What is an American? Picturing Gender, Race & Class: 1760-1820

Unit Outline (the ambitious, ideal version) NEH Summer Institute 2009: “Picturing Early America: People, Places & Events,

1760-1870” Salem State College, Salem, MA

Director: Professor Patricia Johnston, Art History

Laura Rochette, Humanities Division St. Paul’s School, Concord, NH

Context   Grade 10   Humanities IV (American Studies); double-credit

course that satisfies both English and US History requirements.

  Meets 4x/week; 2 55 min., 1 65 min., 1 85 min.   Course is organized thematically with some

chronology within the themes (Land, Revolution, Civil War/Struggles with Identity, American Dreams)

  Team of 6 teachers with a Coordinator   In classroom: laptops for student use; projector,

screen, teacher laptop.

Purpose   To help develop an already existing

unit on Revolution and American Identity (approx. 3 ½ weeks) by including visual & written texts by, and/or about women and African Americans, thereby helping to give students a deeper, vertical look at society and culture of this time period.

The Guiding Questions   What do the visual portrayals of men & women by artists

such as Copley and Stuart reveal about gender and class, cultural perceptions, and gendered public performance? How do these portraits compare to Gordon Wood’s analysis in The Radicalism of the American Revolution? How do they compare to written work by women in this era?

  What do visual portrayals of African Americans reveal about status and perception? How do these paintings compare to the written accounts of slaves and slave revolts from the Revolutionary era?

  Contemporary Connections: What kinds of questions emerge for us about gender, class, race, and culture today?

  Global Connection: What do these images reveal about the philosophical ideas traded back and forth between England, Germany, France and the colonies? What do these images reveal about the global economy of the time, particularly in relation to the Near East and Asia?

Skills   Historical, literary, and art historical modes of

inquiry: what kinds of questions does one ask of historical, literary, and visual documents?

  Vocabulary: for examining political rhetoric, paintings, and poetry of the period.

  Analytical reading skills: rhetoric and style; details and their importance, symbolism, iconography (visual literacy).

  Oral skills: inquiry, explanations, facilitating discussion.

  Synthesis: utilizing different sources, documents, and texts in order to articulate a coherent understanding of the whole picture.

It sorta breaks down like this… (again, the ideal version)

Part I: Liberties & Expression Day 1: Copley, “Paul Revere,” Moore,

“Daughters of Liberty” (poem) Day 2: accounts of Boston Massacre &

Tea Party; letters about slave revolts (Zinn); 1-2 letters by Murray

Day 3: Declaration of Independence Part II: Class, Gender & Race:

Intersections in a New America Day 4: images of architecture; Copley’s

“Nicholas Boylston,” The Mifflins, “Rebecca Boylston,” “Mrs. John Stevens,” Kuhn, “Henry Darnall,” Peale’s “Absalom Jones,” Johnston’s “Westwood Children”

Day 5: Colonial Portrait Exercise (short writing follows) Part III: The Big Picture: Pulling It

Together Day 6: excerpts from Gordon Wood’s

Radicalism of the American Revolution

Day 7: Wood Day 8: Wood Days 6-8 are student-facilitated Day 9: Stuart, “George Washington

(Lansdowne)” Day 10: excerpt from C. Sedgwick’s The

Linwoods (1835 take on the ideal Republican virtues of 1770s-80s)

Day 11: Murray, “On Equality of the Sexes.” Reflection & Brainstorm

Days 12-14: devoted to writing process

Activities & Assessments   Pre-Unit preparation:

American Revolution Scavenger Hunt   Colonial Portrait Exercise (small group)

using portraits by Copley, Stuart, Savage, CW Peale & Johnston.

  Student-Facilitated Discussion of Gordon Wood (new: a visual image component)

  Maybe: Visually-based historical timeline/narrative (1760-1805)

  Critical Essay: 3-4 pages using written and visual texts (student-created topics)

John Singleton Copley Paul Revere 1768 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Components of a portrait: what do you see?

Paul Revere, The teapot in the painting (?), William Paine Collection, Worcester Art Museum Photo by Laura Rochette

Customs House, Salem, MA 1819; National Park Service Photo

Architectural features: what do you see?

Customs House Details: door with fan window portico column capital

Photos: Laura Rochette

The Derby House, Salem, MA 1762

Early Federal style house, Salem

photos by Laura Rochette

• What differences between the two houses do you see? • What do the styles suggest about the lives lived here?

Federal style, Gardner-Pingree House, Salem, MA 1804; Architect: Samuel McIntire

Photo from the back

Photos by Laura Rochette

Federal style, portico & fan window detail

Photo by Laura Rochette

• What ideals are suggested by these architectural designs and details?

