Smithsonian’s Renwick Gallery Hosts Thomas Day Exhibit

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Thomas Day: Master Craftsman and Free Man of Color by Patricia Phillips Marshall and Jo Ramsay LeimenstollThomas Day (1801-61), a free man of color from Milton, N.C., became the most successful cabinetmaker in North Carolina—white or black—during a time when most blacks were enslaved and free blacks were restricted in their movements and activities. Through in-depth analysis and generous illustrations, including over 240 photographs (20 in full color) and architectural photography by Tim Buchman, Thomas Day: Master Craftsman and Free Man of Color by Patricia Phillips Marshall and Jo Ramsay Leimenstoll provides a comprehensive perspective on and a new understanding of the powerful sense of aesthetics and design that mark Day’s legacy.

The Smithsonian’s Renwick Gallery is currently hosting an exhibit, “Thomas Day: Master Craftsman and Free Man of Color“, showcasing thirty-nine pieces of furniture crafted or attributed to the Day workshop, as well as his personal Bible, three period quilts, and both historic and contemporary photographs of architectural structures designed by Day. The exhibit is scheduled to run through July 28.

Marsha Dubrow from Examiner.com provided a review of the exhibit. Much like Marshall and Leimenstoll’s book, Dubrow describes the Smithsonian’s exhibit as, “doubly intriguing—combining his startlingly unique cabinets, bureaus, chairs, even a child’s Gothic-Classical style ‘commode’ (potty), architectural designs, with his extraordinary career.” The review from Examiner.com also features a slideshow presentation for a glimpse at the exhibit and some of the work of Thomas Day.

Excerpt: Native and National in Brazil, by Tracy Devine Guzman

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Native and National in Brazil: Indigeneity after Independence, by Tracy Devine Guzman

[This article is crossposted at FirstPeoplesNewDirections.org.]

In Native and National in Brazil: Indigeneity after Independence Tracy Devine Guzmán examines the contested process of constructing Indianness from Brazil’s independence to the present. Engaging issues ranging from citizenship and national security to the revolutionary potential of art and sustainable development, Devine Guzmán argues that the tensions between popular renderings of Indianness and lived Indigenous experiences are critical to the unfolding of Brazilian nationalism, on the one hand, and the growth of a Brazilian Indigenous movement, on the other. In the following excerpt from the epilogue, she discusses contemporary Indigenous assertions of sovereignty and self-representation, especially in the context of opposition to the controversial Belo Monte hydroelectric dam.

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Although much work remains to educate nonindigenous peoples about Brazil’s indigenous past, present, and future, and to offset the ever-popular lore of benevolent colonialism, racial democracy, and Indian grandmothers “caught with lassos,”[1] many indigenous scholars and teachers choose to prioritize first the educational needs of their own communities. This impetus has inspired national-level conferences aimed at improving the content and delivery of indigenous education and the intensified production of pedagogical materials in Native languages authored by or in collaboration with Native speakers of those languages.[2] Likewise, university-level programs offering specialized training in bilingual and intercultural pedagogies for indigenous teachers exist in at least nine states, and research centers for the study of indigenous languages, cultures, histories, and philosophies are expanding beyond the domain of state-backed indigenist institutions like FUNAI and the Museu do Índio.[3] Vital changes are taking place, for example, among Terena communities in Mato Grosso do Sul, where instruction in the Terena language is offered to Terena children and adolescents, as well as to Terena adults who may have never had an opportunity to read or write in their Native tongue.[4]

Notwithstanding such positive initiatives, the broader configuration of political, social, economic, and cultural power in which they take place reveals a steep road ahead. As a result of the intensified and institutionalized disempowerment of indigenous peoples and interests during the first decade of the twenty-first century, which culminates in state sponsorship of Belo Monte, it seems unlikely that a substantial number of nonindigenous politicians or citizens will in the near future embrace or even begin to consider the ideas and projects of indigenous intellectuals and communities seriously enough to assess their practical and theoretical implications for the future of national development policy, educational reform, environmental protection, governance, or international relations.

