Transcripts For CSPAN2 The Civil War Buying And Selling The Civil War 20220717

Amanda bellows is a historian of the United States in comparative and transnational perspective and it contributor to buying and selling the civil war her first book american slavery and russian surfdom in the post emancipation imagination was published in 2020 by the university of north carolina, press dr. Bellows is currently a lecturer at the new school in new york city. Next to amanda. Carrie. Genie is the john l. Now the third professor of the American Civil War and director of the john l now center for Civil War History at the university of virginia. She is the author editor or coeditor of seven books including buying and selling civil war memory in gilded age america. Her most recent book ends of war the fight of lees army after appomattox was the recipient of the 2022 gilder. Laraman lincoln prize. And finally jim martin is professor of history emeritus at Marquette University in milwaukee, wisconsin, and the author editor or coeditor of over 20 books including most recently buying and selling civil war memory in gilded age america, which he coedited with carrie janey and was published in 2021 by the university of georgia press. You may wonder why we titled this panel buying and selling the civil war. What does that mean part of what were doing here is trying to sell this book. Not to bring it too closely to market considerations, but the Big Questions of this book that that carrie and jim have edited that amanda has contributed an sa2 and i think there are 15 essays in total each essay gives readers a different Vantage Point on how the memory of the civil war intersected with associations with the market economy in the period after the civil war and before 1900. Its a book replete as you will see with fascinating images. And were going to use some of those images as kind of prompts for our for our discussion, but what wed like to the questions wed like to answer for you include the ones listed here on on this slide about the reasons that some entrepreneurs use to identify ways in which they could use the memory of the war to sell their products in its aftermath secondly, why would Consumers Want to buy stuff that was associated with with the war in some ways and then lastly wed like to wed like to venture some answers at the question of what is the what is the legacy of the longer impact of this intersection between memory and the market maybe even down to our own day . Okay, so thats where im we thats our starting place. I wonder maybe well well move to the to the first slide. But as i said to the to the speakers beforehand, they dont have to speak maybe directly to the images, but they could use the images if it seems useful to them to make the points that theyre making and maybe start with that first question about why how and why entrepreneurs try to sell the civil war in its aftermath i leave that up to any of you to start the conversation. Um, well thanks for coming everybody. Its fun to talk about this project. That was long and gestation and we had a lot hard time defining what we wanted to do for a while, but i think we arrived at a pretty good definition had great authors concurring to it, i think. You asked why i guess why wouldnt they you know, i mean its a big thing going on and what the essays . Each of their own way try to do is just show how an existing technology or cultural trend or whatever took advantage of this. New experience the country had just gone through. It to sell things and the way that consumers use those technologies and new Marketing Tools and so forth. To remember them for a long time. I always say this when youre talking about about this my folder for this said beyond memory. Thats what we were going to call it for a long time. And and what we meant by that. Is you memory not in the big picture political way that we tend to think about several memory, but memory in on an everyday. Very mundane level all of these things are just every day items for certain people or experiences and it is against nostalgia. Its a common history. Its a comfortable history that people want want to buy and is being sold to them. And so this is true of a big picture version of what we were trying to do. In terms of our working title of beyond memory we were i think were both consider ourselves gilded age scholars as much as civil war scholars and thinking about the ways in which the civil war continued to be a part of peoples lives. Well beyond memory, well beyond attending veterans reunions or raising money or or going to monument dedications or visiting battlefields, but the way in which it intersected in their everyday lives and the way in which as consumers or producers, they both took advantage of that or were sometimes taken advantage of by that and do we have the opium cure. Yeah. I love all of the essays in this book, but one of my favorite is jonathan joness essay about the ways in which veterans became addicted to opium. But really what his essay is about is the the efforts to help them get over that addiction and these fake. I dont even know what to call them right remedies that were created and sold to veterans in order to help them get over their addictions. And so this isnt about remembering the war for many of these veterans in many ways. Its about not remembering the war but the ways in which it continues to be part of their everyday lived experiences and the ways in which sometimes that is is manipulated and used by entrepreneurs. So theres theres no good guys or bad guys in this but theres a mix of people trying to profit or finding ways to profit or people that are finding themselves beholden to different objects different experiences that are again directly tied to the war in some fashion or another. This is the golden age of pad medicines and this is just one set of them. Subset of them and the rhetoric surrounding them is for veterans to kind of restore their manhood and become independent of opium. Habit as it was called and become soldiers again kind of we capture those values that they had demonstrated as soldiers. And i think one important thing to keep in mind about the process of buying and selling in this post civil war era is the fact that its an age of industrialization and urbanization in age of increasing literacy. So we have the rise of advertising as a strategy for selling goods in new and more sophisticated ways than ever before so new technologies were mentioned right for printing things and color making trade cards illustrated advertisements for products. So theres more buying and selling maybe going on and had been prior to the war. Yeah. Well we have it here. The other picture is both. These are director toward veterans, but this is from the national tribune, which is one of the leading veterans newspapers a national one. There were 20 veterans news. Is published after the war many of them just a state a geographically localized subscription basis based, but this is to get veterans to sell subscriptions. To the national tribune, which was published by one of the leading pension agents in the country george lemon and they if they had enough of them they theyd get a watch or they could just buy the watch with the with the gar emblem. And so he watches arent a new technology but using them in this way is kind of a new thing. Offering premiums for subscriptions isnt necessarily new thing. Theyve been doing that for a while, but it was a really big deal in the gilded age. We include the shop, eric, do i see you in the audience somewhere . Eric mink yes, shut up to eric for pointing out. Theres a picture that we use in the book of a an auction shovel. That was advertised to farmers to help them level field fortifications. So again something that was used. Was in existence before the war but has a new meaning and a new use if you are a farmer from Spotsylvania County and you might want to clear off all of those earthworks so that you can get back to farming. So the ways in which and the advertisement specifically says that that one of the things that can be used for is clearing field works, so not a new technology but in a new rationale or a new branding or a new way of advertising . A way of a reason to use something that