightning crash over their heads as they are denied entry into heaven and instead are cast down and relegated to hell. It is important to understand that is exactly what Foxe wanted. He wanted to visually assault and shock the reader with images that, while intricate, simply defined the new Protestant soteriology: inward piety, a more spiritual as opposed to material faith, partaking in the scripture, a removal from magic and superstition, and finally staunch fearlessness in meeting the righteous death of a martyr. As far as first impressions go, needless to say Foxe knew how to make his mark. Foxe’s illustration of his religious terms reflected the line in the sand that the Reformation had drawn between who is blessed and who is cursed. The Reformation in its simplest form was the splintering of Christendom into different expressions of religious identity. In England, this fracture manifested itself uniquely as the theological changes were secondary and instigated via political means rather than popular demand. Thus all instances of religious reform were not born from grassroots movements but through state-sponsored means.The Book of Martyrs itself would not have been possible without the financial support of the state-sponsored English printing press. However, while Foxe’s work clarified the religious terms of Protestantism, it also helped make sense of the extreme vicissitudes of religion that England had undergone during the Tudor dynasty. The religious landscape under which Foxe functioned originated with the changes made by the Catholic Church’s once favorite son: Henry VIII. Henry VIII permanently changed the religious landscape of England. However, while during his reign Henry VIII ushered in religious amendments that would eventually trigger the Reformation in England, it was done as a self-serving and political maneuver in order to secure the succession and continuation of the Tudor dynasty. Despite the fact that he

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had evangelical leanings, he was a Catholic to his dying day and had no love for Protestantism. It was simple: he needed a divorce, and when the pope refused to grant him one, he took the necessary steps to centralize his control over religion in England. As a result, the only real major reform made by him was ecclesiological, not theological, by appointing himself head of the church in England. Thus, Henry VIII’s actions and reforms vacillated between both ends of the religious spectrum with reforms such as those of the Reformation Parliament and the Dissolution of the Monasteries and his scaled-back Catholic leaning Six Articles of 1539. Regarding the use of religious images and idols, Henry did not believe they were inherently evil as long as people were not worshipping them. Veneration was fine but the leap from veneration to superstition was not. Despite Henry’s mercurial disposition, it was he who set the wheels for true religious overhaul in motion. The major theological changes in England took place under Henry’s children: the ultra-Protestant Edward VI, the devoted Catholic Mary, and the ever-irascible, middle way Elizabeth. Under Edward, the floodgates for Protestantism opened in England. With the expertise of Thomas Cranmer, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Edward oversaw the publication of the Book of Common Prayer, in 1549 and 1552 which The former edition, while more theologically conservative, outlined the four pillars of the English church: sola scriptura, a uniform church liturgy, the church was to be a national church, and it would retain the episcopacy. These pillars are what made England unique, as they mixed a Protestant theology with a Catholic ecclesiology. Edward was much more iconoclastic than Henry regarding things such as images and statues. Whereas Henry cleaned up the religious calendar a bit and eliminated certain feast days, Edward engaged in the stripping of religious idols and a complete whitewash of church decoration. It was under Mary, with the reestablishment of Catholicism as the religion of England, that Foxe’s Book of Martyrs is born due to her persecution and burning of over 300 Protestants. The Marian martyrs, as described and illustrated by Foxe, are what elucidate so clearly the differences between Catholic and Protestant martyrology. The ultimate purpose of either martyrology was to convince the reader that theirs was the only true religion. Foxe understood this and actively edited and revised the recounting of his martyrs’ stories as well as his woodcuts. However, the

book was not simply just a rendering of the Marian martyrs but an incredibly long, detailed revision of history through the lens of English Protestantism, stretching “from the time of the first Christened King Lucius, King of this Realme of England, which is from the yeare of our Lord 180 vnto the tyme now present.”8 An excellent example of Foxe’s editorial interference and liberal revisionism is with his evolving treatments of Sir John Oldcastle. In addition to being both a rebel and a traitor who had “led an abortive coup against Henry V” in January 1414, Oldcastle also expressed belief in purgatory.9 However, while Oldcastle’s distant existence from the present allowed Protestant martyrologists to act with such leeway without much criticism, it also made it difficult for his English audience to connect with Oldcastle on any significant level.10 As previously stated, the English laity, by and large, was not taking to Protestantism very well. Foxe understood this and modified his renderings of Oldcastle accordingly in order to cultivate sympathy for him as a martyr. For example, in Foxe’s 1559 work Rerum in Ecclesia Gestarum, the prequel to what would become The Book of Martyrs, Foxe’s illustration of Oldcastle is sampled from the work of his friend and martyrological mentor John Bale. In it Oldcastle is “firmly placed in the tradition of the classical hero, girt with sword and shield and helmeted and attired in antique fashion.”11 He is depicted as a warrior for God, but an elegant one at that, dressed proudly with a picture of the crucified Jesus emblazoned on his shield. This rendering also echoes a depiction of Mars found in Hans Burgkmair’s series The Seven Planets, further emphasizing the classical elements Foxe still clung to in this earlier work.12 Any touch of elegance or glosses of sophisticated, chivalric knighthood, is stripped away in Foxe’s woodcut of John Oldcastle’s

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8 The Unabridged Acts and Monuments Online or TAMO (1570 edition), by John Foxe (Sheffield: HRI Online Publications, 2011), 1723. http://www.johnfoxe.org (accessed November 11, 2012). 9 Leslie P. Fairfield, John Bale: Mythmaker for the Reformation (West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press, 1976), 126-7. 10 Ibid., 129. 11 Margaret Aston and Elizabeth Ingram, “The Iconography of the Acts and Monuments,” in John Foxe and the English Reformation, ed. David Loades (Aldershot, England: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 1997), 82. 12 Ibid., 82.

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martyrdom in the Book of Martyrs. Used from the 1563 edition on, Oldcastle is “reduced to the naked essentials of tortured humanity” in the depiction of his death rather than his life.13 He is shown naked, dangling in chains in the fire below.14 There are no knightly vestments but simply an old man, with fire covering his genitals, looking towards the sky and lifting himself up to God.15 His heroism is no longer defined by “helmet, shield, or sword” but instead for the painful yet constant death he suffered.16 This change makes sense not only for the emotional evocation but also for the contradictory nature of including a woodcut of a Protestant saint with an image of the crucifixion on his shield.17 While Foxe himself is employing the use of images to provoke a religious experience, which can be viewed as idolatrous, the use of the image of the crucified Jesus in particular would have been far too over the line in terms of idolatry.18 The Rerum also contained an earlier rendering of John Hooper’s death as well, with marked differences from his treatment in the Book of Martyrs. For example, Hooper, along with other woodcuts of martyrs, depicted the fire and smoke “in stylized darts and snakes and curving billows” as they encircled their figure.19 However, the men always remained fully clothed and remained “untouched by the fire,” as Foxe left the visceral horror to come to be imagined by the reader.20 Foxe left nothing to the imagination in his Book of Martyrs. No grotesque detail was spared, no gruesome image too offensive, for they inspired the sympathy, revulsion, and outrage in the reader that Foxe knew was necessary to gain lay favor with Protestantism. Foxe’s arguable pinnacle with evoking sympathy from the reader came with his treatment of the Fair Gospeler, Anne Askew. Askew was a young, beautiful Protestant woman from Lincolnshire who was burned for denying transubstantiation in 1546. She was a martyrological goldmine for

Foxe not just because of her looks, or her close, temporal proximity to his work, but because she had kept detailed accounts of her imprisonments. The Examinations, as they came to be known, were first published in 1548 by John Bale under the Edwardian regime when censorship laws were more relaxed.21 Foxe then appropriated Askew’s story into the Book of Martyrs, along with the woodcut of her death. However, the use and placement of her story changes between the 1563 and 1570 editions. For example, in the first edition, Askew’s account is buried in a quagmire of other texts such as the martyrdoms of John Kirby and Roger Clerk and the recantation of Edward Crome.22 Her text is then followed with a 1546 proclamation banning heretical books and Foxe’s own praise of Henry VIII and a list of preachers forced to recant during his reign.23 There is no apparent order, chronological or otherwise, to Foxe’s compilation in this first edition. However, in Foxe’s next edition, published in 1570, Askew’s story is juxtaposed with Foxe’s own criticism of Henry VIII. This criticism stems from a reprinted speech in which Henry “urg[ed] his subjects to be charitable.”24 Foxe criticizes this hypocritical decree, boldly commenting “what charitie ensued after this exhortation of the kyng to charitie, by the rackyng and burnyng of good Anne Askew.”25 More criticism then follows involving Henry’s advisors such Gardiner and their Catholic misdeeds.26 This new arrangement transforms Askew’s account into a “keystone” with which to emphasize Foxe’s main points: “the implacable opposition by evil or, at best, mis-guided councilors to the progress of religious reformation; the monarch’s responsibility to carry out those reforms whatever the obstacles,

13 Ibid., 82. 14 “The description of the horrible and cruell martirdome of Sir Iohn oldcastle, Lorde Cobham,” in The Unabridged Acts and Monuments Online or TAMO (1563 edition), by John Foxe (Sheffield: HRI Online Publications, 2011), 329. http://www.johnfoxe.org (accessed November 11, 2012). 15 Ibid. 16 Aston and Ingram, 82. 17 Ibid., 82. 18 Ibid., 82. 19 Ibid., 84. 20 Ibid., 84.

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21 John N. King, ed., Voices of the English Reformation (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004), 231. 22 Thomas Freeman and Sarah Elizabeth Wall, “Racking the Body, Shaping the Text: The Account of Anne Askew in Foxe’s ‘Book of Martyrs.’” Renaissance Quarterly 54:2 (Winter 2001), 1186. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1261970 (accessed February 13, 2012). 23 Ibid., 1186. 24 Ibid., 1187. 25 John Foxe, Acts and Monuments, ed., Thomas Freeman et al. http://www. johnfoxe.org/index.php?realm=text&gototype=modern&edition=1570&pageid=1413 (accessed April 16, 2012). 26 Freeman and Wall, 1187.

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and the disastrous consequences of a failure by the monarch to do so.”27 These points are indeed a reflection of Foxe’s growing frustration with “Elizabeth’s failure to eradicate the vestiges of popery in the English church.”28 As Foxe would not engage in open criticism of Elizabeth, he instead juxtaposed the moral shortcomings of her father Henry VIII with the righteousness of Anne Askew.29 Once again, Askew is being used to further Protestant reform, which in Foxe’s opinion had not moved far or fast enough. The woodcut rendering of her death is unique as well compared to the others. In Anne Askew’s case, and the book in general, Foxe’s woodcuts were supplied by a man named John Day. Day came to prominence during the reign of Edward VI and from the outset “employed woodcuts in order to promote books that contained Protestant propaganda.”30 Predating the publication of the Book of Martyrs, the only woodcut Foxe used to do so, it first appeared in 1548 in Robert Crowley’s The Confutation of Thirteen Articles.31 The woodcut itself depicts the burning of Askew at Smithfield with John Lascelles and their companions based on Bale’s description in the 1548 edition of the Examinations.32 In it, Nicholas Shaxton, Askew’s colleague who recanted, preaches from a “portable pulpit” as Anne and the others are burned and a bolt of lightning crashes down.33 As Day, unlike many of his colleagues, retained ownership of his woodcuts, he was then able to reuse Askew’s in order to “embellish the transcription of her heresy examinations” in Foxe’s Book of Martyrs.34 Day’s imagery was much more realistic than the “more static imagery” of Protestant martyrs produced on the continent.35 Creating a distinctive English style of Woodcut, Day’s depiction was characterized by the openness of the scene, with a cityscape in the background and a crowd of spectators encircling the area around the pyres.36 The scene is also

accompanied by horses, which were often used as “symbols for religious persecution.”37 Coupled with the new style of paragraph breaks and textual flow, Day’s woodcut supplemented Foxe’s subtly evocative methods in manipulating and appropriating Askew’s martyrdom to further his agenda. As much as Foxe’s woodcuts exalted the true Protestant church, there were an equal number of those which denigrated the Catholic Church. The most prominent ones were actually a collection of woodcuts known as the Primacy of Popes. First added to the 1570 edition, this collection of twelve images, some old and some new, is dedicated specifically to the depiction of Catholicism as heretical and of popes as antichrists.38 The first woodcut, “The Image of the true Catholicke Church of Christ,” is used to show the “greuous afflictions and sorowful tormentes, which through Gods secret sufferaunce, fell vpon the true Saintes and members” of the primitive church.39 This is Foxe’s depiction of the moment when the Catholic Church strayed to become the brutish, corrupt institution he sees it as. It shows good bishops and ministers of the true religion having there eyes gouged out, being whipped, beheaded, and eaten to death by lions.40 One punishment in particular is the crucifixion of a true believer upside down, symbolizing St. Peter’s crucifiction. By connecting the persecution of the true religion by the papacy with being synonymous with persecuting St. Peter, Foxe is showing how far the Catholic Church has swerved by depicting them essentially crucifying the true apostolic succession. The difference between true and the false is also symbolized in similar fashion as in the frontispiece, with simplicity of clothing and depictions of inward piety representing the blessed church, and ornate vestments worn by a fat pope symbolizing the corrupted church. The second woodcut in the series is known as “Constantinus the Emperour embrasing Christen Bishops,” and depicts the moment where Foxe claims agents of the church became truly corrupt. The greed and desecration of the primitive church began when the Emperor Constantine gave his entire western empire to the church, “For after that the Church of

27 Ibid., 1188. 28 Ibid., 1188. 29 Ibid., 1188. 30 John N. King, Foxe’s Book of Martyrs and Early Modern Print Culture (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 169. 31 Ibid., 177. 32 Ibid., 169-70. 33 Ibid., 170. 34 Ibid., 176. 35 Ibid., 177. 36 Ibid., 177.

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37 Ibid., 177. 38 Aston and Ingram, 115. 39 “The Image of the true Catholicke Church of Christ,” in The Unabridged Acts and Monuments Online or TAMO (1570 edition), by John Foxe (Sheffield: HRI Online Publications, 2011), 946. http://www.johnfoxe.org (accessed November 11, 2012). 40 Ibid., 946.

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Rome, through fauour of Emperours, was endued with landes, donatiōs, possessions, and patrimonies, so that the Bishops therof feelyng a smacke of wealth, ease, and prosperitie, began to swel in pompe and pride: the more they florished in this world.”41 This was the starting point, as simply clad bishops can now be seen lining up to kneel and to bask in the embrace of the lavish emperors, flush with jewels, crowns, and thrones.42 Here is the moment where agents of the church became agents of the state and lost there way from the true religion, and “now of persecuted people, began to be persecutours of others.”43 The bestowal of power by the emperors to the church eventually is reversed in the series’ fourth woodcut of “Emperours kissing the Popes feete.” The practice is imposed by the Pope on “tyrants and heathen princes” as way of gaining supplication.44 Foxe details how Emperor Henry IV was “him selfe forced with his wife and child to waite attendance vpon the Popes pleasure three dayes & three nightes in winter at the gates of Canossus.”45 Thus the Catholic Church has through its corruption and greed become the primary agents of persecution. They are no longer subservient to avaricious powers, they are the avaricious power, with the pope as the antichrist. The humiliation associated with this action is continued in the following woodcut depiction the crowning of Emperor Henry VI with the pope’s feet.46 The use of foot kissing was not used as a symbol for “papal domination and humiliation of kings and princes” only by Foxe but was a popular illustrative technique among Protestants.47 The next few woodcuts depict the surrender of crowns by emperors and kings to popes and papal legates, followed by depictions of kings holding

stirrups for the pope as another form of humiliation. The final woodcut in the Primacy of Popes series shows “The Pope caried on mens shoulders, the Emperour & kings going before him,” shows, as can be gleaned from the title, the pope being carried around by the secular rulers.48 The pope and the Catholic Church are now, according to Foxe, built upon the crushing backs of kings and emperors and continue to reap unjust riches from this heretical dominance. This exhaustive succession of anti-Catholic and antipapal woodcuts was not simply just used for the sake of bashing the Catholic Church but were being used by Foxe to set up ample justification for Henry VIII’s break with Rome. If the corruption was this old, blatant, and widespread, then what Henry did was for the good of the people and the spiritual health of England. Hence, the section that immediately follows this series of woodcuts, details the reign of the man who would deliver England from this monstrosity of a church: Henry VIII. Such a transition highlights the fact that the role of the woodcuts in the Book of Martyrs was not just decidedly religious but political as well, as in England the two were synonymous. Discussed briefly in Foxe’s treatment of Anne Askew, Foxe dedicated an immense proportion of his illustrations to glorifying England’s monarchs. Royal iconography was an important outlet as well as it “filled the artistic vacuum left by outbursts of Edwardian iconoclasm.”49 Despite the fact that Henry VIII was theologically a devout Catholic and persecuted Protestants, he was no exception to Foxe’s praise, as Foxe “rejoiced at Henry’s destruction of papal authority in England.”50 Foxe himself believed that Constantine’s mother, Saint Helen, was English, and as such “hailed the reestablishment of an imperial kingdom of England.”51 The woodcut used to depict the spirit of Henry’s liberation of England from the shackles of the moribund Catholic Church is heavily detailed. First published in the 1570 edition, the woodcut of Henry VIII represents the imperial triumph of England over papal dominance at home.

