Race In American Art Exam 1
John Locke theory on race
1) All people have natural rights 2) Governments exist to protect people's rights 3) People have the right to revolt and change the government if it fails to protect their rights People start out on a level playing field, but not all people reach their full potential Locke owned stock in slave trading companies and was secretary of the Lords Proprietors of the Carolinas, where slavery was constitutionally permitted. He had two notions of slavery: legitimate slavery was captivity with forced labor imposed by the just winning side in a war; illegitimate slavery was an authoritarian deprivation of natural rights. Locke did not try to justify either black slavery or the oppression of Amerindians. In The Two Treatises of Government, Locke argued against the advocates of absolute monarchy. The arguments for absolute monarchy and colonial slavery turn out to be the same. So in arguing against the one, Locke could not help but argue against the other. Examining the natural rights tradition to which Locke's work belongs confirms this. Locke could have defended colonial slavery by building on popular ideas of his colleagues and predecessors, but there is no textual evidence that he did that or that he advocated seizing Indian agricultural land.
reconstruction
1865-1877 U.S. History. the process by which the states that had seceded were reorganized as part of the Union after the Civil War. Reconstruction, in U.S. history, the period (1865-77) that followed the American Civil War and during which attempts were made to redress the inequities of slavery and its political, social, and economic legacy and to solve the problems arising from the readmission to the Union of the 11 states that had seceded at or before the outbreak of war. Long portrayed by many historians as a time when vindictive Radical Republicans fastened black supremacy upon the defeated Confederacy, Reconstruction has since the late 20th century been viewed more sympathetically as a laudable experiment in interracial democracy.
Iowa "common soldier" monument at Craven's House, Lookout Mtn
1906 sculpture Inscription reads: "Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one's life for one's friends" the common soldier theme was not focused on why he fought but that he fought. Made in stocks, usually ordered by catalog. aside: "lost cause" was an ideological movement that describes the Confederate cause as a heroic one against great odds despite its defeat an American pseudo-historical, negationist ideology that holds that the cause of the Confederacy during the American Civil War was a just and heroic one. The ideology endorses the supposed virtues of the antebellum South, viewing the war as a struggle primarily to save the Southern way of life, or to defend "states' rights", in the face of overwhelming "Northern aggression." At the same time, the Lost Cause minimizes or denies outright the central role of slavery in the buildup to and outbreak of the war.
Louis Agassiz theory on race
Agassiz's belief in special creation also extended to perceptions of race. He posited in his lectures at the Lowell Institute in 1846 that the different races of humanity were created independently, each descending from different ancestors (polygenism) and originating in separate zoological provinces at the beginning of time. Agassiz was heavily influenced by research into human cranial capacity conducted by American anthropologist Samuel George Morton, who possessed an extensive collection of skulls from people of many races. Using measurements taken from many of the skulls' brain pans, Morton had developed an intellectual hierarchy that placed Caucasians (or whites, who had the largest cranial capacity in Morton's collection, and thus were presumed to possess the greatest intelligence) at the top and placed Ethiopians (or blacks, who possessed the lowest cranial capacity in Morton's collection) on the bottom. Agassiz agreed, as he was also affected by his own feelings of pity arising from his initial experiences with African Americans in Philadelphia during his 1846 tour. There he observed the physical traits and behaviour of a small group of African American hotel servants and concluded that they made up a "degraded and degenerate race." Agassiz was also an opponent of miscegenation. At a lecture at the Charleston Literary Club in South Carolina in 1847, Agassiz announced that blacks constituted a separate species. In a letter to American abolitionist Samuel Gridley Howe in 1863, Agassiz stated that sexual relations between blacks and whites were "immoral" and "destructive to the social equality." Coming from a naturalist of Agassiz's eminence, such views emboldened the resolve of many pro-slavery white Americans, especially in the South. Agassiz wanted to document scientifically that blacks were inferior to whites, and he did this through a series of photographs which he commissioned. The most well known is the photograph of "Jack"
Indian tropes
American Indian as allegory for US "Good Indian" the "Vanishing Indian" "Bad Indian" the savage Archaic, Authentic in their privitism Connected to nature