had already existed that is a product of the war. Brian. Go back to the cover. We dont make sure people dont miss the thing in the cover. This was this was yours. So what thats not very good. How many of you were in sue boardmans talk to them just to go about cyclamaras. Okay, so my essay in this book, it is about cycloramas and the ways in which they were as she pointed out consumer ventures. They were entertainment ventures, but theyre also away for mccormick to sell their various different implements. This is from the painting the shiloh cyclorama, and obviously this nice little tool what is that . Exactly . So reaper thats not a reaper is it . I dont know. This farming implement. Down here in the shed was not in existence in 1862 and yet mccormick would buy the rights to the cyclorama painting in order to reproduce this and if you bought subscriptions you bought their catalogs or you bought calendars you could get a lithograph that was a portion of the cyclorama with the nice little mccormick implement there included so theyre both using the cycloramas popularity to sell their item, but also again, reflecting on the meaning of the war by encouraging you to buy this this this implement because of its association with the war in which did not exist. I saw this painting we used to illustrate something just about shiloh and they used this one with the reap around. Yeah. Or the whatever it is. Implement the implement one thing that carrie and jim talk about in the introduction of this book that i think is really revealing and and is a means im going to use just to reiterate whats and summarize whats just been said and how important this book is the often the products being sold two soldiers and other consumers were not new but as our panelists have shown you already the war gave some impetus created potential Consumer Groups that that these these priorities of these firms selling these goods could reach with a particular advertising strategy. That was that was new and in fact the structure of American Business was changing and and firms were getting larger and this is the era of the growth of the corporation. Even though many of these proprietors are actually quite kind of on a family firm sort of basis, but you see new ways of trying to reach people who might buy goods on the one hand some of these veterans needed these things or could conceive of themselves as needing these things or a farmer needing to plow plow up their fields needs these things whereas others are as i think jim said, um ways in which they can hold a good they bought and remember right so memory itself because becomes something that can be that can be bought through through consumer purchases. Im combination of the famous picture from the reunion. But also the ad for the uniform one of the essays by shea cox smith was about confederate veteran uniforms sold for the united veterans and theyre creating a memory of a uniform the uniform. I mean, these are very nice gray uniforms. Maybe maybe the way you might imagine them and paintings, but they never had them. I think its worth just stopping and pointing out the obvious here. And i think that we take for granted that in this picture those men. Theres veterans are not wearing their uniforms from the war. And and i know thats a very obvious point, but i think its worth stopping and thinking about so what are the uniforms . Yeah, and theyre a little different way the gir uniforms. I guess were closer to an actual, you know union reform then the confederacy was but better uniforms were but but the whole point of shays essay is that they created a need by needed to be dressed up, you know uniform uniform. Yeah, or the united confederate veterans and theyre not just produced and sold in the south. Yeah, theyre produced all over the country in the midwest and elsewhere. So this is not a regional. Buying and selling thats going and the same is true for advertisements. So my chapter in the book looks specifically at trade cards, but you know when you have printed colorful advertisements like those of found untrade trade cards, youll see that times, you know, the product could be made in the south and then the person that designed the image could be somewhere else maybe in the north and then the printer could be in them, you know the midwest so there could be a wide, you know, it was a National Effort in making advertisements talk about this one. Oh, yes. So this is um, well an interesting trade card that i found in the archives and yale, a really its a its a great ad that shows the process of reconciliation being used to market a good so this trade card was distributed at the 1876 centennial celebration in philadelphia. And you can see that there are three soldiers. One of them is a british soldier from the revolutionary war in the red coat one is a confederate soldier and one is a Union Soldier. And theyre dancing around the Bunker Hill Monument from the battle of bunker hill. And you can see that there are some tombstones and they say hatch it on them. And so the idea is that this is an image of reconciliation. And theyve buried the hatchet. So yeah, you understand the joke. So, how do you get them a trade cards could be handed out. So at this exhibition, i think they were different products on display and trade cards could be handed out. Sometimes theyd be given to you if you purchased the object. There are many uses for trade cards and people could collect them will probably talk later about different series where there are lots of different pictures and you would try to get them all and put them in your scrapbook and show them off. So theyre definitely an interesting type of primary source to look at for civil war. The this image was produced for philadelphia centennial exposition. Well, we know card, but we know from the stamp on it that it was distributed at the centennial exposition. Yeah, so it seems that you know one one way to tap into to veterans as a Consumer Group is to at this at this scientific expo that is that is meant to validate and valorize the nations kind of achievements to talk about the ways in which northerners and southerners white northerners and southerners could come back together again around and earlier National Heritage of of the war. So theres theres humor in and theyre all kind of i i what about the british soldier . I dont i dont know what to make. You know, why is he involved in this . Yeah, i guess thats right. Its reconciliation for the revolutionary era. So its the centennial right of the yeah, and if they made they made up once, you know, they could make up again and and newspapers. You know that were talking about the meaning of this exhibition. Were saying we really hope the south comes and it would be an act of goodwill of southerners came to the sex position in philadelphia. And so they were, you know conversations happening about reconciliation even in advance of the event as well as hard feelings between great. Really nice days from during the war. Thats the 1870s british soldier not a revolutionary soldier. Im just making that up right now, but i think it and so that brings me back to this our our clothing manufacturers and his carrie said these these these uniforms are not even principally. Made in the south are being made by northern northern firms many of them. But is this like i dont know like some fashionable in the 1910s and or is this is this a botched effort to try to replicate older style uniforms and and so why i guess what im wondering is is there any evidence of what these veterans thought about the cut of the of the garments they were wearing did they say . Well, this is all we can do and its not frayed so ill wear it. They thought they were kind of expensive. The only thing i remember theres all kinds of paraphernalia. You can buy. For ger especially but what ucb stuff as well . I didnt i dont remember every reading by anybody commenting on the clothes other than its kind of expensive to do you have to have it you didnt have to do it have one participate in the reunions and be part of this is an investment. Yeah. Okay, very good. There were a lot of efforts to sell the war not just a veterans but to a broader a broader public there of course were efforts to do that during the war to