41 “Constantinus the Emperour embrasing Christen Bishops,” in The Unabridged Acts and Monuments Online or TAMO (1570 edition), by John Foxe (Sheffield: HRI Online Publications, 2011), 947. http://www.johnfoxe.org (accessed November 11, 2012). 42 Ibid., 947. 43 Ibid., 947. 44 Aston and Ingram, 121. 45 “Emperours kissing the Popes feete,” in The Unabridged Acts and Monuments Online or TAMO (1570 edition), by John Foxe (Sheffield: HRI Online Publications, 2011), 949. http://www.johnfoxe.org (accessed November 11, 2012). 46 Pope Celestinus 4. crowning the Emperour Henricus 6. with his feete,” in The Unabridged Acts and Monuments Online or TAMO (1570 edition), by John Foxe (Sheffield: HRI Online Publications, 2011), 950. http://www.johnfoxe.org (accessed November 11, 2012). 47 Aston and Ingram, 123.

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48 “The Pope caried on mens shoulders, the Emperour & kings going before him,” in The Unabridged Acts and Monuments Online or TAMO (1570 edition), by John Foxe (Sheffield: HRI Online Publications, 2011), 957. http://www.johnfoxe.org (accessed November 11, 2012). 49 John N. King, “The Royal Image, 1535-1603,” in Tudor Political Culture, ed. Dale Hoak (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 114. 50 Dale Hoak, “The Iconography of the Crown Imperial,” in Tudor Political Culture, ed. Dale Hoak (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 90. 51 Ibid., 91.

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For example, Henry is pictured sitting on his throne with the sword in his right hand and the scriptures in the other, symbolizing the consolidation of royal authority as both chief warrior and chief priest.52 Pope Clement VII can be seen under Henry VIII’s feet being trampled with his crown falling off while papal supporters such as Reginald Pole and John Fisher try to help him up.53 All around the bottom half of the illustration, monks and priests, as can be recognized by their tonsures, are screaming and weeping at the loss of papal authority in England.54 To Henry’s left, Thomas Cranmer can be seen handing the Bible to Henry.55 While this is said to be a Coverdale Bible, it is in fact anachronistic as since this woodcut depicts events in 1534 and the Coverdale Bible was not distributed until 1535.56 Furthermore, Thomas Cromwell can be seen standing behind Cranmer, representing his place as the legal architect behind Henrician Reformation.57 As with the frontispiece, the overwhelming allegory of this woodcut is Foxe’s both blatant and subtle at laying out the structure of the true church in England and glorifying the monarch who made it possible. Edward, as the most staunchly Protestant of Henry’s three children, was celebrated the most. While once again, due to Edwardian iconoclasm, “images of the king and royal heraldry inherited the veneration that statues of the Virgin and Child, saints’ images, and other cult objects” once enjoyed, his reign was marked by simplicity of worship.58 Foxe’s woodcut celebration of Edward’s reign, “The ninth booke containyng the Actes and thyges done in the reigne of kyng Edvvard the 6,” depicts, unlike his father’s woodcut, not just a limited portrait focused with Edward at the center, but instead a more, compartmentalized version of how Edwardian reform manifested itself. For example, the bottom half of the image represents the restorations of the true church under Edward. Referring to the church as “The Temple

well purged”, the bottom left of the image depicts Edward on his throne.59 Unlike his father’s woodcut, Edward is not being hounded by papists but is simply surrounded by his advisors and is being handed an English Bible as well as holding a sword.60 The bottom right half of the building, which is conjoined to Edward’s chamber, depicts church service under Edward. Most notably, the altar has been replaced, as per Foxe’s caption, with “the communion Table” as per Edward’s decree in the second edition of the Book of Common Prayer in 1552.61 This replacement represented the desacralization of the space of the altar, in that any physical or mystical separation between the minister and the congregation was eliminated and the host was now commemorative.62 Next to the table is a font where a baby is being baptized, and combined they represent the only two sacraments of the English Church, baptism and the Lord’s Supper, as opposed to the seven found in Catholicism.63 The rest of the congregation is sitting below, all together with both women and men reading the scripture themselves and the minister standing in the pulpit, not preaching but watching over the people, like a shepherd over his flock.64 In addition, windows of the church are plain glass with no images.65 Directly above this peaceful scene, the exodus of papists “packing away theyr Paltry” is depicted.66 Catholics are seen gathering as many trinkets as they can in preparation for leaving England on the “Ship of the Romish Church.”67 Some are carrying bags over their backs filled with church goods and fleeing the church as Protestants break the stained glass windows and the burning of images and crosses is depicted in the background.68 The ship itself is being rocked by violent waves and intense winds, symbolizing

52 “King Henry the eight,” in The Unabridged Acts and Monuments Online or TAMO (1570 edition), by John Foxe (Sheffield: HRI Online Publications, 2011), 962. http:// www.johnfoxe.org (accessed November 11, 2012). 53 Ibid., 962. 54 Ibid., 962. 55 Ibid., 962. 56 Hoak, 93. 57 “King Henry the eight,” 962. 58 King, “The Royal Image, 1535-1603,” 114.

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59 The ninth booke containyng the Actes and thyges done in the reigne of kyng Edvvard the 6,” in The Unabridged Acts and Monuments Online or TAMO (1570 edition), by John Foxe (Sheffield: HRI Online Publications, 2011), 1521. http://www.johnfoxe.org (accessed November 11, 2012). 60 Ibid., 1521. 61 Ibid., 1521. 62 Ibid., 1521. 63 Ibid., 1521. 64 Ibid., 1521. 65 Ibid., 1521. 66 Ibid., 1521. 67 Ibid., 1521. 68 Ibid., 1521.

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that God does not favor their journey.69 This would be the most starkly Protestant England would ever be under the Tudors, and as such Protestants rejoiced and Catholics wept. Mary, while she is verbally lambasted in the book ad nauseum, has no woodcut illustration in the Book of Martyrs. While no specific, scholarly explanation could be found, one might assume that while eviscerating her in writing is one thing, depicting her image as Foxe has other Catholics, such as consorting with demons, could cross the line as the dynasty she was apart of is still ruling. Foxe took similar caution in being verbally but not illustratively critical of some of Henry VIII’s more Catholic measures. Elizabeth represented the more moderate side of reformation, socalled big tent Protestantism. Her goal was to make the Church of England as flexible as possible, with the only people feeling left out being extreme Catholics and extreme Protestants. She was more concerned with national uniformity of the church rather than policing what people believed. As such, Elizabeth declared England would be a nation that was theologically Calvinist and but would still retain the episcopacy. Foxe, like many other Protestants kept expecting Elizabeth to continue reform after the Settlement. However, she never budged from her Thirty-Nine Articles, and this at times inspired Foxe to be discontented with her reign. Making its first appearance in the 1563 edition, the Constantinian Elizabeth portrays Elizabeth as a second Constantine and the pinnacle of church imperialism.The shape of the woodcut is a giant “C”, with John Foxe, John Day, and Thomas Norton depicted standing to her right.70 In the later 1570 edition, the “C” is meant to mean Christ according to Foxe, linking Elizabeth with the Virgin and Child, and leading to the assumption that Foxe, Day, and Norton are meant to symbolize the Magi.71 The reimagining of the symbol of the “C” from Constantine to Christ in the 1570 edition could not have come at a better time as Elizabeth was facing both rebellion from Catholic earls in the north and had just been excommunicated by the pope.72 Foxe’s association of Elizabeth with Constantine is due not just to his imperial idea of church leadership but because “just as the first Christian Roman emperor had halted the persecution of the early church,” Elizabeth

had done so for England after the Catholic persecution under Mary.73 The pope, known by his holding of the crossed keys, is depicted beneath Elizabeth, naked and intertwined with snakes.74 The top of the “C” is formed by a cornucopia with three Tudor double roses, meant to symbolize the peace of Elizabeth’s reign.75 The Book of Martyrs of course had its detractors, primarily Catholic ones, and most notable Robert Parsons. Parsons was a Jesuit priest who had been forced to flee England due to his Catholic leanings.76 In 1603, Parson’s published A Treatise of the Three Conversions of England as a response to the Book of Martyrs.77 He claimed, as did many Catholics, that the Book was full of falsifications and as such “Foxe playeth the fox.”78 In particular, the “replacement of the majority of saints” in the Catholic Church with Protestant martyrs and confessors angered him.79 Parsons believed that it was the cause, and not the suffering as Foxe claimed, that qualified someone to be a martyr.80 To Parsons, the “willful suffering death in sectaries…is not to be called constancy but rather pertinacity.”81 Thus any the use of woodcuts to celebrate the Protestant concept of martyrdom was just illustrating the religiously flippant. From the Reformed perspective, Foxe’s extensive chronicle of English Protestant martyrdom being absolutely saturated with woodcut images seems contradictory. Officially, as ascribing to a hotter sort of Protestantism, Foxe by and large should have decried the use of religious imagery as idolatrous. In reality, Foxe, along with fellow Protestants, found the old habits of visual renderings of martyrdom hard to break both for personal and pragmatic reasons. Foxe, like so many other martyrologists, believed it was their duty to preserve the memory of their slain religious comrades so that history would not swallow them up. This preservation of the Book of Martyrs, Foxe hoped, would leave a lasting impression not just

69 70 71 72

Ibid., 1521. Hoak, 94. Ibid., 94. Ibid., 91.

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73 Ibid., 94. 74 Foxe in Hoak, 94. 75 Hoak, 94. 76 King, ed., Voices of the English Reformation, 49. 77 Ibid., 312. 78 Ibid., 312. 79 Ibid., 312. 80 King, Foxe’s Book of Martyrs and Early Modern Print Culture, 262. 81 Robert Parsons, A Treatise of the Three Conversions of England, in Voices of the English Reformation, ed. John N. King (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004), 312.

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for what people read but especially for what they saw.82 For example, in the 1563 edition of the book, Foxe wrote that he wished people would carry the martyrs’ stories about with them always, “not only to read, but to follow, and would paint them upon their walls, cups, rings, and gates.”83 Such a comment clearly encouraged the “Protestant use of images.”84 However, similar to more moderate evangelicals like Erasmus, Foxe did not want the use of images to slip into worship and idolatry. Foxe acknowledged the importance of material comforts when it came to religion not just with images but physical evidence of a martyr’s sacrifice. Much like Pope Gregory I, he understood the idea of using accommodation when it came to religious change; it must proceed “step by step, not by leaps and bounds…for if they are not deprived of all exterior joys, they will more easily taste the interior ones.”85 For example, Foxe recognized the “zeal of ancient Christians” to make relics of a martyrs sacrifice, such as gathering their ashes, kissing the chains with which they were bound to the stake, and treating the sword with which they were beheaded like a “precious jewel.”86 Furthermore, there were a multitude of accounts from Foxe’s time that reported Protestants engaging in similar activities. In a description by Mary’s Privy Council in May 1555, two men were seen “carrying the bones of one Pygott, that was burned, around them, [to] show the same to the people as relics and persuade them to stand in their error.”87 Foxe himself even recorded the collection and distribution of the heart and bones of martyr John Hullier after he was executed in Cambridge in April 1556.88 It was only when such activities became the center of worship and detracted from the central figure of God, the so-called fragmentation of the deity by Erasmus, that the line between holy helper and heresy was crossed for Foxe. Thus as people still clung to these visceral, physical representations of worship, Foxe knew that graphic illustrations of martyrdom would both communicate their stories to a largely illiterate English laity as well as

accommodate an already deeply held religious practice. Despite the practicality of illustrating the Book of Martyrs and the seemingly pervasive practice of Protestants still using certain images, it was by no means a common occurrence. In fact, the Book of Martyrs is the “only one of the major Reformed martyrologies to be illustrated.”89 Other major martyrologies at the time, such as the collection of French Huguenot martyrologies in Jean Crespin’s 1554 work Histoire de vrais temoins de la verité, had only one major illustrative folio, while the 1559 Dutch martryology of Adrian van Haemstede is simply austere, black type.90 Such a difference not only serves to elucidate the groundbreaking setup of Foxe’s work, but also shows the contrasting attitudes of England versus the Continent regarding images. These differences originated with the virtual immaturity of the English publishing industry as this time. As opposed to Continental Europe in the 1550s, England had both an underdeveloped book trade and woodcut tradition.91 While this may seem surprising given the visual sophistication of the Book of Martyrs, it shows just how hard Foxe and Day had to work to publish such a monumental work. Martyrologists on the Continent had a much more refined system to work with, thus the absence of any religious images was not due to financial difficulty or an undercapitalized market, but instead was a conscious decision.92 Furthermore, the Book of Martyrs had an excellent sense of timing, as it was based on a “Protestant illustrative tradition that was receding on the Continent at precisely the moment at which it was so successfully transported across the English Channel.”93 As a result, Foxe’s work was made possible as it came about during the maturity of the English printing press, but before the “iconophobia of continental Calvinism” had reached England.94 The same as the English printing press was evolving, so was Foxe’s illustrative acumen across subsequent editions of the book. As the Book of Martyrs progressed in being published and republished, Foxe exercised his

82 Brad S. Gregory, Salvation at Stake: Christian Martyrdom in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999), 174. 83 Foxe in Gregory, 175. 84 Gregory, 175. 85 Gregory I, “Letter to Abbot Mellitus,” Brittania Historical Documents, http:// www.britannia.com/history/docs/mellitus.html (accessed December 10, 2012). 86 Foxe in Gregory, 175. 87 Acts of the Privy Council of England in Gregory, 175. 88 Gregory, 175.

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89 Andrew Pettegree, “Illustrating the Book: A Protestant Dilemma,” in John Foxe and HisWorld, eds. Christopher Highley and John N. King (Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2002), 134. 90 Ibid., 134. 91 Ibid., 134. 92 Ibid., 134. 93 Ibid., 134. 94 Ibid., 135.

