A Hot Day at Arlington National Cemetery

The day dawned hot and humid. Indeed, it was so hot that some of the elevators at the train stations around D.C. had stopped working and the tracks on the green line of the Washington Metro had bent, thus stopping train service to a portion of the city. In addition, millions of residents in the D.C. region were without air conditioning from a lightning storm that had struck about a week earlier. Truly it was not a good day to traipse around the 624 acres at Arlington National Cemetery. Yet, that was just what Hope and I found ourselves doing on this sticky July afternoon.

            Upon first arriving at the park, we inquired about information on the history of the cemetery at the Visitor’s Center Information Desk. The lobby was packed because it was the week of 4^th of July and every American with the means to do so was visiting D.C. to celebrate our country’s independence. The harried young woman at the counter hastily explained that the best way to get information about the cemetery’s history was to take the shuttle. Since it was blazing hot outside and the sites were 30 minute walks apart from each other, sitting under the cover of the shuttle to learn about the history of the park seemed like the sensible thing to do. After purchasing the tickets and racing out to catch the next shuttle departure we were on our way. Or not. The shuttle driver decided he was hot and grumpy too, so before we left the station, he managed to get into a shouting match with another shuttle driver. It was not pretty. And it certainly set the tone for the rest of the day’s events.

            In an effort at being as far away from the unhappy employee as possible, we elected to get on the last car of the shuttle train. Unfortunately the engine was very loud and we missed hearing his introduction to the history of the park, despite the fact that he was speaking into a microphone. Resigned to our fate, we sat back on the sticky plastic seat and enjoyed the bit of hot breeze that blew through our hair as we rolled past row upon row of headstones at Arlington National Cemetery. Indeed, there are a staggering number of gravestones punctuated by stately oak trees marking the final resting place of some of this country’s most famous veterans, presidents and heroes. According to Fodor’s travel guide, there are more than 230,000 graves at the site and, according to the shuttle driver, about 27 burials are held at Arlington Cemetery every day. No photographs are allowed at these funeral services. It is a somber place and the starkness of this rule serves to emphasize the emotion.

When the shuttle stopped at the Arlington House and quiet settled across the oak-studded hilltop, we realized our grand strategy. We would disembark from the shuttle and tour the Arlington House in an attempt at learning more about the history of the site. Although significant portions of the house and grounds were under restoration – and had been since 2007 – we were able to glean some good information from one of the friendly park rangers.

  There are three phases to the history of Arlington National Cemetery. The first era began in 1802 when George Washington Parke Custis inherited 1,100 acres from his grandmother, Martha Dandridge Custis Washington, who was none other than the wife of the nation’s first president, George Washington. Apparently George Custis had been raised by his grandparents – George and Martha Washington – and when Martha died in 1802, the grandson received the estate and named it Mount Washington. Shortly after this, it was renamed Arlington in honor of an earlier plantation owned by the Custis family.

George Custis’ vision for his estate was closely associated with the early designs for the new capital unfolding on the plain below: Washington, D.C. This was a new city intended to symbolize the new nation. As such, Pierre L’Enfant, the city’s grand architect set about designing the capital with the same kind of balance and dignity as the Constitution had established the new government. Custis had something of L’Enfant’s vision in his plans; between 1802 – 1818, slaves labored to clear the estate and construct the grand mansion now known as Arlington House. Because of the two men’s parallel visions, it’s no coincidence that Pierre L’Enfant’s body was eventually interred at the top of the hill overlooking the city just adjacent to Custis’ grand mansion. According to Fodor’s travel guide, L’Enfant’s “original design for the city is depicted on the top of his gravesite, located in front of Arlington House. The view of the city he designed is breathtaking” below (283).

 Of course, George Washington Parke Custis was not just building a plantation; he was also growing a family. In 1804 he married and over the next several years had children, most of whom died early. The only surviving child, Mary Anna Randolph Custis, married Robert E. Lee in 1831. Importantly the Lee family continued to hold slaves, and the plantation continued to use slave labor even after Mary Anna Custis’ parents died in the years preceding the American Civil War.