soldiers and and others, um, biographies of generals and and political leaders the republic during the war stationary sets pens and pencils that might be called the general mcclellan gold pen. So things things like this, that would connect people at the time to what was happening, but there are lots of lots of ways in which cultural producers entrepreneurs that that produced literature produced. Speeches and others in around the country to talk about their experiences, but also imagery to connect to a broader public. There are some new technologies or newer technologies like the stereograph that had come about in in the decades after the discovery of photography but a stereograph like this in the upper right hand corner could be used to to make these these images appear in three dimensions. And so would any of you like to comment on on this image or our barber gannons essay to elaborate on those issues we could also move on to to a neck to the next slide if theres anything more to say, what about what about this . Why would not a late 19th century folks want to look at images like this . They didnt thats her whole essay actually. It was very much a wartime and postwar media post war thing with barbara is barbara here . Shes in town. Shes here for a different thing, but was that reunion and so forth these these images fell out of favor. And as hysteroscopes up to a point and then when they published the 10 volume photograph history civil war these pictures are you know, there are pictures of fortifications and towns and ruins and you know, stuff like that, but they get less sanctuary, you know, they they have i dont know if its a matter of what does she says it . Is an effort not to blame the confederates, you know, because mainly union dead that they had in this pictures. No, its confidently mainly all right. I learned something. But anyway, so anyway, so it falls out of favor and the oliver optic chapter, which is by paul ringle, which is a childrens series books those fall out of favor too. Oliver optic was a big selling author for juvenile novels. He published magazines as well. And there was two trilogies. He published by two brothers when the army when the navy and their underage soldiers and they have quite the adventures and that sells really well till the 1870s. And then he tries it again in the 1890 the different set and theyre very different and they dont sell as well. And so there is a certain. Dwindling of interest in the blood of your versions of you know the war yeah. Okay, so i think this is this is useful information. It suggests that not every advertising and sales pitch works. Not not every product becomes the most popular thing. That is that that consumers are are wanting to wanting to buy some entrepreneurial ventures fail in connection with the war on this one. I dont think does i mean i think this this game is it a game. Is it a toy . Okay, can you talk about this . Yeah in a long ago. I wrote a book by children during the civil war. Yeah, and i got to play with two of these when it princeton and went to the library of congress, i believe and these are its about like this and its a panorama. You might know panoramas that big reels and they were you know movies movie screen size and they start people compartment newsreels they were like newsreels as such but be like a three or four week leg in in the more recent battle would show up and they show in theaters around the north somewhere in the south not as many but someone in the south this is the myriott pecan all of them came up with their own weird names for a panopica and and so forth this came out just as the war is any in fact, the end of the war is is in it. This is Milton Bradleys first toy Milton Bradley was a publisher of cards and lithographs and so forth, but this is actually a toy and it came with and so theres a little crank. This is the whole bosch. The box is decorated like the front of a theater would be i think its about 25 images or so and you just kind of turn it like this that scrolls through it came with posters and tickets and a narration the fancier panoramas would have music and sound effects and and other things sometimes theyd have like psycho ramas for that matter would have objects lying out in front and so a kid could recreate a panorama presentation and invite the neighbors in and Everything Else and so its a parlor game. Yeah, absolutely. Very instructions about dimming the lights right room and the family would gather around to watch this narrative chairs. Yeah. And i dont know how long they published it, but there are a few in museums. So enough of them survived, you know to make it in the museums. So one of my favorite things yeah, this was an essay by margaret millenek and what in terms of civil war memory one of the arguments or when the points that she makes is that this toy in particular had very much a union message. This was not reconciliationist meant to sell to appeal to to former confederates as well. But this had a distinctly union message, which is not something we saw with a lot of the products whether they be the the Trading Cards or the the Trading Cards in the dukes cigarettes that you could collect generals on both sides. So what better way to make sure that your cigarettes dont get crushed but to have a little hard card like a Baseball Card in them and buy more cigarettes because you might be able to collect all the generals on each side. Those are reconciliationist in nature. This particular game was not because it was right with the war was ending, you know, and so straight from the north and a little bit more about. Emancipation if i remember a couple of slides, yeah. I mean ellsworth absolutely there there is ellsworth. There is fort sumter. Well, i think thats the image in the lower lefthand corner the way i the way ive arranged them is not how how families would have would have seen them. Theyre on like a strip and youre youre moving them sequentially scrolling them through but theres certainly are scenes of of killing and dying here, but i guess what if youd like to comment on this any of the panelists it these these these images are very different than the ones like Alexander Gardners stereographs. How how so i mean that looks like the winslow home or painting and the in the lower right hand corner of the the sharpshooter in the in the tree. Oh, yeah, so there are there there taking imagery. From other places and using it to instruct and edify and also entertain children and families that you couldnt do with the Alexander Gardner stereographs of examples of them taking out. I dont know those harpers or leslies but and this is actually isnt that a career in ives lithograph kind of ellsworth being shot looks very similar to that. And so yes. She uses the image round. Yeah, the Frank Leslies and shows them whats produced by the by milton . As the the painting version or what will go in the game. Yeah, they are directly from that. And i think the fact that were looking at it something thats marketed to families raises an important question, which is who is doing the consuming and how does that change over the next 30 or 40 years because at first, you know, whatevers being sold, you know, we talk about veteran spying and using products. But what about when you get into the 1880s and 1890s and then you have the next generation of people who maybe are the children of veterans . And so what do they want to buy . Do they want to buy the bloody, you know graphic . Things from the war or do they want to you know buy into that more nostalgic idealized vision of what war was so theres a shift. I think we see in some areas and amanda when children grow up. They become smokers. So could you could you comment on on the the one image on the left is part of your your essay . The other one is in natalies sweets essay about about tobacco training cards. Yeah. Sure. Yes. So the products became increasingly popular in the late 70s and early 1880s because of changes to the way that tobacco was processed. So this company myers brothers and company they called this product love tobacco myers company, richmond, virginia so southern and theres actually some text that accompanies the image. On the back i believe so he says hello johnny want any to back got