Ysani Kalapalo leads the protest against Belo Monte

Founder of the Movimento Indígenas em Ação (MIA), Ysani Kalapalo (fourth from the left) leads a demonstration against the Belo Monte hydroelectric dam in downtown São Paulo, 20 August 2011. Also pictured (from left to right): Yamuni Barbosa, Samantha Aweti Kalapalo, Mariana Aweti Kalapalo, India Tikuna Weena Miguel, Guayra Wassu, I. Wassu, and Tayla Kalapalo. Photo by the author; reproduced with the permission of Ysani Kalapalo.

Native Brazilians’ efforts to counter the privatization of the indigenist bureaucracy and the deleterious effects of contemporary indigenist policy through intensified demands for land demarcation, ethnodevelopment, intercultural education, and other empowering social programs, as well as through heightened cultural activism and political participation at all levels of government indicate, indeed, that the struggle for indigenous self-representation has in some ways just begun. Nonetheless, the viral proliferation of indigenous political commentary and cultural production via the Internet in the form of journalism, fiction, film, video, blogging, and election campaigning (for example) continues to revolutionize the relationship between Native peoples and visual representation, on the one hand, and Native peoples and the written word, on the other. Continue reading ‘Excerpt: Native and National in Brazil, by Tracy Devine Guzman’ »

  1. [1] On the circulation of ideas about Native peoples in nonindigenous classrooms and curricula, see A. Lopes da Silva and Grupioni, A temática indígena. ↩
  2. [2] On such initiatives across Brazil, see Nincao, “Kóho Yoko Hovôvo”; “Primeiro Encontro Nacional de Educação Indígena”; Professores de Pataxó, Uma história; and Troncarelli, Kaiabi, and Instituto Socioambiental, Brasil e África. ↩
  3. [3] As of late 2011, such programs are in place at the Universidade Federal de Roraima (UFRR); Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG); Universidade Federal do Amazonas (UFAM); Universidade Federal do Tocantins (UFT); Universidade Federal de Campina Grande (UFCG); Universidade Federal de Bahia (UFBA); Universidade Estadual do Mato Grosso (UNEMAT); Universidade Estadual de Londrina (UEL); Universidade Estadual do Amazonas (UEA); Universidade Estadual da Bahia (UNEB); Universidade Estadual do Mato Grosso do Sul (UEMS); and Universidade Estadual do Oeste do Paraná (UNIOESTE). See Rede, “Conheça a REDE.” ↩
  4. [4] Recent initiatives also exist to offer classes in indigenous languages to nonindigenous students, teachers, and researchers (Paulo Baltazar, personal communication; “Base de Estudos Indígenas”). ↩

North Carolina Icons: Cape Fear River

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NC IconsThis week the NC Icon series takes a look at the Cape Fear River, number 5 in Our State magazine’s 100 North Carolina Icons list. Our State writes, “With 202 miles of river to enjoy, there’s plenty of room for kayaking, canoeing, fishing, or birding.” Newly published this spring at UNC Press, Philip Gerard’s Down the Wild Cape Fear: A River Journey through the Heart of North Carolina is the perfect compliment for any trip out to the Cape Fear River.

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Down the Wild Cape Fear: A River Journey through the Heart of North Carolina by Philip GerardIn Down the Wild Cape Fear, novelist and nonfiction writer Philip Gerard invites readers onto the fabled waters of the Cape Fear River and guides them on the 200-mile voyage from the confluence of the Deep and Haw Rivers at Mermaid Point all the way to the Cape of Fear on Bald Head Island. Accompanying the author by canoe and powerboat are a cadre of people passionate about the river, among them a river guide, a photographer, a biologist, a river keeper, and a boat captain. Continue reading ‘North Carolina Icons: Cape Fear River’ »

William A. Link: Atlanta Rising After Sherman

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Atlanta, Cradle of the New South by William A. Link

[This article is crossposted at UNCPressCivilWar150.com.]