Portrait of Francis Williams
Anonymous, 1735 Oil on Canvas Double bind/pretentious trope; if you aren't educated you are dumb, but if you are educated you are pretentious Francis was educated because they were trying to prove that black people could be trained to think (using Locke's principle that everyone is a blank slate) Francis Williams goes from Jamaica to Cambridge and then back to Jamaica to start a school himself Picture lacks personality, seems to just point to his skill, and even the wig seems like something that is attached to him
Progress or Advance of Civilization
Asher Durand, 1853 Oil on Canvas Shows 3 parts of painting Wilderness/nature, active settlers/train/civilization, horizon disappearing into haze of light/ Wilderness/progress/merging guiding us not just physically but also temporally toward an increasingly urbanized and technologically sophisticated future. A line of telegraph poles lead past a log cabin, then a canal evocative of the Erie Canal, which opened in 1825, with an official invitation engraved by Durand himself. Farther in, a train traverses a viaduct. In the distance, clouds part and light floods onto a busy port city where smoke plumes rise from churning steamboats and factory chimneys vie with church steeples for prominence
Shaw Memorial
Augustus Saint Gaudens, 1897 Bronze relief sculpture Cultural elites liked it because it as seen as true art Monument honors Colonel Gould Shaw who was famous for leading this battalion of black soldiers. Particularity and individuality of blacks humanized them Gaudens wanted to show that this was real high art, not intending to elevate blacks, just himself. Gaudens intends to be artistically superior, and ends up blessing African-Americans
chattel slavery
Came to America against their will •No contract •Generally bound to slavery for life •Very few opportunities to get out of slavery •Were property themselves •Legal protections for the owner, not for the slave •Could not earn freedom and suffered significant abuse
Common Soldier Monuments reading
Characteristics: contraposto, relaxed stance w/ popped knee; common white features; no signs of war; not fighting/aggressive; on a pedestal; mass-produced because it is cast-bronze and made from a mold Purpose: argues that common soldier monument arose not merely to assuage grief but to forge a new way of communicating the ideal American Reading: 1) explains the mythology of common Soldier 2) explains how Civil War challenged this 3) explains how war memorials work to form a new model of the citizen soldier 4) considers what and who get eliminated from this narrative 5) considers the curious case of the Shaw monument Myth of the Common soldier: patriot who is not a career soldier but picks up arms to defend his country; debunked by physical and mental challenges; detrimental to manhood. similar to slavery; from being an individual to part of a mass; loss of dignity/potential injuries Shifting the Role of Common Monuments: made it more personal and able for people to connect because it was so generic; inspiring in a different way; harder to villify common soldier and say that he bears moral responsibility. Problems with making the figures black because the blacks were identified with them fighting for their own freedom (as an element of selfishness) Experience of Black Soldiers vs White: for many black soldier's status was an upward path. for white soldier downward path; black veteran experience different than white (battle just begun)
Death Struggle
Charles Deas, 1845 Oil on canvas Easier to have physical confrontations if Indians were seen as evil Built up mythology of savage Indian What they feared most in Indians was becoming like them (ie barborous brutes) The Indian and settler are twisted and locked together falling down an unknown horror of a gulf Held to good or bad Indian stereotypes depending on what was expected in particular circumstances Zig-zag crossing interrupted by beaver
Grand Football Match-Darktown Against Blackville, A Kick-Off
Currier and Ives, 1888 Chromolithograph print Postcard craze (Northern press) Distorted bodies (simean heads, hapless, large white eyes) See the toll taken on blacks being represented like this as popular entertainment
Negro Life at the South
Eastman Johnson, 1859 Oil on linen Lots of stereotypes/tropes woven into the painting (eg black man as entertainment playing the banjo, mulatto woman as seductive, sweet 'mammy' black woman, and curious white woman as supervisor) Was it a picturesque painting of slavery, or subversive? Blacks' ability to develop culture despite oppression? Dilapidated house. Several elements hint at or symbolize relations to an unseen, wealthier white male. The painting was interpreted by both proponents and detractors of slavery as supporting their position. Southerners associated it with plantation life and noted that the Negroes seemed cheerful in their leisure time. Northerners might concentrate on the top half of the painting, with the dilapidated roof representing the degradation of slavery and the light-skinned woman and child suggesting a theme of miscegenation. Opposing readings.
