The Shaw Memorial - PowerPoint Presentation

Slide1

The Shaw Memorial

An Example of Artistic Meanings in Multiple Genres, Across Time, Around an Event of SignificanceSlide2
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Augustus Saint-Gaudens, The Shaw Memorial, 1884-98Slide4

Augustus Saint-Gaudens (1848-1907)

• Saint-Gaudens born in Dublin, Ireland, to mixed Irish/French parentage

Moved to US with parents while still an infant

One of America

’

s best-known public sculptors in the 19th centuryCommissioned for Shaw Memorial in 1884, unveiling in Boston 1898Slide5

Precursors and BackgroundSlide6

Robert Gould Shaw

Born to a prominent Abolitionist family in 1837.

Did not share beliefs of abolition.

Studied at the University of Harvard from 1856-1859

After 1859 Shaw dropped out, because he was unsure of what he wanted to do with his life.

At the beginning of the American Civil War in 1861 he enlisted in the 7th New York Infantry.Served for 30 days in defense of Washington D.C.. Regiment was abolished after the 30 days. On May of 1861 Shaw became a second lieutenant in the 2nd Massachusetts Infantry, in which he served 2 years, and later attained rank of Captain. In March of 1863 Shaw was appointed to raise and command the 54th

regiment.

The first regiment of African American troops in the Union Army.

Civil War Trust." Robert Gould Shaw. Civilwar.com, n.d. Web. 13 Nov. 2012. <http://www.civilwar.org/education/history/biographies/robert-gould-shaw.html>.

Slide by: Bert StewartSlide7

Massachusetts 54

th

Regiment – African-American Union Civil War Regiment – led by white officers,

most notably Robert Gould Shaw (1837-1863)

54

th organized in 1863, idea proposed and discussed by Union leaders, Abolitionists, and prominent African-Americans, including Frederick Douglass

In training February-May 1863

In parade in Boston – May 1863 (Douglass and John Greenleaf Whittier present)

To battlefield along SC & GA coast – June 1863

Assault on Fort Wagner – July 16, 1863 (Harriet Tubman & Clare Barton present)Slide8

Assault on Ft. Wagner, 1863

Colonel Shaw and many of his men killed

Confederate soldiers buried Shaw and Black soldiers in a common grave, considering this an insult to ShawSlide9

William Carney

Member of Massachusetts 54th

First African-American to receive the Medal of Honor

Noted for rescuing the flag when Col. Shaw fell at Ft. WagnerSlide10

Statistics of the Assault on Fort Wagner

272 of the 600 were killed , captured, or wounded

Of those:

116 were killed

15 captured149 were wounded52 men were reported missing in action

Lauren RhodesSlide11

Poets Inspired by the Events

James Russell Lowell

William Vaughn Moody

John Berryman

Thomas Bailey Aldrich

Paul Laurence DunbarRalph Waldo EmersonHenry Wadsworth LongfellowRobert Lowell

So nigh is grandeur to our dust,

So near is God to man,

When Duty whispers low,

Thou must,

The youth replies,

I can.

Emerson - from

Voluntaries

Paul Laurence DunbarSlide12

Glory, 1989 Movie

Starring Matthew Broderick, Denzel Washington, Cary Elwes, Morgan FreemanSlide13

Three Places in New England

Charles Ives (

1874-1954

)

(1914, revised 1929,

premiered 1931)First Movement ‘The St. Gaudens in Boston Common (Col. Shaw and his Colored Regiment)’Slide14

Charles Ives

Three Places in New England

Dedicatory Poem

Moving, - Marching - Faces of Souls!

Marked with generations of pain,

Part-freers of a Destiny,

Slowly, restlessly - swaying us on with you

Towards other Freedom!

The man on horseback, carved from

A native quarry of the world Liberty

And from what your country was made.

You images of a Divine Law

Carved in the shadow of a saddened heart -

Never light abandoned -

Of an age and of a nation.

Above and beyond that compelling mass

Rises the drum-beat of the common-heart

In the silence of a strange and

Sounding afterglow

Moving - Marching - Faces of Souls!Slide15

“

Robert Gould Shaw

”

(1900) by Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872-1906)

Why was it that the thunder voice of Fate

Should call thee, studious, from the classical groves, Where calm-eyed Pallas with still footstep roves,And charge thee seek the turmoil of the state?What bade thee hear the voice and rise elate, Leave home and kindred and thy spicy loaves,

To lead th

’

unfettered and despised droves

To manhood

’

s home thunder at the gate?Slide16

“

Robert Gould Shaw

”

(1900) by Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872-1906)

Far better the slow blaze of Learning

’s light The cool and quiet of her dearer fane,Than this hot terror of a hopeless fight This cold endurance of the final pain—Since thou and those who died for right

Have died, the Present teaches, but in vain!Slide17

Longfellow’

s Observation of the 54th in Boston, 1863

“

Saw the first regiment of blacks march through Beacon Street. An imposing sight, with something wild and strange about it, like a dream. At last the North consents to let the Negro fight for freedom.

”Slide18

Position of Colonel Shaw

Legs of Soldiers and HorsesSlide19

Vietnam Veteran’s MemorialSlide20

Vietnam Veteran’s MemorialSlide21

 Founded by Jan Scruggs 

On July 1, 1980, in the Rose Garden, President Jimmy Carter signed the legislation (P.L. 96-297) to provide a site in Constitution Gardens near the Lincoln Memorial

FreyaSlide22

Vietnam Veteran

’

s Memorial: Maya Lin

Lin won a public design competition for the Vietnam Memorial in 1981 (21 years old)

Unconventional design– Memorial is deep in the Earth to symbolize the gravity of loss of the soldiers

Controversy because Lin was of Asian Decent (Chinese-American)

Lin is now a prestigious architectural designer – won the National Medal of Arts in 2009

DanielleSlide23

Official name of the Memorial is the Vietnam Veterans Memorial

Also known as VVM or

“

The Wall

”

Not a war Memorial but a Memorial to

those who served in

the war, both living

and dead

The names were NOT carved by hand, but by a computerized typesetting process developed by Larry Century, specifically for the Memorial, in Memphis, Tennessee

Freya