            Thus the year 1861 begins the second phase of Arlington National Cemetery’s storied history. It was in this year, during the opening salvos of our nation’s search for economic and social justice for people of African ancestry, that the Lee family fled Arlington House. Indeed in April 1861, Virginia seceded from the Union and by May the Army of the Potomac (the Union Army) occupied the strategic estate above the capital city. Barracks were constructed on the grounds and military leaders used the house as headquarters. In 1863, shortly after President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, the army built a Freedmen’s Village, a symbolic gesture toward newly freed slaves. In 1864, over 200 acres were set aside for military graves and the war dead soon began to be buried on the grounds.

            From the perspective of the Lee family and Southerners in general, this Union occupation and overt uses at the site must have been horrifying. Viewed through the lens of landscape politics, this occupation was a necessary and symbolic method for Northerners to declare power over the secessionists. It ensured that the Lee family would never be able to return to their estate and restore the antebellum plantation to its pre-Civil War glory. In something of a scandal, the U.S. government confiscated the property in 1864 on the grounds that Mary Anna Custis Lee had not appeared in person to pay the property taxes. Thus burying Union soldiers in her rose garden seemed to be a fitting symbol for the vanquished, and the official act consecrating Northern victory. Although short, this second phase was certainly decisive.

            Eighteen sixty five ushered in the third and final era for Arlington, which continues to this day. More soldiers were buried there and the U.S. Army erected the Tomb of the Unknown Dead of the Civil War to commemorate the 2,111 unidentified soldiers who died in the battlefields around Virginia. In all, over 500,000 people died during the four years of war, which was a staggering number considering the entire country only had a population of 31 million (Burt 288). Other monuments and tombs associated with the Civil War were constructed, including the Confederate Memorial in 1914 and the memorial to Robert E. Lee in 1955 when Congress dedicated Arlington House in his honor. Along the way, the national park Service acquired the estate in 1933 and the Arlington House was once more renamed to be The Robert E. Lee Memorial in 1972. Since the opening of this phase, many other memorials and monuments have been constructed at Arlington and it has come to be the nation’s darling of cemeteries.

           Perhaps the most surprising information – for me -- about Arlington Cemetery was its history. Although I love history, I tend to shy away from histories that are associated with wars. Thus when I learned about Arlington’s origins and relationship to George Washington, along with the connection the property had to Robert E. Lee, I was surprised. The property has quite a rich history, weaving together events from the early Republic, the antebellum South, the building of the capital in D.C. and, of course, the American Civil War.

The estate’s geographic location on the northernmost reaches of Virginia – a symbol of the Old South -- is also significant and worth returning to as a point of surprise for me. It is a common technique for a vanquisher to claim the physical space of a vanquished enemy. Among other things, it symbolizes utter victory and an uncontested domination of the physical realm. It also symbolizes psychological defeat. The vanquished is always reminded that this was theirs, but now it is not. The Spanish did this to the Maya in Mexico when they built Catholic cathedrals on top of Maya temples in the 16^th century. The Han Dynasty did it to their defeated foes in 5^th century China, and the Greeks did it in the aftermath of the Pelopennesian War in 6^th century BCE. Now I learn that the North employed the same technique of landscape politics to declare their victory over the South by claiming the very plantation of the South’s leading war hero. It is a stunning use of psychological and physical power. And with this realization I am prompted to reflect with new insight about the vigor with which the South has resisted the results of the Civil War, going so far as to declare that “the South will rise again!”

             After spending over an hour at Arlington House we got back on the shuttle, this time with a different driver. We also sat closer to the front where we could hear less of the engine and more of the tour.  Although it was still blazing hot, this portion of the journey was much more pleasant. One of the stops we made during this segment was to the John F. Kennedy Eternal Flame Memorial. The somber quality of the memorial is profound. Our driver cautioned us to speak in hushed tones. This instruction seemed unnecessary, however, since the very sight of the flame burning in the already intense heat of the midday served as a searing reminder of the nation’s loss of one of our greatest presidents. Although I was not yet born when President Kennedy was assassinated in 1963 my family, which originally hails from Boston, were staunch supporters of the Kennedy family and the Democratic Party. It was, in a sense, bred into me to admire and revere John F. Kennedy. Thus seeing this flame, the marble slate and the Cape Cod fieldstone of his gravesite represented a culminating moment. That he was reported to have said “it’s so peaceful here, I could stay forever” while visiting Arlington Cemetery just 12 short days before his death seems like poignant irony, beyond which words can scarcely do justice (Burt 280 – 281). The flame – burning eternally – honors this sentiment. The torch from which it burns symbolizes the inspiration he offered to the nation’s youth when he called them to ask not what the country could do for them, but what they could do for the country. He was, in life as in death, passing the torch to a new generation. Fittingly it was his wife, Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy, who decided to have the eternal flame placed at his memorial. This, too, seemed symbolic of the searing love she must have had for him; I would like to think that the flame meant something about the nature of their relationship as much as it reflected his inspiration to the nation.    