The Death of Cleopatra
Edmonia Lewis, 1876 Marble sculpture Trained in neoclassical style in Rome Dead Cleopatra represents the continuing oppression and inequality in the US (relating to promise of Reconstruction not coming to fruition) Lewis seems to make a statement about race by making Cleopatras feature more African, yet she seems to disconnect by not claiming to be an African American artist, just solely an artist. Lost sculpture for a century and found in a junkyard in Chicago.
The Vanishing Race - Navajo
Edward Curtis, 1904 Gelatin silver print photograph Similar to pictorialism, shot in really soft focus w/ shallow depth of focus (to pictorialists, really sharp clear pictures were vulgar) Indians literally about to disappear Heading towards dark void Fearing the imminent disappearance of America's first inhabitants, Edward S. Curtis sought to document the assorted tribes, to show them as a noble people—"the old time Indian, his dress, his ceremonies, his life and manners." Over more than two decades, Curtis turned these pictures and observations into The North American Indian, a 40-volume chronicle of 80 tribes. No single image embodied the project better than The Vanishing Race, his picture of Navajo riding off into the dusty distance. To Curtis the photo epitomized the plight of the Indians, who were "passing into the darkness of an unknown future." Alas, Curtis' encyclopedic work did more than convey the theme—it cemented a stereotype.
Edmonia Lewis reading
Father was Afro-Haitian, and her mother was Native American Went by Native American name after parents' death Went to Oberlin College and changed her name to Mary Edmonia Lewis while there 2 white women classmates were served spiced wine prior to a sleigh ride by Lewis; she was attacked and beaten because people assumed she poisoned her friends Was kicked out of Oberlin Moved to Boston, met Gould Shaw, made bust of his likeness and he allowed her to make copies of it to sell Eventually gained support and moved to Rome Attached herself to neoclassicism and perpetuated the classical tradition Neoclassicists tended to use white marble, because colored marble was seen as sensual (white=pure,spirit, good and color=sensuous,flesh,bad) Lewis' statue of Hagar demonstrates that she has no control over her child or body; reflecting experience of black women slaves Cleopatra and Hagar are both statues reflecting despair Lewis was described as having the stoicism of the Indian race, had crisp hair and thick lips, was an interesting novelty, possessed the sadness of both Indians and blacks, and was characterized as naive and childlike. Lewis purposefully avoided making Cleopatra black but the queen's "blackness" was conveyed metaphorically through her suicide. Nelson concludes that Lewis sculpts Cleopatra as she does in order to deny viewers the possibility of objectifying Lewis's own body.
Sitting Bull Shoots a Frontiersman
Four Horns (Lakota), 1870 Ledger art is a term for narrative drawing or painting on paper or cloth created by Native artists. Ledger art was created primarily from the 1860s to the 1930s, but also continues today. The term comes from the accounting ledger books that were a common source for paper for different Native artists during the late 19th century. Shows Sitting bull icon pointing to sitting bull as hero and makes clear who is doing the shooting. He draws his uncle in hopes to be promoted to chief.
