No Future Posts…

I have decided to post no more on the topic of visual culture.  I started the blog as part of a research project and it has served its purpose.  Enjoy the material already posted and feel free to comment.  I will still receive emails and I do not intend to completely close the blog yet.

Harper’s Weekly in 2011: Images of War and the Sesquicentennial

Well, I tried to get this post up last night but severe weather prevented me from accessing the internet.  The purpose of the “Harper’s Weekly in 2011: Images of War and the Sesquicentennial” is to look at the changes (if there are any) in the kinds of engravings published in the weekly as the war progressed.  The May 25th weekly is amazing, not just because it contained 20 engravings related to the topic of the war, but because the engravings (with their brief but descriptive titles) were a narrative within themselves.

In my last blog post, I commented on the sharp change of tone in Harper’s Weekly.  The increase in engravings continued and in the May 25^th edition twenty-one images were included in the paper. All but one functioned as a visual record of Northern wartime preparations.   Harper’s had entered the war with a bang (no pun intended) in the May 4^th edition, an act that did not go unnoticed by Southern readers who wrote the editor making harsh accusations and even threats against the paper’s owners.  Southern readers were riled over Harper’s assertion that a war between a free North and a slave South would ultimately turn into a war of emancipation.   Harper’s response was again sharp and very clear regarding the peculiar institution.

“It is better that they [the South] should understand the case clearly from the start. The United States, as a nation, have no concern with slavery. But from the hour that rebels shed the blood of citizens of the United States, war will be waged upon them by the most crushing and overwhelming methods; and among those methods the liberation of slaves will naturally occur.”  

The scathing response concluded by informing Southern subscribers Harper’s would not change its position and did not expect to be harmed by a loss of subscribers.  In short, readers who did not like Harper’s war stance could take a hike.  The editorial statement was followed with a publication that contained twenty engravings which told the story of Northern war preparations.  I am posting a few examples below to highlight Harper’s intentions of providing a visual record that would inform their readers about war preparations and activities happening throughout the Union.

In short, during the week of May 25, 1861 American citizens who subscribed to Harper’s Weekly understood the pictorial message loud and clear.  America was going to war, preparations and activities were happening all over the country, and Harper’s Weekly was ready to pictorially narrate the unfolding events as they occurred.

Harper’s Weekly in 2011: Images of War and the Sesquicentennial

Bombardment of Fort Sumter

Because it is now the sesquicentennial of Harper’s Weekly May 4, 1861 edition, I decided I would highlight the May 4, 1861 engraving (featured in my September 2010 post) again and focus on how Harper’s sought to increase subscribers by underscoring the copious use of engravings, as well as their plan to increase the number of future engravings published. Harper’s readers were accustomed to the portrait type engravings that featured important people and the special engravings drawn by field artists present at newsworthy events.  What is different about the May 4, 1861 weekly is Harper’s decision to publish the spectacular image on the front page along with an important announcement printed in front of the news report.  Harper’s informed readers of a price increase of 1 cent and explained the increase was necessary to cover the costs of printing Harper’s on a better quality paper with many more illustrations than previously included. Harper’s promised the changes were going the make the weekly “the best illustrated newspaper in the world.”

The tone and content in the May 4, 1861 weekly was considerably different than the previous few weeks and reflected a change in the expectations and viewpoints of northern readers.  Harper’s adopted a strong pro-Federal government tone and outlined a military plan the editors believed would end the war by January of 1862.  The 16 page weekly included 13 war-related engravings and a handful of other engravings.  When they published the May 4, 1861 weekly, Harper’s made it clear to readers that accurate illustrations were a top priority and citizens could count on the news artists to provide them with a visual account of events happening on the battle-front.  See the September 2010 post for a diary entry from Mary Boykin Chesnut that corresponds flawlessly with the engraving published in the May 4, 1861 edition of Harper’s.