Today we welcome a guest post from William A. Link, author of Atlanta, Cradle of the New South: Race and Remembering in the Civil War’s Aftermath. After conquering Atlanta in the summer of 1864 and occupying it for two months, Union forces laid waste to the city in November. William T. Sherman’s invasion was a pivotal moment in the history of the South and Atlanta’s rebuilding over the following fifty years came to represent the contested meaning of the Civil War itself. The war’s aftermath brought contentious transition from Old South to New for whites and African Americans alike. In Atlanta, Cradle of the New South, Link argues that this struggle defined the broader meaning of the Civil War in the modern South, with no place embodying the region’s past and future more clearly than Atlanta.

In the following post, Link briefly depicts the great destruction Atlanta faced at the end of the Civil War and how it embraced a new narrative as the flagship of the “New South.”

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A little more than a year from now, we will be commemorating the 150th anniversary of William T. Sherman’s conquest of Atlanta in September 1864. This was a crucial moment in the Civil War which helped to defeat the Confederacy and assure Union victory. To be sure, the Atlanta Campaign had much to do with the shaping of the South’s vision of itself. Sherman’s invasion also defined the character, shape, and purpose of Atlanta for the next century and more.

Atlanta hadn’t been much of a city prior to secession, with about 10,000 in inhabitants in 1860. The town didn’t exist prior to 1847, when the village of Marthasville began to call itself Atlanta. For much of its antebellum history, the town struggled to define itself against a reputation for lawlessness and social disorder.

The Civil War remade Atlanta, which became the most important wartime center for the western Confederate armies. Its position as a central railroad depot, manufacturing, supply, military, and hospital center set it apart. Fortunes were made; housing and commodities were at a premium. In addition, the war provided new opportunities for African Americans to acquire property, assert greater economic autonomy, and begin to build the foundation of a new, free community. Continue reading ‘William A. Link: Atlanta Rising After Sherman’ »

Interview: Lee A. Craig on Josephus Daniels

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Josephus Daniels: His Life and Times by Lee A. CraigAs a longtime leader of the Democratic Party and key member of Woodrow Wilson’s cabinet, Josephus Daniels was one of the most influential progressive politicians in the country, and as secretary of the navy during the First World War, he became one of the most important men in the world. Before that, Daniels revolutionized the newspaper industry in the South, forever changing the relationship between politics and the news media. Biographer Lee A. Craig follows Daniels’s rise to power in North Carolina and chronicles his influence on twentieth-century politics.

In the following interview, Craig, author of Josephus Daniels: His Life and Times, discusses the extraordinary life of one man and the circumstances in which he lived.

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Q:  Josephus Daniels (1862-1948) helped revolutionize the newspaper industry; he led the white supremacy movement in the North Carolina (1898-1900); he served as secretary of the navy during World War I (1913-1921); and he was Franklin D. Roosevelt’s ambassador to Mexico (1933-1942). As an expert in economic history, when did you first become interested in Daniels and how does your field lend itself to a biography of such an influential politician?

A:  I first became interested in Daniels while I was in graduate school in the 1980s. Initially, he attracted my attention through his actions as secretary of the navy. The world’s leading navies were undergoing a technological revolution during Daniels’s tenure as head of the U.S. Navy, with the recent establishment of the submarine and the modern battleship, and I was curious about how he managed that transition. In addition, as the head of the U.S. Marine Corps, which was controlled by the Navy Department, he oversaw a dramatic expansion of U.S. gunboat diplomacy. I was fascinated by this near-pacifist who was also a leading gunboat diplomatist.

As for the question about how economic history contributes to our understanding of Daniels’s life, it is important to recall that he was first and foremost a businessman and a capitalist. He would never have described himself as a politician. He was a newspaper publisher, during a period in which that industry, largely thanks to men like Daniels, underwent tremendous change. Without some background in economics, finance, and accounting, it would have been difficult to understand the most important part of his public life.

