The Art Museum: Arts in the Gilded Age, 1865-1900Author(s): Ted Dickson and Chris WallaceSource: OAH Magazine of History, Vol. 13, No. 4, The Gilded Age (Summer, 1999), pp. 48-51Published by: Organization of American HistoriansStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25163310 .

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Lesson Plan Ted Dickson and Chris Wallace

The Art Museum:

Arts in the Gilded Age,

18654900

"A mind that is stretched to a new idea never returns to its

original dimensions. "

?Oliver Wendell Holmes

One of the most difficult challenges in a United States

history survey course is integrating art and cultural

themes. At Providence Day School, where we teach,

history teachers are lucky. There is a lot of cooperation and cross

pollination between the history department and the visual arts

department. Chris Wallace, the chair of the visual arts depart

ment, is part of the team that teaches our elective on the 1960s,

and he also works with the teachers in many other courses, both

as a guest lecturer and a facilitator for the integration of art into

their curriculum. We have been working for three years on

integrating more American art into the curriculum of the Ad

vanced Placement and regular United States history courses. We

have explored ways for the students to truly interact with the art,

rather than the traditional "art in the dark" day of slides. In this

lesson, students interact with the art of the Gilded Age and learn

about the artists as a way of reviewing the major themes of the unit

prior to assessment.

Time Frame

This lesson is intended for one forty-five-minute class period,

with preview and follow-up assignments. Teachers could also allow

one library research day for preparation. It could easily take two class

periods or fill a ninety-minute block.

Student Objectives 1. To interpret images as primary sources.

2. To review the themes of the Gilded Age. 3. To identify the major artists of the Gilded Age. 4. To learn about one artist in depth.

5. To address the National Standards for U.S. History, Era 6:

The Development of the Industrial United States, Standard 2C: The

student understands how new cultural movements at different social

levels affected American life.

Background At our school, the unit on the Gilded Age covers a number of

themes (we call them the "tions"): industrialization and concentra

tion in industry (including the maldistribution of wealth and the

philosophies justifying it), consumer consumption, westward expan

sion, mechanization in agriculture and industry, invention and

technological innovation, organization of labor, urbanization and

pollution, immigration, evolution of the political culture (corruption?),

and two ongoing issues?race relations and women's rights. The way

U.S. history is usually periodized, Reconstruction is taught and tested

prior to the Gilded Age, so we have to keep reminding the students that certain events we previously studied overlap with the Gilded Age.

Throughout the year, our students learn a four-step process for

looking at paintings and other works of art:

1. Style or approach: i.e., realistic, abstract, non-objective.

2. Subject matter or concept: what the artist is trying to convey

in terms of the idea. Is it recognizable? 3. Composition: arrangement of the images, focal point(s), use

of positive and negative (inactive, background) spaces. 4. Technique: how the paint is applied, color relationships, use of

light and dark, how light strikes the subject of the painting, use of texture

(tactile or visual, use of depth). Does the artist convince the viewer that

he/she is looking at something three-dimensional in the painting?

Although this lesson concentrates on steps 1 and 2, it may include

aspects of steps 3 and 4, especially in one of the extension activities.

Procedure 1. Photocopy the two handouts included with this article and

decide which student will be assigned to each artist (or do this in class

and let the students have some choice).

48 OAH Magazine of History Summer 1999

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2. Pass out Handout 1: Our Gilded-Age Art Museum, and

explain the activity as described in the handout. Either fill in the two

blanks with the due date and museum date before photocopying this

handout or have the students do it in class.

3. Assign each student an artist. There are twenty artists listed

on Handout 1; if you need more artists than that, the Teacher Notes

section contains other possibilities.

4. Explain Handout 2: Interpretations of Art in the Gilded Age. We assign this to be read before students go to the library, and then

discuss it briefly in the library when reviewing their task before

turning them loose. Alternatively, you could read and discuss it in

class as part of introducing the assignment, or you could choose to

pass it out after the students view their museum.

5. On the day the posters are due, set your classroom up as an

art museum by hanging (or taping to the desks) each of the

students' art exhibits.

6. At the beginning of class, conduct a brief discussion reviewing the interpretations in Handout 2 and instruct students on the

procedures you want them to follow for touring the art museum.

Their task while browsing is summarized at the bottom of Handout

1, as is the follow-up assignment.

7. Allow students to browse through the museum and take notes.

You should allow plenty of time for this. We set the atmosphere by

playing classical music and asking them to talk in quiet voices. We

also like to assign partners for the browsing process.