            Just down the road from the memorial to John F. Kennedy our driver stopped at the grave site of his brother Robert F. Kennedy. His death, perhaps even more so than JFK’s, symbolizes the turmoil of the 1960s. By the time Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated in June 1968, our nation had passed the 1964 Civil Rights Act, our soldiers were increasingly embroiled in war in Vietnam and Martin Luther King, Jr. had just been shot to death in April. Cesar Chavez was on a hunger strike for workers’ rights in California. Poverty was on the rise across the United States and President Johnson had declared war on it. Needless to say, the country was in upheaval. Robert Kennedy’s quest for the nomination as Democratic Party’s presidential candidate must have been an advance that challenged the opposition in unimaginable ways.  Yet his assassination was not conducted by one of those vowing to see the South rise again – as might have been suspected. Rather he was shot by Sirhan Sirhan, a young Palestinian man who was disturbed by RFK’s pledge to send air power to Israel. In a sad twist of fate, the long arm of conflict in the Holy Land was striking a blow at progressive politics on the domestic American landscape. The dual assassinations of the Kennedy brothers ushered in an era of cynicism that the nation has yet to overcome.

            In many ways, these historic events have become defining moments in my own life. I was a toddler when Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. were killed. I vividly remember televised scenes from the war in Vietnam, so much so that my mother evicted the television from our house after I had a series of nightmares from watching the image of a naked child in flames running down a Saigon city street. My family never acquired another television until after I left home for college. Largely because of the murder of Robert Kennedy, Richard Nixon was elected president in November 1968. His presidency can be noted as a low point in our nation’s political history. And the rhetorical question what if JFK and RFK had not been shot will remain forever unanswered. These are things I thought about and the deep, abiding emotions I struggled to contain on the hot, hot July afternoon at Arlington Cemetery.

             The intense heat from the sun, the enormous sound from the shuttle’s engine and the vast number of well-ordered headstones seemed to merge into one overwhelming moment during this visit to Arlington National Cemetery.  At one point during the shuttle tour, into my notes I scribbled “I hate war. I love my country.” This, more than anything else, captures the philosophical ambivalence I feel about visiting Arlington. This is a cemetery which originated out of war and which houses hundreds of thousands of people who died fighting in war. Profoundly, there are few things I despise more about the world in which I live than war. So, here I find myself visiting, reflecting on and writing about a cemetery supported by my country, in honor of war dead. The irony is not lost on me. Furthermore, having traveled to many countries across most of the world’s continents, I have seen first hand the corruption, incompetence and frightening enormity of governments unlike my own. I have been forced to pay bribes in exchange for my freedom in the Amazon region of Brazil. I have found myself caught in the crossfire of jungle conflicts along the Thai-Burmese border and in the Lago Atitlan region of Guatemala. These examples of government corruption and military quests for power make me appreciate the steadfast resilience of the U.S. Constitution. The rule of law, established by the Constitution, works well in the U.S. most of the time. When President John F. Kennedy was shot, Vice President Johnson quickly stepped in to office to restore stability to the nation. After Robert Kennedy’s assassination, due process oversaw the fate of Sirhan Sirhan.  For this and more I love my country. For this I love and appreciate my government. And although I am the first to admit that there are imperfections in the U.S. government – as evidenced by a too cozy relationship with the military-industrial complex that President Eisenhower warned us against (we do, after all, have over 800 U.S. military installations across the planet) – we are still the world’s shining example of democracy. And for that I am grateful to have been born in such a time and in such a place as this.

Works Cited

Burt, Sandra and Linda Perlis. Washington, D.C., with Kids. 4^th ed. New York: Random   House, 2008.

