Book notes series. He talks about james k. Polk that conducted the 1846 to 1848 war. Enjoy American History tv now and over the weekend on cspan 3. So were going to talk about the sides of the story. The tools and technique of slave owner power and the tools of techniques of power that were practiced by enslaved people. Watch history professors lead discussions with their students on topics from the American Revolution to september 11th. Lectures in history on cspan 3 every saturday on American History tv. And putting on the road great images that Norman Rockwell painted that really created a National Concept of the four freedoms that made visible, tangible and real the ideological concepts that president roosevelt expressed in the state of the Union Address in 1941. First is freedom of speech and expression. Everywhere in the world. The second is freedom of every person to worship god in his own way. Everywhere in the world. And translated in the world terms means economic understanding which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants everywhere in the world. Its freedom from fear which translated in the world terms means a worldwide reduction to such a point and in such a fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor anywhere in the world. What people forget today is that the concept of four freedoms did not take immediate hold on the national psyche. A few artists made images of freedoms. There was talk of freedoms but it didnt capture the imagination in anyway that people would be excited about until Norman Rockwell made understandable and tangible each of those freedoms and were arguably the most prominent and Public Images domestic images of world war ii and unified the nation. The exhibition begins with some early paintings giving a sense of what america was like prior to world war ii and then it goes straight into the war years with videos of fdrs speech and some reactions to it. We look at some of the early war images. Images that were about the common person joining the military and what military life was like. A more light hearted approach and then really the heart of the exhibition is rockwells wrestling with these concepts of trying to come up with imagery that would capture the ideals in a convincing manner. And then the spread across the united states. First through magazines and posters, the war bond drive and ultimately leading toward the end of world war ii and they organized some 40 artists work to be shown, work that was done contemporarily today to think about them and to show a different context of how we might think of them today. Well, lets begin our tour and id like to show you before we look at four freedoms, id like to show you some of the earliest images that rockwell made of world war ii. He conceived a character named Willie Gillies that was actually a 15yearold boy at the time. Too young to enlist but he created a series of images. Paintings for the saturday evening post that were a light hearted look at life in the military. One of his more famous ones is willie receiving the care package. And it became a light hearted symbol of the military together. Life on the base training and this kind of thing. It would have been a cover for the saturday evening post. Today sometimes the images change a little bit. I can show you in this one exactly what i mean but its important for us to know that they were images to be photographed and he was paid for the photograph of the image, the cover and they gave the painting back to him after he did it. So rockwell retained the picture and after they had been published later on, sometimes the image or paintings would have been given to others. And can introduce it in a meticulous manner. His reproductive skills were as good as a photograph sometimes, better. If you look back, you see the background gets murky and you look around and all of a sudden a great painter like this sprayed some paint on the sleeve of his image. Rockwell didnt do that. Somebody did it later when they painted the background and took out the lines from the saturday evening post. Theres other images of Willie Gillies. This one was never published. The young recruit. He was too young to enlist but posing for these pictures, the rabbits foot for good luck. So you know who he is, looking stary eyed as these citizens are eating, smoking, sitting around. This painting, just to the side of it here though is really one of the better Willie Gillies images. One of the more poignant ones. In a place oppenheim it and thinking about what is to come. The painting here was painted by rockwell late in 1944 and is an impassenger of people in small town america listening to news and getting their newspaper in the back. And the artist takes you through this group of people. Newspaper was to have on its cover a headline that says war plans for france. There was a potential invasion of france talked about prior to dday on the radio. The figures here are gathering the news, showing a concern of the people at home of the war abroad. This was actually not a cover and not submitted to the saturday evening post because rockwell considered it too subtle and too hard for people to understand and read. He made another picture about the radio elsewhere in the exhibition. This poster is the only image that rockwell painted of actual combat taking place. Rockwell was uncomfortable of the concept of painting war in action. He did this one showing the bullets being spent. It was a poster to rally the factory workers. The munitions plans to excite the people on the homefront to support the war effort. This was an image meant to show the bullets are needed and this fighting figure still with all the details of rockwell, the realistic imagery and all of this, very cleverly covers his face. Norman rockwells quest to paint the four freedoms actually began and failure. He made a series of sketches and came to washington, d. C. And presented them at the office of war information. The leadership at the time rejected the idea and sent him away without a commission to paint roosevelts four freedoms. On his trip home however, he stopped in philadelphia and met with editors of the saturday evening post, who embraced the idea and instructed rockwell to go home, not to work on other features, but to focus on the four freedoms. He was given three months, it took him seven to conceive