7
| For more information about this article or gallery, please call the gallery phone number listed in the last line of the article, "For more info..." |
January Issue 2005
Art Exhibition & Symposium at Converse College in Spartanburg, SC, Shows Use of Slaves in Confederate Currency
As people living
in Confederate states in the 1800s conducted business, many of
them were using paper currency which contained images that glorified
slavery.
In celebration of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Converse College
in Spartanburg, SC, will host a public symposium on Jan. 17 at
5:30pm in Daniel Recital Hall in conjunction with an accompanying
art exhibition which showcases slave images widely used on Confederate
currency. The exhibition, entitled, Confederate Currency: The
Color of Money, features approximately 70 pieces of artwork
by John W. Jones, will be on display Jan. 10 through Feb. 15,
2005, in the Milliken Gallery at Converse.
Appearing with Jones in the symposium will be Dr. Richard G. Doty,
head of the numismatics (coins and paper money) section of the
National Museum of American History at the Smithsonian Institution
in Washington, DC, and Dr. Michael Harris, art historian of African-American
Art from the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill and author
of Picturing Race. Doty will address the substitution of
slave images for original images which portrayed Caucasians on
Northern US currency, a practice that Northern printers were forced
to take because the demand for slave images was so strong from
Southern banks. Harris will provide an art historical context
to the depictions of blacks on the Confederate currency. The symposium
and exhibition are free and open to the public.
"Very
few people are aware of the fact that images of slavery were used
extensively in Confederate currency," said Jones from his
Columbia, SC, home. His Color of Money exhibition has toured
throughout the US since 2001, with stops at the African-American
Museum and Library in Oakland, CA, The Black World History Museum
in St. Louis, MO, The Rome Art and Community Center in Rome, NY,
and the Rosa Parks Museum in Montgomery, AL.
An artist by trade, Jones first noticed a slave image while working
as a graphic artist for a blueprint company in Charleston, SC.
"A customer wanted a Confederate bank note enlarged,"
he recalls. "After enlarging the note, I found myself looking
at a picture of slaves picking cotton. Of course, I was intrigued
and excited, and I began researching the use of slaves on these
currencies. I was even more shocked by the total absence of information
in any history books."
Jones began to seek out Confederate notes at flea markets, on eBay and at shops specializing in old currencies. He then decided to bring the images to light by presenting them on canvas without revision. With the assistance of the Avery Research Center for African-American History and Culture in Charleston, 73 of Jones' 80 original paintings were assembled into the exhibit. The juxtaposition of the framed Confederate currencies with the acrylic paintings makes a very potent statement on the contribution of enslaved Africans to the American economy.
According to Doty, the images used on a currency tell a great deal about its society. "It has always been the case that currency images tell us something about the world in which it was created," he said. "Sometimes the connections have been subtle and difficult to appreciate. For example, in a time of war, money is likely to change dramatically, reflecting rapid alterations and tensions in a larger world."
Because the
US was sharply divided on the issue of slavery by the 1850s, Southern
states began a public relations effort to put a positive spin
on the subject. Since currency issued by Southern banks found
their way throughout the country, images of smiling, happy slaves
were engraved on the notes to reinforce Southern convictions about
the legitimacy of enslaved labor and its beneficial nature for
Africans.
The demand for the images was so strong that currency printers-ironically
located in Northern states-recycled their existing engravings
of white people into black slaves. "The central vignette
on a dollar bill from the Adrian Insurance Company of Adrian,
MI, was retouched for a five-dollar bill from Winnsboro, SC; and
a group of whites harvesting grain became a group of black slaves
picking cotton," said Dr. Doty. "By the same process,
a white farmhand on a note from Washington, DC, had his clothing
tattered and his skin darkened, and emerged as a slave on a bill
from Howardsville, VA. The process was repeated elsewhere over
the next few years, and it brought breathing space for the Northern
printers and the Southern bankers whom they served."
The portrayal
of slavery hits a particular sensitive spot for Jones because
his great-great grandmother was a slave. "When I was 13-years-old,
she showed me the whip marks on her back," he said. "So
I know that the images that show slaves as happy, well-treated
and healthy workers are a completely false representation and
are nothing more than propaganda."
The symposium and exhibition are being held in conjunction with
an interdisciplinary January Term course at Converse called "The
Art and Economics of Race." In the course, Converse professors
Dr. Suzanne Schuweiler-Daab, associate professor of art, and Dr.
Madelyn Young, associate professor of economics and chair of the
economics, accounting and business department, will evaluate the
relationship between economics and racism, and the role visual
images played in creating the racial barriers in American society
beginning with the antebellum period to the present.
For more information regarding the exhibition and symposium check our SC Institutional Gallery listings, call the gallery at 864/596-9181 or send an e-mail to (art.design@converse.edu).
Carolina Arts is published monthly by Shoestring Publishing Company, a subsidiary of PSMG, Inc. Copyright© 2004 by PSMG, Inc., which published Charleston Arts from July 1987 - Dec. 1994 and South Carolina Arts from Jan. 1995 - Dec. 1996. It also publishes Carolina Arts Online, Copyright© 2004 by PSMG, Inc. All rights reserved by PSMG, Inc. or by the authors of articles. Reproduction or use without written permission is strictly prohibited. Carolina Arts is available throughout North & South Carolina.