African Americans and Civil War Memory:Using Monuments to

Teach History

The Robert Gould Shaw and 54th Massachusetts Memorial

by Augustus Saint-Gaudens

What do you see happening here? Jot down some adjectives to describe this scene.

Augustus Saint-Gaudens1848-1907

He was America’s greatest sculptor helping to shape a national identity through many monuments he created. He was an incredible perfectionist.

How do you define monument?

How do you define national identity?

Some Monuments by Saint-Gaudens

How would you describethese monuments?

The Farragut (1880)New York City

The Standing Lincoln (1887)Chicago, Illinois

More Monuments by Saint-Gaudens

How would you describethese monuments?

The Logan (1891)Chicago, Illinois

The Sherman (1903)New York City

What event in American history did the following monuments commemorate or

remember?

What is your evidence?

How do you think Saint-Gaudens art was influenced

by the Civil War?

Why would Americans want to remember heroes from the

Civil War?

What does this tell you about the

United States?

The Puritan (1885)

Why do you think Saint-Gaudens sculpted a memorial to a Puritan?

Why do you think that this statue is located in New England?

Springfield, Massachusetts

The Adams Memorial (1890)

The Adams Memorial was created to remember the tragic death of the wife of author Henry Adams. Henry Adams was a client of Saint-Gaudens for this project. Some people say the Adams Memorial is an “enigmatic” sculpture.

Define “client.”

Based on this picture what do you think “enigmatic” means?

Saint-Gaudens was also an exceptional bas-relief portrait

sculptor.

Augustus Saint-Gaudens by Kenyon Cox

Samuel G. Ward

How would you describe a bas-reliefPortrait sculpture?

Why do you think many famous and important people

posed for Saint-Gaudens?

This is a photograph of First Lady Mrs. GroverCleveland posing for Saint-Gaudens.

Saint-Gaudens also designedthe most exquisite coins ever minted in

the United States.

How do you define exquisite? How is a coin like a bas- relief sculpture?

Twenty Dollar Gold Piece

Saint-Gaudens also liked to teach aspiring sculptors.

Why do you think Saint-Gaudens liked to teach younger sculptors?

Robert Gould Shaw(1837-1863)

How would you describe this man?

Robert Gould Shaw was the Colonel of the 54 Massachusetts

Volunteer Infantry

These African American soldiers were the first black troops recruited for the Union Army. Most of those who served were

free black men from numerous northern states and Canada.

What great African-American leader do you think helped recruit them?

Frederick Douglass

“Let the black man get upon his breast buttons with an eagle, bullets in his pocket, and a gun on his shoulder and no one then will be able to deny him full citizenship in the United States.”

What do you think Douglass meant?

Why did he say this?

A Recruiting Poster

Two of Douglass’ Sons served in the Regiment

Lewis DouglassCharles Douglass

Why do you think African American men joined the Union Army?

The Battle of Fort WagnerJuly 18, 1863

What do you think happened in this assault?

Sergeant William Carney

1840-1908

For his heroism in saving the regimental colors during the assault on Fort Wagner, Sergeant William Carney received the Medal of Honor.

He was quoted as saying:

“Boys, the Old Flag never touched the ground.”

In 1884 Saint-Gaudens signed a contract with people in

Massachusetts (commissioners) who wanted to see a memorial

erected to Shaw.

Shaw’s parents and wife approved of the plan.

Saint-Gaudens had three years to complete the project.

Here are a couple of early designs.

Here is a sketch of what he originally wanted to create.

Shaw’s parents, wife, and memorial commissioners disapproved this design.Why do you think that they objected?

Back at work Saint-Gaudens considered these two paintings as models to help him rework is design.

What do these images suggest that Saint-Gaudens might do to his design?

The Surrender at BredaVelasquez

Campagne de FranceJ.L.E. Meissonier

A New Conception (Idea)

This is called a maquette a small study model. What is different with this design?

Getting it up in Clay

Full Scale Clay Model – 14 ft. x 11 ft

Models of African American Heads

Saint-Gaudens modeledForty different AfricanAmericans in his New YorkCity studio and inserted Sixteen of them into the finalDesign.

What do these images tell you about Saint-Gaudens’ approach to his subject in this work?

Put up in Clay in Greater Detail

Let’s ask this question again.What do you think is going on?

How might this image be related to the previous image?

Write a caption for this photograph.

Memorial Day, 1897Boston, Massachusetts

Saint-Gaudens remembers the day.

“The impression of those old soldiers, passing the very spot where they left for the war so many years before, thrills me even as I write these words. They faced and saluted the relief. With the music playing, “John Brown’s Body”, a recall of what I had heard and seen thirty years before from my cameo-cutters window. They seemed as if returning from the war, the troops in bronze marching in the opposite direction, the direction in which they had left for the front, and the young men there represented

now showing these veterans the vigor and hope of youth. It was a consecration.”