Native Americans, Art and the American Experience

The National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) is perhaps the most innovative space in Washington D.C.’s Smithsonian collection of museums. Set in an urban landscape the building stands out for its rounded edges, earth tones and flowing stonework. Even the plants and traditional housing structures outside the entrance mark this space as unique as they juxtapose against the buildings, cars and buses of the modern city.  Because of these characteristics, the building tends to draw the visitor in to the space in a spirit of comfort, peace and centeredness.  

At the risk of getting too romantic, it seems the designer wanted to make the visitor feel as though she were entering into the womb of Mother Earth.  Walking into the cave-like entrance symbolized a journey into another world. According to Mircea Eliade, the eternal return begins with a journey to the source (and the center) for most indigenous cultures of the world. This return to the source is necessary to recreate the origin story and thereby perpetuate creation. Indeed, Eliade claims that the center is “the zone of the sacred, the zone of absolute reality” (17) and that “whatever is founded has its foundation at the center of the world” (18). Whether this return to Mother Earth effect at NMAI was deliberate or merely my projection onto this museum, my visit here was enormously moving and subtly profound. Walking from the profane urban street of Washington, D.C. through the cave-like entrance into the cool interior felt like a sacred act. And that was only the beginning.

The Potomac River, with headwaters in both Virginia and West Virginia, has served as an important geographic landmark for hundreds (possibly thousands) of years. The word appears to be the Europeanized form of an originally indigenous term, possibly meaning “the place where people trade.” This suggests its historic role as a meeting place for people, products and ideas going back to the pre-contact era. Since the 17th century the term has evolved from Patawomeke to the Potomac that we know today. Whatever its etymology, the river and its placement below the dome at NMAI is symbolic of several Native American concepts. The dome serves as a reminder of the layers of heaven, not in the European conception of heaven, but in the indigenous notion of the celestial bodies. The celestial archetype is part of the indigenous hierophany, whereby objects become sacred through their part in the act of creation. If creation is happening up there in the heavens with the gods -- and humans imitate it down here on earth -- then human lives have meaning and become real. Or, as Eliade suggests, “reality is a function of the imitation of the celestial architype” (5). Furthermore, the oculus at the dome’s peak leads to the light outside which allows for light, volume, space and atmosphere to permeate the center. The dome – as representation of the center -- placed into context with the flowing river, gives a good visual representation of the indigenous world view. We are just visitors passing this way. We, too, can participate in the eternal return by acknowledging the ascent, flowing through the river of existence, rising above, coiling up to heaven, into the sacred celestial.

The river’s water below the dome also represents something to the indigenous mind. Typically water represents life, but it also suggests the chaos of the primordial. Life comes from it, but order must be imposed on it. Life rises from the depths of the primordial waters, just as the dome rises about the river. The dome, then, represents human construction in an act of recreating the origin story, and it suggests an imposed order on the chaos of the river below. Order triumphs over chaos. This is the ultimate force of the myth of eternal return, and it appears that the design of NMAI seeks to recreate drama. The journey to sacred begins and ends at the center.

Because the architecture and the symbolism of space at NMAI resonated so much for me, I decided to focus on the ways in which architecture is art, particularly in relation to the natural environment or the use of natural elements. The idea here was to explore the ways in which architecture, generalized to be understood as space, was used to present and define content. 

In the newly constructed children’s exhibit on the second floor there is an activity room with lots of tables and chairs set up for children to work on projects. Against one wall of this space appeared a sculpture by Melanie Yazzie entitled Two Minds Meeting (Sharing Thoughts). The sculpture, red painted metal, depicts two humans with their hands outstretched towards each other. They are smiling, and their happy essence coils down into the center of each figure’s being. Overall there is positive energy and movement in their stance. A bar sits across the top of the sculpture, binding the two figures together. Four coyote appear in various poses on the bar, some standing on four legs, others sitting on their hunches. The number four in many indigenous societies generally is known as an acknowledgement of the four cardinal directions and the four seasons. For Native Americans in the Southwest, the number four also associates with the types of corn grown in the region. Coyote is typically known as the trickster, but also the force of energy which gives life. Coyote keeps humans humble while simultaneously leading humans to greater wisdom. The four coyotes, with all their numerical and spiritual symbolism, sit on top of the humans’ heads. They are above humans, just as the sun, moon and stars are above humans. Yet the bar connects the coyotes to the humans, and thereby connecting the humans to each other. Finally, the sculpture’s use of space and light conveys color in a symbolic way. The sculpture is red. The wall behind it is white. The shadow projected onto the wall is blue. Thus, although Yazzie has produced a work of art with traditional Native American elements such as coyote and the number four, she has also integrated the red, white and blue colors of the American flag into the work through the use of space and shadow. Space determines content and renders meaning in this art.

