Introduction
In the nineteenth century, America was arranging itself into socially acceptable categories by those who were in charge. These layers and classes of people created divisions in society and how people should interact. Social norms and roles were created and interactions came down to two things: race and sex. From as simple as women in genre scenes to slavery and the treatment of American Indians, this dissection of people has repeatedly been maintained and challenged by those surrounding both ends of it.
American Genre Painting: The Politics of Everyday Life
Elizabeth Johns was an author who wrote the book American Genre Painting: The Politics of Everyday Life. In her book, she presents her interpretation of the genre paintings which were completed at this time and how they were influenced by society (Johns). Specifically, we are looking at the divisions created between women and men. Before the 1830s, genre paintings were mostly absent of women, and if the women were present, then they were separated from the men and their doings, separating the genders by their distinctive social norms (Johns). There were ideologies in place for female virtues (Johns). The women were seen as the moral center of the nation with special gifts and responsibilities, and the women were properly domestic (Johns). The women were always centered around the home. Many American male genre painters at the time made domestic images that looked at men’s relationship with women, like through the acts of courtship and childbirth (Johns). Few artists were willing to challenge these views except for a handful like Lilly Martin Spencer. Her images reassured women of their value and beauty, she didn’t paint anything that was about the men rather than the women like courtship, and she even depicted women and children as sexual innuendos, another jab at men (Johns). Though, Spencer had to paint within the prescriptions for her interests and activities that were appropriate to her role as a woman (Johns). She still experienced great frustration as her experience and gender were always being held against her by viewers and critics. Even when trying to challenge the norms that were placed on genre paintings, the divisions were always made clear to Spencer. The way that Lilly Martin Spencer challenged these views and norms that were placed on women and even as women artists in the mid-1800s can be seen in her most famous painting called Shake Hands?. This 1854, oil on canvas painting depicts a young woman who is standing at a table in her kitchen cooking. She is wearing a dress that is full of colors like red, yellow, and blue with a white apron over it. Her hair is black and her cheeks are extremely rosy. If it weren’t for her bright smile, we might think that she was embarrassed because her cheeks are so rosy, but her expression tells us otherwise. On the table lies the contents to which she is cooking with like the large gray bucket, a full chicken, and even a bucket of apples. The focus of this scene is the gesture that the woman is waiting for us to accept, a handshake. Her right arm lies on her left, the right hand is outstretched and waiting for us to accept it. This was a very bold move by Spencer because reaching out to shake hands was the ritual of male equality, something that women never ever did at this time (Johns). Using the social roles of women, she depicts the woman in the kitchen cooking where she was to be found daily in order to make a point about exclusion.
Behind the Scenes
Elizabeth Keckley’s Behind the Scenes is an autobiographical novel that brings the reader through her life in slavery to her freedom. How greater of a division to talk about than slavery, for it allowed people to buy and trade human beings. Keckley, who was born into slavery, was a resilient, proud, strong, rebellious, and hardworking woman who worked to obtain her freedom the right way (Keckley). Through her many struggles of being beaten for no reason, watching her parents be ripped apart, learning from a letter that her dad would never return, being sexually assaulted, having an unwanted baby, and so many more instances the private life of slavery and the happenings that they tried to keep hidden are now brought to the public eye (Keckley). We, the reader, are given a piece by piece real story of the cruelties and injustice behavior that was given to the people in slavery. We are also able to hear of the great struggles that had to be experienced in order to purchase freedom, and of the many challenges that continued afterward just because of the color of her skin and her gender. Keckley was one of the lucky ones that was respected for her work as a dressmaker and was truly praised and appreciated which was something that very few African Americans at this time received. This respect challenged and even crossed the norms of racism at the time. She was looked at like someone of much importance, high class, and royalty and was even able to sew her way into working in the White House (Keckley).
Eel Spearing at Setauket
Also portraying respect to African Americans which challenged norms of racism at the time was William Sidney Mount in his 1845, oil on canvas painting titled Eel Spearing at Setauket. Although he was an anti-abolitionist, this painting is among few that have sympathy and compassion that no one else reached. Mount was very complicated and things during this time were very complex. The painting depicts a scene of the act of eel spearing. The scene is full of gold like it is heavenly. The African American woman that is at the head of the boat is standing tall and strong, a monumental and heroic figure. She serves many roles here, as a guide, as a capable and worthy person, and even as a caretaker with the depiction of the little boy in the back of the boat who watches her teaching intently. This is one of his few images of females as well, but the public didn’t take this piece well at all. It challenges the social norm of what to think of this group of people, even if they are humans just like the rest of us. Like this image, they should be viewed as heroic individuals because of what they have had to go through.
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee
Dee Brown’s Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee is a documented account of the system that hosted the destruction of American Indians during the end of the nineteenth century. When the English had first come over, specifically in Plymouth, the American Indians taught them how to live on the land, and they lived in peace until the English outgrow their land and wanted more of it (Brown). The American Indians thought that the land came from the “ Great Spirit” and that it belonged to no man, and “ to the Indians, it seemed that these Europeans hated everything in nature” (Brown). Andrew Jackson only kept adding to the broken promises that kept being pushed onto the American Indians as he believed that they could no longer live in peace together (Brown). And with this, Brown states that the “[Indian’s] bones were forgotten in a thousand burned villages or lost in forests fast disappearing before the axes of twenty million invaders” (Brown). They were nothing more than an obstacle that these invaders had to get through in order to be even more powerful and to own everything. They justified this expansion through the United States by inventing the Manifest Destiny. The Europeans believed that they were ordered by destiny to have all of America (Brown). The Indians, specifically the Navajos, were always trying to keep the peace and to keep the word of the whites, the promises, but it was never good enough and the Americans were always wanting more. Although the American Indians always tried to challenge these developing and spreading social norms, they were always stuck with surrendering in the end because they weren’t powerful enough.
The Vanishing Road
Edward Curtis’s 1906, platinum and gold print The Vanishing Race depicts Native Americans on horseback riding through almost a dirt path. The photograph is taken from behind them and there is approximately five Native Americans seen within the print. With numbers dwindling, this piece finally offers sympathy to the Native Americans. Sympathy that had never really been given to them before when Americans saw them as a challenge and threat to the owning of the land. Curtis was drawn to these noble people and his piece is full of the expression of his emotions to these individuals. The image is blurry, it is in soft focus, and we cannot see any of their faces. There is also a wide range of values depicted here. Curtis here alludes now to the sympathy and compassion that the country was starting to feel as the five pictured here ride off into the distance on horseback. This view on the Indians was something that hadn’t been seen very much before and was finally going against the norms of how they were viewed. If only the whites had seen this side of the coin before they destroyed this race and land that was rightfully theirs.
Conclusion
In conclusion, nineteenth century America produced a divided nation, one that was full of those who wanted to keep and maintain these societal divisions, and those who wanted to challenge and change it. In the end, it has always come down to power and who has it. These norms that were created and influenced interactions still affect society today. Sex and race are just two of the many separations that have been integrated into our society.