any tobacco want to swap for coffee . Thats what the Union Soldier says. And the confederate soldier replies. All right, yank pass over the coffee. Ive got the best tobacco made in the world. So on the one hand write this scene is reminiscing the historical event of you know union and confederate soldiers on picket duty possibly exchanging goods, but its also creating kind of a more idealized and reconciliationist vision of that moment that might have appealed to people at a moment when they are also more Broad National reunification efforts underway. Carrie can you talk about the ways in which entrepreneurs artists and others tried to i i guess i guess this is this is a picture of the cyclorama and i think the cycloramas first home in gettysburg. This is after it traveled, right . So this is the 1913 to 1962. Okay, once it had already been yeah, so these are but but originally these these large paintings are traveling around the country. Right . Are they reaching a National Market or well let me back up just a little bit and say that. Cycloramas panoramas had come from europe and they tried to bring them in the late 18th century early 19th century, and they simply did not take off. There are several artists who go flat broke in trying to to depict different landscapes. And such scenes and it finally in the wake of the civil war. Theres siege of paris comes to the philadelphia to the the centennial in 1876. And thats a big success, but its really in the wake of the war that willoughby who is a Department Store owner who had been from from new york and hes ultimately moves to chicago decides that he can capitalize on these magnificent paintings by using battle scenes that that will evoke something more than the landscapes and some of the european ones who that had been traveling in the us prior to that period so its really in the 1880s. Its a very brief moment that the cycloramas enjoy their immense popularity. And at first there are buildings that are created specifically for them. The first one is in chicago in 1883 a second. Gettysburg will be commissioned will open in boston in 1884 followed by philadelphia. York and 85 and 86 respectively but over the decade of the 1880s, theyre roughly 40 to 50. We dont even know exactly how many of these cycloramas were created and initially theres initial permanent buildings soon gave way to these these cycloramas traveling all over the country, but the short version of the story is that they quickly saturated the market and there are newspaper accounts that say people just cant they have no interest in these anymore because theyve seen so many of them at this point. You can only visit the cyclorama so many times before you you no longer feel the need to go get it but it is to go visit it but its a moneymaking venture not just for the artists who create them but for the stock holders that invest in them, but also there are all of these different ways which people are our building off of this you have the in milwaukee the studios that are created to pump out these massive paintings you have street cars that organize that that develop simply to take people back and forth to the psycharomas the the brochures that you buy its just like child of the 80s when you would go to the ice capades and you had to pay a mint to get the program to tell you what you are watching you had to do the same thing at the cyclorama you had to not just pay for the admission, which was 50 cents for adults 25 cents for children, but you also had to pay for the brochure that would tell you precisely what you were looking at. And from there. There was also advertising on that brochure that was hawking all sorts of housewares and other items that that people might buy and then the pain means themself would be sold and eventually people are going into bankruptcy and these paintings just arent producing the same sort of fanfare. So its not i think one of the misconceptions is that its popular movies or the advent. Excuse me. Of Motion Pictures that lead to the demise of the cycloramas they have started to dip off even before that because the market is oversaturated and then theres a new form of entertainment thats going to involve pyrotechnics. And reenactors and this will become all the rage in the late 1880s early 1890s. So the cycloramas with the exception of this one and atlanta are all that are left today. This is also an interesting sort of. Way in which entrepreneurs tried to connect particularly, i think urban consumers to an experience. The war is by moving important structures associated with the war brick by brick to cities like chicago you see here the the libby prison war museum, but i think they did this for john browns fort as well. Talk about it, but is it actually ever moved . While im not sure actually is ever move but okay questions about me. Yeah, and the mclean house okay. Yeah, i mean i this is this is stunning to me. What did people that the time . What was the debate surrounding the moving the moving of richmonds libby prison to chicago and putting it on display. This is our lead essay. Actually by the late john f. And its a perfect example if we could have had that for the very beginning we would be able to explain exactly what we were doing because its a great example of commerce and memory and and kind of theres a a curve kind of thrown toward the end in terms of what it means to people. Its a chicago entrepreneur a group of them. They try it a couple of times. Theres a big debate in richmond about it being taken, you know, because theres a little bit of a tourist thing there too. Its not all fixed up as a museum really, but its it people could go there. Yeah. But anyway, they take it apart. How many train cars was it 30 or 50 or Something Like that. They put it back together on the southside chicago and they said up as they recreate all rooms and they label them as certain kinds of rooms and they have artifacts of all kinds so its not just about the prison. Its about the war itself. It was pictures and they have changed and shackles and things like that but slavery bit too if im not mistaken. Description and at first i think its seen as kind of a cynical ploy there are certain commentary about profiting on the suffering of men who were prisoners there and while Union Veterans are treasure throughout the north. Theres a very special place. In peoples hearts for prisons of war survivors. Its more prisons were pretty deadly places and and they came out pretty scarred physically and mentally had their own their own associations their own reunions. And so theres this element early on especially that again, as i said, this is kind of kind of a cynical effort just to make money. Well, in fact the prisons of war kind of adopted they have reunions there they leave you know, and museums nowadays have a comment book. They left comments behind they end up thinking. Its it highlights their experience and they are really all about reminding people that they suffered more than anybody else did. And they did i suppose but it is becomes a good thing for them. Thats kind of a little curve, you know, no one would have expected that because it does seem a little bit like taking advantage of a pretty extreme situation. But its a perfect example of commerce and memory and multiple meanings for what what are these products bring to the people consuming it . We get now to thinking about the legacies of this relationship between memory in the market. Just to first to comment on a few of the things that have just been said it seems like in the 19th century maybe on our own day. Its not enough just to make a connection for a potential consumer about them being able to buy something and therefore remember or that everything that associated with the war is going to sell. It also seems like something important is also novelty the newness of how to package those things together matters. And so you cant do the same try to sell the same type of thing and the same type of experience or the same type of imaginative connection between war and and product in the same way time after time consumers are going to get savvy to that. Theyre gonna get bored. They need to be inspired and some way to keep to keep purchasing and is kerry said about those those booklets