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keen editorial eye in an effort to collectively narrate the stories the images accompanied. The biggest changes with the woodcuts, in terms of quantity, occurred between the 1563 and 1570 editions. In the first edition, Foxe used a total of 53 woodcuts compared to 105 woodcuts in the second.95 While there were further changes in the third and fourth editions, published in 1576 and 1583 respectively, they only resulted in a total of 107 woodcuts and 100 woodcuts, respectively, which was nowhere near as significant an overhaul as between the first two.96 Certain woodcuts were also repeated and reused within the same book. The number of sections, or books, between the first and second editions lengthens dramatically as well, growing from five to twelve, making the second astronomically more expensive to print. Thus the first edition can be viewed as akin to a rough draft, and when it proved successful, Foxe expanded its scope for the final draft of the second edition. The woodcuts themselves are not a homogenous group either, with scholars assigning them certain thematic divisions based on their content and function. For example, announcement or marker woodcuts are the most prominent, as they “announce a change in the major text and usually epitomize or summarize it.”97 Often allegorical and used to express complex ideas, the main purpose of marker woodcuts is to “precede and herald a major section of text…and give the reader an indication of what is to follow.98 Illustrations such as the Frontispiece, “King Henry the eight”, “The ninth booke containyng the Actes and thyges done in the reigne of kyng Edvvard the 6”, and the Constantinian Elizabeth are all examples of announcement woodcuts. A second group of woodcuts, the most numerous of the book, is known as narrative woodcuts. They vary in size, ranging from one column to the entire page, and usually illustrate the martyrdoms of individuals.99 The narratives were noted for their “historical specificity” of events as opposed to

the other woodcuts and were the ones that were “frequently repeated.”100Thus woodcuts such as the burning of Bishop John Hooper, Anne Askew, and John Oldcastle would be classified as narratives. The third major type is known as incidental woodcuts. Much less numerous than the narratives, incidentals are unique among the other woodcuts not because of what they depict, but because they were “intended to provide visual proof and authentication of something referred to in the text.”101 An example of an incidental woodcut is Foxe’s rendering of a copy of the front page of Clement VII’s invalidation of Henry VIII’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon.102 Essentially, they were used by Foxe as a way to cite his sources. All the different types of woodcuts taken together are meant to cooperatively function to move the reader along in the text by creating a cohesive storyline for them to follow. After examining and picking apart various aspects of the Book of Martyrs, it is challenging to see how the text as a whole actually functioned in the everyday lives of sixteenth-century Englishmen and Englishwomen. As has been argued, the illustrations helped educate the illiterate in the text. However, the printing of so many woodcuts with the text made it much too expensive to be purchased by the masses.103 In addition, there are two surviving copies of the 1570 edition that contained specially colored woodcuts as special versions for purchase by the elite, one of which was valued at around ₤10.104 Therefore, the Book of Martyrs was used, in one form, as a material artifact with which to gain patronage from the rich. In terms of educating the laity, there was a certain amount of access to the Book of Martyrs through church copies. In November 1570, there was an Elizabethan decree from the Privy Council to the archbishops of Canterbury and York and the Bishop of London mandating that a copy of the Book of Martyrs be placed in every parish church in England.105 The reasoning behind such a decree was that it was “very profitable to bring hir majesties subjectes to good opinion, understanding, and dere liking of the present government

95 Ruth Samson Luborsky, “The Illustrations: Their Pattern and Plan,” in John Foxe: An Historical Perspective, ed. David Loades (Aldershot, England: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 1999), 69. 96 Ibid., 69. 97 Elizabeth Evenden and Thomas S. Freeman, Religion and the Book in Early Modern England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 199. 98 Ibid., 199. 99 Ibid., 202.

100 Ibid., 202. 101 Ibid., 203. 102 Ibid., 203. 103 Ibid., 221. 104 Ibid., 222. 105 Elizabeth Evenden and Thomas S. Freeman, “Print, Profit, and Propaganda: The Elizabethan Privy Council and the 1570 edition of Foxe’s ‘Book of Martyrs’.” The English Historical Review 119:84 (November 2004), 1289-90.

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of thes realme.”106 Despite Foxe’s own open criticism of Elizabeth’s middleway policies, the Privy Council still thought it would be a favorable way to glorify her and to spread anti-papal imagery, especially as England was in the midst of rebellion and excommunication.107 However, this decree proved logistically impossible to fulfill as, according to the Valor Ecclesiasticus, there were 8,071 parish churches in England, and, at present, only two printed versions of the second edition of the Book of Martyrs, with each version taking between twelve to eighteen months to print.108 Cecil and the Privy Council quickly realized this, and the mandate was modified by the Convocation of the southern province. The Convocation ordered that every bishop, archbishop, cathedral dean, and senior clergy place the Book of Martyrs in their house, as well as decreed its placement in every cathedral for public viewing.109 While it is unlikely that these decrees were completely complied with, they ensured that there would be mass access to the book in the area of England with the largest and most important cities, namely London.110 The effect that the mass availability of the Book of Martyrs had on the public was unprecedented. By decreeing its placement in major cathedrals and clergy houses, the authorities ensured that “Foxe’s book would be treated like the Bible and, in fact, that it would often be displayed along with it.”111 It worked, as the book began to function biblically, with men like ex-separatist Peter Fairlamb who stated “men read the Booke of Martyrs as a booke of credit, next to the booke of God.”112 Sir Francis Drake famously used the Book of Martyrs liturgically, combining readings from it with the psalms and prayer during his daily services on board his ship.113 While similar government-sanctioned dissemination had taken place, such as with the Book of Common Prayer, following suit with the Book of Martyrs was exceptional as it had no scriptural or liturgical purpose and was simply a vehicle for both Protestant and Elizabethan propaganda. Regardless, the Book of Martyrs

was fused with the holy writ in the minds of the English people, and as such became a devotional text. As a result of Foxe’s graphic woodcuts, the Book of Martyrs remains the most famous martyrology in history. The illustrations in John Foxe’s Book of Martyrs had three simple tasks: to establish the archetype of Protestant martyrology, to use this archetype to mortify the English laity and thereby gain their devotion, and to spread anti-papal propaganda while synonymously paying homage to the English monarchy. In doing so, Foxe fused the idea of Protestantism with English nationalism, ensuring that the true religion would reign supreme. Despite the controversy over using religious images in a Protestant text, the effect was no less than grotesque outrage at the religious persecution at the hands of the Catholic Church.

106 Ibid., 1294. 107 Ibid., 1294. 108 Ibid., 1297. 109 Ibid., 1298. 110 Ibid., 1298. 111 Ibid., 1302. 112 Peter Fairlamb, The Recantation of a Brownist, in Evenden and Freeman, “Print, Profit, and Propaganda,” 1302. 113 Evenden and Freeman, “Print, Profit, and Propaganda,” 1302.

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Carlie Pendleton bibliography

Primary Sources: Foxe, John. The Unabridged Acts and Monuments Online or TAMO (1563 edition). Sheffield: HRI Online Publications, 2011. http://www.johnfoxe.org (accessed September 20, 2012). Foxe, John. The Unabridged Acts and Monuments Online or TAMO (1570 edition). Sheffield: HRI Online Publications, 2011. http://www.johnfoxe.org (accessed September 20, 2012).

Between Illustration and Idolatry Freeman, Thomas S. and Sarah Elizabeth Wall. “Racking the Body, Shaping the Text: The Account of Anne Askew in Foxe’s ‘Book of Martyrs.’” Renaissance Quarterly 54, no. 4 (Winter 2001). http://www.jstor.org/ stable/1261970 (accessed February 13, 2012). Gregory, Brad S. Salvation at Stake: Christian Martyrdom in Early Modern Europe. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999. Hoak, Dale. “The Iconography of the Crown Imperial.” In Tudor Political Culture, edited by Dale Hoak, 54-103. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.

Gregory I. “Letter to Abbot Mellitus.” Brittania Historical Documents. http:// www.britannia.com/history/docs/mellitus.html (accessed December 10, 2012).

King, John N. Foxe’s Book of Martyrs and Early Modern Print Culture. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006.

Parsons, Robert. A Treatise of the Three Conversions of England. In Voices of the English Reformation, edited by John N. King. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004.

King, John N. “The Royal Image, 1535-1603.” In Tudor Political Culture, edited by Dale Hoak, 104-32. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.

Secondary Sources: Aston, Margaret and Elizabeth Ingram. “The Iconography of the Acts and Monuments.” In John Foxe and the English Reformation, edited by David Loades, 66-142. Aldershot, England: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 1997.

King, John N., ed., Voices of the English Reformation. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004.

Evenden, Elizabeth and Thomas S. Freeman. “Print, Profit, and Propaganda: The Elizabethan Privy Council and the 1570 edition of Foxe’s ‘Book of Martyrs’.” The English Historical Review 119, no. 84 (November 2004).

Luborsky, Ruth Samson. “The Illustrations: Their Pattern and Plan.” In John Foxe: An Historical Perspective, edited by David Loades, 67-84. Aldershot, England: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 1999. Pettegree, Andrew. “Illustrating the Book: A Protestant Dilemma.” In John Foxe and HisWorld, edited by Christopher Highley and John N. King, 133-44. Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2002.

Evenden, Elizabeth and Thomas S. Freeman. Religion and the Book in Early Modern England. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011. Fairfield, Leslie P. John Bale: Mythmaker for the Reformation.West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press, 1976.

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Grinding Away the Past

The Adaptive Re-Usage of the Minneapolis Mill District George P. Klevorn University of Minnesota

On the surface, the redevelopment of the Mill District of Minneapolis appeared to be a positive project of urban renewal. City planners and citizens alike viewed the rediscovery of the riverfront by the Mills District to be a net positive; no longer would the dangerous district imperil honest citizens and keep them from utilizing the river in all of its majestic glory. Indeed, through history, the river itself could be reintegrated into the fabric of a city that owed its very existence to the river’s presence, but had been neglected almost as a petulant child neglects and rejects his or her parents after a certain age. But the “history” utilized to “rediscover” the Mill District and the riverfront heritage of the city was not a history of every citizen. Instead, the history that came into existence on the riverfront was simply a cynically used tool to create a new, privatized, upper-middle class, service based, exclusive Minneapolis identity, which utilized the existing historical structures of the Mill District as a means of making money to finance its birth and continued existence. From the mid-sixties until the mid-nineties, the Mill District of Minneapolis underwent a precipitous decline. The hard forces of economics dethroned Minneapolis as the king city of flour milling and unceremoniously transferred the crown to Buffalo, NY in 1930. Left without a source of

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legitimacy, the pretender to the flour throne, Minneapolis, limped on until 1965, when General Mills closed down the Washburn-Crosby complex, the last major flour mill on the West Bank of the Mississippi River. The iconic Gold Medal Flour sign on top of Washburn elevator one was switched off, presumably not with a bang but a rather pathetic electrical squelch. With the withdrawal of General Mills, the Mill District of Minneapolis began to seriously dilapidate. The flour mills, formerly the vital lifeblood of the city, turned into the black, dead heart of its skyline. Where once the busy whir of flour rollers filled the Washburn-Crosby, now only the gentle cooing of pigeons and the clanging of stray metal could be heard within its abandoned walls. Presumably, the occasional voice of the homeless, who had quickly taken up residence due to the scale and location of the buildings, would puncture the silence. In 1991, one of these squatters allegedly started a fire within the Washburn A Mill, burning it to a cinder. This event lit a match under the seats of historic preservationists, who were finally given the spark they needed to begin the revitalization process of the Mill District in earnest. The time was ripe to rediscover the history of the river, and the identity of Minneapolis itself, through a relatively new process called adaptive re-usage, or the use of the old, derelict buildings as a means of new development. The adaptive re-usage of the Mill District of Minneapolis was a revitalization strategy used by the city of Minneapolis as part of its transition away from an industrial, commodity based economy towards a service-based, postindustrial economy. Historic preservation that was used during the transition was an idea that served to propagate the economic and cultural changes that Minneapolis was experiencing at the end of the twentieth century. Though the idea of historic preservation advocated “rediscovering” and preserving the heritage and identity of Minneapolis, the heritage and identity that were rediscovered and preserved were ultimately historical constructs designed by middle-class, corporate, and city interests to advance their own agenda. This agenda did not include the well being of a gradually diminishing working class or their industrial base of employment, and as such, was highly discriminatory towards the very engine that drove the creation of the city in the first place. This continuing discriminatory development is ultimately unsustainable, and is inherently bad for the district and the city as a whole. In order to understand the significance of the Mill District, it is FOUNDATIONS • Fall 2013

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necessary to examine its location on the Mississippi riverfront. Due to the technological constraints of the nineteenth century, water was a necessary component of large industrial enterprises, such as flour milling. The St. Anthony Falls, located in the heart of the Mill District, were used to power the Washburn-Crosby Mill and the titanic Pillsbury A Mill, located on the eastern bank of the river. By 1880, the water power of the St. Anthony Falls had made this particular segment of the Mississippi River the flour milling capital of the country, with twenty seven mills producing two million barrels of flour annually.1 By 1916, the district produced more than eighteen million barrels of flour.2 However, by 1930, even these substantial totals were surpassed by the new flour milling capital, Buffalo. Production began to decline in Minneapolis for a multitude of reasons. Minneapolis was too far from the large eastern markets it was supplying to seriously compete with Buffalo, and flour transportation rates were too high and skewed in Buffalo’s favor. Buffalo was also able to import Canadian wheat duty-free, mill it, and then ship it directly back to Canada for a low cost, which Minneapolis could not do.3 As such, Minneapolis milling could not afford to compete and it began to decline. In 1965, General Mills relocated its headquarters to Golden Valley, closing the building that had given birth to it and ending the last substantial flour milling operation on the west bank of the river. By 1983, the Mill District had changed significantly. Mostly vacant, the former mills of the Mill District provided “less than ideal space for warehousing, light industry and other related uses.”4 It was an area of unglamorous use, occupied by sand and gravel storage, surface parking, rail transfers, and warehousing.5 The Stone Arch Bridge, built by James J. Hill for the Great Northern Railroad, had closed to rail traffic in 1978; both sides were closed off to traffic by a chain link fence.6 The Ceresota mill was the

only active grain elevator in the area by 1983, while the rest of the former mills were used for cold storage, warehousing, and parking.7 By 1990, the Mill District was almost completely abandoned by its founders. The former industrial base of the nineteenth century had left completely, leaving only its substantial infrastructure as some sort of concrete and steel mausoleum to the industrial economy. The river, importantly, still remained. Waterfronts are a crucial component of post-industrial revitalization efforts. Post-industrialism can be defined broadly as encompassing changes in what we do for a living, how we do what we do for a living, and where what we do for a living occurs. It deals with supplying services rather than manufacturing, privileges intellectual capacity over muscle power, and is physically defined by dispersed office space rather than concentrated clusters of factories.8 In this sense, Minneapolis could certainly be considered postindustrial, especially after 1965. In 1983, Minneapolis was the administrative, information, and service center for the entire upper Midwest. With over 20,000,000 square feet of office space, 3,500 first class hotel rooms, and the “largest retail center in the region,” Minneapolis had certainly moved its focus away from a manufacturing industrial economy towards a servicebased economy with an emphasis on intellectual capacity signified by office space.9 As noted, the industrial economy of Minneapolis, represented by the Mill District, had effectively died. So what was to become of the district? As it was located on the riverfront, the Mill District became extremely important to the image of the city. According to Richard Marshall, the waterfront is the stage on which the most important, visible elements of a city should be placed. The waterfront itself becomes representative of what we are as a culture, what we choose to represent, and a new frontier for the conventional development process. Waterfronts, and specifically the Mississippi riverfront, offered a spectacular opportunity to create an environment that reflected the contemporary ideas of the City of Minneapolis, due to the high visibility of the developments along the river.10

1 Iric Nathanson, Minneapolis in the Twentieth Century (St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2010), 138. 2 Nathanson, Minneapolis, 139. 3 Nathanson, Minneapolis, 139. 4 Minneapolis Planning and Development, Mississippi/Minneapolis (Minneapolis: 1972), 69. 5 Minneapolis City Planning Department, Mills District Plan (Minneapolis: 1983), 3. 6 Linda Mack, “Stone Arch Bridge Links Riverbanks, Downtown,” Star Tribune, October 30, 1994, accessed February 24, 3013, http://login.ezproxy.lib.umn.edu/login?url=http://search.proquest.com/docview/418597074?accountid=14586

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7 Mills District Plan, 6. 8 Richard Marshall, “Contemporary Urban Space-Making at the Water’s Edge,” in Waterfronts in Post-Industrial Cities, ed. Richard Marshall (London & New York: Spon Press, 2001): 8. 9 Mills District Plan, 2. 10 Marshall, “Water’s Edge,” 6-7.