Lee A. Craig, author of Josephus Daniels: His Life and Times

Lee A. Craig, author of Josephus Daniels: His Life and Times
(photo courtesy NC State University Photography Services)

Q:  Your prologue refers to Josephus Daniels as a near-pacifist who “created one of history’s greatest war machines” [i.e. the modern U.S. Navy] and a “staunch anti-imperialist [who] oversaw . . . a gunboat empire.” How does your book explain these contradictions? Continue reading ‘Interview: Lee A. Craig on Josephus Daniels’ »

Excerpt: Kennesaw Mountain, by Earl J. Hess

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Kennesaw Mountain: Sherman, Johnston, and the Atlanta Campaign by Earl J. Hess[This article is crossposted at UNCPressCivilWar150.com.]

While fighting his way toward Atlanta, William T. Sherman encountered his biggest roadblock at Kennesaw Mountain, where Joseph E. Johnston’s Army of Tennessee held a heavily fortified position. The opposing armies confronted each other from June 19 to July 3, 1864, and Sherman initially tried to outflank the Confederates. His men endured heavy rains, artillery duels, sniping, and a fierce battle at Kolb’s Farm before Sherman decided to directly attack Johnston’s position on June 27. Kennesaw Mountain: Sherman, Johnston, and the Atlanta Campaign, by Earl J. Hess, tells the story of an important phase of the Atlanta campaign.

The following excerpt comes from the book’s Preface (pp. xii-xvi). Here, Hess explains how the nearly three weeks of battle at Kennesaw Mountain in the face of unyielding natural elements stand historically as a pivotal representation of military strategy and adaptation for both the Union and Confederate generals.

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Six weeks after setting out from Chattanooga in early May, 1864, Major General William T. Sherman hit a massive roadblock while fighting his way toward Atlanta. Confederate general Joseph E. Johnston’s Army of Tennessee was heavily fortified along a line that stretched across the Georgia countryside, anchored on the twin peaks of Kennesaw Mountain near Marietta. It was the ninth fortified position Johnston had created thus far in the campaign, and it proved to be the most difficult to bypass. For two weeks, from June 19 to July 3, Sherman tried to find a way to turn Johnston’s left flank. Both armies were stretched to the breaking point in their extended positions as artillery duels, constant sniping, and a fierce battle or two erupted. As the two sides tested each other, heavy rains descended, and the dirt roads of Georgia became quagmires. Frustrated at the delay, Sherman decided to try a major frontal assault against three points of Johnston’s line on June 27. The Federals who survived that day would remember the attack for the rest of their lives.

The assault of June 27 was a significant departure from Sherman’s mode of operations during the Atlanta campaign. He had more often maneuvered parts of his massive force, an army group consisting of available troops from the departments of his Military Division of the Mississippi, in order to turn enemy flanks and force the Confederates out of their trenches. Sherman did mix attacks with his turning strategy at Dalton, Resaca, New Hope Church, and Pickett’s Mill, but most of those assaults had been exploratory efforts to find and develop enemy lines and take advantage of opportunities that occurred. On June 27, the Federals knew what to expect and were hitting a heavily fortified, well-manned position. It was, in a way, an experiment, and Sherman arrived at the decision after many days of deliberation.

Sherman threw eight brigades of veteran troops, some fifteen thousand men, at three locations along the heavily fortified Confederate line on June 27. Continue reading ‘Excerpt: Kennesaw Mountain, by Earl J. Hess’ »

Michael T. Bernath: Confederate Teachers United in a War of Their Own

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Confederate Minds: The Struggle for Intellectual Independence in the Civil War South by Michael T. Bernath[This article is crossposted at UNCPressCivilWar150.com.]

We welcome a guest post today from Michael T. Bernath, author of Confederate Minds: The Struggle for Intellectual Independence in the Civil War South, which is now available in a new paperback edition. During the Civil War, some Confederates sought to prove the distinctiveness of the southern people and to legitimate their desire for a separate national existence through the creation of a uniquely southern literature and culture. Bernath follows the activities of a group of southern writers, thinkers, editors, publishers, educators, and ministers—whom he labels Confederate cultural nationalists—in order to trace the rise and fall of a cultural movement dedicated to liberating the South from its longtime dependence on northern books, periodicals, and teachers. Bernath makes provocative arguments about the nature of Confederate nationalism, life within the Confederacy, and the perception of southern cultural distinctiveness.