Robert Duncanson reading
General Facts: 3rd generation freed black man, biracial/lighter skin, trained as a photographer, largely self-taught as a painter, worked in Cincinnati which was receptive to mixed race people, could own property/more privileges, lived very close to a slave state Ketner: Duncanson made veiled references to race in his paintings, even though they looked like white counterpart paintings; Duncanson worked w/ and made paintings for abolitionists because he felt indebted to them; sympathized w/ the plight of African Americans and was invested in their cause Vendreyes: Duncanson used his race to help further his career but had no relationships w/ abolitionists; claimed the right to transcend racial classifications; Duncanson benefited from being light-skinned, and emancipation caused negative stereotypes to be applied to all blacks Duncanson and Race: 1960's focus on black solidarity; some viewed Duncanson's work as being far too polite; because Duncanson was lighter-skinned, he didn't have to work as hard as other black artists; said Duncanson was a black man lost to the cause; Vendryes is critical of people like Ketner who say that his racial identity organized his whole interaction w/ the world People expect people to represent and elevate their race According to Ketner, Duncanson's painting of View of Cincinatti was an example of Robert Duncanson subtly condemning the practice of slavery and a result of being confronted daily with the trauma of being black in antebellum America. Vendreyes argued that Duncanson was not producing landscape art w/ racial content, and being a black man was an asset to him only when it brought him commercial advantages like abolitionist patronage and exhibition venues
Daniel Boone Escorting Settlers Through Cumberland Gap
George Caleb Bingham, 1851-2 Oil on Canvas Woman looks like Mary on donkey, and gives a sense of Madonna of the west, bringing salvation to the land Reference to religious imagery (eg Moses) There is a light of hope Dead trees bend in front, but family is coming through it Animals are domestic/perfectly still There is no evidence of wear and tear Very directional painting, showing inevitable train of progress Daniel Boone stares you down; so you must move or join Horse is visually diminished to keep Boon focused as the centerpiece Bingham drew from Christian and classical imagery to justify and heroicize westward expansion and the ideal of Manifest Destiny, or the providential mission of the American nation to settle the frontier.
Wi-Jun-Jon Going to and Returning From Washington
George Catlin, 1837-9 same man depicted 2 different ways; dignified on left, cocky on right pipe on left, cigar on right right figure has evident vices (smoking/drinking) pure vs corrupt graceful vs graceless clean vs filthy independent vs dependent happy vs miserable Real man who went to Washington, came back and was treated w/ resentment and suspicion and ultimately killed by his own race Shows the gravity of attempting to bridge these worlds. thought against education for Native Americans and viewed it as just another form of genocide.
The Banjo Lesson
Henry Ossawa Tanner, 1893 Oil on canvas Tanner was African American painter trained at PA Academy who then went to France. Real departure from Tanner (usually paints his travels, narratives, French scenes, etc. not domestic) Tanner takes the trope of black as entertainer and makes it insider, instead of an outsider using it as entertainment, and demonstrates sensitive knowledge being passed down. Playing banjo is an intimate skill, not for entertainment of whites, separate from the rest of the world Tanner was adamant that he wasn't a negro painter, said race was irrelevant to his painting.
Noon from The Times of Day Series
Hogarth, 1738 Engraving Satirical art the lives of the English working classes against the foppish aristocracy black man on the left is fondling white woman, leading to her spilling something sexually aggressive/dangerous black man
Sancho's Best Trinidado
Ignatius Sancho, 1774-1780 Grocery Shop Card Advertisement blacks depicted as childlike/American Indians blacks are depicted as American Indians, because both are seen as childish and happy-go-lucky Sancho wrote a number of letters vigorously opposing the slave trade, but this card raises troubling questions about his sale of products which relied on slave labour.
Reconciliation Narrative (post-Civil War)
It downplayed the violence of battle, the failure to secure civil rights for former slaves, the centrality of slavery to the conflict, and the opposition to the war in both the Union and the Confederacy. White veterans of both sides embraced this movement in the 1880s and 1890s, after the responsibility of enforcing Reconstruction had been turned over to the Southern state governments. Reconciliation hid the true nature and meaning of the war for many Americans for decades to come, at the cost of creating a narrative of the war that almost eliminated the emancipationist legacy that African American citizens valued. The reconciliation movement was an effort to obscure the legacy of emancipation and black participation in the war in favor of remembering the conflict as a fight between white Americans, Northern and Southern, which ultimately proved the honor and dignity of both sides.
