“Sunrise in His Pocket: The Life, Legend, and Legacy of Davy Crockett.”

Abstract

Temporary exhibition, March 2-Aug. 18, 2002. 7,000 sq. ft. Paul A. Hutton, guest curator; Drew Patterson, graphic designer. Internet: Web site in conjunction with the History Channel. Webcast and video feed from event, sections for students and teachers (timeline of Crockett's life, student reading, images from exhibition and elsewhere), and video clips <www.historychannel.com/classroom/davycrockett> (Dec. 2, 2002). As this tantalizing exhibition made clear, people have always been fascinated by David Crockett. That fascination built up during his lifetime, but the levels of curiosity and attention have continued since his controversial death at the battle of the Alamo in 1836. For more than a century thereafter, stage plays, pictures, books, cigars, ships' names, school tablets, and other products kept Crockett before the American people. With the coming of the television age in the 1950s, Crockett's image swept the world. Led by Professor Paul A. Hutton of the University of New Mexico, collectors and historians from sixteen states contributed items to the exhibit. It successfully connected Crockett to other extraordinary Americans, including William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody, Annie Oakley, Gen. George A. Custer, and Theodore Roosevelt. The exhibit also related the public's expectations of and continuing need for frontier heroes through its inventive displays of a marvelous array of artifacts, including paintings, pictures, posters, books, magazines, clothes, firearms, furniture, dishes, toys, and videos. Personal artifacts worn or carried by those frontier figures and a variety of other items connected with them demonstrated the public's fascination with “frontier,” as personified by those remarkable characters. They all became larger than life. Tall tales, stage plays, books, and, by Buffalo Bill's heyday, fairs or big outdoor performances enhanced their reputations and fueled more publicity, more legends, and more money. In every case, the figures also developed their personas by brandishing weapons, involving themselves in violence, or promoting ethnocentricity, but the exhibit did not dwell on contentions about American expansionism or imperialism, racial suppression, or the violence of American society. Instead, the focus fell on heroic figures in popular culture.