Another display which employed the use of space to enhance meaning at NMAI was entitled Projectile Points. Here, the museum curator arranged over 1,000 arrow and spear points in a clear glass case. What makes this display visually interesting is the way in which the projectile points are arranged to appear to flow like water, or as schools of fish in a river. The arrangement of the objects is intentionally drawing the viewer’s mind to the river motif on the ground floor of the museum. 

On close inspection of this exhibit, one can see remains of wood embedded in the obsidian and rock. Obviously, these were tools used for hunting and fishing. Displayed in artistic swirls, the viewer entertains a rhetorical question: Can tools be art? The answer is perplexing. Perhaps not in isolation since individually the stones are dark and light, black and orange, colors of the natural world and thus not typically representative of art. Rather, they are pieces of a much larger whole. Yet when viewed 

from several steps away, the whole becomes apparent. The tools – by being placed in the display as schools of fish -- become the prey they were intended to hunt. Thus in the collective, the spear points become paths to meaning and interpretation. The implications are quite profound. Individually the objects are practical items produced for survival in a pre-contact world. Today, they are collectively placed out of context and in an arranged fashion to render new meaning – indeed, an inverted meaning to their original use. 

This kind of new meaning through the use of space is also apparent in the Horse Exhibit at NMAI. With its rounded walls, dim light, chanted sound track this gallery attempted to bring the viewer into the realm of the Great Plains. On one wall, the words of Black Elk appeared, like wind blowing across the plains. Overall this gallery contains a beautiful collection of beaded bags, wooden saddles, woven blankets, and leather bridles. The space flows with objects of Indian survival and identity. Yet the items are placed in a dimly lit museum, no longer useful as they were originally intended. The objects, like the people who used them, have been appropriated and set into contrived spaces: museums for the things and reservations for the people. Just as the spear points were placed in a contrived context to render new meaning, the objects in this gallery also become transformed into items to be viewed rather than tools to be used. Their placement in space – the way in which the architecture of space is employed – again draws the viewer’s mind to the question of tools in relation to the sacred and profane. Tools for survival (in their traditional context) are part of a sacred act. Yet the act is also profane, part of the daily habits of a pre-contact society. Furthermore, in this exhibit the objects are part of a museum exhibition, considered sacred through their display. Yet they are no longer tools, thus made profane. It’s a conundrum of the soul made manifest through objects place in this space.

The fourth exhibit I encountered was titled Wixarika: The World of Our Ancestors. Within the gallery, a small circular room contained several video monitors along the walls. Each monitor played a different video about encounters between Native Americans and whites in the post-contact era. In the center of the space was a circle, dissected into four parts corresponding to colors, cardinal directions and seasons. The symbolism of this space was profound. In short, the Center was surrounded by the story of loss and survival for indigenous people. The Center was intact with its traditional symbols of color, direction and season but it was surrounded by a storm of destructive intervention. Indeed, one of the videos was called The Storm: Guns, Bibles and Governments, which depicted the ways in which Anglos used those objects to mount a storm of genocide against Native Americans. Standing near the Center of the exhibit, I scribbled lines from the video into my notes: “the storm is an opportunity; we have learned much,” claimed the narrator. A few moments later, the narrator’s voice suggested that the storm “offers life and death, hope and despair.” From this I gathered that the space represents indigenous reality today. The Center has always been. The Center will continue to be. Surrounding the Center a storm has raged for the past 500 years, bringing with it “death” and “despair”. Yet, Indians today view the destruction as a part of their story, from which they must learn something. That is the “life” and “hope” that they see. The chaos of the storm must be endured and learned from, in order for traditional societies to once again cyclically return to the sacred by re-balancing with the Center. Indeed, “by conferring a cyclic direction upon time, annuls its irreversibility. Everything begins over again at its commencement every instant. The past is but a prefiguration of the future. No event is irreversible and no transformation is final” (Eliade 89). This is how native people find hope in the midst of despair. Yes, it’s likely that 90% of the pre-contact population was destroyed through disease and warfare. But still, “nothing new happens in the world, for everything is but the repetition of the same primordial achetypes” (90) and the “death of the individual and the death of humanity are alike necessary for their regeneration” (88). Put simply, something must die in order for something else to live. This is the eternal return. And thus my four part analysis of the National Museum of the American Indian concludes, appropriately enough, at the Center.