Goodbye Tilghman Collyer

Well, the semester is over and my biography on Tilghman Collyer is complete.  Overall, I had a great (although tiring!) experience. I was engrossed with the project and completely distracted from my visual culture interests.  Partly because I never found an image of Tilghman, and partly because it is simply too difficult to work, attend college full-time, and raise 3 children! I managed to read David Blight’s Race and Reunion, as well as Drew Gilpin Faust’s This Republic of Suffering. Both works are now amongst my top favorites. I am getting ready to change the look of the blog and hope to learn more about blogging during the summer session.  For the first time in two years, I am entering a semester with no research project.  I must admit I am relieved.  For the summer and fall, I want to focus on the illustrations featured in the weekly editions of Harper’s Weekly. 

More Gun Pictures, I Need Help…

Well, I am having no luck identifying the gun.  I am posting some pictures of the signature of what I believe to be the gun maker.  They are more clear than the last pictures so I hope they will help.  I realize this post is off topic from the blog, but I have virtually no knowledge of Civil War weaponry and I am hoping the traffic here will help my current research dilemma! The man who owned the pictured gun was a member of the 99th Indiana Infantry 1862-1865.  His regiment left home with some of their own guns but were issued Enfield rifles at Louisville.  He was from Hancock county.  Someone on a forum suggested the gun was a personal hunting rifle made a short time after the Civil War?

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My Non-Visual Event

I have spent hours sorting through documents and records related to Tilghman Collyer.  Several discoveries, including several handwritten notes from Tilghman, will add a level of personality to the biography that I did not expect to achieve.  Although the discoveries excite me, I find myself increasingly disappointed because no images of Tilghman are within my grasp.  The written information is not enough.  I have his will, his pension records, his regiment’s history, and various other kinds of information about his family but the ultimate find will be his image.  To see his face, and even his clothing, will move me beyond the confines of textual evidence, and by no means am I underscoring the critical importance of the written evidence, into the realm of visual culture that brings about a more compelling contest for meaning and interpretation.  To see Tilghman standing before the lens of a camera will help decrease the 150 year spatial gap hindering my present research.  With so much textual evidence about Tilghman and his life, I have questioned my need for a picture.  An obvious reason is that I live in a culture dominated by images and my own understandings are so heavily shaped by the visual that visual evidence seems absolutely essential.  Not just for evidence, but for my own sense of thoroughness and satisfaction at the end of a research journey.  A not so obvious reason is the realization that writing a biography brings a desire to know your subject intimately.  An image combined with textual evidence brings a level of “knowing” that is otherwise unattainable.

I am headed to Hancock County at the end of the week.  I hope to uncover more evidence about Tilghman and his wife, Martha Hawk.  More than that, I hope to find a source that will lead me to an image of Tilghman.    Visual Culture Theorist and Professor Nicholas Mirzoeff refers to encounters with the visual as visual events.  I hope I will have a “visual event” at some point in my research.  Because at the moment, the empty picture frame staring back at me is beginning to drive me a bit crazy.

Research Update

It has been a month since my last post.  The semester started in a whirlwind and shows no sign of letting up.  However, I have made tremendous progress researching the life of Tilghman Collyer.  I received his pension records from Washington D.C. and was surprised that there are more than 200 pages on record.  I have spent some time with Rosella sorting through pictures and reading family journals.  Much to my dismay we have not discovered a picture of Tilghman.  As a student of visual culture, a picture of Tilghman would be the ultimate find but it appears I will have to be satisfied with a written record.  The pension records are absolutely fascinating and reveal that Tilghman suffered injury and illness during his wartime enlistment.  It will take countless hours to sort through the record and compare them with the regimental history for the purpose of compiling a timeline of medical events in Tilghman’s life.   I submitted my prospectus and annotated bibliography last week.  I am excited to draw from the work of historians David Blight, Drew Gilpin-Faust, Eric Dean, and Thomas Brown to name a few.  The nature of the biography will cause my focus to veer away from visual culture (disappointing), but I am venturing into the realm of memory and the Civil War which is an exciting and new arena for me.

Thus far, my research experience this semester has been very profitable.  I have visited the Indiana State Archives, the Indiana State Historical Society, and the Indiana State Library.  In addition, I submitted my first order for records from Washington D.C., spoke with (and learned much) from the Director of the Hancock County Historical Society, and contacted archivists at the Federal Depository in Chicago.  All of these experiences combined are giving me a sense of what it takes to do thorough research.  Mostly, I am getting a sincere appreciation for historians (and other authors) who publish.