Papers by Evie Terrono
Teachable Monuments: Using Public Art to Spark Dialogue & Resolve Controversies, Jennifer Wingate and Sierra Rooney, Eds. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2021
The unveiling in April of 2003 in Richmond, of a statue of Lincoln and his son Tad, enraged Neo-C... more The unveiling in April of 2003 in Richmond, of a statue of Lincoln and his son Tad, enraged Neo-Confederate groups who considered its presence in the capital of the Confederacy as an affront to their southern honor. The statue commemorates Lincoln’s little known visit with his son to Richmond, where freed blacks welcomed him as a “Mesiah,” while whites castigated him for his triumphant arrogance. Contrary however, to the hagiographic authoritarianism of the hyper-masculinized southern Confederate landscape of Richmond’s Monument Avenue, the monument emphasizes Lincoln’s sympathetic paternal role, and due to its life-size scale, its closeness to the ground, and the fact that the bench upon which Lincoln and Tad are seated is large enough, encourages a personal engagement with the precariousness of national destiny at the end of the war. Moreover, the inclusion in the statue of an inscription of Lincoln’s commitment "to bind up the nation's wounds," reminds audiences of the conciliatory purpose of his visit. The statue located at the Tredegar Ironworks, the largest ammunition producer for the Confederacy, now part of the Civil War museum, establishes an oppositional disruptive framework to the dominant heroic Lost Cause narrative ever present in the city, upsets its legitimacy, and anticipates and reinforces the museum’s obligation to impartial and inclusive interpretations. Focusing on the complex debates among various groups as to the meaning and purpose of the statue, this paper elaborates on the statue's didactic potential within the ongoing contestations to Richmond’s Confederate landscape.
Public Art Dialogue, 2019
The usage of the Confederate flag in confrontational ways in the work of contemporary African Am... more The usage of the Confederate flag in confrontational ways in the work of contemporary African American artists foregrounds its multivalent meanings, and undermines its privileged position in memorializing the southern Confederacy. The artists under consideration here, Leo Twiggs, John Sims, Sonya Clark and Hank Willis Thomas dispute the sanctity of this fraught political symbol, exposing its signification as a marker of racial oppression and brutalization. Their multifaceted interventions, and the performative and participatory artistic practices in the works of Sims, Clark and Thomas interrogate the flag’s currency aiming to offer more inclusive, however provocative interpretations of its meaning. By analyzing the historical utility of the Confederate flag, the artists’ own perspectives, and their objectives in restoring truths surrounding the racist legacy of the flag and its persistent ideological obfuscations, this study focuses on the artistic disruptions against this unstable symbol at this most charged moment in American History.
in special issue “Teaching American Art,” in Art History Pedagogy and Practice , 2021
After the Monuments Fall: The Removal of Confederate Monuments, Bryan Green, Ed. (Louisiana State University Press, 2021)., 2021
The Lost Cause narratives ensconced onto the commemorative fabric of Monument Avenue have been th... more The Lost Cause narratives ensconced onto the commemorative fabric of Monument Avenue have been the focus of much commentary. Less attention however, has been devoted to the cultural ambitions of the avenue’s patrons. They embraced the ideals of contemporary civic improvement projects in the context of the American Renaissance (1876-1917), a nationalistic movement that favored a return to the past, celebrated American Colonial heritage, and appropriated Greco-Roman classical models in architecture and sculpture, all as the means to cultivate historical awareness, individual and communal edification, and moral improvement. Grand proposals for the monuments and the remarkable architectural pluralism of the avenue demonstrate the desire of Richmond’s elite to retreat into an orderly environment of high art and architecture.
Civil War in Art and Memory, Kirk Savage, Ed., 2016
Unveiled in 1948 and 1953, respectively, the Lee and Jackson statues in Baltimore and the Lee and... more Unveiled in 1948 and 1953, respectively, the Lee and Jackson statues in Baltimore and the Lee and Jackson bay at the National Cathedral in Washington D.C. were the culmination of two commemorative campaigns, originating in the late 1920s and early 1930s, at a time when the ideology of the Lost Cause nurtured partisan feelings in the South while calls for reconciliation in the North reshaped the reception of these two Confederate generals in the minds and hearts of Americans. The dedication of these “memory sites” also coincided with the emergence of the Civil Rights movement in two cities marred by their own fraught past and marked by Jim Crow laws well into the twentieth century.
These highly politicized monuments, funded entirely by individuals and sharing commonalities in iconography, epitomize the intentions of those who commissioned them to inscribe Lee and Jackson into a narrative of national healing that obfuscated not only historical racial experiences but most importantly contemporary realities. Lionized in the pantheon of southern heroes by the 1920s, Lee and Jackson were memorialized in the North as “theoretical Unionist[s],” men of outstanding Christian ethic and chivalry saved from infamy by the redemptive authority of their character. By mid-century, the lives and accomplishments of Lee and Jackson were seen as a neutralizing antidote to disruptive cultural dislocations, unnerving social and racial conflicts and even as the “glorious heritage of all freedom-loving people.” Expressive of shifting political and ideological contexts, the two generals were uplifted from partisan perspectives and sectional affiliations to become ethical beacons divorced from racial politics. The patrons of the two monuments, J. Henry Ferguson and the United Daughters of the Confederacy, respectively, privileged their Christian character, all the while obfuscating their allegiance to a racial hierarchy of white supremacy as the two generals came to hold particular significance in a utopian revisionism of the historical past.