Works Cited
Eliade, Mircea. The Myth of the Eternal Return or, Cosmos and History. Trans. Willard R. Trask. New York: Princeton University Press, 1974 (reprint).

The Renwick Gallery is a delightful example of 19th century architecture. Set at an angle across from the White House, the Renwick stands out in this D.C. neighborhood known for its sleek, modern construction and contemporary designs. In many ways, the interior is even more delightful than the exterior. A grand staircase with red carpeted steps sweeps up to the graceful landing. In the main exhibition space the 15 foot, arched doorways and 40 foot high ceilings welcome the visitor. In Louvre-like fashion, the walls are arrayed with paintings, mostly from the second half of the 19th century. The collection in this gallery is comprised of lots of examples of romanticism and realism, with a fair smattering of American impressionism thrown in for variety.

Romanticism defines 19th century art and a good presentation of it can be found in J. Francis Murphy’s image entitled The Path to the Village (1882). Featuring a landscape and skyscape scene with a path leading to a quaint country village in the background, the painting employs a lighting technique reminiscent of John Constable’s clouds, yet also hints at Claude Monet’s impressionist work of late century through the dabs of green color in the foreground. Its emphasis on the beauty of the land -- rather than on the power of humans -- captures the essence of the romantic spirit and makes this image Best of Show in my opinion.

 A representative sample of realism can be found in the work of Howard Russell Butler entitled The Seaweed Gatherers (1886). As a style, realism can best be understood as attempting to depict the subject matter realistically, rather than emotionally. Details are sharp and clear. Typically the subject matter is a person of average social standing. Realism seldom focuses on royalty or other elites in society. Butler’s work is no exception. The image features French peasants on the beach with their work horses. The scene is successfully rendered with ample detail of the sand, the horses and the sunrise. It’s a delicious image conveying the simple life of French peasants at their work.

Homer Dodge Martin rounds out our survey of the Renwick’s collection. Martin, a self taught artist loosely associated with the Hudson River school, presents us with a good example of American impressionism in Evening on the Thames (1876). Ironically this image – like Butler’s Seaweed Gatherers – features a foreign subject matter, this time set in England rather than France. Stylistically, impressionism seeks to capture the essence of the subject rather than the practical details of it. The goal of impressionist art is fundamentally opposite that of realism, and this is apparent in Martin’s work. In this instance the beach scene is entirely about colors and shapes rather than people and animals.  This shift out of romanticism and into impressionism can best be explained by Martin’s exposure to plein air artists while he visited France. Regardless of the influence, the result is a delightful contrast to the romanticism and realism so typical of American artists.

After spending the afternoon at the Renwick, I headed over to the Arts and Industries Building only to find it closed for renovations. Perhaps you can imagine my disappointment since the first two museums were so meaningful to me.

Adjacent to the Arts and Industries Building is a sleek grey, low slung and very modern building. Inside, in the most eclectic museum space I have ever experienced, were four subterranean floors of art from Africa. Indeed, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art (NMAA) turned out to be a delightful Plan B. Moving through the various galleries, I was hoping for a connection to the American experience so as to tie the day together. Thankfully I think I found it in the exhibition of Ousmane Sow, a Senegalese sculptor who produced a 35 piece ensemble of the Battle of Little Big Horn. Sow, working with mud, hair, blood and stone uses sculpture to search for what he calls “emotionalist theater” in his larger-than-life size presentations. In a helpful video that ran on a loop next to the exhibition space, Sow explained his interest in portraying this historic encounter between the Plains Indians of the American West and the white soldiers of the U.S. Army. Set in 1876, the Battle of Little Big Horn (also known as Custer’s Last Stand) served as a colossal clash of civilizations. Sow captured that conflict – of men, of muscle, of mindset – by depicting men fighting, men in motion, men on horses – in graphic detail. Since I had never heard of Ousmane Sow before seeing this exhibit, I was happy to engage with his powerful artistry and reflect on the ideas he was presenting in this work.