Jack
J.T. Zealy, 1850s (commissioned by Louis Agassiz) Daguerrotype slave portraits series Aggasiz was a big believer in photography as a scientific tool. Photograph is objective truth seen scientifically. Frontal view of figure is much more personal. Louis Agassiz was trying to prove Polygenisis.
American Progress
John Gast, 1872 Chromolithograph (tiny) Emerging expectation that the political future lies in the west, and they are to triumph over other people groups. Manifest Destiny (must push across the continent, inevitable, and by divine sanction). There are many modes of transportation (and a sense of the evolution of transportation) There's lots of depth, demonstrating the vastness of the land. Contrast between white farmers w/ domesticated animals and Native Americans w/ their oneness w/ animals. a sense of seeing the whole continent. Angel stringing telegraph wire, leading the way. Sun rising in east and will inevitably move west. Intellectual and spiritual enlightenment. The angel bridges a bunch of different categories: America's emphasis on classicism, Allegorical figure of enlightenment Women often used as allegorical figures, because they weren't really identified w/ particular people, White civilization driving back darkness, natives, and wild animals. Affirmation of inevitable Westward expansion. Trope of Indians being pushed out into darkness (vanishing Indian) Angel is carrier for men doing the work
Portrait of Paul Revere
John Singleton Copley, 1768 Oil Painting dramatic spotlighting, made to draw all the attention to Paul Revere; clearly a silversmith; showing him in a moment of work, but he isn't working but is instead contemplating his work. Revere is wearing common clothes as artisan. He holds product on left hand and head of ingenuity in right hand. Teapot was symbol of politics with England.
George Washington
John Trumball, 1780 Oil on Canvas black man is still lower than Washington even though he is on horseback; slave Billy Lee is in the shadows, while Washington is in the circle of light; slave looks up at Washington; establishes Washington as generous and shows that his wealth is as great as Europeans'; slave is a status symbol in Europe; when produced for America, the horse stays, but the slave disappears. Trumbull painted the picture from memory some five years after
Domestic Happiness
Lilly Martin Spencer, 1849 rise of sentimentality Wife is touching husbands heart she shows authority over the household as she looks at the baby while restraining her husband by his heart, showing that she is the general of the house, taking care of the children and house.
indentured servitude
Most came to America voluntarily •Signed contract for period time of labor •Entered into a mutual contract with another person •Had the opportunity to get out of servitude •Some legal protections •Often died before being able to earn freedom
Liberty Displaying the Arts and Sciences
Samuel Jennings, 1792 Oil on Canvas Crushing chains beneath her feet and has cap on her pole, symbolizing freedom Preparing to give knowledge to the kneeling supplicant black figures Bust is of a white abolitionist Other black figures in background dancing around liberty pole Sees civilization as being owned by the whites and it is their moral obligation to give it to others. The work is the earliest known American painting promoting Abolitionism in the United States
the vanishing race
Social Darwinism and Manifest Destiny disposed many early 20th century Americans to think of American Indians as "species" of a "Vanishing Race." Many believed that the rapid decline in native populations, that resulted from the centuries of warfare with the settlers, was not only natural, but inevitable. Theodore Roosevelt supported Curtis and saw his photographs as a great service to Americans Saw Indians as not barbaric, but primitive and haven't progressed as far. They thought the Indian way of living was inevitably going to disappear. Common thought was that assimilation was for the best. White Americans could stop worrying about the Indian problem since they were just going to disappear anyway.