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The revitalization of the Mill District was thus an essential component in the construction of a new Minneapolis identity. But what was this new Minneapolis identity going to be? Two river district plans, known as Mississippi/Minneapolis and Metro Center ’85, can help shed some light on the direction that city planners wanted to take. The Mississippi/Minneapolis plan, published in autumn 1972 by Minneapolis Planning and Development, outlined a specific set of goals for how the riverfront should be utilized by the city. These goals consisted of: maximizing the potential for use and enjoyment of the river and its environs for all, emphasizing the “river character” of the river and the riverfront area, economic efficiency and functional effectiveness in land uses and activities around the river, multiple varieties of land usage and activities along the riverfront, reduction of all forms of pollution on the river to minimum levels, the provision of a safe environment for all individuals on the riverfront, and the recognition, revitalization, and accentuation of river-based history.11 The industrial usage of the riverfront was no longer acceptable by city planners. The decaying mills, railroad yards, and other small industrial enterprises that were in the area limited the use of the riverfront and prevented its use by the majority of Minneapolis citizens. In an interesting anecdote, the former mayor of Minneapolis, Sharon Sayles-Belton, described how she took Carl Pohlad, the former owner of the Minnesota Twins, on a car ride down the central riverfront by the Stone Arch Bridge during the ‘90s. After describing her vision of what form she wanted the riverfront to take, she was informed by Carl Pohlad that he had never once before driven on the road they had taken that day.12 The riverfront was almost entirely ignored due to its dilapidated, dirty, and dangerous character. Beryl Miller, the daughter of Ben Miller, the former owner of the Washburn-Crosby complex after General Mills sold the property, described the Mill district as almost entirely vacant all the way the through to Plymouth Avenue, devoid of people on the gravel street that serviced it.13

In order to meet the goals outlined in the Mississippi/Minneapolis plan, the condition of the Mill District would have to change. In order to enact this change, Metro Center ’85, published in 1970, had already suggested the creation of a primarily residential zone called “Riverfront East,” defined as all the land between Washington Avenue, I-35W, and Portland Avenue S.14 The plan suggested that Riverfront East should have a mixture of low, medium, and high-rise apartment buildings, with condominium units included in the development. The area was to have a mixture of central spaces, some open and some closed, in order to allow year-round usage, which could contain various recreational, educational, and commercial functions.15 The Mississippi/Minneapolis plan added to this proposition, positing that the location, on top of a steep bluff overlooking the St. Anthony Falls, would offer a dramatic and positive setting for new residential development. All rail yards, of course, were to be removed, and the existing mills and grain elevators at the site were to be torn down, except for the most striking, which could potentially be maintained as significant relics of the past, which could contribute to the distinct character of the area.16 In 1972, therefore, the idea of the historic preservation of the Mill District was secondary to the immediate goal of “salvaging” the area from its increasingly dilapidated condition. The Mill District, included in Riverfront East, was to be cleaned up, stripped of its industrial base, and converted into an area of mixed residential, commercial, and cultural use. These plans represented an early break with the industrial past of Minneapolis and indirectly argued that the industry that was both formerly and currently in the area was no longer acceptable to the people of Minneapolis as a whole. Manufacturing, warehousing, and other assorted small industrial enterprises were now no longer economically effective, environmentally friendly, or inclusive enough to belong in the city. They were representative of an older, industrial identity and had no place in the new post-industrial identity that Minneapolis was in the process of developing. Therefore, they had to be removed and replaced.

11 Mississippi/Minneapolis, 46. 12 Sharon Sayles Belton, interview by Linda Mack, November 17, 2008. OH 117. Minneapolis Riverfront Redevelopment Oral History Project. Oral history interviews of the Minneapolis Riverfront Redevelopment Oral History Project. Minnesota Historical Society. I should note that for all cited Riverfront Redevelopment interviews, I received electronic transcripts from David Stevens, a Public Programs Specialist who works for the Minnesota Historical Society at the Mill City Museum. 13 Beryl Miller, interview by Linda Mack, April 23, 2009. OH 117. Minneapolis

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Riverfront Redevelopment Oral History Project. Oral history interviews of the Minneapolis Riverfront Redevelopment Oral History Project. Minnesota Historical Society. 14 Minneapolis Planning and Development, Metro Center ’85 (Minneapolis: 1970): 130? 15 Metro Center ’85, 130? 16 Mississippi/Minneapolis, 69.

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In 1983, a more specific plan, know as the Mills District Plan, was published by the Minneapolis City Planning Department. The Mills District Plan built on the proposals outlined by the two previously published plans and dealt with the Mills District in depth. This plan suggested that housing, specialty hotel, restaurant, office space, and commercial use should be encouraged inside existing historic structures.17 This plan emphasized that recreational uses open to the public should dominate the area, and, importantly, suggested that site development should include the exposure of historic mill ruins on the river. It stated that the new landscaping in the area should be of the highest quality, and should adopt a turn-of-the-century theme.18 This plan also finally stated explicitly that the industrial activities in the area, which included the Ceresota Milling operation, the Shieley Sand and Gravel pits, and all active railroads, were to be relocated or removed as to allow for the residential redevelopment scheme proposed by the Metro Center ’85 and Mississippi/Minneapolis plans.19 This plan represented a clear development in the thought process of Minneapolis urban developers. Not only was the idea that the industrial activity on the riverfront was negative to the city’s image and well being reinforced, but the idea of redevelopment emphasizing the historic preservation of existing structures was also explicitly stated. The old flour mills were no longer going to simply accentuate the character of a new residential, cultural, and commercial development; the flour mills themselves were to be a new development in their own right. A key component of postindustrial waterfront development is the belief that old industrial structures are a resource to be upgraded, rather than a cumbersome leftover from an obsolete past.20 The recomposition of the Mill District, actively utilizing the old flour mills in new developments, would give the area a common unitary sense and activate a new character which could keep the potentially disparate elements of the new development together, while creating an unusual and attractive image for future developers.21 The Mill District, which was now on the “doorstep” of downtown, could be revitalized in the spirit of the new

downtown developments, and as they were on the waterfront, could best represent the official birth of a new Minneapolis identity based on a postindustrial service economy due to their high visibility.22 The first brick in the foundation of adaptive re-usage was set. The history of Minneapolis would be its selling point. West River Parkway and the Stone Arch Bridge were two important river “reclamation” projects.West River Parkway was completed in segments. The first segment, between Plymouth and Portland, was completed in 1987. The second, between the Bridge Nine railroad span and 4th Street South, was completed in 1990, and the connection between Portland Avenue South and 13th Avenue South was completed in 1994. The final strip was finished in 1997.23 The significance of West River Parkway was that it made a massive swath of the riverfront accessible to the citizens of Minneapolis, fulfilling the original goal set forth by the Metro Center and Mississippi/Minneapolis plans. Outfitted with a new pedestrian walking path and a separate biking path (woe to those who get those confused; Minneapolis bikers are quick to rudely point out the difference, as this jogger can attest), the reclaimed riverfront suddenly became an excellent place to “take your sweetie for a smooch.”24 The Stone Arch Bridge, reopened in 1994 as a pedestrian bridge after being purchased by the Minneapolis from Burlington Northern for the tidy sum of $1,001, reconnected both sides of the river, removing the river as a barrier and allowing for the revitalization of the struggling Riverplace commercial development on the eastern bank.2526 The major significance of West River Parkway and the Stone Arch Bridge, however, was not just their ability to bring residents into the area

17 Mills District Plan, 7. 18 Mills District Plan, 8. 19 Mills District Plan, 9. 20 Rinio Bruttomesso, “Complexity on the Urban Waterfront,” in Waterfronts in Post-Industrial Cities, ed. Richard Marshall (London & New York: Spon Press, 2001): 40. 21 Bruttomesso, “Complexity,” 41.

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22 Bruttomesso, “Complexity,” 41. 23 Steve Brandt, “Great River Road: 1,200 Feet to Finish,” Star Tribune, September 27, 1997, accessed April 9, 2013, http://login.ezproxy.lib.umn.edu/login?url=http:// search.proquest.com/docview/426872764?accountid=14586. 24 Ted Jones, “WEST RIVER PARKWAY: It’s a Special, Beautiful Scenic Gift From The City to its People,” Star Tribune, November 29, 1987, accessed April 9, 2013, http://login.ezproxy.lib.umn.edu/login?url=http://search.proquest.com/ docview/417849435?accountid=14586. 25 Sayles Belton interview 26 Jim Parsons, “County to Buy Stone Arch Bridge; Could be Used for Trail, Light Rail,” Star Tribune, August 9, 1989, accessed February 24, 2013, http://login.ezproxy. lib.umn.edu/login?url=http://search.proquest.com/docview/418063082?accountid=14586.

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and revitalize struggling, ill-conceived commercial developments. Both developments actively sought to use the “history” of the area as a justification for the redevelopment process. Indeed, history was something that had long been on the minds of those who wished to redevelop the riverfront. In 1988, the St. Anthony Falls Heritage Board was created by the state legislature to oversee the historical development process in the area.27 Mayor SaylesBelton claimed that the redevelopment of the Stone Arch Bridge was not only a way to link east and west bank, but it was also an opportunity to tell the history of the heritage of Minneapolis.28 By incorporating the more than 100-year-old bridge into the developmental process, the city could use the historic character of the bridge to attract new developments and residents. West River parkway, on the other hand, was a part of the Great River Road, which stretched down to the Gulf of Mexico. Through this road, the city of Minneapolis hoped to use the history of the river as a means of attracting new tourists, as well as the incorporation of the Mill District into the fabric of the daily life of Minneapolis.29 This was also the justification for the creation of Mill Ruins Park, which unearthed the old tailrace system of the west bank mills to advertise the heritage of the area in an easy to digest, public manner. The old buildings of the mill district had to be preserved, too. In 1983, a spectacular fire had gutted the Crown Roller Mill; it was later redeveloped into office space. In October 1991, the Washburn-Crosby complex burned to the ground. The historic mill district was clearly under fire. The burning of the Washburn-Crosby ignited the desire of the historic preservationists, such as the head of the Minnesota Historical Society, Nina Archabal, to actively work to finally save the old buildings. Indeed, Archabal claimed that the burning of the mill galvanized the attentions of those who had been looking for a way to redevelop the building.30 As such, a new Mill District Master Plan was published in 1998. This new plan called specifically for the adaptive re-use of the old milling buildings, as well as the linking of the Mill District to Minneapolis proper, via improved road and pedestrian connections, as a vital way to improve the

quality of life in Minneapolis via new cultural, commercial, and residential developments in the Mill District.31 Thus, not only would the historic qualities of the district be saved, but Minneapolis as a whole would also benefit from whatever development occurred in the district. Original plans called for two developmental possibilities: the construction of a large variety of residential apartments, or the eventual construction of a new baseball stadium to presumably replace the Metrodome.32 Both would link the Mill District to the city, revitalize it, and promote the heritage of the city. In an update to the plan, a third development alternative was proposed that offered the Guthrie Theatre as a possible tenant on the riverfront.33 The redevelopment of the riverfront was a combination of the residential and Guthrie Theatre possibilities presented in the 1998 and 2001 Mill District Master Plan and its update. Mayor Sayles-Belton, infatuated with the recent loft developments in the SoHo neighborhood of New York City, believed that it would be a good idea to convert the old flour mills into residential lofts; the lofts in New York City were, according to her, “selling like hotcakes.”34 Located at the head of the Stone Arch Bridge, the first building to be renovated was Northstar Lofts by Brighton Development in 1999. Sayles-Belton again stated that the redevelopment of the Northstar woolen mill served two purposes: first, it would move people into the Mill District, who could then, in turn, support the commercial development at Riverplace across the river. Second, it would preserve the historic structure and help the goal of historic preservation, which was being heavily advocated by the St. Anthony Falls Heritage Board and sympathetic members of the Minneapolis City Council.35 Shortly after Brighton Development had renovated the factory for $16 million (with $2.6 million raised through tax increment financing, paid for by the citizens of Minneapolis), other loft redevelopment projects began to sprout up in the area.36 The Washburn

27 Nathanson, Minneapolis, 146. 28 Sayles Belton interview 29 Brandt, “1,200 Feet.” 30 Nina Archabal, interview by Linda Mack, January 6, 2009. OH 117. Minneapolis Riverfront Redevelopment Oral History Project. Oral history interviews of the Minneapolis Riverfront Redevelopment Oral History Project. Minnesota Historical Society.

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31 Minneapolis Community Development Agency, Historic Mills District Master Plan, (Minneapolis: June 1998): 4. 32 Historic Mills District Master Plan, 3. 33 Minneapolis Community Development Agency, Update to the Historic Mills District Master Plan, (Minneapolis: September 2001): 4. 34 Sayles Belton interview 35 Sayles Belton interview 36 Sam Black, “Miffed About TIF,” Minneapolis & St. Paul Business Journal, May 29, 2005, accessed March 20, 2013, http://www.bizjournals.com/twincities/stories/2005/05/30/focus1.html

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Lofts, located in the former utility building of the Washburn-Crosby, were completed in 2000. In November 2000, the Gold Medal Flour sign on top of Washburn elevator one screamed back to life after being darkened for over 30 years, its blazing red neon glow the revitalizing fresh blood of a newly beating heart.37 The Mill City Museum soon followed, with construction finishing in 2003.38 I remember walking across the Stone Arch Bridge during the late summer of 2003 with my cousins and looking at the construction of the Mill City Museum while it was still in progress (humorously, I was so captivated by the building that I ended up, rather painfully, walking into a light pole). The $125 million dollar Guthrie Theatre opened shortly afterwards in 2006.39 Clearly, the Mill District of Minneapolis had undergone a massive change. The industrial and historical roots of Minneapolis were preserved, supposedly, by the developmental process of adaptive reuse, but they had been augmented by a massive flurry of new cultural and residential development. The riverfront was no longer the domain of the old industrial economy and culture; instead, the history of the Mill District would live on through the lofts, museum, and theatre that had taken the places of the old factories. The waterfront now represented a full-scale transition towards a new, post-industrial way of living, thinking, and dealing with space. As if to accentuate this transition, in 2003, Archer Daniels Midland finally closed the iconic Pillsbury Mill on the eastern bank of the river, ending a 182-yearold tradition of flour milling.40 With the dawn of a new era based on services, intellectual capacity, and office space, the former era of manufacturing, physical labor, and railroads finally drew to a close. The new culture of postindustrialism promised to faithfully respect and tell the story of its heritage; manufacturing and milling would not be forgotten. But just how faithful was

this historical tale woven by the new masters of the Mill District going to be? In order to answer this question, it is necessary to take a close look at the different types of development that took place in the Mill District during the late twentieth century. The first type of development that I will examine will be the construction of lofts in the district. As of the writing of this paper, there are nine different buildings in the Mill District that are classified as lofts.41 A loft is a particular style of condominium constructed in an old building, which is usually a factory or a warehouse. They are generously sized, with living spaces consisting of two to ten thousand square feet, depending on the scale of the converted building. Lofts contain high ceilings, exposed support columns and utilities such as pipes or ventilation ducts, and large windows. Originally attractive to artists, lofts and living in lofts over time became bourgeois chic in both the aesthetic and economic sense.42 The Washburn-Crosby A Mill and the Northstar wool mill were the perfect candidates for loft conversion in the Mill District. The Washburn-Crosby A Mill was especially attractive to both artists and middle-class interests. Indeed, the architect Peter Nelson Hall rented out 75% of its available space to artists while he was living there with the permission of former owner, Ben Miller.43 Ben Miller later evicted the resident artists in the late eighties and sold the building to Minneapolis for a tidy sum of approximately $3.2 million dollars, after which it burned to the ground in 1991.44 The ten-story Utility Building, however, was converted into a 22-unit luxury loft building in 2000. Units in the building had sizes of up to 9,000 square feet, with 12-foot windows overlooking the riverfront.45 Brighton Development, as stated, redeveloped the Northstar wool mill, in 1999 for $16 million. The 26 units at the newly converted Northstar Lofts were smaller than typical