Importantly it served as a nice juxtaposition to the genteel art I had just viewed in the Renwick. Indeed this victory for the Plains Indians over Custer took place in 1876, the same year as Martin was exploring the Thames through the “new” style known as impressionism. The art of each serves as counterpoint to the other. Sow, through his use of mud and blood, presents a gritty version of Indians fighting for survival. Martin, on the other hand, uses the standard oil on canvas to convey light and color on the well ordered Thames.  Sow’s work also subtly extends the conceptual space of the NMAI by evoking the “storm” of Indian-Anglo conflict. In this instance, the Indians won in what Sow describes as “one of their most resounding victories.” Custer was, after all, killed in this battle. Unfortunately for the Plains Indians, the Battle of Little Big Horn was not the end of the storm. After an intermission of 14 years, the U.S. Army returned to the region to inflict (according to many in the Native community) vengeance on the Sioux for killing their war hero. The event has been immortalized through the writings of Dee Brown in Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, depicting the epic massacre of 1890. Ironically it takes a sculptor from Senegal to re-imagine the events and bring them back into focus for the American public three floors below ground level at the NMAA.

Women, A Universe of Truth and the National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C.

The National Museum of American History (NMAH) contains a wonderful variety of aspects of the nation’s story. The building is crowded with three floors of exhibits on science, slaves, how to do laundry before the invention of the washing machine, architecture in the colonial period and much more. The main lobby inside the NMAH is a large cavernous space echoing with the voices and footsteps of thousands of tourists. On this particular day the place was packed as people attempted to escape the summer sun. Needless to say, it was refreshingly cool after the intense 105 degree heat outside. Because I was traveling with two small girls (my 10 year old daughter and her 9 year old niece), I decided to focus on exhibits which were about the contributions of women to the American story. It was a fun, thematic way to approach the museum.

A large telescope graced the entry to the gallery labeled 1 West. Dating to 1865, the telescope was used by America’s first woman astronomer, Maria Mitchell. The telescope was American made, and capable of viewing the sun, stars and planets. Mitchell is well known for her discovery of a comet in 1847, and for having taught at Vassar College from 1865 – 1888. Among other things, she encouraged her female students to escape the bounds of tradition and authority by studying mathematics and science at a time when women really only went to school to learn etiquette and the social graces of man-catching.

Ironically, the book I was reading while in D.C. contained an entire chapter about Maria Mitchell. The book, entitled Away Off Shore: Nantucket Island and Its People, 1602 – 1890 by Nathaniel Philbrick, was one I had picked up while in Gloucester, Massachusetts a couple weeks earlier. To my mind, it was serendipitous that I would encounter this extraordinary woman in two different but compelling ways during my summer travels. According to Philbrick, Maria Mitchell came from a family of “self taught ‘scholars’ on Nantucket” (221). Included in the Mitchell family tree is Benjamin Franklin and Walter Folger, who discovered the “secret to manufacturing spermaceti candles” during the height of the whaling era (222). As a result of these influences, Mitchell “developed into a world-class astronomer” (222). Along with teaching and astronomy, she also served as librarian at the Nantucket Atheneum for almost twenty years. All of this points to a woman who admired the life of the mind over society and appearance. Indeed she was described by her contemporaries as a woman who “had always to be coaxed to go into company” because she was “self-consciously plain, with a dark complexion and deep voice (on an island where the girls were famous for their blond hair and black eyes)” (224). She was well known in Nantucket circles for “dedicat[ing] herself to her science with a single-minded intensity rivaling that of the Nantucket whalemen. As a young woman, virtually all her evenings were spent with her astronomy; if the weather was bad, there were always calculations to perform” (224).  Beyond a doubt, the telescope at the NMAH was one of the instruments Mitchell used to study the heavenlies.