and paint the pictures once he began. The First Painting that he worked on, the one that gave him the inspiration of the series was freedom of speech. As rockwell recalls in his biography, he woke up, he was struggling as rockwell always did, struggling to come up with the concept, the idea of how he would actually embody an abstract idea such as freedom of speech. He says he woke up one night and recalled a meeting in the town of arlington where he lived at the time, a town hall meeting and a debate that took place in arlington about whether or not to rebuild the school that had recently burned down, or whether the children would be bussed to the next district and taxes would be saved. He remembered an incident when his neighbor rose to oppose the idea of building the new school. What he remembered was the rest of the meeting listening respectfully, hearing the point of view and then, by the way, the gentleman lost of the vote, the town voted to enact the tax and to borrow 80,000 to build the new school house. Rockwell made a series of studies after. He started sketching and creating images. We have some of his sketches showing rockwell wrestling with the various ways he could articulate this image, this idea of freedom of speech and what he remembers. Over a series of images he came with the idea of essentially putting a blackboard in the background, a neutral background so that the speaker would stand tall amongst a group of people who are listening, holding the annual report of the town, the agenda of the meeting, the agenda here of the taxes. You see eyes working and ears emphasized because freedom of speech is about the obligation to listen. Rockwell created this image that showed everyone paying respect and proper attention. By the way, that is an image of Norman Rockwell in the far corner, also showing his ears and his eyes listening to the speech. Freedom of religion is probably the most difficult image that rockwell had to create. How often do people of different religions come together in a place of worship . So rockwell created a composition of humanity together. Of different faiths coming together all praying to a common god. Each according to the dictates of his own conscious. Freedom from want, rockwell painted during thanksgiving. There are two family members, his mother and his wife. The rest are neighbors and friends that rockwell posed to create an American Family celebrating thanksgiving. Its really a symphony of light and a masterwork of still life. Not the lavish dutch still life you would see. And the figures gathering here, much like the saints would be gathered in a renaissance painting on each side, and the centerpiece gathering you together with, i would suggest, kind of a divine light looking in through the windows and beautifully painted draperies that show white against white, against a white tablecloth, against clear glasses, showing a clean and unmessy table, showing americans coming together to celebrate thanksgiving in good cheer and family unity. A concept worth preserving, worth fighting for. Freedom from fear, we have a mother and a father tucking in the two children. The newspaper has bombings, horror, and references, probably the bombings of london, the london blitz of world war ii. If you look around the edges of this kind of scene of serenity and peace, you work around the edges and see the doll, a reference possibly to a body of war and the light in the back, to me, references the orange glow of the firebomb in the back. Its one of the more subtle images that shows the images of horror overseas, that references them, and shows the threat to the future generations. As i said before, the paintings of rockwell were not the images that americans saw. If you follow me, i can show you that americans would have come to learn about rockwells four freedoms through images in the saturday evening post. From february through april, one of rockwells images appeared on a full page spread of an essay by a writer of their interpretation of freedom of speech or freedom of worship. The saturday evening post circulated to millions of people. Americans would have seen these images, much like americans today might have seen images on a television, and would have talked about it in their community. Some of these essays are really quite poignant. The freedom of worship, one of the more difficult abstract pictures in the series, actually has a magnificent essay by the writer will durrant. I will just read a couple of different passages; man differs from animal, from the animal into things, he laughs and he prays. The mark of a man as he beats his head against the riddle of life, knows infinite weakness of body and mind, lift up his heart to a hidden presence and power, and find a beacon of heart rendering hope, a pillar of strength for his fragile decency. The essay is wonderful here. If our sons and brothers accomplish this by their toil and suffering, they can carry to all mankind the boon and stimulus of an ordered liberty. It will be an achievement the size of which those of alexander and napoleon will be a little thing. To that purpose, they are offering their youth and their blood. Regretting we cannot stand beside them, dedicate the remainder of our lives. Americans saw these, read about them, and in april 1943 there was a warm bomb drive. These images, having been rejected initially, became embraced by the federal war bond drive. The images were adopted as the symbols for the second bond drive. The concept was americans would invest, pay money for a bond that would mature in a number of years. It was 18 and in 10 years the bond would pay back 25. The idea was that they needed the nation to all come together quickly to raise the funds from munitions and to equip the nations soldiers appropriately. Hollywoods most famous movie stars leave the film capital to help the government sell war bonds. Irene dunn, ronald coleman, patty lamarr, all part of a contingent of 50s screen celebrities giving their talents to aid the national war effort. In the second war bond drive, the four freedoms were adopted as images of the bond drive. There was a Publicity Campaign that went to 17 different cities, starting in washington, d. C. Rockwell came to the Department Store in d. C. , and they showed off the posters. They printed in the millions duplicate sets of the four freedoms. A set of