37 “Flour Power,” Star Tribune, November 16, 2000, accessed April 9, 2013, http://login.ezproxy.lib.umn.edu/login?url=http://search.proquest.com/ docview/427340532?accountid=14586 38 Linda Mack, “Riverfront Revival; The Minneapolis Mill District is Finding New Life as a Cultural Center,” Star Tribune, September 7, 2003, accessed February 6, 2013, http://login.ezproxy.lib.umn.edu/login?url=http://search.proquest.com/ docview/427586658?accountid=14586 39 Mack, “Riverfront Revival.” 40 Steve Brandt, “Riverfront Milling Tradition Grinds to Halt in Minneapolis,” Star Tribune, November 12, 2003, accessed April 9, 2013, http://login.ezproxy.lib.umn.edu/ login?url=http://search.proquest.com/docview/427583896?accountid=14586

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41 “Condos in the Mill District,” accessed April 9, 2013, http://www.minneapolisloftsandcondos.com/mill-district.php 42 Sharon Zukin, Loft Living: Culture and Capital in Urban Change (Baltimore & London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1982): 2. 43 Peter Nelson Hall, interview by Linda Mack, February 28, 2009. OH 117. Minneapolis Riverfront Redevelopment Oral History Project. Oral history interviews of the Minneapolis Riverfront Redevelopment Oral History Project. Minnesota Historical Society. 44 Peter Nelson Hall interview 45 Minneapolis Lofts and Condos, “Washburn Lofts,” accessed April 9, 2013, www.minneapolisloftsandcondos.com/building-directory/stone-arch-washburn-lofts--600---700-2nd-st.php

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lofts, averaging 3,000 square feet, but had 24-foot ceilings and, of course, a nice riverfront view.46 The significance of loft development is what the loft itself represents. Old buildings, such as the Washburn Utility building, supposedly, have an “authenticity” that is lacking in new developments. They have an identity that comes from years of continuous use, and an individuality that creates a sense of “place” rather than ”space.” In an uncertain world, such as a world transitioning from an industrial culture to a post-industrial culture, the loft represents an ability to anchor oneself to a space, which has a continuous past, as a means of coping with the constant and unsettling change of daily life.47 The preservation of old buildings is valuable because it offers a way of adding variety to an increasingly homogenized and stereotyped world.48 The repurposed buildings of the Mill District, such as the Utility Building and the Northstar lofts, stand in stark contrast to the massive, modern Guthrie theatre right next door and the beaming skyscrapers of the downtown skyline. Located on the riverfront, these lofts send a clear message that the heritage of Minneapolis is crucial part of the city’s history and identity. But what “history” is communicated through lofts? After all, the process of creating a loft annihilates the manufacturing capability of the building that it is placed in.49 Lofts themselves are entirely new constructions; in order to make a loft out of a flour mill, the existing floors and historical remnants must be dramatically altered or removed in order to accommodate the new occupants. The loft thus destroys any sort of meaningful history that connected it to the previous manufacturing basis of the building. The antiquated, historical appearances of the buildings, meanwhile, are used as a justification to raise the price of the individual residences. The units in the Northstar Lofts, for example, were expected in 1996 to sell from between $120,000 to $425,000.50 I recently went to the Mill District myself to inquire about loft prices in the Northstar building; after being rather rudely rebuffed by a realtor named Cynthia Froid (who, I’m sure,

assumed my questions had no legitimate basis due to my age and apparent lack of wealth, though I happened to be wearing a rather expensive coat), I was able to discover that a unit in the Northstar Lofts currently on the market is being sold for the respectable sum of $1.7 million.51 The historic buildings of the Mill District, as stated, are only partially historic due to the extensive amount of work required to repurpose them to residential purposes. They are mostly façades, both literally and figuratively. The use of the “history” of the buildings as a selling point is an important appropriation of the concept of history in order to serve the purposes of middle-class persons and loft developers. These purposes include making the district more privatized and commercial, and excluding industrial and other undesirable elements from using the area in the name of urban “revitalization” and economic progress. Modern lofts are predominantly a method of channeling investment back into the central city and propping up a formerly depressed real estate market via the capturing of the middle-class fascination with “artists” and the enchanting emotions brought on by the distance of time and the unknown of disuse.52 They are a response to important social and cultural changes: namely, the transition from an industrial to a post-industrial society.53 As they are on the river, the Mill District are perfectly located to symbolically represent the absolute rejection of the former industrial base of the city and use their considerable “historical” influence to raise rents high enough to make sure that manufacturing enterprises, and more importantly, the working class people who are employed by those enterprises, never come back to stay in the Mill District in legitimate numbers ever again. The history of the buildings, in this case, is little more than a thin veneer to mask a rather subtle form of economic segregation. This inequality, embedded in the very fabric of the living space of the city, attempts to eliminate the confrontation between different social classes, leading to increasing privatization and commercialization.54 The Mill City Museum also plays an important role in the transition

46 Minneapolis Lofts and Condos, “North Star Lofts,” accessed April 23, 2013, www.minneapolisloftsandcondos.com/north-star-lofts.php 47 Zukin, Loft Living, 68. 48 Zukin, Loft Living, 77. 49 Zukin, Loft Living, 3. 50 Steve Brandt, “Reclaiming Mill City’s River Roots,” Star Tribune, December 18, 1996, accessed February 6, 2013, http://login.ezproxy.lib.umn.edu/login?url=http:// search.proquest.com/docview/426779109?accountid=14586

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51 “117 Portland Ave – Unit #710 Minneapolis, MN 55401,” accessed April 9, 2013, www.minneapolisloftsandcondos.com/idx/listings/4329190/details.html 52 Zukin, Loft Living, 12. 53 Zukin, Loft Living, 15. 54 Katrina Nylund, “Analyses in Urban Theory of the 1990s,” Acta Sociologica 44 (2001): 225.

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away from an industrial economy towards a post-industrial economy. As a museum, the Mill City Museum does an admirable job, and I highly value the efforts of the Minnesota Historical Society. But in the larger picture of cultural transition, one must look to what the museum itself represents. The Mill City Museum is a history museum. As such, it lays a claim to the past. But such claims are also the very foundations of claims in the present, and possible claims to the future. By claiming a “past,” one also claims the “present” and “future” of an area, or in the case of the Mill City Museum, an interpretation of an area.55 Museums attempt to recreate a particular vision of the past that is molded by present conditions. They do this via two processes: In-situ installations, which attempt to entirely recreate an environment or a slice of the everyday world of the past in the present, and in-context installations, which use the arrangement of objects to convey ideas, historical relationships, and general background.56 In-situ exhibits are not natural; they are just as much a product of the present as the repurposed building they sit in. Incontext exhibits, on the other hand, exert a strong cognitive control over those who visit the exhibit, as visitors have to rely on the museum’s particular interpretation to rescue an otherwise disparate, disjointed collection of objects and artifacts from irrelevancy.57 Museums are therefore not passive, objective curators of information, but arguments in themselves that send a very clear message about who belongs in a space and who does not. On April 6, 2013, I visited the Mill City Museum for the first time since my sophomore year of high school. Being a canny observer, while others were examining the nice pictures on the walls in the entryway, I decided to check and see who the major financial donors were for the Mill City Museum, both for its construction and continued operation. Unsurprisingly, among a long list of names of foundations I did not recognize, I came across a cast of alltoo-familiar characters: Archer Daniels Midland, ConAgra, Cargill, and, it should go without saying, General Mills. Bankrolled by some of the largest food companies in the United States, I began to wonder just how “public” the history presented by the Mill City Museum might be. Historian Andrew

Urban shared my concern in a 2005 review of the Mill City Museum. He noted that only a single panel was devoted to the efforts of mill workers to unionize, and stated that, due to the fact that General Mills was a “founding” donor, the question is raised of how corporate philanthropy and other support limited the choices of what the museum was able to display.58 On the guided tour I went on, the people and artifacts that were displayed the most were the great “founders,” such as James J. Hill, the Washburn brothers, and John Crosby, and the various milling machines that made the building so productive. The mill workers were mentioned only on the side, and not in great detail. If the museum’s ideological claim to the past constitutes its current claim to the present and future, one can see that a museum, which rejects, through non-recognition, its past industrial workers and culture, is very much a museum that currently rejects industrial workers and culture today. The way in which this industrial culture is rejected is via the role that museums play in a post-industrial society. As stated, post-industrial economies are defined by their focus on providing services instead of goods. Tourism, as an industry, is very much a service. Museums have shifted focus as a result of the post-industrial transition; they are defined by their relationship to their visitors and are themselves an important component of a service economy. They are designed to create an “experience” for visitors, rather than to simply display a series of objects for the visitor to interpret for his or herself.59 The main component of the Mill City Museum is its Flour Tower exhibit, which visually recreates environment of the WashburnCrosby mill.60 This exhibit transports the visitor back to the time of the mill’s “heritage,” but for the pleasure of this time-tourism in a controlled environment, an entrance fee is charged.61 The idea of “heritage,” utilized by the Mill City Museum and the Mill District as a whole, adds value to an area that is no longer economically viable. By using the term “historic,” one says that what is deemed historic is by its very nature obsolete.62 Heritage is used by the museum to turn a location into a destination.The museum relies

55 Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Destination Culture (Berkley, Los Angeles, & London: University of California Press, 1998): 65. 56 Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Destination Culture, 20-23. 57 Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Destination Culture, 20-23.

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58 941. 59 60 61 62

Andrew Urban, “Mill City Museum,” The Journal of American History 92 (2005): Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Destination Culture, 138. Urban, “Mill City Museum,” 940. Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Destination Culture, 144. Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Destination Culture, 151.

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on tourism to make the area economically viable, as museums need a large number of visitors to turn a profit, and tourism is one of the only ways that this volume of visitors can be achieved.63 Creating a more hospitable environment for tourists was a definite goal of Minneapolis city planners in 2000. Dave Jennings, the president of the Minneapolis Chamber of Commerce at the time, said that urban tourist spots make the city an attractive place for tourists that also serve the needs of the people who live in the area. They make the city a place where people want to live, work, and play “24 hours a day, 7 days a week.”64 Ann Calvert, the senior project coordinator for the Minneapolis Community Development Agency, stressed that the Mississippi river was a vital, unique resource for the city of Minneapolis.65 Kris Brogan, mayor Sayles Belton’s policy aide on housing and economic development stated that the diverse developments on the river, such as the proposed Guthrie and the as of yet incomplete Mill City Museum, in conjunction with new downtown Minneapolis developments, such as the Block E entertainment complex, would help to bring in tourists which would fuel the downtown economy.66 The Mill City Museum, in this light, can be seen as a definite component in the post-industrial economic transition from an economy based on manufacturing towards an economy based on providing services. By turning visitors away from the industrial past through its monopoly of “heritage,” the Mill City Museum actually profits, and like a vampire, the post-industrial economy feeds on the remnants of the industrial heritage it is supposed to protect. The museum itself is thus a prime representation of the new post-industrial economy and culture of Minneapolis. Situated on the riverfront, right next to the North Star and Washburn Lofts, it is perfectly located to tell the world that Minneapolis is not a city mired in its gloomy, unprofitable, and obsolete industrial past, but is rather a city that is willing to do whatever is necessary to be competitive in the global economy. As demonstrated, the Mill District is representative of a greater

transition to a post-industrial economy and culture in Minneapolis. Richard Florida best characterizes this new post-industrial ethos in his two books: Rise of the Creative Class and Cities and the Creative Class. Florida claims that creativity has become the driving principle force in the “development” and “growth” of cities, nations, and regions.67 The key to regional growth lies in a large endowments highly educated and productive people, who are attracted to cities by the three “Ts” of the creative class: technology, talent, and tolerance.68 A city rich in technology is a city with multiple hitech jobs, such as jobs in industries such as software and biotechnology.69 Florida defines talent by a college degree, and tolerance is the acceptance of multiple creeds and peoples.70 A city, according to Florida, requires all three of these elements to be successful in attracting “creative” people, whom he defines as the engine of economic growth.71 The core members of the creative class include poets, novelists, professors, actors, and software engineers. Florida defines the “highest order of creative work as producing new forms of designs that are readily transferable and widely useful.”72 What makes these people economically successful is their ability to create new products by using non-standard methods, which fit the situation at hand.73 Given the nature of Mill District development, it is not difficult to infer that the city of Minneapolis was attempting to attract Florida’s creative class, though his book had not yet been published. Lofts, as demonstrated, are an attempt to capture the imagination of those who consider themselves creative, and who have an infatuation with the creative ethos of the abstract “artist.” Commercially developed lofts, given their expense, are generally only affordable to those who have received a college degree. Therefore, living in the Mill District developments is participating in the construction of a new creative class identity, due to the homogenous nature of those who can live there. A fundamental aspect of identity is the fact that identity is the relationship between the Other and the self.There cannot exist a conception

63 Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Destination Culture, 137. 64 Lee Roberts, “Downtown Projects Draw Tourists,” Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal, May 21, 2000, accessed March 20, 2013, http://www.bizjournals.com/twincities/stories/2000/05/22/focus3.html 65 Roberts, “Downtown Projects” 66 Roberts, “Downtown Projects”

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67 2005): 1. 68 69 70 71 72 73

Richard Florida, Cities and the Creative Class (London & New York: Routledge, Florida, Cities, 6. Richard Florida, Rise of the Creative Class (New York: Basic Books, 2002): 48. Florida, Cities, 6. Florida, Cities, 22. Florida, Rise, 69. Florida, Rise, 69-70.

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of the self without an existing Other.74 The difference between the creative class self and the Other is defined as a difference of vocation: the creative class works with its brain to create innovative solutions to problems and conjure up new products, while the older manufacturing and service sectors do not, though Florida suggests that anybody, theoretically, can join the creative class.75 But it is also defined by socio-economic class, as talent is, as noted, defined by having a college degree. College degrees are by no stretch of the imagination cheap, and having a college degree leads to a widening income gap over time. Thus, a sense of difference could come to develop between those in the creative class and those who are not, and through that difference, or “Othering,” two widely differing senses of identity. This is significant when one takes into account Florida’s conception of social ties. According to Brian Tochterman’s analysis of Florida’s work, the creative class ideology functions on the premise that weak social ties are preferable to strong social ties.76 A trickle down effect is what will raise the unacknowledged service class, upon which the creative class floats, from the depths in which they dwell.77 The emphasis on weak social ties in Florida’s theory is a justification to do away with strong social ties, such as trade unions and policies of the welfare state. Cities often do this via devastating tax cuts, in order to attract mobile labor, which offer few wider community benefits.78 The construction of a creative class identity, spatially isolated on the riverfront from other citizens of the city, is therefore also the deconstruction of a sense of communal responsibility. The old industrial economy and society is not only physically removed from the space through the process of adaptive reuse and city tax incentives (such as the TIF financing

used to restore the Northstar Mill, noted earlier), but is also culturally annihilated via the exclusionary nature of creative class identity, which comes about due to differences in socio-economic status and opportunity. Responsibility to the Other is not as essential as responsibility to one’s own group, and this can be seen by the further proliferation of apartment buildings and exclusionary cultural events in the area.79 The exclusivity of creative class, post-industrial culture, created by the monopolization of space and historical representation, is detrimental to the Mill District. Exclusivity leads to development that is only beneficial to those who monopolize the space.There is no reason, for example, for an area with a predominantly high-wealth population to include low-cost commercial options. Presumably, the high-wealth residents of the Mill District have the capability to travel elsewhere to meet their varied consumer needs. What this means is that the Mill District has the potential to do away with mixed primary usage. Primary usage can be defined as the usage of a space by different commercial, residential, and industrial concerns.80 Mixed primary usage is required to make an area in a city dynamic, and it is what allows the usage of the space by all citizens. It contributes to a friendlier atmosphere in the city and a sense of communality with other citizens. Mixed primary usage is in harmony with the actually existing nature of cities.81 City districts without mixed primary use destroy the diversity that allows them to function properly in the first place.While interesting historical sites, such as the Mill City Museum and the Stone Arch Bridge, might attract visitors, they are in an area of the city that cannot benefit the city itself economically. They are isolated and far away from economically depressed sections of the city that might benefit from them.82 Further, lower-income visitors have no place to realistically spend their money in the district other than the Mill City Museum, as the majority of the district is comprised of lofts, mid-to-upscale restaurants, such as the organic-focused Spoon River, and various other service-based outlets. But the Mill City Museum, being a

74 Stuart Hall, “Ethnicity: Identity and Difference,” in Becoming National, ed. Geoff Eley & Richard Suny (New York & Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996): 345. I use this source primarily for its description of identity. Hall is dealing with identity in terms to how it relates to ethnicity and differences between ethnic groups. I take his idea that identity is created by difference and apply it to vocation and socioeconomic class. The principle is the same, yet the application, in this case, is different. Difference between vocation and class produces difference just as much as ethnicity does, and in this case it is certainly applicable to the situation I am dealing with 75 Florida, Cities, 35. 76 Brian Tochterman, “Theorizing Neoliberal Urban Development,” Radical History Review 112 (Winter 2012): 76. 77 Tochterman, “Urban Development,” 76. 78 Tochterman, “Urban Development,” 75.

