American Progress
And no, the title of that painting is not Manifest Destiny. I didn't know that.
American Progress
Here is a famous picture, ubiquitous in textbooks about the United States.It depicts a colossal woman, and with her various modes of western transportation. As the angel goes, she seems to be building a telegraph line. She is accompanied by a travois, a man on horseback, various qualities of covered wagons, a horse draw carriage, and even men going on foot. The Native Americans, in darkness, seem to be fleeing from the frame of view, while the White pioneers follow, driving off the symbolic buffalo. The charming woman of colossal proportions wears a star, perhaps hinting at the increasing number of states, as each state added to the Union brings another star to the flag. She also carries a book, a symbol of preserved knowledge. It is often associated with the phenomena "Manifest Destiny." This practice is considered to be the great equalizer of America. Be one a recently freed African American, who has just ceased to be another's property, or a poor debtor, looking to start again, the United States' expansion seemed to provide everything you needed to become an individual, and free yourself from the societal bonds which held you.
But, that is not what this painting American Progress is all about. The angel here does not scatter men, or gold, or crops, but she carries telegraph poles and wires, bringing unity from the Eastern Seaboard to California. She brings the device which synchronized the rail schedules, helped the government to rule over distant lands, and even made a unified time system. She brings a book, perhaps the Holy Bible, the very thing upon which the grounds of driving out the Mormon's were held. It is plain to see the bones of buffalo, perhaps those slaughtered by the U.S. government, in an effort to stamp out the Native Americans. The progress doesn't bring individualism, it is the flight of individuals from the growing conformity of the East. Well the west provided refuge for many years from factory shifts and consistent times, ways to escape the law and become a great outlaw, like Jesse James, it did not long last. And, the American system did not want it to last. This panting, by Gast, is clearly an attempt to show that the wilds would be tamed, the savages driven off the canvas, and that everywhere, from sea to shining sea, the rails and telegraph lines would come. To be an individual would be impossible as star after star from the colossal woman's hat becomes state after state in the growing United States of America.
It is also worth note that there is not a woman, saving the ethereal woman of absurd proportions, who is an allegorical figure, to be found in this painting. The people are all white, saving the Native Americans, who flee with fear into the darker, the yet-to-be 'civilized' side of the portrait. Manifest Destiny, for its short period of providing an ounce of individualism before urbanization struck, was not seen as the black man's task. Even though many so-called 'Exo-Dusters' fled with these fairer settlers, many remained home. A great number of blacks continued to live in a system of sharecropping back East, despite having the option to homestead and receive a free lot. They did not see themselves, with frequency, among the pioneers and actors of Manifest Destiny. Most women sent their husbands out west, and if he hit it big, they went out to join them, or, if they didn't hear from him for a while, they remarried. There was no system of women becoming strong and independent, but, as this painting shows, the ideal society was that of men stamping out those who are different from them.
But, perhaps this desire to make the indigenous peoples like Europeans stems from one of the founding myths of America, and from a painting which sits nicely in the nation's capital.
But, that is not what this painting American Progress is all about. The angel here does not scatter men, or gold, or crops, but she carries telegraph poles and wires, bringing unity from the Eastern Seaboard to California. She brings the device which synchronized the rail schedules, helped the government to rule over distant lands, and even made a unified time system. She brings a book, perhaps the Holy Bible, the very thing upon which the grounds of driving out the Mormon's were held. It is plain to see the bones of buffalo, perhaps those slaughtered by the U.S. government, in an effort to stamp out the Native Americans. The progress doesn't bring individualism, it is the flight of individuals from the growing conformity of the East. Well the west provided refuge for many years from factory shifts and consistent times, ways to escape the law and become a great outlaw, like Jesse James, it did not long last. And, the American system did not want it to last. This panting, by Gast, is clearly an attempt to show that the wilds would be tamed, the savages driven off the canvas, and that everywhere, from sea to shining sea, the rails and telegraph lines would come. To be an individual would be impossible as star after star from the colossal woman's hat becomes state after state in the growing United States of America.
It is also worth note that there is not a woman, saving the ethereal woman of absurd proportions, who is an allegorical figure, to be found in this painting. The people are all white, saving the Native Americans, who flee with fear into the darker, the yet-to-be 'civilized' side of the portrait. Manifest Destiny, for its short period of providing an ounce of individualism before urbanization struck, was not seen as the black man's task. Even though many so-called 'Exo-Dusters' fled with these fairer settlers, many remained home. A great number of blacks continued to live in a system of sharecropping back East, despite having the option to homestead and receive a free lot. They did not see themselves, with frequency, among the pioneers and actors of Manifest Destiny. Most women sent their husbands out west, and if he hit it big, they went out to join them, or, if they didn't hear from him for a while, they remarried. There was no system of women becoming strong and independent, but, as this painting shows, the ideal society was that of men stamping out those who are different from them.
But, perhaps this desire to make the indigenous peoples like Europeans stems from one of the founding myths of America, and from a painting which sits nicely in the nation's capital.