accompanying your your trip to the cyclearama the selling really never stopped like you thought you were buying a thing and then you were presented with all these opportunities if you wanted to buy more stuff and that experience might have been a little bit of an overload, right but this effort to try to make connections the war as you see from these images really didnt didnt stop and there the the connections become more. I dont know tenuous the monitor has nothing to do with a sewing machine as far as i know right . They are both technological forms that in their time were new, but theyre not related to each other right the on the on the right is for the beer of quality everybody knows. Past and this was a National Campaign and it didnt just include a picture of a man who might have been a veteran. This is from 1913. There were a variety of advertisements with everyday people with a different slogan. All right, they were trying to hit every Consumer Group. They could trying to get them to think that this beer actually was the beer of quality and youve got to strip in the lower left hand corner. That is for a local a local bottler to put their stamp on it and to say this is both a nationally ad campaign, but connected to local commercial ventures. What about these more . I dont know as i said ten you with connections like do we what is that . Both about the way people remember and the way people sell and shop, ill mention the i think the fact that veterans are still identified as a certain. Group to be targeted by 1913 is pretty important, you know that theyre recognizable still as a market for their products and perhaps actually had a long relationship with veterans. They sponsored the 1880 reunion ready to die in a camera, which it was now in they had are really fancy booklet that they print out and also glass. Fear of glasses with the gar. I have one of those they probably made like hundreds of thousands of them for one thing. But and then they so they march past captain papss house, you know in trivia the way off the soldiers home my favorite ad was soldiers is so random is for like a fire Sprinkler System and the image on it is of an old veteran pulling another old veteran out of a soldier song. So thats pretty inside baseball for you know, what whats going on . Just to jump in we havent really talked much about the fact that many of these advertisements and products are being marketed to white consumers and there are some interesting things you can observe from looking at advertisements. I often go back to david blights book racing reunion and he talks about white reconciliation happening at the expense of black rights in the post emancipation era and we see how some advertisements whitewashed the history of slavery or even depict and you know, you talked about how theres kind of a divorce between the product being sold and the topic but i could think of an ad for stove polish cement glue and breakfast cocoa all of which are about that idea of white reconciliation at the expensive black, right . So yeah, thank you. Something that occurred to me this afternoon that we really should have thought of two or three years ago. Is that at the same time that these collectible these are being done you had the production the jim crow collectibles . That are just going a whole different direction obviously and happy part of that legacy a little bit. I think that youre talking about because theyre marketing. These you know horrifically racist archetypes. Along with this comfortable vision of slavery and the past that fits into this stuff just fine. You know, i mean, its the same kind of stuff being made in some ways. But this is occurred to me today that its a very similar thing going on. One one thing to mention. Is that this relationship . Um, you can find this relationship on the commemorative landscape here at gettysburg. Um the image on the right is one that carrie and jim use in the of this book. It depicts the the dedication of the Soldiers National monument in 1869 in the top lefthand corner of the harpers weekly page. You have the springs hotel. People in the right hand corner, i think Drinking Water from the spring. This is on the harmon farm scene of fighting on the first day in the middle picture. You have Young Children digging for relics of the battle and you can see in the lower image the the efforts that these children made to sell those those relics to rather elite gentleman staying in the hotel. I think thats depicting the lobby of the springs hotel. The designer of the Soldiers National monument is this guy james g batterson. He not only designed this monument, but the the soldier in the cemetery at antietam. And so he and the way he kind of played a role in commemoration was he not only designed these monuments, but he owned the Granite Works and and was an importer of marble from abroad so that he could actually, you know provide the the material the material for sculptures to work this and in fact, i think he contracted with Randolph Rogers the sculptor of this of this this monument in in the national cemetery. Whats i think telling and maybe deserves more commentary or thoughts from you is that i think a lot of urban readers of harpers weekly would would find this scene quite familiar there were people young kids selling secondary goods in the street and in the lobbies of hotels throughout new york city and other other their cities at this time so efforts to sell, you know bullets cannonballs, whatever cains made from from trees on culps hill so forth on is is the main kind of theme of this image, but if you look at the the back the back wall, theres an advertisement. Above the threshold and it says yeah, it says Travelers Insurance Company hartford jg batterson. So i i want to say that you know one kind of one story about a commemoration. Is and i guess mike. This is a question one version of commemoration looks kind of crass materialistic. Its like i dug this out of out of the earth, and this will give you a way to remember what happened here and you may be manipulated. I may be oppressive here to you in the lobby of the hotel, but theyre in the background is jg batterson big businessman helping to build the monuments that we all walk by with some considerable reverence, but hes also on himself trying to manipulate a market in mortality. That is to say that while Insurance Companies tried and failed to convince many soldiers to take out policies and in fact those policies were extremely uh costly during wartime, but what war did for americans was to make them think about their mortality more and that made them much more open to buying insurance. So is there im do we make fair or unfair assumptions about forms of marketing memory . I down to our day kind of question for us. Yeah sure. That ones too hard, right . Okay. I was thinking in terms of in terms of my own experience with this place. There there have been many ways that entrepreneurs here have tried to make money. Out of associating their enterprise with their location or the battle. Im thinking of the great book by jim weeks. Thats called gettysburg market memory and an american shrine. I think ive got that right. He talks about fantasy land all of these like kids kids play places sounds like some place might too young kids would love i went with my family to the wax museum. Which was fascinating and a little strange and and there was there was this kind of theater that i remember going in that i think was in the wax museum, but i was eight so im not exactly sure this um, but theyd have different scenes with wax figures and um, you know, Abraham Lincoln came out of the floor and kind of an animatronic sort of way and gave the gettysburg a dress and that was kind of silly in and of itself, but there was there was one scene that i remember and ive got to say its affected the way i i drive by the scene of general reynoldss death and i i its affected it because this portrayal of reynolds dying had an aide. Give this line in the deepest southern drawl. Something like general reynolds general reynolds, oh my god, hes dead. And so that was i mean that place got a lot of my parents money, um because my sister and i just loved to go back to that theater and hear that line and laugh