I agree with the statement that “what history and memory share in common is that both merit our mistrust, yet both must nevertheless be nourished.”  Both are clearly fallible, but also often have some truth at their core.  I think that is is best to nourish both, since through comparing and cross-referencing the two we can gain a more solid knowledge of a person or event.  The death of Sacagawea illustrates this: we are given the historical assertion that she died in 1812 by Clark’s diary, yet the memory (created through oral traditions) of Native Americans  asserts that her death occurred at a much later date.  I believe that it is best to approach both of these with skepticism, but also with the view that both might be true.  If we do this, there is a greater chance that we will view the past with accuracy.  Additionally, I think history and memory should be mistrusted because I believe that doubting what is taught and held up as fact is the best way to approach history and learning in general, and if we begin with the knowledge that multiple types of sources are vying for recognition then we will more probably view the world with a skeptic’s eyes.

If Bradford’s books can be called ‘histories’ (as suggested by her gathering of documents and “taking reasonable measures” to make the book “as true to the facts as possible”), they should certainly be mistrusted.  Her writing is clearly influenced by a positive bias towards Tubman, and is haphazard in its coverage by Bradford’s own admission.  The need to mistrust such works is evident in the fact that the figure of Tubman’s 19 trips to the south, which was often cited as historical fact due to the book’s apparent authority, was probably not true.  It dtill, however, became part of the cultural memory, and her image was promoted along these lines.

While I believe that her real-life contributions were moral and important, I don’t think Tubman was so important a figure as to justify the extremely prominent place in the Civil War eras that cultural memory has given her.  Still, I do not think that the cultural memory should be necessarily downgraded.  I think the facts of the past should be generally adhered to, but her grandiose image within cultural memory should also be nourished, since I think the values that can be taught through it are a positive influence on society.

As Peter noted, John F Kennedy is often seem as a political champion for the United States due to his resolving of the Cuban Missile Crisis, which is viewed as one of the most potentially destructive moments in human history. However, he has not always been seen as such a champion, and is even deemed to have had major political failures. What surprised me was that his the practical success of his actions was often disjointed from his popular reputation as determined by the polls (which, granted, is by no means a perfect measure of a nations views).  For example, the high point of his popularity, at 83%, counter-intuitively occurred shortly after the disastrous Bay of Pigs Invasion, which caused thousands of casualties with no gain.  The low point, at 56%, was shortly after the civil rights march on Washington.  We could interpret the polls in numerous ways: perhaps the numbers rose due to increased nationalism due to having Cuba as a common enemy, while the internal division of the nation over the civil rights was more disturbing to citizens than external strife.  Some might say that polling is more or less random, but the validity of the numbers is somewhat substantiated by the logical progression of the late 1962 numbers: lower during the Cuban Missile Crisis due to the enormous tension and higher after its resolution due to the relief.  Another point of interest is that in Texas up until immediately before his assassination, Kennedy’s numbers had diminished enough so that if the election were restaged in that state alone, he would lose his presidency.  An article in the Houston Chronicle on the day of his assassination cited “an adverse reaction to the civil rights program” and general disenchantment with JFK’s administration as the reason for the slipping numbers.  Why, then, have we become enchanted again if up until his death his reputation was in decline?  Is the transformation purely due to his martyr-like death?  Is it nostalgia?  Is it due to better perspective due to the passage of time, or is it due to hindsight informed by more enlightened views of his work in the civil rights movement?  According to a recent Times article, Kennedy is ranked #11 of all the presidents, despite dealing mainly in rhetoric and passing “very little in the way of funding or legislation.”  Does this modern view coincide with past polls and historical events?  How can possible changes be accounted for?

Works Cited:

Conway, Debra. “A Look At JFK’s Popularity Polls.” JFK News and Updates – JFK Lancer Blog. 3 Feb. 2009. Web. 05 Oct. 2011. <http://jfklancernews.blogspot.com/2009/02/look-at-jfks-popularity-polls-by-debra.html>.

Hines, Nico. “The Greatest US Presidents – The Times US Presidential Rankings – Times Online.” The Times | UK News, World News and Opinion. 31 Oct. 2008. Web. 05 Oct. 2011. <http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/us_elections/article5055404.ece>.