Emancipation Group (Freedman's Memorial Monument to Abraham Lincoln)
Thomas Ball, 1876 Bronze Statue Emphasizes Lincoln's huge role in emancipation Ball was a neoclassical sculptor. Black woman funded it. Kneeling supplicant black trope; Lincoln was fully dressed but slave was not fully dressed, and was still shackled. Lincoln looks down on slave and viewer (statue height installation matters) Although based on a portrait of a former slave named Archer Alexander, the image is one of obsequiousness, with the liberated black male crouching at Lincoln's feet and encumbered by broken manacles still attached to his wrists. Lincoln stands tall and erect, his right hand holding the Emancipation Proclamation, his left bestowing freedom on the former slave. Ball depicted Lincoln as the noble and commanding head of the nation, while he showed the African American male as a non-citizen, uncultured and childlike, stripped of his dignity and potency. The monument was ultimately not about emancipation but about domination and the continued paternalistic power of the white nation.
View from Mount Holyoke - The Oxbow
Thomas Cole, 1836 Cole painted with a landscape that lauds the uniqueness of America by encompassing "a union of the picturesque, the sublime, and the magnificent." Although often ambiguous about the subjugation of the land, here the artist juxtaposes untamed wilderness and pastoral settlement to emphasize the possibilities of the national landscape, pointing to the future prospect of the American nation. Cole's unequivocal construction and composition of the scene, charged with moral significance, is reinforced by his depiction of himself in the middle distance, perched on a promontory painting the Oxbow. He is an American producing American art, in communion with American scenery.
The Able Doctor or America Swallowing the Bitter Draught
Unknown, 1774 Etching America represented as Native American woman who is both vulnerable (sexually w/ breasts bared and skirts being lifted up) and resisting (tense and spitting out tea) the other woman, that represents Britain, is turning away sad Lord North with "Boston Port Bill" in pocket is forcing tea and legislation on the U.S. Economic rape. "Playing Indian"
Rustic Dance After a Sleigh Ride
William Sidney Mount, 1830 Oil on canvas black figures are limited in hierarchical society even though they are integrated. The young black coachman in Rustic Dance may also refer to the party's preceding sleigh ride; he peers into the room through the open doorway, still wearing his red hat and toting a horsewhip. Another black man fiddles a tune for the dancers, and a third, with bellows in hand, tends a glowing fire, not seen but implied by the warm light emanating from behind him. Marginalized black figures recur in Mount's genre pictures and were drawn from contemporary stereotypes of African Americans as comical, childlike, and content with their deprived social status. Mount visually connects the three black men through their respective instruments: the fiddler's bow, the coachman's whip and the nozzle of the bellows lead the eye from one to the next in a triangular motion that underlies their separate, servile status. Art reflects and shapes though William may not be aware of it.
Prisoners from the Front
Winslow Homer, 1866 Oil on canvas General Barlow's capture of Confederate soldiers. Aiming to be high culture, not mass culture. Homer was from the north, a Civil War painter. Union soldiers are not shown in physical distress, they have self control. The Confederate progression was looking less and less professional. Requires you to look longer to identify who's union or confederate. Characters in foreground at same size/scale. The Confederates weren't humiliated. Homer symbolizes the ideological rift between North and South in the contrasting postures of the participants and the physical distance between them.
melting pot
a place where different peoples, styles, theories, etc., are mixed together.
genre painting
a style of painting depicting scenes from ordinary life, especially domestic situations. Genre painting is associated particularly with 17th-century Dutch and Flemish artists painting of everyday life, not of huge historical significance
polygenesis
a theory of human origins which posits the view that the human races are of different origins. This view is opposite to the idea of monogenism, which posits a single origin of humanity. each race was created separately and created for its own geographical region and purpose blacks were not descendants of Adam and Eve and were created separately, completely different origin and purpose giving slavery legitimacy.