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79 Mark Reily, “Once a Grain Elevator, Ceresota Building Might get Apartments,” Minneapolis/St.Paul Business Journal, November 21, 2012, accessed May 5, 2013. http:// www.bizjournals.com.ezp2.lib.umn.edu/twincities/morning_roundup /2012/11/ once-a-grain-elevator-ceresota.html 80 Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities (New York: Modern Library, 1993): 210. 81 Jacobs, Death and Life, 227. 82 Jacobs, Death and Life, 220.

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component of the tourist economy, does not have a business model focused on attracting repeat visitors, which limits its attraction to those who do live in the district. More and more lofts are going up in the area, and there are plans to convert the Ceresota elevator, which is currently an office building, into more apartments.83 This destruction of diversity seems to be the hallmark of postindustrial, creative class development. The redevelopment of the Mill District has created an area that is attractive to developers, creating an intense competition for the space. This competition, notably around loft space, has made the area essentially the economic equal of a fad.84 The post-industrial adaptive reuse has eliminated the ability of industrial enterprises to operate in the area via a justification of historic preservation, which hampers the area’s ability to attract mixed primary use. This, in turn, allows developers and citizens of the Mill District a more free hand in developing the district according to their preferences, which have been seen to be largely middleclass, private, and commercial in their outlook. As a result, the Mill District, about one hundred years later, is beginning to tell the history of its industrial heritage via a process of residential concentration and repetition. The proliferation of apartment buildings and a subsequent lack of substantial mixed primary usage mimics the industrially homogenous development of the original Mill District which led to its abandonment in the first place. The adaptive re-usage of the Mill District of Minneapolis is a component of Minneapolis’s transition from an industrial economy and culture to a post-industrial economy and culture. On the riverfront, the Mill District is perfectly located to visually represent this transition in a way that will show the largest number of visitors the change as possible. The transition is best exemplified by the lofts and cultural institutions that have sprung up on the riverfront, in the cold hulks of the former flour mills. But this transition to a post-industrial economy and culture is a transition marked by social inequality and the monopolization and propagation of a particularly private, commercialized historical narrative designed to make the Mill District more exclusive rather than inclusive. The claim to the past, via either corporate funding for the Mill City Museum or the occupation of the historic buildings by fundamentally middle-class and commercial interests, represents a claim to the future of the district, and to who belongs

in the district and who does not. Those who do not belong, which are industrial interests and lower-income persons, are eradicated as actors of serious importance in the historical narrative, are removed spatially from the buildings of the district, and are kept away via a process of exclusionary development which uses the historic nature of the district to justify its existence. As such, the post-industrial identity of Minneapolis, represented by the Mill District on the riverfront, can be inferred to have many of these qualities. The exclusionary nature of this identity may have serious repercussions in the future for the city, and should be addressed by both the citizens and city planners of the City of Minneapolis.

83 84

Reily, “Once a Grain Elevator” Jacobs, Death and Life, 317.

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Expressions of National Identity in Twentieth Century Chairs

Expressions of National Identity in Twentieth Century Chairs NadiaWestenburg Fordham University

Abstract Chairs, as design objects and works of art, are bearers of social meaning. They are expressive of the identities of their designers as well as the larger artistic movements to which their designers belong. These three twentieth century chairs by Gerrit Rietveld, Marcel Breuer, and Alvar Aalto are no exception. They are indicative of modernist values as interpreted through the lens of the national identities from which they emerge. They strive to meet the universal needs of the modern man yet react to, and are expressive of, a unique set of deeply rooted national values.

In our modern world, the chair is perhaps the single most important piece of furniture we encounter on a daily basis. From infancy to adulthood, we are constantly seated. We sit in car seats, amusement park rides, school desks, computer chairs. We sit when we eat, read, write, travel. Our regularly seated position and the perspective which follows from it have formed our bodies and shaped our thinking,1 so much so that we associate chairlessness with dehumanization at, for example, music festivals where we sit on the ground, or sporting events with standing room only. Such settings lacking proper seating evoke assumptions of barbarity and violence.2 When faced with those who choose not to sit, we are overwhelmed with a feeling of awe at witnessing a remnant of a preindustrial, agrarian way of living. We hold dear to our chairs not only because of their comfort to which we are now accustomed, but also because of their symbolic significance. In nearly all societies, physical elevation serves as a mark of prestige and power.3 Even our language reinforces these values when we reference the chairman of a board as someone who holds the highest seat of office. The chair was not always such a prominent aspect of culture, though. Until the 16th century, relatively recently in historical terms, the majority of the world’s people rarely used chairs. This changed largely as a result of European dominance through trade, diplomacy, and conquest. As a consequence of this imperialism, the seated position became the norm not only for elites and royalty, but for entire civilizations.4 With this boom of the design industry emerged a new type of people that the art world had never seen before – the consumer.5 The patron had already existed for centuries, but did not engage with the works of art on the level of the consumer. The same person who bought the chair actually used it on a daily basis; he did not purchase it merely for decoration, but because it met his physical needs as well. Furniture, as an extension of the art world, thus became a business requiring regularly 1 Edward Tenner, “How the Chair Conquered the World,” TheWilson Quarterly 21, no. 2 (Spring 1997): 64. 2 Ibid. 3 Ibid., 65 4 Ibid., 68 5 Jerry Palmer and Mo Dodson, “Design,” Encyclopedia of Aesthetics, Oxford Art Online, Oxford University Press, accessed September 23, 2012, http://www. oxfordartonline.com/subscriber/article/opr/t234/e0166.

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updated designs and improved methods of production to keep up with the changing needs and desires of the consumer. The traditional formal qualities of the chair were never fundamentally challenged until the modern movement of the twentieth century. The post-World War I style in furniture, much as in painting, was characterized by the use of simple, geometric forms and a lack of ornamentation.6 This was largely due to a reaction against the stiff formality of the nineteenth century. This rebellion – against the hard, uncomfortable, high-backed chair, the stiff corset, the cumbersome floorlength skirt – influenced almost all objects of everyday use. The main problem confronted by designers, then, was how to provide a chair that could adapt to the modern man’s new need for comfort.7 The solution to this problem was made possible by the defining factor of the modern age: industrialization. With the new opportunities that followed the emergence of the machine came a dispute over whether to embrace or reject this new way of life. In design and other methods of production, some pushed for the use of mechanized processes while others held tight to the skilled work of the hand.8 For most designers, though, these unprecedented changes brought about by industrialization led to a turning away from the past and a shift towards the development of an aesthetic appropriate for modern life.9 This meant applying the principles of modern design to the needs of an industrialized community and new means of manufacturing,,10 but the move from craft to mass production resulted in a breakdown of the traditional process of the manufacture of goods: the designing stage was separated from the making stage.11 The

builder of an object was detached from the person responsible for its blueprint.12 This method of standardized manufacture, epitomized by the Ford Motor Company and the production of the Model T beginning in 1908, led to a crisis because it failed to take into account the psychological needs of the consumer.13 The buyer of a chair, for example, did not only want a product that was functional and cheap but one that was also comfortable and trendy. The industrial designer emerged as a response to these needs. He was able to reconcile the customer’s requirements of functionality and affordability with the desire for novelty and style. The psychological and physical needs of the consumer are crucial factors for the designer to keep in mind, but his pieces are also expressions of his own desires and values. This is what has allowed such movements as de Stijl, the Bauhaus, and Scandinavian modernism to flourish in the field of design. The forms we give objects are expressions of our own mental outlooks;14 they are revealing of how we see ourselves as parts of a personal, local, national, and even global context. Because of this heavy personal influence of designers on their creations, an object of design is very difficult to judge according to the criteria of universal aesthetics. However, though the subjectivity of a design object is unavoidable, we can trace it back to the specific context in which it was created and attempt to reconstruct this context in order to gain some insight. The design object as a work of art is inseparable from its place within a larger social meaning, and must be considered as such. Having established some basic factors that influence design, I will examine three chairs and their roles within a larger national and historical narrative. Using these three objects, I will argue for a consideration of design objects as small-scale interpretations of national identity. From this point of view, it follows that specific cultural and contextual diversities can account for the formal differences between the following three chairs: Gerrit Rietveld’s Red/Blue Chair of 1923, Marcel Breuer’s Wassily Chair of 1928, and Alvar Aalto’s Paimio Chair of 1932. For each chair, I will move outwards from its formal aspects to how it fits into a larger movement and then to how these movements embody a nationalism

6 Martin Henig, et al, “Chair,” Grove Art Online, Oxford Art Online, Oxford University Press, accessed September 23, 2012, http://www.oxfordartonline. com/subscriber/article/grove/art/T015704. 7 “The Tradition in Good Design: To 1940,” Everyday Art Quarterly 15 (Summer 1950): 15. 8 Penelope Hunter-Stiebe, “The Decorative Arts of the Twentieth Century,” The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, New Series 37, no. 3 (Winter 1979-1980): 3. 9 Paola Antonelli, Objects of Design (New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 2003), 25. 10 Edgar Kaufmann Jr., “The Department of Industrial Design,” The Bulletin of the Museum of Modern Art 14, no. 1 (Autumn 1946): 3. 11 Penny Sparke, “Design,” Grove Art Online, Oxford Art Online, Oxford University Press, accessed September 23, 2012, http://www.oxfordartonline.com/subscriber/article/grove/art/T022395.

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12 Palmer and Dodson, “Design.” 13 Sparke, “Design.” 14 Pieter Brattinga, “Industrial Design in the Netherlands,” Design Quarterly 59 (1964): 10.

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emerging from a particular historical and geographic context. One designer who exemplifies his environment through design is Gerrit Rietveld (1988-1964), a Dutch architect and designer of the early twentieth century. From the age of eleven, Rietveld worked in his father’s furniture workshop where he was able to witness first-hand the emergence of portable and electric woodworking machinery and the fusion of hand and machine methods of production.15 His Red/Blue Chair of 1923 (fig. 1) earnestly embraces modernism by eliminating all ornamentation and reducing the conventional furniture type to its component parts. In his use of only straight lines and right angles, Rietveld has stripped the fat of upholstery and decoration in order to reveal the skeletal structure underneath the conventional chair.16 After having deconstructed the traditional piece of furniture, Rietveld took on the task of assembling a new type that could be produced simply and inexpensively. The result is a very clean and straightforward construction that clearly displays the manner in which it was assembled,17 with the joints and other elements of the chair visible and even accentuated.18 Rietveld chose to use pieces of wood in standard lumber sizes to allow for the easy and cheap execution of his chair on a mass scale.19 Rietveld used his chair to examine the interaction of vertical and horizontal planes. The chair makes visible the lines of the spatial grid that surrounds it; the planes of this grid are always present in space but are unseen until formalized as the seat and supports of Rietveld’s chair.20 Though the many lines of the chair all bypass each other, they never actually intersect. Instead, they are joined together in the “Rietveld joint” (fig. 2), which uses dowels to connect the three overlapping segments. With the exception of the chair’s seat and back, each support element of the chair is entirely black with a painted yellow end signifying the terminus of an otherwise infinitely extending axis. (fig. 3).21

This concept of the universal field is part of the rational network of predictable laws regulating physical reality that appealed to de Stijl artists. After World War I, artists of the de Stijl movement sought to end the chaos brought about by the war and to create a harmony based on a rational, ordered reality.22 This involved a rejection of the individualism and competing nationalisms that had caused the war and a replacement of these concepts with an international impulse in architecture and design that would transcend national styles and differences.23 The fundamental basics of de Stijl, as seen in painting, sculpture, architecture, typography, and design, are: (1) in form – the rectangle, (2) in color – the “primary” hues red, blue, and yellow, and (3) in composition – the asymmetric balance.24 Red/Blue Chair is seen as the epitome of the de Stijl movement interpreted through design. A clear formal comparison can be made between Rietveld’s chair and the geometric abstraction of Piet Mondrian (fig. 4) and Theo van Doesburg (fig. 5), two of the movement’s notable founders. Just as Mondrian and others expressed de Stijl through painting, Rietveld did the same on a three-dimensional life-size scale. Though the prototype for Red/Blue Chair was first built in 1917 (fig. 6), the primary colors were not added until 1923, a few years after Mondrian began his explorations with lines, planes, and primary colors. With this final touch, the piece implemented all the characteristics of de Stijl art. Though de Stijl ultimately became an international movement, its roots are visible in Dutch culture. The combination of the post-war desire for rationality and the traditional Dutch values of precision, neatness, and cleanliness are what created the perfect environment for de Stijl to flourish in the 1920s. The art of de Stijl has often been criticized as being “aseptic” or “sterile,” but these features are manifestations of a complete spiritual cleanliness that is so deeply rooted in Dutch culture that the concepts of “clean,” “beautiful,” and “pure” are synonymous in one Dutch word: schoon.25 In this sense, Rietveld can be seen as wholly embodying Dutch values of art in his time period. Though his national identity is a bit more complex, Marcel

15 Paul Overy, “Carpentering the Classic: A Very Peculiar Practice. The Furniture of Gerrit Rietveld,” Journal of Design History 4, no. 3 (1991): 135. 16 Ibid., 150-151. 17 Ibid., 155. 18 Antonelli, Objects of Design, 25. 19 Ibid., 44. 20 Jack H. Williamson, “The Grid: History, Use, and Meaning,” Design Issues 3, no. 2 (Autumn 1986): 22. 21 Ibid.

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22 Ibid., 26. 23 Ibid., 23. 24 Alfred H. Barr, Jr., “De Stijl,” The Bulletin of the Museum of Modern Art 20, no. 2 (Winter 1952-1953): 6. 25 Brattinga, “Industrial Design,” 2.