hysterically at it. Is that right . No, its pretty pretty crass, but whenever i drive down reynolds avenue, thats what i think about. So, i dont know i think maybe unless youve got you can tell me how weird i am. Thats fine. But if you would rather just open this up to questions and we can get people to talk about anything. Weve weve had to say here. I think this is a really rich sort of a cultural relationship between bring the civil war and in some ways paying or being paid to do so. So tell you how weird you are. That sounds good. Can you thank the panelists with a round of applause and then well get questions. This is very this is terrific great stuff. You guys are wonderful. Um im struck by the compare and contrast with the european relics culture and the i just came back from from going through. Seeing saint columbas and Saint Andrews relics in scotland, and the way that works in the european culture. Of course this this Northern Spain is the santiago de coppostela. Pilgrimage and my recent trip through richmonds monument avenue. And whats happening there . Its just coming into my mind. I just think youre all experts in this. I know especially caroline youre living right in the middle of whats going on in richmond. I just be interested to hear your thoughts on what is america creating experientially. And what are they . What are we trying to create . And what should we create in the future . Um a struck and sorry just a quick aside. I was taking by the cbs news team down monument avenue to look at each of the plints. That are there which of course are empty now. And to see what the new statue thats been put up in front of the arts museum. The rumors of war which is quite beautiful statue. But is in notably next door to the daughters of the confederacy and theres a lot of dynamic. There are many dynamics going on there. So id love to hear your thoughts of what experientially, where are we going . With with that one i think so. Well, ill fall back on my old line that im a historian. So i dont know what the future holds. But i guess im a little bit confused by your question and thinking about relics versus monuments. Is that what youre about the monumental landscape . Where there are relics, right . So i suppose thinking about it in Historic Context and tom browns most recent book about civil war monumentation is a good place to think about why we have so many monuments in the wake of the American Civil War and that this wasnt something that we found in the 18th century to the degree and it has to do with production and and consumption and and the ways in which monuments can be mass produced not just individually sculpted, but theres an entire social and cultural reason that we have the monuments and the plethora of monuments that we do and it doesnt just happen in the us. Its also happening in europe in the late 19th and early 20th century. So thats i think we have to take those in very different ways about thinking about relics from five centuries ago versus ways in which more recent wars and by more recent i mean 160 years ago that thats a product of the type of memorialization that is going on not just in the us but also in europe at the time so, but im not going to venture toward the future. Well a relic of course is something that actually existed and was a part of the history and most of we talked about here are things produced. To do that and memory is a side product of this a monument is is built or erected to create or to confirm a memory though . Yeah. And so i think there are different. The religious element is really interesting. And of course theres theres a lot of fashion i guess now, but i know i was in grad school. The lost causes of civil religion, you know and so forth. So we kind of have a civil version of that. But we cant rival the relics, you know from. Theyre very. Tourism pilgrimages and month and roadways and kids out the battlefield struck me. Right you guys mentioned several times brian youd mentioned the George Mcclellan pan, and we saw the Trading Cards for cigarettes with general grants and others in todays parleans. That would be named image likeness. Im just curious if in you guy workspace if you came across if the time period was correct any of the people that were depicted there had any thoughts on their use representing those products if they were for it if they were against it or if its just the way it was and they were ambivalent toward it. I have no idea. I mean, you know laws were looser about and ive been successful in my question. You didnt have to get peoples permission to do that. I mean, i think some of those duke cigarette things they did the generals i think. Give them permission, you know, because the duke cigarette the generals had little biographies in histories. Theyre little tiny booklets is how i picture them at least and most of them were alive when they started i guess. And so they must have that was a pretty formal thing. They were doing but generally speaking you can just do whatever you want to you know, when youre an entrepreneur back then. On that point i forgot to show this slide at the end which are images that are composite of photographs that the Travelers Insurance Company itself used. I i dont know whether if you got a policy you could choose which set of leaders you wanted or you could get them both. It does speak to that reconciliationist sentiment, but i think to answer in part. The last question is i dont think any of these men if if any were alive at this point had had much had much say about how their likeness was being used. Maybe i guess to build a little bit off the question about relics. I wondered if you all could maybe talk about sort of americans as it relates to this topic of buying and selling civil war memory americans sort of obsession with i guess souvenirs. Im thinking of like the for example the news that that hang john brown. Theres you know, everyone claims they have a piece of this or they claim they have a piece of john browns ford. I used to work at Harpers Ferry that wasnt obvious, but just i wonder if maybe in terms of the buying and selling if you could speak a little bit to that aspect of it. The obsession with having a piece of history like a relic and that in that sense. So its not something that we took up in our book. Precisely, but souvenir, of course coming from the french to have seen. And so this is something that is certainly not new in the 19th century. But if youre connecting a souvenir with a relic, you know, this is something thats happening. Of course during the war itself soldiers are taking things throughout the word. There are all sorts of stories about poor travelers tale and how many strands of his his tail were taken by admiring soldiers if the accounts were true. He would have been a bobtailed horse for sure. But at appomattox, of course, it happens mcclains house is basically cleaned out by officers and otherwise offering both to buy and some not offering to buy items from the house as proof that you had been there. So yeah, were back to that merging of of i look something that offers. A tangible evidence that you have experienced and been part of something as opposed to something that is mass produced and then such as the the stereographs or the moripticon that was not part of the experience of having been there the difference between a relic and something that we might call a souvenir is that authenticity and that original and purpose of an item and the meaning thats in is attached to it from it having been at a particular place. So thats something thats going on during the war. Its theres certainly collections that are being built at libby prison. And otherwise, theres some wonderful photographs of the interior of libby prison once its moved to chicago where people could come through and look at all of these different items. So these original museums if you will what became the museum of the confederacy the white house the confederacy one of things that theyre doing is trying to collect as many objects as possible. So thats i think more tied to museums the necessarily to selling and collecting of items well, but theres transactions in museums absolutely transactions. Yeah, thats exactly where i was going and every g a our posts had a Little