four smaller images that were given to you when you bought the bond. The large posters would have been sent around the country in post offices and schools and elsewhere to rally the nation to buy war bonds. The dissemination of this image in 1943, the spring of 1943, was pervasive. It was seen as the face of the war effort at that time. Norman rockwell was trained as an illustrator. He studied in the arts students leagues in new york. Learned the basics of painting and drawing the human body. And mastered his craft essentially with the skill of being able to recreate in drawings or in paintings as accurately and realistically as a camera might. Although rockwell said in his autobiography that he sometimes looked at the world as a little too messy and not quite as ideal as he would like it to be, therefore he made it more ideal in his paintings. He became extraordinarily well known through his art, first working for the boy scouts, then working for magazines. The great one being the saturday evening post. As an artist who appeared on the cover of the post, millions of people would see his art, far more than an artist who was making paintings for a wealthy patron or for a museum. He was a very popular artist and chronicled American Life from really the teens through the 20s, 30s, the 40s, up until the early 1970s. Where this exhibition begins is in the 19 early 1930s. There is an image from a saturday evening post cover of returning home from vacation. This is a year after the stock market crashed. Times were bad, it was a market downturn. Rockwell could look at life in a lighthearted way. This is the vacation from which you need a vacation. The family has returned home exhausted. The hastily packed suitcase, the camera, shoes untied, worn out with signs about a wonderful vacation. Its something Many Americans could relate to. Which made the magazine welcoming when the post was delivered. People would see something that they would relate to at the time. Next to this picture is another painting of a vacation from 1938. Posters of vacations, exotic ports of paris, mountains, vacations, and now six years into the depression bored, unsuccessful, this was the vacation in america in the late 1930s as the ravages of the depression, unemployment were spreading throughout the nation. Remember the painting i showed you of the gentleman around the lunch counter that were listening to the radio. Following that painting, rockwell painted this, a gentleman listening to the radio by himself in his home trying to hear the news. Its a much more personal image than the gentleman at the lunch counter. Look at his hand trying to dial in. You can imagine the static on the radio trying to get the sound clear. On his lap you can see the father with maps of france and england, a map of europe, the channel with the direction that he understands the military forces to be taking. Up above him, eisenhower and macarthur. Three stars and three photographs from the navy, the army and the air force. You see the clues around maps and the like. He is trying to track the progress his sons would be making on the warfront. And you can see in the map he hind, american flags have been pinned onto the map. We can only presume these are the locations that he believes his sons are fighting in. The painting was later. Later given away to the editor of the Berkshire Eagle in western massachusetts. What rockwell did is he repainted the newspaper on the ground as the Berkshire Eagle and dedicated it to the staff, to his friend and the staff of the Berkshire Eagle. Another instance that would have been photographed, circulated in magazine form, the actual painting residing with the artist, rockwell himself, given away to a friend. Just at the end as world war ii ended in thanksgiving 1945, rockwell made this image of the returning soldier with his mother for the thanksgiving issue of the magazine, sitting on the chair that is a little bit too small for him. Wearing the civilian shoes, in his military uniform, peeling the potatoes as people remember the like. It was meant to be an image of something for which to be truly thankful. Peoples images of Norman Rockwell in the saturday evening post, the americana, even kitsch sometimes, people think about that and dont always know the late paintings of his career after he left the post. In 1961 the post was bought out. It was a change in management and rockwell left and no longer had to conform to the standards and scriptures and expectations of the saturday evening post reader he could work on images that he wanted to do. He ended up with the look magazine, the rival to life magazine. In 1964 he made an image that has come to be quite famous. It was painted in 1963, reflecting upon an incident in 1960. Ruby bridges, the first little girl who was brought to an allwhite school as new orleans was segregated. The occasion of this painting was the 10th anniversary of brown versus the board of education, the Supreme Court case that mandated integration in the schools and declared separate but equal was not sufficient in the united states. However, it was understood that in many communities, the foot dragging, the delays, the lack of care was delaying the integration of these schools. Rockwell, troubled by that in the 10th anniversary, looked back, reached back for this image and reimagined it based on photographs, documents of the time, and created his own image that was starkly different in artistic ways from the images you would have seen in the photograph. The photograph shows the marshals, who would have to escort ruby bridges. Bringing them all in the allwhite school bringing them into the allwhite school in this case he has moved the heads of the marshals and only showed them as figures of authority. He has made her elegantly dressed. In fact, rockwell commissioned a resident of his town in massachusetts to make a new dress in white for his model for this image. Notice in her book that she hold, stars on the book. Originally in the drawings, and its a vile background of this picture. The vile graffiti here. Its a horrid image. Its a horrid is seen when protesters and angry mobs were at the side of the roads, screaming at the girl as she was going to school at the time. Rockwell was so troubled by this. In his original image, he had ruby on this side, and she couldnt be in the middle because it was a two page magazine spread. The crease was in the middle. Rockwell decided to move her to the front so that a little girl was leading the marshals, as opposed to the marshals leading the little girl. Ruby bridges still lives in new orleans, has a foundation and is a trustee of the Norman Rockwell museum. This painting, i should add, was also brought to the white house, president obama. And had ruby bridges come to the white house, and she showed president obama the image. If it hadnt been for you guys i might not have be here and we wouldnt be looking at this together. Just having him say that meant a lot to me. It always has. To be Standing Shoulder to shoulder with history and viewing history, its just a onceinalifetime. 