Houston Chronicle, “Chronicle Poll Sees Goldwater Over Kennedy” Nov. 22, 1963. “Gallup Poll had indicated that 63 per cent of Americans disapproved of the March [on Washington], and that 38 per cent thought he was pushing too fast on integration.” William F. Buckley Jr., National Review, December 31, 1994.

This week I began reading a few books about the JFK election and the role of Catholicism in it.  I mainly found factual information, which was not as useful to us, but some of the content was relevant to our discussions of legends and their making.  In particular, the book The Religious Factor in the 1960 Election makes the point that we actually know very little about JFK’s catholicism, the particulars of which he kept private.  The fact that he was Catholic was a prominent topic of debate, but the actual details were not known.  Still, historians refer to him as “the most important Catholic in American history.”  This was interesting to me because I, at least, thought of Kennedy and the other Presidents (especially the recent ones) as being known for their individual, well-detailed accomplishments, as opposed to shadowy figures of the past such as Sacagawea who were mainly figureheads for a certain cause.  The book made me wonder wether Kennedy’s legend is more similar to hers or, as I think most people would assume, someone like Jefferson who made actual, praise-worthy contributions to the US.  The idea that his symbolic significance outweighs his practical achievements is supported by the fact that not only Roman Catholics, but many other American minorities such as Jewish and African Americans, Hispanics, and Native Americans voted for him and saw him as a hope for a better future.

John Brown’s fabled kiss of the African American child on his way to the gallows is perhaps the most prominent facet of his life, yet many historians believe that the legend was largely fabrication.  As Eby notes, the legend arose from a second-hand newspaper report, and was then publicized through poetry (particularly Wittier’s) and images.  Because the stories had so little fact to begin with, a large portion of their content is artistic embellishment, making these renderings particularly revealing about their creators’ views of Brown, Southerners, and African Americans.

In all of the given images, Brown is portrayed in a positive light as a hero.  In all but one of the images he is shown near a heavy door, usually ajar, reflecting his goal of breaking barriers and his emergence from behind the walls of injustice to take his place bravely at the gallows.  He is pictured above the slave pair, as if (even in abolitionist eyes) he was elevated above them, either by race or by the goodness of his deeds.  This stance also enhances his goodness by showing him deigning, as a white, to physically ‘stoop to their level’ in order to show kindness.  In some images, such as “John Brown—The Martyr,” his elevated stance is also protective, upright, and noble, while “The Last Moments of John Brown” shows him in motion almost as if stumbling, as if the kiss was an impulsive move of kindness.  This view is more humanizing, but less idealizing than the other, stronger portrayals. In Noble’s painting, Brown is looked upon by an adoring wounded man and a white woman, fixing him as a general hero of disadvantaged and luckless people, not exclusively slaves, thus allowing his image to reach a wider audience.  He is further ennobled by “John Brown,” wherein he stands in front of a billowing flag against tyranny.  Additionally, Sic Semper Tyrranis is the state motto of Virginia; the association tied Brown to the state and therefore to patriotism.  He is often shown with a long white beard, almost god-like, and the letters curving against the white flag form a vague halo around his head.

The images also reflect the artists’ views of African Americans and Southerners.  “John Brown—The Martyr” gives the most idealized, very European portrayal of slaves, who resemble the Madonna and Child, thus furthering the abolitionist cause by alluding that divine love exists among slaves.  The woman’s position also resembles the lamenting white women of Renaissance paintings or even the paintings of George Washington’s death.  The woman is given Anglicized features and draped Grecian clothes, both of which indicate that she is genteel and civilized.   These features indicate that she is worthy of Brown’s affections compared to the Southern soldiers and their distorted, unattractive features.  The negative view of Southerners is also evident in “Brown of Ossawatomie,” wherein the figures are dehumanized and represented merely as a mass of weapons (as were the mexicans in Disney’s Crockett movie), highlighting their violent nature (in ironic contrast to Brown’s tied, stooped form and rarely visinle hands, which minimize his violent acts).  The soldiers are also far more dressed up than Brown in “John Brown” and “John Brown—The Martyr,” revealing them to be pretentious, bureaucratic, and set in outdated traditions.  Brown, in contrast, is dressed as the everyman thrust into the hero role, just as the artists hoped that the image’s viewers would be upon being inspired to the same heights.