Museum and they would collect things like that. I think this is veneer. Impulse is about people participating in the events. And so guys, you know, they get hit by spent bullet. I just talk with it this morning and those example and the guy pulled it out of his. Out of his collar where its stuck and put in his pocket to say. Certain guys, send stuff home to their children. That they found the streets of fredericksburg. We are doing fredericksburg, you know. But its not. Not yet others collecting those things and until a while after the war i think. How did world war one affect the nature and approach to buying and selling the civil war . Id say it was about over by that time. I mean you see some ads still. With the old increasingly old veterans, theres one. I guess we have in the book of a cult firearms pistol being shown two old veterans. For some reason they thought theyd be experts i guess but when the sacramento i mean all the stuff that we talked about in the book are pretty much. I mean the Trading Cards a little bit show up, but not much and and not in this book but in the book i have heard about memory. I talk about a union beer. That is marketed and sold as union blogger. Im following during and following world war one as a means of reconciliation of kind of pulling everyone together. So thats but we didnt really we really kind of stopped in the the first decade or two, but i do play century. I do think you know in the later, i mean the 1940s and 50s you have kind of a resurgence in the 60s of interest. Im thinking about the plantation tours to places like natchez in the construction of these idealized visions of the prewar south that becomes increasingly popular. So maybe new things are coming about after world war one and world war two. I like you to comment on. Robert e. Lee refusing to take any money for his likeness in his you know his name. And if you could who was the one general either north or south who took the most advantage of selling their name . I i heard a nomination for chamberlain over here. I dont think lee had a nil today. So what no. It was a long straight that made all the money from the lottery. I mean, this is a little bit outside of our thing. Its not crazy. Oh you mean for being part of it you do more than we do about this that yeah, because its fairly rare. I think for one thing. I mean there are individuals soldiers will john chase the guy with all the wounds united some of the veterans veterans there. Yeah that give tours and give lectures well, theyre now making much money on it. There are certainly what George Lemmon who was himself a veteran became a millionaire as a pension agent and a newspaper publisher. I want to call quite the same thing. Theyre just no one new George Lemmon as a soldier, you know, he just happened to be a soldier and sally ticket certainly makes a career out of being a professional widow. I mean, she truly she truly does. I mean she so does libby custer . Right james taylor made some money because he was a veterans i dont. So its kind of hit or miss because again laws were looser about using images. Anyway, you know, and i think its maybe Insurance Companies in lotteries is as much the big money and sort of the way we think of endorsing something. But i believe by turning it down doesnt he . Add to his image. Becoming, you know a saint. But he dies in 1870 before. Much of this takes off. Could have been you know the insurance company. And he turned it down. I was wondering how African Americans were being portrayed in the marketing the products or were they being minimized at this time, and it was just focused on the the white population. So great question. So the question is how were African Americans depicted in advertisements for products. So during this period most of the businesses making these advertisements are white owned businesses. And so um either its theres really a huge range of images and there are different kind of categories, but some of the types that are coming to mind would include representations of africanamericans americans as contented in slavery freed people in urban settings who are sort of seen as these perpetrators of disorder. So kind of the opposite of being contented in slavery. So again like these, you know, whitewashed. Images and then you also have images used to sell products where you have africanamericans depicted as comic, you know these racist caricatures where theyre not able in freedom to establish their own communities or to read or to run businesses. And so you have these racist humorous theyre intended to be humorous advertisements and those are some of the range of representations from the late 19th century African Americans. As you mentioned some earlier that were kind of cleaning products because you associate African Americans with being servants and so forth. Thats true. Yes. So i did have a question. First of all book was very good. I enjoyed reading it very much, but i was looking at the it was the tobacco ad with the union and southern soldier there were trading the food now, it seemed like that was the tobacco and coffee. So it seemed like that was somewhat of a rare occurrence during the war that they kind of didnt particularly like one another during the war and then after of course everything was starting to kind of become a bit. They were come starting to come back together a little bit more. So were those was that ad right there. Was it trying to cash in on that regularly reconsidious reconciliatory . Sentiment i guess you could say. Im absolutely i think your spot on you know, this was certainly not the everyday very frequent interaction between two enemies trying to kill each other. And so i think that theres really this is a rosy representation of what relations were like and were intended to foster reconciliation among white soldiers at the same time that there are these more National Broader reconciliation efforts going on underway, and then one more question for about i was actually about that ad with the fire sprinkler was where to confederate soldiers to Union Soldiers a union and veteran rather. Do you i dont know. I probably you it was unclear probably union there had much larger soldier zones than north than in the south. So i think its probably meant to represent but doesnt really matter, you know for the ads purpose. All right. Well, thank you. Stereotype of the dead confederates. You said they mainly had stereotypes of dead confederates who bought that the north or that who bought those stereotypes the north or the south . Well, its a pretty morbid thing and they only made so that the pictures them coming from photographs that were taken of the confederate dead after many if not most of the union dead had already been buried theres our displayed. In the the studios in brady in new york during the war and the people that that lined up to see them in 1862 fall of 1862. Would have been new yorkers would have been. Those who playing with the stereotypes then they would be they stereotyped by the northern. Well good, but many of theirs arent produced right the debt images. They become tumor and fewer. Yes, but you showed some and you said that the stereotypes were mainly right confederate so people make them for money. I was just wondering who was buying them the norco the same. As you said as you morbid thing. Probably overwhelmingly people in the north, but theres no way to tell that precisely theyre often packaged in groups. And so you get 10 or 15 or 50 and so theyd be in addition to if you wanted the dead bodies, thered be fortifications and other things too. And so i dont know the people collecting all the dead body picture they can find but it was part of these huge catalogs. Theyd list the pictures you get. If you bought it, so. They were part of larger collections normally. Okay. Thank you very much. And they were shown asterious stereoscopes in the in the studio. So my senses that you know, they have theyre actually looking down with these pictures. Theyre not pictures up on easels like wed imagine when we study primary persons primary sources. Particularly in this battle, but certainly in others. And will notice from the official records to letters to later letters. To memoirs for which theyre being paid will notice