During our summer institute, we will be using material culture--objects, manuscripts, furniture, textiles, tools and archaeological artifacts--as part of our "tool kit" for probing the topic of Everyday Life in Early America.
On this Independence Day, enjoy the attached link to the Smithsonian Institute National Museum of American History's Star Spangled Banner project and reflect on the importance of the flag as an icon, imbued with layered meaning for the past, present and future.
See you next week.
Cheers,
Kimberly
http://americanhistory.si.edu/starspangledbanner/
Speaking as one who works at a museum, I constantly am finding myself questioning my existence. When I look at an artifact, I think about how little my imprint is on the world. When studying history, we only seem to think about those who had a large role in it. I wonder, in a hundred years or so, if anyone who will think about me.
ReplyDeleteWhen I look at the flag, everything changes. When I look at the American flag, I think about all those who came before, all those who are here now, and all those who are yet to be. An artifact, or "tools" as they were put, only allow us to view the past, but a strong piece of symbolism, like the flag, allow us to look at the big picture. We can spend tens of years at a museum, and we will never see the same things that something as simple as the American flag has to offer.
Great reflection.
ReplyDeleteYou remind of a summer when I taught a course on 20th Century US History at Tufts University. In the last few weeks, when we hit the 1960s and after, I experienced a powerful sense of deja vu as I planned and taught these topics, and history merged with my own autobiography. It transformed what I taught and how I experienced the course. As you describe, it changed how I saw the past.
What a great website! I could spend the rest of the day there easily.
ReplyDeleteI remember the 60s so well, when I learned that other countries don't have the same reverence for their flags - in England, for example, it's OK to use the flag for a bedspread! On the other hand, it seemed strange that Americans were being arrested for burning the flag or displaying it upside down, when the flag code specifies that buring is the proper way to dispose of a flag, and the internationally-understood signal for distress is the upside-down flag - and some of us in those times felt our country was in distress!
Still, even in those times - when I refused to recite the Pledge of Allegiance because I believed it was hypocritical, I would choke up as the flag went by in parades, or when I heard that so-unsingable national anthem.
I realized during the anti-war protests just before we bombed Baghdad that somehow, to those who were protesting, the flag had become a symbol of what we were against - U.S. Imperialism, etc. It's intersting that we who tend left of center use terms like "flag-waving" or "wrapped in the flag" as pejoratives. And yet, the flag stands for all of us...and as my sons, both veterans say, they fought under that flag, to defend the rights of dissenters as well as patriots.
So this Fourth of July, I'm thihnking about how it's my flag too, and it stands for my right to disagree with my government.
Thank you for sharing your very thoughtful comments and offering an equally important line of inquiry for all to contemplate, Grammie Poet.
ReplyDeleteI've been reading Bolster's 'Black Jacks' and can't put it down. It's an amazing story and challenges many of my ideas about the seafaring life and the lives of both slaves and free blacks.
ReplyDeleteIn keeping with this theme, I've been listening a couple of sea chantey CDs I have including "Thou Gentle Mariner" which I got at Strawbery Banke a couple of years ago. One of the songs is "America Commerce and Freedom." I've tried to track its origin but so far, no luck.
It seems to me that commerce played as great a role as "liberty" or "freedom" in the founding of this nation. Even a slave engaged in seafaring could engage in his own commerce; for some this became a route to freedom. Adam Smith cites the early American family farm as the basis of American commerce.
I've always understood that to the early Puritans prosperity was the sign of God's favor. However, I've thought of that as the result of individual efforts. Commerce is a far more complex system, involving trading of goods and labor and includes possibilities of exploitation as well as potential for the great wealth which built the infrastructure of the U.S.
We sometimes speak of money as "filthy lucre" and in various ways there seems to be an old theme of money - and the making of money - as not quite "nice." It was considered crass to discuss money or the making of it. Since making money was so essential to the founding of this nation, I wonder if some of the patriotic fervor and created symbols were way of masking this crass origin?
The American Flag is something that means a great deal to me and my family. When I see the flag, recite the pledge of allegiance, or sing, "The Star Spangled Banner," I am overcome with pride in my nation and its history. I remember my family's history and the stories of hard times and perseverance due to the American Dream. I remember the basis of our government is theoretically based on an idea that people can rule themselves peacefully and justly without the need for a monarch. I remember those who have sacrificed their lives to protect the American way of life and those who have been permanently changed because of their experiences defending their neighbors. The 4th of July as well as Veteran's and Memorial Day make me really look at the symbol of our nation and all the stages of our history it represents over the course of time.
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