During this time, Mitchell received a visit by Herman Melville. The latter author had recently published Moby-Dick and it is likely he was visiting Nantucket to promote his novel-ode to the whale among the whalemen of the island. Within a year of Melville’s visit, Mitchell complained in her diary about the unfortunate role of women in society: “the needle is the chain of woman, and has fettered her more than the laws of the country. . . I would as soon put a girl alone into a closet to meditate as give her only the society of her needle . . . A woman is expected to know all kinds of woman’s work, and the consequence is that life is passed in learning these only, while the universe of truth beyond remains unentered” (225-226). Perhaps the woman-astronomer was comparing the tethered aspects of her life against the freedom she perceived in Melville’s. Whatever she was thinking, her keen curiosity about the “universe of truth” has managed to place her life’s work on public display nearly two hundred years after she was born.

In 2 West there is an exhibit entitled Within These Walls. Primarily the space featured buildings and the activities of living within their walls. It is an interesting concept for its focus on lives within contained spaces, and the ways in which those lives use space during the course of a day. About half way into the exhibit we encountered an interactive display featuring Catherine Lynch, a washer woman in the 19^th century. Her day was bookmarked by the physical labor of laundry duty. In the evening she would set the clothing to soak in a tub overnight. Early the next morning, that tub of soaking clothes would be scrubbed in lye before being boiled. Of course the water and fuel for these activities had to be brought in to the house which, in itself, is no mean feat. After boiling, the clothes would be rinsed through a wringer and then rinsed again for good measure. One of the interactive features provided a wringer machine so that visitors could try their hand (or muscles) at the process. A computer calculated the force needed to wring excess water out of the clothing. If the visitor did not apply enough muscle to the task, the computer would report it. In short, it was a humbling exercise in 19^th century reality. After the laborious task of rinsing and wringing, the clothing would be starched and hung to dry. The final step, which would take place on the morning of the third day, would be to iron the clothing. Thus a load of laundry would literally comprise three days of labor.

As a result of viewing and interacting with this display, I have a renewed sense of appreciation for the modern convenience known as the washing machine. All hail the washing machine which has freed up the hours of my day, the labor of my hands and the space in my kitchen. 

The 3^rd Floor contained an exhibit entitled American Presidency. Within that space appeared a special display about First Ladies. In particular the exhibit focused on the inaugural gowns worn by various First Ladies over the past one hundred years. Other gowns, perhaps not inaugural but still of historic importance, also found their way into this exhibit. For example, the velvet gown of President Lincoln’s wife, Mary Todd Lincoln, was displayed in a case by itself. Of the inaugural dresses, one could find the elegant ball gown worn by Nancy Reagan, the stodgy dress of Barbara Bush and the trendsetting gown of Jackie Kennedy. Each dress revealed something about the personality of the woman who wore it.

Another dress displayed alone was the most recent inaugural dress to make it into the American narrative: that of Michelle Obama. Dazzling is likely the best term to describe the pale chiffon sheer studded with glimmering silver flowers. Even a non-fashionista like me can declare it is lovely.

An exhibit poster claimed that for two hundred years, First Ladies have been judged by the clothes they wore, the parties they held, the projects they initiated and the roles they embraced. First Ladies also serve as national advocates, trend setters, leaders and role models. I would tend to agree. Laura Bush, a librarian before she became First Lady, was known for her advocacy in literacy. Eleanor Roosevelt, although not fashionable, famously helped usher in the international era through her work on the United Nations charter. And today, Michelle Obama speaks out about caring for military families, the role of healthy eating and reducing food deserts in urban centers. In their position as wives to the Presidents of the United States, each become ambassadors of good will, healthy living and progressive values. Ironically this voice for progress as a means for making their President-spouse look good may be exactly what Maria Mitchell was lamenting in her 1853 diary entry. Could it be that in our obsession with the clothing of the First Ladies we are, each one of us, perpetuating the stereotype that “A woman is expected to know all kinds of woman’s work … while the universe of truth beyond remains unentered”? The point remains that whether it is the needle of Maria Mitchell, the laundry of Catherine Lynch or the gown of Michelle Obama, the value of women’s lives are interwoven with the clothing, fabric and thread of “woman’s work” while the men pursue a “universe of truth” in the realm of politics and power “unentered” by women. It’s a challenging notion to think that (even) in the 21^st century we have not really “come a long way, baby.” After all, as I wandered through this exhibit I noticed that almost exclusively the visitors to this gallery were . . . female.

Works Cited

Philbrick, Nathaniel. Away Off Shore: Nantucket Island and Its People, 1602 – 1890. New York: Penguin, 2011 (reprint).