charitable migration in memory how things change. From a memoir written in the 1890s from an official report how much . Do you think commercialization . Affected memory of primary authors generals writing memoirs 30 years later. How much do you think editors and publishers century magazine may have said, you know something will sell more if this happens because we see it in the documents. We see a migration. Somebody mentioned chamberlain not me. We see a migration in its an interesting how the story change from. Decade to decade but how much do you think the commercialization you wrote about and studied affected . Some of this written memory well, thats a really interesting thought. I would imagine the bigger the person the bigger the personality the less it would affect them because the press needs a general more than the general needs the press in some ways. Um, thats just a guess. I dont that for a fact. What do you think . Well question and if youre thinking you mentioned battles and leaders in particular and that was specifically meant to be, you know, confined to april 61 to april 65. Were not going to talk about the causes or consequences of the war and it most most of the essays. Are as neutral as possible in terms of cause and and thinking about whether its a lost cause versus union cause so that was very much intended to be sold to to. Every audience to every white audience i should say but then there are individuals who are certainly writing and theyre aware of what the Financial Market is and how they should be pitching what they are saying and you know, Sally Pickett certainly comes to mind. Ive already mentioned her in terms of her writings and and the way shes going to use harrison and and repackage that to sell the story of her husband. But others such as john s mosby who is just kind of dipping his toe in the water for a bit trying to figure out whether or not he can be profitable if he does in fact write his own memoirs, he writes a significantly more about stewart before he ever writes own memoirs and hell ultimately right two different memoirs. The second will be published host. I cannot word possibly. Yeah, that word. But but he is very well. Care of what else is out there and hes responding to it. So whether or not thats a commercial appeal whether or not hes looking to sell more copies by giving a different version, but he is certainly hes collecting everything thats being written in order to write his account. And so thats not exactly the same thing that youre asking about but certainly whats being produced is driving the way in which different different people are approaching their topic at hand. Yeah, there is a little genre in which the people conducted as kind of a history project. My guy roof. His daughter has been six, wisconsin and published a memoir in 1890. I think he died just after that. I dont think he was about money at all. Im actually even thought hed be published but he did research in the or and he had his own letters that he used to kind of correct his memory. Will say well i remember is this but actually this is what i wrote, you know, 30 years ago. To my fiance and thats a certain kind of remembrance more useful to us in some ways, you know, because they really are using them as historical documents. Your and with the monitor tobacco just made me think of one example of something that went into the 20th century at the smithsonian American History museum. We have a the one of the original refrigerators from 1927 by ge which had a circular top on it, which had the mechanism in in it and was called the monitor top because and so thats how she sold it as the monitor top. And they show not just that what did we say . We should i dont remember so in machine but yeah, right where yeah and everything. That it was an incredibly malleable. Item to be used to sell just absolutely everything because it was sturdy and it was tough and it wasnt supposed to to be able to to crack or break under any circumstance and sometimes they did be text indicated. Theyre strong. Theyre innovative, you know, american knowhow did this . Hi, i have been collecting these stereo images and i just find them fascinating. I got one of these viewers online and ebay for for kind of cheap, but could you talk a little bit more about like how those were marketed where they sold in the sets were they were they actually photographed like that on the battlefield or did they did they build those images afterwards and make them 3d and just where were they sold and what year and just just kind of talk about that a little bit would you have to have two different angles . So theyre theyre double lensed cameras. Use so the original photos made that way. So theres two photos that are made side by side. I dont know the technology of it is but thats what theyd be doing. Um, but they were marketed like any other item, you know. Who invented the stereoscope the poet over into homes senior homes . Yeah invented the stereo, you know that the viewer, which is very simple. But he didnt make any money from it. I dont think but but it becomes like a its kind of a marketing pianos or later on records or its a middle class parlor entertainment. And so thats the thats the target audience. Again, they have these massive catalogs. Local photographers would carry these have you can order at least. Im sure General Stores could do that, too. Anything else but i was going to say if you were asking about whether they were taken on the battlefield. So when gardener is at antietam and probably gonna get these numbers a little bit wrong, but Something Like he took 50 images and 40 of them were taken in stereo. So the vast majority of those that were taken were intended to be in stereo. Thanks. Sorry, i have one more quick one. Yeah, i thought of general lou wallace and the marketing of benhur the play as the railroads expanded and they started hauling that play to every city. They could would you count that as part of the commercialization. I mean they made a big deal of him being a civil war general. Will it be a whole different kind of marketing it is because its about the product. Its about the producer. That that would have been a fun article, you know to do if someone come up with a but i think another gettysburg one that we potentially could have done would it to be John Batchelder . And the map that he produces that many of you might have in your your home that is you know, he gets meat and others to endorse it and then sells it so i i mean and again brian, i think you were asking a question earlier about you know, is there their kits thats thats kind of insulting to purchase and buy or to to visit whether it be the wax museum or some other type of entertainment are there Different Levels in which its appropriate to. Appropriate the imagery and meaning of the civil war and i think my my gut reaction is certainly seems like it that there are things that are you know, bobblehead. Chamberlains are kind of kit where we tend to hold monuments and other things in a more reverential. Sort of vain. There was a ben butler walking doll the wind up and then buckled law. Thats kitch id say yeah for sure. Well it looks like you all are out of questions. Weve really enjoyed speaking with you. Im sorry one more one more. I can help answer a question. Okay that came up on the stereographs. Im sure you guys have this but the New York Historical society up on 80, whatever street did a civil war exhibit at the susque and daniel. And they had the tickets. Of the brady antietam exhibit and they had a little clipping that said the plan was for a twoweek exhibit. And it went on for six months and there were articles about how they were lines down the block. To get tickets to get in and how many times ahead of reprint the tickets and the Historical Society had all the different editions of the tickets that had to get getting printed because the show kept going on and thats the person was asking about the the profit. Thats the money. Its people paying to see the the brady gallery. You know, probably not buying the pictures. I dont know if they could reproduce them that much at that point. So. Up the answer. Thanks for that. Thank you very much. And thank you to all of you and thanks to our panelists