8. Near the end of class or the next day, conduct a class discussion

based on the students' notes and flesh out the themes you want to

emphasize. With forty-five-minute classes, we tend to do this the next

day as part of the final unit review. Remind the students of the

homework assignment (Handout 1).

Teacher Notes

If you have more than twenty students, you could use any of the

following artists.

Architects:

McKim, Mead, and White?Boston Public Library William Le Baron Jenney?Home Insurance Building Daniel Burnham?Reliance Building

Sculptors:

John Quincy Adams Ward?Garfield Memorial

Painters:

Eastman Johnson?In the Fields

George Inness?Delaware Water Gap

William Merritt Chase?Idle Hours

Childe Hassam?Union Square in Spring

Photographers: Eadweard Muybridge?photos of humans and animals in motion

You could also assign someone to look at Victorian

interior decoration.

Another option for this assignment would be to assign some

students literary figures. The advantage of this is that you can include

important authors in your review of the unit. The (big) disadvantage

is that the students will not have time to confront the art itself, but

rather will rely on sources such as Benet's Reader's Encyclopedia of

American Literature or The Oxford Companion to American

Literature. Authors could include: Charlotte Perkins Gilman,

Henry Adams, Mark Twain, Stephen Crane, Edward Bellamy, Frank Norris, Horatio Alger, among others.

A better option would be to assign poets and to tell these

students to include three to five poems or excerpts from different

poems. Possible poets include Paul Laurence Dunbar ( We Wear the

Mask) and Walt Whitman.

Extension Activities

1. Photocopy a different piece of work for each artist and see if

the students can match the image to the artist. This emphasizes all

four steps in the process of looking at art.

2. Tell the students that they can buy four pieces of art for J. P. Morgan. What would they buy? What if they were buying for

Mark Twain?

Sources

The two books we have found most useful for researching American art are Wayne Craven, American Art: History and Culture

(Madison, WI: Brown and Benchmark, 1994); and Robert Hughes, American Visions: The Epic History of Art in America (New York:

Knopf, 1997). Both of these are also excellent sources for biographi cal details, artistic interpretations, and images. Abraham A. Davidson,

The Story of American Pain ting (New York: Harry Abrams, 1974); and Edward Lucie-Smith, American Realism (New York: Harry

Abrams, 1994) are also good sources for both images and

information. This idea for comparing student interpretations to

a historian's interpretation was inspired by Roberta Leach and

Augustine Caliguire,"Lesson 34: Arts in the Gilded Age," in

Advanced Placement U.S. History 1 (Rocky River, OH: The

Center for Learning, 1997). Richard McLanathan, Art in

America: A BriefHis tory (New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1973) is a useful short interpretation of American art. Lewis

Mumford, The Brown Decades (New York: Dover Paperback, 1955) is the classic study of Gilded-Age arts and is still very

interesting to read.

Ted Dickson is the chair of the history department at Providence Day School in Charlotte, North Carolina. He serves as an Advanced

Placement U.S. history reader and has presented a number of Focus

on Teaching sessions at annual meetings of the OAH. His original interest in this subject stems from his experience as a teaching

assistant for Professor Harold Kirker at the University of California, Santa Barbara. When Professor Kirker retired, he gave Mr. Dickson

many of his slides, and Professor Kirker s example inspired him to

find ways to incorporate art into the teaching of history.

Chris Wallace is the chair of the visual arts department at Providence

Day School in Charlotte, North Carolina.

OAH Magazine of History Summer 1999 49

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Handout 1: Our Gilded-Age Art Museum

Your assignment is to create a poster exhibit for our class art museum. Your poster should describe the work of a particular Gilded-Age

artist, who will be assigned by the teacher from the list included in this handout.

Your poster should contain the following information:

1. The artist's name.

2. Three to five images of the artist's work.

a. You may photocopy your images out of art books, or print them off of your computer, etc.

b. Next to your artist's name are a few suggestions for images you may want to include.

c. When choosing your images, consider both the themes of the Gilded Age and the range of the artist's work.

d. You may also want to include quotes from the artist about the images or art in general.

3. A brief biography of the artist (including birth and death dates).

4. An attempt to relate the artist's work to previous influences, artists, and themes.

5. An attempt to relate the artist's work to the themes of the Gilded Age. 6. NOTE: You will receive Extra Credit if you relate the artist's influence on later artists.

