Painting the Past: History, Memory, and Community in Modern Ohio

Abstract

Painting the PastHistory, Memory, and Community in Modern Ohio Stuart D. Hobbs (bio) introduction On August 22, 2017, in Columbus, Ohio, unidentified individuals decapitated a bronze statue of a Confederate soldier who stood in Camp Chase Confederate Cemetery on the west side of the city. A few days earlier, in Franklin, Ohio, southeast of Dayton, a boulder bearing a plaque honoring General Robert E. Lee disappeared from its site on the side of the Dixie Highway. The city manager claimed the monument was in the highway right-of-way and that was why public works employees removed it during the night of August 16. Township trustee Traci Stivers reported that "our residents overwhelmingly let us know they wanted it back up." In June 2018, the rock and plaque again went on public display at a site elsewhere in the county on land owned by a fraternal order.1 Ohio, of course, is known for its strong support for the Union during the Civil War, and, despite the strength of Copperheads, Union monuments are much more prominent. Both incidents took place in the days and weeks following violent clashes in Charlottesville, Virginia, between white supremacists and supporters of pluralist democracy. The removal of a statue of Lee sparked the protest and counterprotest that resulted in one death. The event was just the most tragic in a series of controversies across the South and the [End Page 47] nation, as citizens grappled with the legacy of commemorative art honoring Confederate leaders.2 Not all public art of the past is presently controversial. But as historian Dell Upton reminds us, "all monuments have a message." Public art and monuments are directed to an audience the creators believed needed a certain message. The Civil War monuments up for discussion (or removal) today were almost all erected in the years from 1880 to the 1930s, a time Upton characterized as a major period for commemoration in the United States. These were years of "national ascent" but also "years of uncertainty, of economic instability and social disorder." Thus, Upton concludes, "Although these monuments appear to be the confident gestures of a newly powerful nation, they are better understood as reassertions of values that monument builders believed needed reinforcement amid turmoil." Particularly in government buildings such as state capitols and courthouses, history murals from the time depicted highlights from the history of the state or created an allegorical scene that interpreted the meaning of the state's history. These paintings presented a narrative of the past that functioned as a public, collective memory. That narrative typically told a heroic story that defined the significance of the past of the state or city and implicitly placed the viewer of that story in the position of carrying on the heroic tradition. Whether allegorical or realistic in their portrayals, these paintings usually depicted an idealized past. Indeed, sometimes the seemingly realistic images, because they were so vivid, were more effective than allegory in idealizing the past.3 Thus, public historical art asks us to remember, but remember in a certain way. Because of this, Upton continues, "monuments always say more about the people, times and places of their creation than they do about the people, [End Page 48] times and places they honor." As time passes, the audience changes, and so does the message. Sometimes the result is controversy; sometimes incomprehension. Sometimes communities are just left with a quaint remnant from the past. In all cases, if looked at closely, public commemorative art provides us a window on the past and the values that animated at least some of those who lived there. For while the creators of public art invariably "claim to speak for everyone," this claim is, Upton says, the "fundamental, necessary fiction of monuments." As the controversy over Confederate monuments illustrates, with the passage of time, that fiction can become impossible to sustain. In the pluralist and contentious public culture that exists in the contemporary United States and Ohio, those who feel left out of current or past dialogues no longer accept that others can speak for them. They have voices, and they have agency. These facts create a difficult context for the creation of works...