In the following guest post, Bernath highlights April 28 as the sesquicentennial anniversary of delegates from the Confederate states forming the South’s first and only national teachers’ organization.

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2013 will mark many of the Civil War’s most famous sesquicentennial anniversaries—January 1 (Emancipation Proclamation), May 10 (Stonewall Jackson’s death), July 3 (Pickett’s Charge), July 4 (the fall of Vicksburg), November 19 (Gettysburg Address), just to name a few. By contrast, April 28 will pass with little notice (except perhaps among the most dedicated Civil War buffs interested in the fight at Choctaw Bayou, Louisiana). It was on that day, however, one hundred and fifty years ago, in Columbia, South Carolina, that nearly seventy delegates from six Confederate states met to form the South’s first and only national teachers’ organization, The Educational Association of the Confederate States of America.

Over the course of three days, the men (membership was restricted to male Confederate citizens) of the newly founded Association drew up a constitution, elected officers, and passed a series of resolutions that were then distributed and reprinted throughout the Confederacy. Their stated purpose was to aid the South in casting off its longtime dependence on northern textbooks and northern teachers and to ensure that a victorious Confederacy emerged from the war with both its political and its intellectual independence intact. Continue reading ‘Michael T. Bernath: Confederate Teachers United in a War of Their Own’ »

Eric S. Yellin: Woodrow Wilson’s Inauguration a Disheartening Anniversary

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Racism in the Nation's Service: Government Workers and the Color Line in Woodrow Wilson's America Eric S. YellinWe welcome a guest post today from Eric S. Yellin, author of Racism in the Nation’s Service: Government Workers and the Color Line in Woodrow Wilson’s America. Between the 1880s and 1910s, thousands of African Americans passed civil service exams and became employed in the executive offices of the federal government. However, by 1920, promotions to well-paying federal jobs had nearly vanished for black workers. Yellin argues that the Wilson administration’s successful 1913 drive to segregate the federal government was a pivotal episode in the age of progressive politics. Yellin investigates how the enactment of this policy, based on Progressives’ demands for whiteness in government, imposed a color line on American opportunity and implicated Washington in the economic limitation of African Americans for decades to come.

In today’s post, Yellin addresses the centennial anniversary of Woodrow Wilson’s presidential inauguration and the introduction of Jim Crow discrimination in government offices.

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This year we celebrate the sesquicentennial of the Emancipation Proclamation and the 50th anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Marking these two occasions serves to commemorate struggles that, despite the work still unfinished, led to lasting change. The Emancipation Proclamation, the result of Lincoln’s resolve and the forceful actions of ordinary black men and women, turned slaves’ demands for freedom into executive action. One hundred years later, A. Philip Randolph and Bayard Rustin encapsulated a national movement for equality in their March on Washington. They introduced millions to Martin Luther King, Jr. and forced Americans, including John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, to seek a greater society.

But halfway between these chronological markers of progress lies a different anniversary in African American history this year: the centennial of Woodrow Wilson’s presidential inauguration. Wilson’s arrival in Washington, D.C., in March 1913 was a bleaker moment for social justice: his progressive administration nationalized Jim Crow racial discrimination by institutionalizing it inside the federal government. Noting this anniversary can and should recall struggle and protest, but it cannot soothe us with overcoming. It is a reminder of the selectivity and fitfulness of American progress and the dominance of American white supremacy.