landscape painting
also known as landscape art, is the depiction of landscapes in art - natural scenery such as mountains, valleys, trees, rivers, and forests, especially where the main subject is a wide view - with its elements arranged into a coherent composition Often organized into thirds Beautiful landscapes: feminine, soft colors, sensual, curves, symmetry, smallness, harmony, pleasure, socialability Sublime landscapes: masculine, powerful/punishing, awe/terror, vague/obscure, brute force, rugged, uncompleted, infinite Picturesque landscapes: asymmetrical, irregular, surprise, variety, neither wild nor over-cultivated, nostalgic
Dressing for Carnival
an 1877 painting by the Boston American painter, printmaker and illustrator Winslow Homer. Homer painted African Americans, completely avoiding the stereotypes with which their collective image had been flooded during the period of Reconstruction after the Civil War. Produced one year after the official failure of Reconstruction—the withdrawal of federal troops from the South—Homer's challenging subject evokes both the dislocation and endurance of African American culture that was a legacy of slavery. The central figure represents a Jonkonnu character, a Christmas holiday celebration once observed by enslaved blacks in Virginia and North Carolina. Rooted in the culture of the British West Indies, the festival blended African and English traditions. After the Civil War, aspects were incorporated into African American Independence Day celebrations, to which the painting's original title, Sketch—4th of July in Virginia, referred. It entailed the costuming of a Harlequin-like figure or Lord of Misrule, and this Homer depicts: a man caparisoned in bright, tatterdemalion clothes, yellow, red, and blue, with a liberty cap on his head. Two women are sewing them on him. The one on the right extends her arm, pulling the long thread right through, in a gesture of compelling and somber gravity; she is a classical Fate, seen below the Mason-Dixon line. Next to her, but apart from her, gazing at the vesting ceremony with wonder, are some children, one of whom holds a Stars and Stripes (for by Reconstruction, the rituals of the Fourth of July had been overlaid on those of Jonkonnu). Homer makes us sense how far the hopes of emancipation still are from the realities of black life in the South. The fence still separates them.
Black tropes
black man as bestial educated blacks as pretentious/over-reaching black body as spectacle/entertainment blacks as childlike blacks as docile/passive
David Hume theory on race
in a notorious footnote in "Of National Characters," in his Essays, Moral, Political and Literary, explicitly wrote that there were human races and that nonwhites were inferior to whites. The footnote has been characterized as "just an offhand comment." However, the footnote reflects David Hume's deeper views about methodology in the sciences of man, and it can be connected to passages in Hume's other works and to a broader Scottish and European intellectual and historical setting. Hume consistently insisted on a natural inferiority of blacks which set them apart from other races and believed that the difference between Europeans and Amer-indians was a great as the difference between human beings and animals. He rejected slavery, which rendered his ideology of white supremacy enigmatic, because his rejection of geographical or climatic differences as causes meant that he could not provide a convincing causal account of what he took to be racial difference.
Chain of Being
is composed of a great number of hierarchical links, from the most basic and foundational elements up through the very highest perfection: God. God Angels Heaven Man Beasts Plants Nonliving Things Becomes infused with science. Was used to create distinct racial groups, maybe strain of animal making blacks not entirely human
Whiteness tropes
moral purity universal symbol man/woman as savior whiteness as manifest destiny
Edward Curtis reading
published 40 volumes "Yet In a Primitive Condition" Indians emerging out of blackness, dramatic light Criticisms of how staged/retouched his photographs are (eg clock image) He has an image in mind of what the photo should look like In 1913, break in Curtis' photography when he began to shoot images like the house frame
nativism
the policy of protecting the interests of native-born or established inhabitants against those of immigrants
blackface
the practice of non-Black people darkening their skin in deliberate attempts to impersonate Black people The minstrel show, or minstrelsy, was an American form of entertainment developed in the early 19th century. Each show consisted of comic skits, variety acts, dancing, and music performances that mocked people specifically of African descent. The shows were performed by white people in make-up or blackface for the purpose of playing the role of black people. There were also some African-American performers and all-black minstrel groups that formed and toured under the direction of white people. Jim Crow: gullible country fool Zip Coon: dandy trickster spread of racial stereotypes such as the "happy-go-lucky darky on the plantation" or the "dandified coon" Minstrel shows included broken English and sexual innuendo