1965, rockwell wanted to reproduce for a magazine the gruesome killing of three students who went to mississippi to enroll voters. They were killed by the clansmen. In his drawings, rockwell focused on the gore and the assailants. In his final image he instead instead chose to make them in shadow, so you couldnt see the real perpetrators of the coin. You saw them as shadows, as ghouls. And made it people in a ubiquitous manner. Something that would be too easy to attribute to one or two individuals. This is humanitys evil trying to wipe out good. Rockwell was very conflicted about the vietnam war. He was troubled by the news he heard in the 1965, 66, 67. At one point he was commissioned to do some paintings on the marines and decided not to follow through because of his conflict with the war. He came up with this image from 1968 called the right to know. Recognizing the people have the obligation and right to understand the purposes for which the nation goes towards. You see the empty chair here, the chair of authority. People of diverse walks of American Life. Young and old and in suits and Norman Rockwell himself has come to ask. I think and making it plain and not rotating it as something specific as congress with a microphone or with a person there, has made this a more symbolic, more ubiquitous right, rather than incident. The right to know would probably have been something rockwell would have thought about in the way he would freedom. As people think of rockwell as the typical American Family as he grew more mature and thoughtful, rockwell created a series of paintings and images bringing together diverse people. In this case a study for the united nations. But surrounded by people from the world. All nations brought together in contemplation, thought, expectation, hope, desire that the diverse peoples of the world could come together. We see this theme throughout rockwells late career, the last years of his life. All agreeing the common theme that doing unto others as you would have do unto you. Rockwell celebrated the diversity of people and the diversities of cultures. Someone more Global Citizen then we today remember him as. But his painting, images and drawings, we have carried that team forward. The Rockwell Museum put out a call for artists who wish to refelct on the theme. From around the country, selective works by 40 artists to reflect upon rockwells freedoms. The show ends with these images that people can go by and see modern takes on rockwell. Peterson, who lives near the Rockwell Museum, obviously freedom from fear, except the newspaper has changed to, i cant breathe. We have other images of freedom of speech today. Information. Fake news. People gathering their news as they wish from sources they wish. We have seen in the images that have been submitted by the artists much greater diversity of subject. People black, white, from diverse cultures, from all creeds, freedom of speech and liberty, and all National Values with religious figures from around the world all coming together. This has been an exhibition extremely popular with guests. Particularly younger people, who sometimes see the freedom of expression as expressed in the 1940s as sometimes limiting, sometimes monolithic. And now understanding that freedom in America Today is something that is vitally important than what perspective one comes from. And bestow the respect on others. You can go through this part of the exhibition and see various themes of different peoples and certain inhibitors of liberties, such as the intrusiveness of electronics and surveillance that enters peoples homes. Religious figures, the dalai lama, gandhi, all part of the same family. More diverse, more inclusive from the perspective of todays artists and viewers. There are certainly some images of resistance, and a reminder that the nation has fallen short of its ideals. Which will be wrapped in the flag. For the student body, when the galleries are most full, they tend to be here, looking at what contemporary artists are reflecting upon. Perhaps seeing themselves in these images and identifying themselves amongst the various competing positions of these vital issues today. I found this has been an exhibition that has brought great diversity from all walks of life throughout the washington, d. C. Community. Most of all students and graduate students here. I have written a book on the iwo jima monument. I knew rockwells art, but i knew how skillful he was as an artist. I knew his ability to recreate the visual was extraordinary. Most artists alive or have ever lived, perhaps. When you see him wrestling with the serious issues of freedom, when he had to get away from the softer side of American Life as seen in family magazine and saturday evening post, instead look at the struggles of the nation and the perils of the world, he became much more serious and was an artist of much more depth and thought than i had orginally thought. Rockwell from 1961 to on was a person of profound thought living up to its values and found that sometimes the nation fell short. He had the courage to look at segregation and housing. But also hope that religions of the world coming together. If he was an artist who reflected with some thoughtfulness the american condition. A lot of times people talk about art, not just an image but a mirror. Rockwell was a mirror on the american psyche. Rockwell, roosevelt and the four freedoms is a traveling exhibit with stops in france, houston, denver, and september 2020 to january 2021 in the Norman Rockwell museum in massachusetts. You can watch this and other American History tv programs on cspan. Org history