The Reminiscences of Augustus Saint-Gaudens

Shaw’s Mother Responds:

Answer the following questionsbased on the Saint-Gaudens quote

1. What feeling do you think Saint-Gaudens was trying to convey?

2. What do you think he thinks about the veterans of the 54th Massachusetts?

3. Why does he call the event a

“consecration?”

The Shaw Memorial Today

What skills of Saint-Gaudens that we have studied did he use?

Notice the angel floating above the soldiers. What do you think the angel represents? Why do you think Saint-Gaudens included an angel

in the sculpture?

The Shaw Memorial was dedicated on Memorial Day 1897.

It took Saint-Gaudens fourteen years to complete his contract.

Why do you think it took Saint-Gaudens so long to complete the commission?

What Saint-Gaudens said:“It was the extraordinary opportunity, the

interest of the task, and my enthusiasm, that led to a development far beyond what was expected of me. And I held it a great joy to be able to carry out my idea as I wished…

My own delay I excuse on the grounds that a sculptor’s work endures for so long that it is next to a crime for him to neglect to do everything that lies in his power to execute a result that will not be a disgrace…”

What do you think Saint-Gaudens meant?

Here is a plaster version of the Shaw Memorial from 1901.

Why do you think Saint-Gaudens made a duplicate version?

Saint-Gaudens once said,“You can do anything you please. It is the way it is done that makes

a difference.”

How can you relate this quote to our study of the Shaw Memorial?

Lorado Taft, a sculptor and art historian had this to say about the Shaw Memorial:

“A man who could labor upon a work like the Shaw for fourteen years, fairy loving it into noble

perfection, has the right to leave the result to time and to the work

itself.”

What do you think Taft meant?

Do you think this justifies Saint-Gaudens’ length of timeDevoted to the Shaw Memorial?

The Legacy of Saint-Gaudens and the Shaw Memorial.

This is the Spirit of Freedom: The National Memorial to African American Soldiers and sailors of the Civil War. It was sculpted by EdHamilton and was dedicated in Washington, D.C. in 1997.

Why do you think it took 100 years to honor all the African-Americanmen who served in the Union forces?

By the end of the Civil war more than 180,000 men of color served in the Union Army and Navy. Of

that number 30,000 gave their lives for African-American freedom.

There were more African-American soldiers in the Union Army at the end of the Civil War than in the

entire Confederate Army.

Selected Resources

DVD/Video

Glory (120 Minutes)

“The Massachusetts 54th Colored Infantry,” The American Experience (56 Minutes) - PBS

The Shaw Memorial: The Power and Glory of Public Art (52 Minutes)

The National Gallery of ArtEducation Resources2000B South Club DriveLandover, MD 20785

Audio CD

Three Places in New England: The Saint-Gaudens on Boston Commonby Charles Ives

Books

Adams, Virginia M. Editor. 1991. On the Altar of Freedom: A Black Soldier’s Civil War Letters From the Front, Corporal James Henry Gooding. New York: Warner Books.

Benson, Richard and Lincoln Kierston. 1973. Lay This Laurel.New York: Eakins Press.

Blatt, Martin H., Thomas J. Brown and Donald Yacavone, editors. 2001.Hoe and Glory: Essays on the Legacy of the 54th

Massachusetts Regiment. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press.

Blight, David. 2001. Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Brown, Thomas J. 2004. The Public Art of Civil War Commemoration:A Brief History with Documents. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s.

Burchard, Peter. 1965. One Gallant Rush: Robert Gould Shaw And HisBrave Black Regiment. New York: St. Martins Press.

Dryfhout, John. 1982. The Work of Augustus Saint-Gaudens. Hanover:The University Press of New England.

Duncan, Russell, Editor. 1992. Blue-Eyed Child of Fortune: The Civil War Letters of Robert Gould Shaw. Athens: The University of Georgia Press.

Greenthal, Katherine. 1985. Augustus Saint-Gaudens: Master Sculptor.New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

McPherson, James. 1991. The Negro’s Civil War. New York: Ballantine.

Savage, Kirk. 1997. Standing Soldiers, Kneeling Slaves: Race, War, and Monument in Nineteenth-Century America. Princeton:

Princeton University Press.

The Shaw Memorial: A Celebration of an American Masterpiece. 1997.Conshohocken: Eastern National.

Tharp, Louisa Hall. 1969. Augustus Saint-Gaudens and the Gilded Age.

Boston: Little Brown and Company.

Wilkinson, Burke. 1985. Uncommon Clay: The Life and Works of Augustus Saint-Gaudens. San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich

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