In 1912, thousands of black men and women were working in federal offices in Washington, D.C. Since Reconstruction, black civil servants in Washington had been treated as equals and moved up in the government to positions of decent pay and real responsibility. Federal employment was a powerful means of social mobility for African Americans. Washington was an island of possibility for ambitious black men and women at a time when racism cordoned them off from most of the economy and set ceilings on the jobs they could get. Never free of racism or hardship, D.C. and its federal offices offered nonetheless a promising future for African Americans in a nation in which disfranchisement, peonage, violence, and terror were becoming hallmarks of black life. Holding presidential appointments such as Register of the Treasury and Auditor of the Navy Department as well as hundreds of white-collar clerical jobs, black men and women were doing the nation’s business at the turn of the twentieth century.  They were participants in the modern American state, and their full citizenship was providing both political and economic rewards.

All of this began to unravel during Theodore Roosevelt’s administration, but neither Roosevelt nor his successor, William Howard Taft, shut down the patronage network.  Continue reading ‘Eric S. Yellin: Woodrow Wilson’s Inauguration a Disheartening Anniversary’ »

Long-running NC outdoor drama “The Lost Colony” to receive 2013 Tony Honor

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Variety reports:

The annual special kudos, billed under the full name Tony Honors for Excellence in the Theater, recognize legit industry individuals and organizations whose work isn’t eligible for the Broadway kudos’ annual round of competitive awards.

This year’s honorees include agent William Craver, stage production manager Peter Lawrence, the nonprofit Career Transition For Dancers, and North Carolina’s own historical drama “The Lost Colony.”

Honorees list is rounded out by “Lost Colony,” a 75-year-old production that plays every summer on Roanoke Island in Manteo, N.C. One of the last remaining Federal Theater Projects, the big-cast show is a symphonic drama inspired by the mysterious disappearance of English colonists from the area in the 16th century. Current production designer is Broadway costumer William Ivey Long, also the chair of the American Theater Wing, one of the orgs that co-presents the Tonys every year.

The Tony Honors are handed out at a private cocktail reception, set this year for June 8, just ahead of the full kudocast skedded to be broadcast live on CBS from Radio City Musical Hall June 9.

The Lost Colony: A Symphonic Drama of American History, by Paul GreenIn 1937, The Lost Colony, Paul Green’s dramatic retelling of the founding and mysterious disappearance of the Roanoke Island colony, opened to standing-room-only audiences and rave reviews. Since then, the beloved outdoor drama has played to more than 3 million people, and it is still going strong. Produced by the Roanoke Island Historical Association at the Waterside Theater near Manteo, North Carolina, The Lost Colony has run for more than seventy summers almost without interruption. (Production was suspended during World War II, when the threat of German submarines prowling the coast made an extended blackout necessary.)

The model for modern outdoor theater, The Lost Colony combines song, dance, drama, special effects, and music to breathe life into shadowy legend. The latest edition of the play, published by UNC Press in 2001, is edited with an introduction by Laurence Avery.

Bonus trivia: Some famous folks have taken turns as cast members in the legendary production: Andy Griffith and Carl Kasell, for instance!

Video and Event Celebrate Paul Kwilecki’s “One Place”

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Though artistic and ambitious, Paul Kwilecki (1928-2009) chose to remain in Bainbridge, Georgia, the small Decatur County town where he was born, raised, and ran the family’s hardware store. He had always been interested in photography and taught himself how to use a camera. Kwilecki developed his visual ideas in series of photographs of high school proms, prison hog killings, shade-tree tobacco farming, factory work, church life, the courthouse. He also wrote eloquently about the people and places he so poignantly depicted, and in One Place: Paul Kwilecki and the Four Decades of Photographs from Decatur County, Georgia his unique knowledge is powerfully articulated in more than 200 photographs and selected prose.

This Thursday, April 25 from 6–9 p.m. the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University is holding a reception in celebration of Kwilecki and this month’s publication of One Place. As part of the event, the book’s editor and CDS Director Tom Rankin will be speaking and signing books. In preparation for the event, CDS digital arts and publishing intern Joel Mora created a multimedia slideshow featuring some of Kwilecki’s photographs, the high praise the collection has received from authors and artists alike, and a recent interview with Rankin:

Continue reading ‘Video and Event Celebrate Paul Kwilecki’s “One Place”’ »

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