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Breuer also manifests the ideals of his movement through design. Breuer (1902-1981) was born in Hungary but trained at the Bauhaus in Weimar, Germany where he studied from 1920 to 1924. During these years, Breuer was experimenting with the application of de Stijl to his own aesthetic (fig. 7). Rietveld’s Red/Blue Chair had taught Breuer to distinguish between the frame of the chair and the supports for the sitter26 through either the use of different colors (as in Rietveld) or different materials. While the de Stijl movement was gaining popularity, the Bauhaus at first embraced its ideals but then pushed these onto a more functional aesthetic. De Stijl had been too restrictive in its use of limited materials and doctrinaire insistence on flat, primary colors.27 The Bauhaus pushed instead for a functional approach in determining the forms appropriate for modernity. After his early experimentations in design and a brief period spent working as an independent architect, Breuer returned to the Bauhaus to become the leader of the carpentry workshop at the school’s new location in Dessau. Here, he was leading the workshop in its endeavors to find radically innovative forms for modern furniture.28 Meanwhile, the post-war dismemberment of the Austro-Hungarian Empire had left his native Hungary in shambles. Hungarians were still searching for a cultural identity and looking mainly to the tradition of folk art for some stability.29 Breuer, though Hungarian by birth, made a major turn away from this tradition and chose instead to embrace the German Bauhaus culture. Breuer epitomizes the way in which émigré artists have been absorbed into more dominant societies with little reference to their own countries of origin.30 At least in his style and formal aesthetic, Breuer is undoubtedly more Bauhaus than he is Hungarian. The Bauhaus values of innovation and technology are visible in Breuer’s Club Chair (later nicknamed the Wassily Chair) of 1927-1928 (fig. 8) in which he pioneered the use of tubular steel in furniture, perhaps the single most important contribution to twentieth century furniture

design.31 In Breuer’s own words, “it is my most extreme work, both in its outward appearance and in the use of materials; it is the least artistic, the most logical/rational, the least cozy and the most mechanical.”32 Breuer was inspired by the tubular steel of his Adler bicycle handlebars (fig. 9) which was strong and lightweight but also lent itself to mass production.33 Breuer, in his application of steel to furniture, was appealing to a new aesthetic he deemed appropriate for the modern man.34 The model for this design was the traditional club chair, but Breuer stripped down its usual overstuffed silhouette and left only its outline, an elegant composition of gleaming steel.35 The bold and futuristic look of the Wassily Chair epitomizes the ideals of the Bauhaus. The Bauhaus school, perhaps the most influential education center for modern design, advocated for a new architecture, a new vision, and a new way of living compatible with the social and technological challenges of modernization.36 This involved the application of design to the concept of a seamless modern world and a unification of “fine” and “useful” arts through new experiments in typography, tableware, clothing, furniture, architecture, and design. The movement, like de Stijl, sprang from a post-war desire for rationality but was also combined with a German Marxist ideology. The result was a rejection of traditional forms, which had served as symbols of bourgeois life.37 In his 1954 “Comments on Contemporary Furniture,” Josef H. Singer criticizes the furniture of this period, particularly pieces from the Bauhaus, as being overly cold and not belonging in a domestic interior. “It seemed more at home in a factory, or it was too machine like … Just because we had become experts in creating machines didn’t mean that

26 Anna Rowland, “Breuer, Marcel,” Grove Art Online, Oxford Art Online, Oxford University Press, accessed September 23, 2012, http://www.oxfordartonline.com/subscriber/article/grove/art/T011169. 27 Barr, “De Stijl,” 11. 28 Rowland, “Breuer, Marcel.” 29 Juliet Kinchin, “Modernity and Tradition in Hungarian Furniture, 1900-1938: Three Generations,” Journal of Decorative and Propaganda Arts 24 (2002): 69. 30 Ibid., 66.

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31 Antonelli, Objects of Design, 85. 32 Marcel Breuer. “Metallmöbel,” in DeutscherWerkbund, Innenräume, Räume und Inneneinrichtungsgegenstände aus derWerkbundausstellung “DieWohnung,”Weissenhofsiedlung in Stuttgart, edited by Werner Gräff (Stuttgart: Wedekind, 1928), 133. 33 Antonelli, Objects of Design, 85. 34 “The Materials of Furniture: Wood or Metal?,” Journal of Design History 3, no. 2/3 (1990): 164-165. 35 Antonelli, Objects of Design, 85. 36 Detlef Mertins, “Bauhaus,” Encyclopedia of Aesthetics, Oxford Art Online, Oxford University Press, accessed November 20, 2012, http://www.oxfordartonline.com/ subscriber/article/opr/t234/e0065. 37 Rowland, “Breuer, Marcel.”

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only forms having the feeling of machines were valid in our society.”38 This aversion to the new machine-age furniture was felt by many but seemed like an unavoidable outcome of modernization’s effects on design until the Finnish architect Alvar Aalto was able to reconcile the technology of modernity with a warmer and more approachable humanized aesthetic. Alvar Aalto (1898-1976), like Rietveld and Breuer, came from a nation that was attempting to redefine itself in the early twentieth century. Finland was governed by Sweden from the 12th century until 1809 when it became a grand duchy of Russia. Formal independence from Russia was not achieved until 1917, but a nationalist movement had been growing within Finland since the mid-nineteenth century. This involved a revalorization of the national language, the composition of a national epic out of folk poems, the Kalevala, and the creation of a concept of “Finnishness” in everything from personality type (primitive, mystical, and intuitive) to architectural style (organic, subjective, and metaphorical).39 Because Finland, as a new country, could fit into a variety of geographical, cultural, and political categories (as part of Scandinavia, a member of the Baltic states, a part of western Europe, or a former province of the Russian empire), it had a national identity that was less finite and more innocent than those of other countries.40 It was more of a politically and culturally ambiguous region than a well-defined nation. However, in the construction of this new identity, one thing was always kept in mind: the landscape, both cultural and natural, that provided the basis for the country’s major industries.4142 The Finnish forest industry was representative of a disturbance in the traditional linear progression from an agrarian to an industrial economy that was thought to accompany modernization.43 Finland seemed to be developing independently and was less affected by the rapid changes of modernity than other countries were.

Viewed as a product of a state whose cultural and economic roots are based in the landscape and forest (fig. 10), Alvar Aalto’s national origin can serve as a dominant way to explain his architecture and design.44 Though architecture can be viewed negatively as a man-made invasion on an otherwise undisturbed nature, Aalto’s buildings contributed a harmless human touch in nature that impacted a peaceful aura of civilization onto to the landscape.45 An example of one such building is the tuberculosis sanatorium designed by Aalto and built in Paimio, Finland in 1932 (fig. 11). Aalto was commissioned to design the sanatorium at a time when tuberculosis was the prime killer of adults in Europe.46 Before the invention of a drug cure for the disease in the 1950s, the principal form of treatment for tuberculosis was a generous diet and total rest in the fresh air.47 The sanatorium, while a symbol of the healthy new world promoted by modernism, was also unassuming in its environment. Its location was carefully chosen so as to effectively take advantage of the healing properties provided by sun, light, and fresh air.48 However, the outside environment was not the sole therapeutic factor of the building. For the sanatorium, Aalto designed not only the building but also all of the interior equipment including furniture, lamps, door handles, glassware, etc., all of which were meant to contribute to the healing process.49 The most famous piece of design to emerge from the building was an armchair built for the rest hall of the sanatorium, the so-called Paimio Chair (fig. 12). The piece served as a response to a unique need of the 19th century: a chair in which a tuberculosis patient could fulfill his long periods of mandatory rest comfortably. For this, Aalto made detailed studies of the patient’s specific physical needs. Since periodic sweats were a characteristic symptom of tuberculosis, the chair was built with slats in the

38 Josef H Singer. “Comments on Contemporary Furniture.” Design Quarterly 29 (1954): 12-13. 39 Paul Mattick, “Out of the Woods,” American Craft 58, no. 3 (Jun/Jul 1998): 22. 40 Eeva-Liisa Pelkonen, “Alvar Aalto and the Geopolitics of Fame,” Perspecta 37 (2005): 89-90. 41 William C. Miller, “Furniture, Painting, and Applied Designs: Alvar Aalto’s Search for Architectural Form,” Journal of Decorative and Propaganda Arts 6 (Autumn 1987): 9. 42 Mattick, “Out of the Woods,” 51. 43 Pelkonen, “Geopolitics,” 88.

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44 Ibid., 86. 45 Miller, “Architectural Form,” 10. 46 Margaret Campbell, “From Cure Chair to ‘Chaise Longue’: Medical Treatment and the Form of the Modern Recliner.” Journal of Design History 12, no. 4 (1999): 328. 47 Ibid., 329. 48 Miller, “Architectural Form,” 11. 49 Göran Schildt, “Aalto, Alvar,” Grove Art Online, Oxford Art Online, Oxford University Press, accessed September 23, 2012 ,http://www.oxfordartonline.com/subscriber/article/grove/art/T000023.

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upper part of the back to provide ventilation for the sitter’s neck. Because the chair was meant to ease breathing, Aalto did studies to determine the ideal angle of the body for respiration and used this 110-degree angle for the chair’s seat and back. The armrests, which curve at the front, provide a steadying grip for the physically weak patient when getting out of the chair. The ergonomically shaped frame and continuous scrolled seat and back made from natural birch plywood meant that the chair could be cleaned easily and effectively50 and, lastly and perhaps more importantly, this shape and choice of materials also meant that the chair could be produced in large quantities very inexpensively. The chair was able to fulfill the physical needs of the patient, but also fit into the budgets of the hospital boards and charitable organizations that financed the institution. Despite meeting all these requirements, the chair also fulfills Aalto’s own design aesthetic beautifully and expressively. Aalto used furniture design, and this chair in particular, as an experiment in smallscale form-making that both influenced and was influenced by his architecture. With the Paimio Chair, Aalto tested the limits of plywood manufacturing, a process that reconciled the use of his nation’s main natural resource with the new opportunities of modernity. The chair’s framework consists of two closed loops of laminated wood, which form the arms, legs, and floor runners of the chair, as well as a seat of thin plywood tightly bent at the top and bottom into scrolls. Aalto chose to use native birch for the chair because of the natural feeling it evokes.51 The combination of this choice of materials with the pronounced organic form of the chair, reminiscent of the sweeping curve prominent in the Finnish landscape,52 proves Aalto’s heavy natural influence. For Aalto, nature provided freedom, spontaneity, and beauty. It served as an antidote to technology that was loaded with symbolism and metaphor.53 Aalto was not anti-technology but rather believed that technology should be humanized in order to serve the needs of the people.54 He framed the persistent struggle of our age as one against mechanization and the machine, which destroy nature and lead to

collectivism and even dictatorship.55 Aalto’s resistance to this control is an understandable reaction emerging from the memories of his nation dominated by foreign superpowers for the majority of its history. Aalto took advantage of what technology had to offer but put a human face on it, giving priority to the psychosensual aspects of design and favoring free form over regularity.56 His furniture designs grew from attempts to reconcile standardized production with humanist values, combining the fresh, new, rational modern style with the simple, traditional warmth of wood.57 Aalto criticized the tubular steel frame of Breuer’s Wassily Chair for its cold and clinical character.58 To Aalto, this type of furniture appeared rational from a production standpoint but failed to properly address human psychological needs. He was particularly opposed to the reflectivity and conductivity of metal and instead chose wood for the majority of his furniture, a natural material with traditional associations.59 A design similar to that of Marcel Breuer would have been inappropriate for the interior of the Paimio Sanatorium, a building Aalto designed as essentially a large, therapeutic house.60 After the invention of the triple drug chemotherapy treatment for tuberculosis in the 1950s, the sanatorium was emptied and there was no longer a pressing need for the cure chair.61 However, thanks to the public who had already come to appreciate and embrace Aalto’s organic modern style, the chair, and its maker, remained popular. Scandinavian modernism, which emphasized the role of traditional craft skills and materials while still being appropriate for modern life, gained massive appeal in Europe and the United States in the late 1930s.62 Around this time, Scandinavia came to represent a neutral and peaceful alternative to continental Europe then divided by national hatred.63 In

50 51 52 53 54

Campbell, “Cure Chair,” 336. Antonelli, Objects of Design, 130. Miller, “Architectural Form,” 12. Antonelli, Objects of Design, 123. Schildt, “Aalto, Alvar.”

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55 Mattick, “Out of the Woods,” 51. 56 Antonelli, Objects of Design, 123. 57 Marc Trieb, “Alvar Aalto at 100,” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 57, no. (Mar 1998): 61. 58 Mattick, “Out of the Woods,” 55. 59 Miller, “Architectural Form,” 14. 60 Campbell, “Cure Chair,” 337. 61 Ibid., 329. 62 Sparke, “Design.” 63 Pelkonen, “Geopolitics,” 86.

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the spring of 1938, the Museum of Modern Art in New York featured Alvar Aalto in an exhibition titled Furniture and Architecture by Alvar Aalto. The show was the first American survey of the work of Aalto. It included drawings, photographs, and models of four of his most famous buildings as well as 40 to 50 pieces of furniture and other design objects.64 Aalto was only the second architect, behind Le Corbusier, to gain such recognition from MoMA.65 All the works in the show were centered on the same formal feature, curvilinearity, and the same material, wood. Individual pieces were mounted on the wall like art objects (fig. 13) in order for their formal and materials qualities to be appreciated.66 These chairs quickly became not only fashionable but indispensable in furnishing the modern home. They embodied a new technical vocabulary but also reintroduced wood, a reminiscently friendly material, back into the design canon.67 After gaining even more popularity due to the show’s success, Aalto was praised for his ability to successfully combine simplicity, the use of readily available natural materials, comfort, and human scale in his furniture designs.68 In his discussions of design, Edgar Kaufmann, Jr., long-time director of the Industrial Design department at the Museum of Modern Art writes: In modern design each problem is considered to carry the germ of its own solution – full comprehension of the needs to be fulfilled will indicate the form of the design. Although as in every art expressive exaggeration is used, arbitrary shapes chosen without relation to the problem are looked on as weakness, not strength.The responsibility of a modern designer thus becomes understanding his problem as thoroughly as he can and solving it as directly as he can. … Functions, materials, techniques, the environment and psychology of users – these are not to be

circumvented or forced, they are guides to right design.69

64 “Two New Exhibits – Furniture and Architecture by Alvar Aalto and Quintanilla’s Drawings of War in Spain,” Museum of Modern Art press release, March 14, 1938, accessed November 20, 2012, http://www.moma.org/docs/press_archives/435/releases/MOMA_1938_0015_1938-03-14_38314-9.pdf?2010. 65 Pelkonen, “Geopolitics,” 93. 66 Ibid., 94 67 Kaufmann, “Industrial Design,” 5. 68 Sparke

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Aalto successfully satisfied these requirements and therefore was able to fit into a new term that emerged in the 1930s: “good design.” Even while accounting for differences based on taste and personal expression, “good design” objects carefully considered the problems of use, construction, and human requirements. They functioned well and possessed a formal simplicity that was compatible with the aesthetic of the time.70 According to a 1950 article from Everyday Art Quarterly titled “The Tradition in Good Design: to 1940,” “there are basic design considerations and disciplines which remain constant: The use of an object determines its basic form. The material and the technique of fabrication affect the form. The visual quality of the form satisfies sensuous and psychological needs.” Good design objects should fit into these universal principles but must also adequately answer the questions: “What task is an object designed to fulfill? With what materials and tools and processes can the object best be created? How can it be formed so as to please the eye and the sense of touch, as well as the mind?”71 Defining “good design” was about the development of norms that were implicitly grounded in principles of universal validity72 and though designers had these in mind, they were still influenced by their backgrounds and personal values. A main aspect of Aalto’s work that was so attractive to a nonFinnish audience was its ability to give a small glimpse into a culture that most westerners still associated with primitivism. In the wake of rapid industrialization, most of the West had become so out of touch with nature that the uninhibited union with the world that was evident in Aalto’s work was seen as foreign and novel.73 This view is visible in the subtle but evident veneration in discussions surrounding Scandinavian design, particularly the Design in Scandinavia traveling exhibition of the mid-1950s. In his review of the show, Edgar Kaufmann, Jr. used words like “clean,” “unobtrusive,” 69 Edgar Kaufmann Jr., “The Department of Industrial Design,” The Bulletin of the Museum of Modern Art 14, no. 1 (Autumn 1946): 3. 70 “Tradition,” 1. 71 Ibid., 2. 72 Palmer and Dodson, “Design.” 73 Pelkonen, “Geopolitics,” 95.