Your poster must be ready for class on_

List of Artists

Architects, and Engineers:

Richard Morris Hunt?The Breakers, the Biltmore House

Henry Hobson Richardson?Marshall Field Store

Louis Sullivan?Wainwright Building, Buffalo Guaranty Building

John and Washington Roebling?The Brooklyn Bridge Frederick Law Olmstead?Central Park

Sculptors:

Augustus Saint-Gaudens?Shaw Memorial

Daniel Chester French?Minute Man

Frederic Remington?consider both his paintings and his bronzes

Painters:

John Singer Sargent?Madame X, Mr. and Mrs. Isaac Newton Phelps

James McNeill Whisder?Study in Grey and Black

Mary Cassait?The Boating Party

Thomas Eakins?Max Schmitt in a Single Scull and The Gross Clinic

Winslow Homer?The Veteran in a New Field and The Gulf Stream

John Peto?Reminiscences of 1865

William Harnett?After the Hunt

Henry Ossawa Turner?The Banjo Lesson

Albert Pinkham Ryder?marine paintings

Photographers:

Jacob Riis?photos of urban life

Timothy O'Sullivan?photos of the West

William Henry Jackson?photos of the West

The Art Museum Activity

On_we will hang the poster exhibits around the room, creating our own art museum. Once we have created the museum,

your task will be to:

1. Browse through the Art Museum and study each artist and image carefully. 2. Record in your notebook:

a. Key information about each artist and his/her work,

b. Which themes or events of the Gilded Age the image represents (stretch your mind!), and

c. Which interpretation of the art of the Gilded Age best fits each artist and his/her work.

3. Prepare for the homework assignment: pick the image that you think best represents the most important themes of the time period

and write a paragraph explaining your choice in depth.

50 O AH Magazine of History Summer 1999

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Handout 2: Interpretations of Art in the Gilded Age

I. American Renaissance and American Realism

The American Renaissance in art and architecture refers to the era from about 1885 to 1920. It was a spirit that was less nationalistic,

and more associated with European culture, particularly that of the Renaissance and Baroque periods. American millionaires saw themselves

as the modern-day counterparts of European aristocracy, and wished to live in homes that resembled sixteenth-century palaces of Italian

princes or seventeenth-century chateaux of French nobility. They wanted their clubs, libraries, train stations, and art museums to express

a rebirth of the grandeur of European golden ages past. J. P. Morgan and Henry Clay Frick built a library and a mansion in New York City in the neo-Renaissance style. They filled them not with works by American artists, but with Old World masterpieces from the Middle Ages to the Baroque....The American Renaissance was the mantle of culture that cloaked American materialism, industrialism, capitalism, and

even imperialism....

In the United States in the final decades of the nineteenth century, the continuing cultural tug-of-war between the powerful allure of

Europe and a fierce American chauvinism is evident in both literature and painting....[M]any American authors and painters [went] to the

Old World to find training, inspiration, and even subject matter....

Not all Americans, however, were so totally committed to the cosmopolitan form of art, for a pro-American sentiment was actually very

strong. It is useful to look at this more closely, especially in its literary manifestations....

Realism became a potent force in American literature....

Source: Wayne Craven, American Art: History and Culture, (Madison, WI: Brown and Benchmark, 1994), 287, 329.

II. The War and die Machine

American culture after 1860 was dominated by two vast images, as well as that of Nature. One was the Civil War. The other was the

Machine. They were strongly linked.

The Civil War was the world's first great modern war, total war, fought at the limits of an expanding technology of railroads,

breechloaders, repeating guns, and ironclads. It was America's Iliad, and its Holocaust as well.

It seemed to run on its own, a thing with its own will, swallowing the men in blue and gray as a furnace swallows coal....

The war encouraged, in some artists and writers and in much of their audience, a desire to face unpleasant facts: not so much out of

morbidity (though there was a strain ofthat) as from a sense of obligation not to flinch from atrocious realities.... [Djuring and immediately after it, there was no escaping its reality, which transmitted itself through a vastly expanded press to a public eager for the latest victory or

in dread of the newest disaster: the journalistic eye replaced that of the novelist or the poet, as the camera replaced that of the painter, as

the conduit of unbearable reality.... Of course a distinct visual ethic was bound to rise from American utilitarianism and materialism. It showed

itself, earliest and most dramatically, in the area where science, material, and common social needs most visibly came together: architecture.

Source: Robert Hughes, American Visions: The Epic History of Art in America (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1997), 271-73.

Questions to Consider 1. From these readings, what do you think were the major themes in American art during the Gilded Age?

2. What kinds of images would you expect to see if you went to a Gilded-Age art museum?

O AH Magazine of History Summer 1999 51

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