John Singleton Copley Nicholas Boylston 1767 Harvard U. Portrait Collection

• Form and Content • How are the ideals reflected in the architecture carried out here?

John Singleton Copley Rebecca Boylston 1767 MFA, Boston

John Singleton Copley Mrs. Moses Gill (Rebecca Boylston) 1773 Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design

John Singleton Copley Mrs. Thomas Boylston (Sarah Morecock) 1766

Harvard U. Portrait Collection

John Singleton Copley Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Mifflin, 1773

Historical Society of Pennsylvania Philadelphia

• Compare with the Boylston portraits—what do the details here suggest? What kind of biography can you “write” of the Mifflins? • What do the subjects want us to see?

John Singleton Copley Mrs. John Stevens (Judith Sargent Murray) 1770-72 (private collection)

• Judith is about 20 years old in this portrait and recently married—what details does Copley include that suggest “young bride” ?

John Singleton Copley Mrs. James Warren (Mercy Otis) 1763 Museum of Fine Arts Boston

• Mercy 36 years old at time of this portrait—

• What is the iconography of femininity?

Justus Englehardt Kuhn Henry Darnall III 1710 Maryland Historical Society

• Observations?

Raphaelle Peale Absalom Jones 1810 Delaware Art Museum

100 years later--

• What do you notice? • Who do you think this person is? • What issues do you think this artist might have faced painting this man?

Joshua Johnston, The Westwood Children 1807, National Gallery of Art, Wash. D.C.

Johnston considered to be the first African American painter in America. From Baltimore, MD.

• Describe Johnston’s style. Compare to Copley’s.

• What issues might this artist have faced painting these children?

Gilbert Stuart George Washington (Lansdowne Portrait) 1796

National Portrait Gallery Smithsonian, Washington D.C.

• How do you paint the first President?

What do the painting’s details suggest about the new Presidency? (look at objects, including Décor, attire, and background)

• How does Gordon Wood’s idea of The Republic appear here?

The following portraits are for the Colonial Portrait Exercise

Mirror, pine with gold leaf. 1810-25. Worcester Art Museum

Ralph Earl Oliver and Abigail Wolcott Ellsworth 1792

Wadsworth Athenaeum, Hartford, CT

John Singleton Copley Portrait of a Lady, 1771 (Ann Johnston?) Los Angeles County Museum of Art

John Singleton Copley Mrs. Thomas Gage (Margaret Kemble) 1771

Gilbert Stuart Portrait of a Young Woman 1802-04

Indianapolis Museum of Art

Edward Savage, Washington Family (with William Lee), 1798, National Gallery of Art

Charles Willson Peale Yarrow Mamout 1819

Historical Society of Pennsylvania Philadelphia

Joshua Johnston Leticia Grace McCurdy 1800-02

Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco

Portrait of a Gentleman, 1805-10 Portrait of a Man, 1805-10 (possibly Daniel and Abner Coker) American Museum in Britain, Bath Bowdoin College Museum of Art Brunswick, ME

Joshua Johnston

New Additions to other parts of the curriculum

  Catlin, Ledger Art Land, West, and American Indians

  Shaw Memorial, Homer’s Veteran in a New Field, Gardner’s photograph of Lincoln Civil War

  Edmonia Lewis F. Douglass’s Narrative   Sublime, Beautiful, Picturesque, Landscapes

& nature studies by Cole and Durand Land

  Paintings by Trumbull, Leutze Visions of America

Bibliography & Resources   De Pauw Grant, Linda. Founding Mothers, Women of America in the

Revolutionary Era. NY: Houghton Mifflin, 1975.   Harris, Sharon M. Selected Writings of Judith Sargent Murray. NY: Oxford U.

Press, 1995.   Mansilla Boix, Victoria et al. “On Disciplinary Lenses and Interdisciplinary

Work.” Wineburg, Sam and Grossman, Pam, eds. Interdiscplinary Curriculum: Challenges to Implementation. NY: Teachers College Press, 2000. pp.17-38.

  Murray, Judith Sargent. Judith Sargent Murray: Her First 100 Letters. Gloucester, MA: The Sargent House Museum, 1995.

  Rebora, Carrie, et al. John Singleton Copley in America. NY: Met Museum of Art, 1995.

  Sedgwick, Catharine Maria. The Linwoods, Or, “Sixty Years Since in America.” Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 2002.

  Shaw DuBois, Gwendolyn. Portraits of a People: Picturing African Americans in the Nineteenth Century. Seattle: U. of Washington Press, 2006.

  Zinn, Howard and Arnove, Anthony, eds. Voices of a People’s History of the United States. Seven Stories Press, 2004.