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NadiaWestenburg “ingenious,” “sensible,” and “elegant” to describe some of the objects included. While these adjectives may refer to the properties of things, they more often apply to characteristics of people.74 The show and much of the fondness for Scandinavian design in general seemed to stem from an American admiration for the Scandinavian population and way of life. Americans revered the Nordic “sanity”75 associated with these design objects and the fantastical lifestyle they represented. Visitors to the Design in Scandinavia exhibition were not presented with landscapes showing urbanized modernity or the reality of industrialization’s effects in Scandinavia. Instead, the landscapes of Finland as well as Denmark, Norway, and Sweden were shown in bird’s eye view photographs without explicit references to the presence of humans (fig. 14).76 Scandinavia, for foreigners, represented a fairy tale place where nature was practically untouched and the people lived simply and harmoniously with their environment. This vision was spread more widely by the lifestyle and design magazines that emerged in the 1950s. One such magazine was House Beautiful, whose then editor-in-chief Elizabeth Gordon “discovered” Scandinavian design at the 1951 Milan Triennale. Gordon was impressed by the quality and elegance of Scandinavian craft and design and decided that these objects could serve as models for the way of life she idealized. Scandinavia was projected as a background for a correction of American attitudes and for addressing the inferiority of average Americans. To correct this, she began to promote aspects of Scandinavian culture in the pages of her magazine in the 1950s. Emphasis on the home, family, closeness to nature, hiking in the landscape, and natural materials became ideals to be associated with an American way of life.77 The designs of Alvar Aalto fit in perfectly with this idealized fantasy lifestyle. The piece that was created for the very specific function of aiding in the healing process for Finnish tuberculosis patients was now popping up in living rooms across America. The Paimio Chair, and other similarly commodified works, became an indispensable part of the 74 Jørn Guldberg, “‘Scandinavian Design’ as Discourse: The Exhibition Design in Scandinavia, 1954-57,” Design Issues 27, no. 2 (Spring 2011): 41. 75 Pelkonen, “Geopolitics,” 85. 76 Guldberg, “Scandinavian Design,” 50. 77 Ibid., 47-48.

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Expressions of National Identity in Twentieth Century Chairs luxurious modern lifestyle. Americans bought the chairs because they were interested in the narrative behind them and what they represented. Today, Aalto’s furniture is still manufactured by Artek, the company founded by Aalto in the 1930s. Because Aalto’s furniture required too much hand labor, it never made the move from serial to mass production that was intended.78 Partly because of this, the chairs have remained quite expensive and, as they have been exported across the globe for approximately $4000 a piece, have become a brand name status symbol. Now, the chair that was originally so pleasing because of its familiarity and unobtrusiveness has been reappropriated into a symbol of wealth and an attestation of good taste. One pamphlet entitled “The Tradition in Good Design: To 1940” states, “in addition to the qualities common to all good design, the needs, resources, and ideals unique to each culture tend to mark the object as a product of its own time and place. If those needs or aspirations are too far removed from our own, the object created will probably not continue in common use, no matter how admirably it states its own message.”79 The timelessness of Aalto’s furniture may prove a connection between our needs and those of Finnish tuberculosis patients of the 1930’s, but a more likely explanation is that this appeal to such a wide audience speaks to Aalto’s perfected ability to create humanized forms that satisfied the physical and psychological needs of all people. Aalto could characterize these needs so well that the object he originally created for a very specific setting has been able to transcend the boundaries of geography and time. The fantasy lifestyle associated with the Finnish forest has been immortalized in Aalto’s works. Alvar Aalto, like other designers before him, was able to capture his own culture in his designs. His international reputation came mainly from his furniture which, unlike his buildings located mostly in Finland, could be exhibited to an international public. Consumers who were fortunate enough to be able to afford his designs were able to literally and figuratively have a piece of Finland in their own homes. Rietveld, Breuer, and Aalto were all striving for a similar goal in their early twentieth century designs: to reject the ornate formal vocabulary of the nineteenth century and to simplify this style into 78 79

Mattick, “Out of the Woods,” 51. “Tradition,” 13.

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something more clean and straightforward. Though they had similar ends in mind, they turned to different means to achieve these ends: Rietveld to the grid, Breuer to the machine, and Aalto to nature. For each designer, these elements served as the ultimate solutions to the problems posed by modernity. Each invented new forms to accommodate the technological transformation brought on by industrialization and the changing needs and desires of the modern man. Though these three chairs successfully meet these requirements, they are also expressions of the identities of their respective designers. After closely examining the geographical, political, and historical situations of the Netherlands, Germany, and Finland at this time period, we can better understand the context from which each of these chairs emerged. It is easy to understand how, for example, the organic wooden shape of Aalto’s chair perfectly embodies Finnish culture once we know that Finland was (and is) a country so tied to its landscape that even its postage stamps feature images of the forest. In light of this, anything that didn’t embrace nature both in material and form would be incompatible with the Finnish aesthetic. Once we can understand this, we can clearly see how an object such as Aalto’s chair would follow from such an ideology. If we support historian Benedict Anderson’s definition of a nation as an “imagined community,” we can see how design objects are one medium in which a nation can express itself. National identities are formed through time and cannot simply be assigned like the borders of a country. These imagined communities are unique places where the people are connected through a shared geography, history, and ideology. These elements combine to form a collective national identity, which can then be expressed in every aspect of culture, including design.

figures

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(fig. 2) Close-up of Rietveld joint (fig. 1) Gerrit Rietveld, Red/Blue Chair, c. 1923, painted wood

(fig. 3) Dynamic spatial projection of the axes of Red/Blue Chair

(fig. 4) Piet Mondrian, Composition with Red, Blue, Bkac,Yellow, and Gray, 1921, oil on canvas

(fig. 5) Theo van Doesburg, Rhythm of a Russian Dance, 1918, oil on canvas

(fig. 6) Gerritt Rietveld, Prototype for Red/Blue Chair, 191718, unpainted wood

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(fig. 7) Marcel Breuer, Armchair, 1922, oak and hand-woven wool

(fig. 8) Marcel Breuer, Club Chair (B3), 1927-28, chrome-plated tubular steel and canvas

Expressions of National Identity in Twentieth Century Chairs

(fig. 13) A shot of Aalto chairs from the MoMA exhibition Furniture and Architecture by Alvar Aalto, 1938 (Paimio Chair can be seen in top-left)

fig. 14) Display panel at the entrance to the Design in Scandinavia traveling exhibition, 1954

(fig. 10) Finnish postage stamp, c. 1930 (fig. 9) Poster for Adler Bicycles

(fig. 11) Alvar Aalto, Paimio Sanatorium, 1932.

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(fig. 12) Alvar Aalto, Paimio Chair, 1931-32, bent plywood, bent laminated birch, and solid birch

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Angus Burgin: Assistant Professor,The Johns Hopkins University

Angus Burgin

Foundations

What was the impetus for writing The Great Persuasion?

Angus Burgin

I began graduate school in 2003, and at that point in time there was a sense among historians that we didn’t have a good handle on the rise of the modern, American conservative movement—what caused it and particularly its early ideological origins. I set out initially to write a graduate student paper where I wanted to look at the origins of American conservatism through the lens of ideas in a way that prior historians hadn’t. If you look at the best literature on conservatism that was written in the 1980s, 1990s and even the early 2000s, most of it focused on conservatism as a grassroots movement. That’s certainly one angle to take, but in the end, that scholarship hit a bit of a roadblock because there were certain kinds of questions that it couldn’t answer. In many ways, it gets back to the “three-legged stool” of modern conservatism, where you have a kind of libertarian approach to economics, social traditionalism often associated with the Evangelical movement, and support for a strong national defense. How does all this fit together into a coherent social philosophy? It’s hard to ask those kinds of broad questions about ideas without grappling at some point with academic theorists or people who are discussing these ideas on an abstract level. That led me to explore where these ideas were coming from in the intellectual world—who was dealing with them, who was advising major political figures, and so on. That line of inquiry led me to the Mont-Pèlerin Society, which I focus on in the book. I spent a week at the Hoover Institution going through their early conference papers and discovered this whole network of intellectuals that was largely new to me. It excited me because it crossed disciplinary boundaries—you had economists, political scientists, philosophers, historians, businesspeople, and journalists. This was a unique opportunity to understand how these abstract ideas ultimately affected the public sphere.

Foundations

You focus on the Mont-Pèlerin Society, an international association founded by Friedrich Hayek in 1947 and later led by Milton Friedman, as a unique mechanism through which free-market ideology

Assistant Professor, The Johns Hopkins University Staff Interview byYonah Reback

Angus Burgin is an Assistant Professor at The Johns Hopkins Univeristy, where his research and teaching focuses on twentieth-century United States, political history, intellectual history and the history of capitalism. In his recent book, The Great Persuasion: Reinventing Free Markets since the Depression, Burgin traces the evolution of postwar economic thought in order to reconsider many of the most basic assumption of our market-centered world.

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Angus Burgin: Assistant Professor,The Johns Hopkins University

was filtered down from academia to the public. What about the nature of the Mont-Pèlerin Society facilitated this dynamic? AB

The most interesting thing about the Society in that regard is how explicit Hayek was that he did not want it to be public facing. It’s kind of counter-intuitive—when you think about an organization like this, you immediately think of it as trying to alter public opinion on matters of fundamental importance and therefore there seems to be a propagandistic dimension to it. But Hayek had this interesting idea that the Mont-Pèlerin Society would be most effective at achieving its goal if they explicitly set aside an objective of bringing it to the public and instead convened solely to discuss these ideas among themselves. Hayek thought this would be effective for a number of reasons. For one, he thought that these economic ideas were not yet fully developed and that the Society would be a safe space to engage in philosophical discussion to refine them. Hayek also thought it would create a unique networking opportunity that would ultimately form organic connections, which would lead to public changes in ways that Hayek himself couldn’t imagine.

Foundations

What about Friedrich Hayek’s role in the rise of free-market ideals is least appreciated in the public sphere?

One of the reasons I wrote The Great Persuasion was to better un derstand Hayek and delineate the differences between Hayek and some of the people the public associates now as market-advocates. Hayek is a more complicated and uncertain figure than he’s commonly thought of, which manifests itself in a couple of ways. In contrast to people who talk about the market today as a perfect processor of information, Hayek started his arguments with the notion of human ignorance. He stressed our individual incapacities to gain knowledge of how markets work. That made him, in a way, very modest about his own views in many cases, self-conscious of his own ignorance. On the one hand, this attitude made him sympathetic towards markets because he thought they were the best way of aggregating the isolated information of many individuals.

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But on the other hand, it made him reluctant to make excessively grand claims for the capacity of markets to solve social problems. You could see this sentiment manifest in many different ways. At the height of the Depression, Hayek doesn’t advocate his ideas as an ideal solution, but as the “least bad” solution. Another example is Hayek’s attitude toward social insurance in The Road to Serfdom, where he suggests that there might be justifications for minimum standards of food, shelter, and even health insurance in our society. When you look at all of those issues, we don’t want to make Hayek out at not being a market advocate, which he certainly was. But he was an advocate much more limited about his claims than other free-market theorists. Foundations

In conveying the primacy of free-markets to the public, how did religious belief intersect with the views of Hayek and Friedman?

This was of serious concern for Hayek when he founded the Mont-Pèlerin Society. There was a sense that market advocates had become closed to religion. He was deeply concerned from the beginning to try to construct a social philosophy of the free-market that was open to religion. He tried to do that in a complicated way, as Hayek himself was not a strongly religious individual and didn’t try to construct a social philosophy around a particular religious view. Rather, he said that we should be sympathetic to markets because no one individual can know how to best plan society. Similarly, he argued that we should be protective of our social traditions and religious beliefs because they have evolved over centuries as the best way of coping with complicated problems that we don’t fully understand. Any arid rationalism that tries to case aside all of these established beliefs will try to impose an abstract construct with consequences that extend far beyond the average individual’s comprehension of it. Given that, when confronted with a range of choices, Hayek believed our inclination should be to respect the way things have been done, because we don’t have perfect knowledge about what any given reform will result in. Today we often conflate free-market economics with modern

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Staff Interview byYonah Reback American conservatism. How did Hayek feel about the placement of free-market advocacy under the banner of American conservatism? AB

You see all of these different labels being debated in the early Mont-Pèlerin Society meetings—ranging from libertarian to neo-liberal to conservative. Hayek at one point said he should be called an Old Whig. All of these terms made Hayek and his contemporaries uneasy. Both Friedman and Hayek, despite their sympathy with the movement, did not label themselves libertarians. Both also explicitly rejected the term conservative. The reasons for those points of unease vary. Friedman said that libertarianism sounded too much like libertine, which seemed to embrace a kind of anarchism that in the context of the 1960s he didn’t want to associate with. Hayek and Friedman both worried that conservatism implied a degree of respect for the status quo that wasn’t reflective to their openness the change as provoked by the market mechanism. They both wrestled with the right ways to promote their views to the broader public. But neither fully succeeded, which is one of the reasons why you still see these tensions in the conservative world today.

Foundations

How did Milton Friedman take advantage of political crises to pro mote his ideals?

It’s important to understand that Friedman’s basic conception of his social role was to throw out lots of specific policy ideas. Whereas Hayek was in many ways deliberately vague about such questions, Friedman was incredibly specific about his policy suggestions. Friedman thought that by doing so, he would lay out a range of alternative proposals that would appeal to public sentiment if global events forced a reassessment of public policy. What is so striking is how precisely this played out as Friedman had anticipated. In the 1970s, stagflation and a seemingly fundamental breakdown in established economic knowledge since WWII spurred a desire to find new ways of solving public problems. At that moment, this whole

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Angus Burgin: Assistant Professor,The Johns Hopkins University alternative intellectual infrastructure that Friedman had been constructing was enormously compelling. Foundations

How did Friedman succeed in transforming his utopian vision into concrete political policy, particularly in the examples of the negative income tax or school vouchers?

The examples of negative income tax and school vouchers are in teresting because while neither was adopted on a broad national scale, both have affected public debates on these issues. You could certainly see welfare reform evolving in part out of the negative income tax and even if school vouchers aren’t widely adopted, they’re a major part of our debate over education reform. Friedman said himself that he thought his greatest success was the abolishment of the military draft. Of course, the adoption of monetarism by the Federal Reserve in the 1980s under Paul Volcker was short-lived but a powerful manifestation of the influence of his ideas. But to me it’s less a matter of looking for one specific area of his influence. What’s most impressive about Friedman is seeing the broad swath of policy debates that his ideas affected.

Foundations

What was Friedman’s vision of an ideal society?

The most interesting thing about Friedman in this regard was the degree to which his representation of ideas changed depending on which audience he was addressing. Friedman was very frank when he spoke to libertarian groups that neither the negative income tax nor school vouchers would be part of his ideal society—Friedman’s utopia would not feature wealth distribution or public education. The more you read Friedman, the more you come to realize that there’s very little space for even rudimentary functions of government. Friedman is deeply ambivalent toward government apart from limited institutional forms. His ideal world is one radically different from any modern society we know today.

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What can the study of economic history lend to public debate as we FOUNDATIONS • Fall 2013

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Staff Interview byYonah Reback look to the uncertain future? AB

Historians are notoriously poor at prognosticating, but my goal for the book in relation to contemporary debate is to try and complicate the narratives that people tell themselves about the economic world we live in. There’s a sort of static version about the story told in the book that is too common on both ends of the American political spectrum today. On the Right, you see a kind of celebratory narrative from Hayek to Friedman as intellectual heroes. You see a unitary narrative of many of the same villains constructed on the Left, which helps to create an atmosphere of partisan discord when we discuss economic problems. If you think that these issues are simple and the solutions to them are uniform, odds are you’ll have trouble finding points of agreement with those who don’t subscribe to those views. One virtue of histories of economic thought is that they remind people of who actually held these beliefs. Hayek is a more complicated figure than he’s often made out as being on both the Right and the Left. Such truths force us to reconsider our partisan assumptions and encourage us to work on constructive solutions together.

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