Extolled in presidential speeches and writings from Theodore Roosevelt to Woodrow Wilson and held in high esteem by President Truman, Lee and Jackson were virtually sanctified for their valor and their dedication to national patriotic ideals that were compromised only by their allegiances to the state of their birth. Their ascendancy from southern heroes to national icons however, occurred while black citizens were embroiled in protracted battles for residential, educational and social desegregation and wished to recognize past and present injustices on the national arena.
In this paper I explore the details of the commission and realization of these two commemorative sites, their iconography, and the reaction of contemporaries to their political implications. My focus is on the ideological beliefs and intentions of the patrons and the multifaceted political underpinnings that defined the reception of these monuments at mid-century.
Conference Presentations by Evie Terrono
Analysis among academics, and discussion in public, have focused on the racist implications of th... more Analysis among academics, and discussion in public, have focused on the racist implications of the Confederate landscape, but little attention has been devoted to contemporaneous northern responses not only to the Lee monument, but to the proliferation of confederate monuments in Richmond, and the rest of the state in the first half of the twentieth century. Commentary in the southern press was, as one might expect, adulatory of the undertakings to mark the landscape with everlasting markers of the commitment of Civil War heroes to the preservation of state rights against northern incursions. In the conciliatory spirit of the early twentieth century even northern accounts in daily print often conceded to the celebratory sentiment and pronounced the heroism of those fallen in the Civil War on either side. Contrary to our current debates however, critical accounts of the monuments, outside of the black press, were rarely concerned with their obfuscation of racist implications. Rather, contemporary reviews often saw such monuments as healing sectionalism, and they highlighted the bravery of Lee, often placing him as equal in stature to Washington recognizing his military acumen and efforts to move beyond the conflict at the end of the war. More broadly, white northern critics considered these monuments as “outpourings of a younger generation’s gratitude and appreciation” and as paradigms for emulation in troubled political and social times, although they often castigated the proliferation of Confederate flags at such events as provocative reminders of divisiveness. Black critics on the other hand exposed Lost Cause ideals and castigated ongoing initiatives to memorialize perpetrators of violence against both their race and the country.
Uploads
Papers by Evie Terrono
These highly politicized monuments, funded entirely by individuals and sharing commonalities in iconography, epitomize the intentions of those who commissioned them to inscribe Lee and Jackson into a narrative of national healing that obfuscated not only historical racial experiences but most importantly contemporary realities. Lionized in the pantheon of southern heroes by the 1920s, Lee and Jackson were memorialized in the North as “theoretical Unionist[s],” men of outstanding Christian ethic and chivalry saved from infamy by the redemptive authority of their character. By mid-century, the lives and accomplishments of Lee and Jackson were seen as a neutralizing antidote to disruptive cultural dislocations, unnerving social and racial conflicts and even as the “glorious heritage of all freedom-loving people.” Expressive of shifting political and ideological contexts, the two generals were uplifted from partisan perspectives and sectional affiliations to become ethical beacons divorced from racial politics. The patrons of the two monuments, J. Henry Ferguson and the United Daughters of the Confederacy, respectively, privileged their Christian character, all the while obfuscating their allegiance to a racial hierarchy of white supremacy as the two generals came to hold particular significance in a utopian revisionism of the historical past.
Extolled in presidential speeches and writings from Theodore Roosevelt to Woodrow Wilson and held in high esteem by President Truman, Lee and Jackson were virtually sanctified for their valor and their dedication to national patriotic ideals that were compromised only by their allegiances to the state of their birth. Their ascendancy from southern heroes to national icons however, occurred while black citizens were embroiled in protracted battles for residential, educational and social desegregation and wished to recognize past and present injustices on the national arena.
In this paper I explore the details of the commission and realization of these two commemorative sites, their iconography, and the reaction of contemporaries to their political implications. My focus is on the ideological beliefs and intentions of the patrons and the multifaceted political underpinnings that defined the reception of these monuments at mid-century.
Conference Presentations by Evie Terrono
These highly politicized monuments, funded entirely by individuals and sharing commonalities in iconography, epitomize the intentions of those who commissioned them to inscribe Lee and Jackson into a narrative of national healing that obfuscated not only historical racial experiences but most importantly contemporary realities. Lionized in the pantheon of southern heroes by the 1920s, Lee and Jackson were memorialized in the North as “theoretical Unionist[s],” men of outstanding Christian ethic and chivalry saved from infamy by the redemptive authority of their character. By mid-century, the lives and accomplishments of Lee and Jackson were seen as a neutralizing antidote to disruptive cultural dislocations, unnerving social and racial conflicts and even as the “glorious heritage of all freedom-loving people.” Expressive of shifting political and ideological contexts, the two generals were uplifted from partisan perspectives and sectional affiliations to become ethical beacons divorced from racial politics. The patrons of the two monuments, J. Henry Ferguson and the United Daughters of the Confederacy, respectively, privileged their Christian character, all the while obfuscating their allegiance to a racial hierarchy of white supremacy as the two generals came to hold particular significance in a utopian revisionism of the historical past.
Extolled in presidential speeches and writings from Theodore Roosevelt to Woodrow Wilson and held in high esteem by President Truman, Lee and Jackson were virtually sanctified for their valor and their dedication to national patriotic ideals that were compromised only by their allegiances to the state of their birth. Their ascendancy from southern heroes to national icons however, occurred while black citizens were embroiled in protracted battles for residential, educational and social desegregation and wished to recognize past and present injustices on the national arena.
In this paper I explore the details of the commission and realization of these two commemorative sites, their iconography, and the reaction of contemporaries to their political implications. My focus is on the ideological beliefs and intentions of the patrons and the multifaceted political underpinnings that defined the reception of these monuments at mid-century.