Rusting Giants: Sculpture and Big Steel in the 1960’s

Dr Alex Taylor of the Tate Gallery presented a seminar on ‘Rusting Giants: Sculpture and Big Steel in the 1960’s’ in which he drew attention to the connection between US industry and US modern art.  The focus of Dr Taylor’s paper was the involvement of the US Steel Corporation in the construction of the ‘Chicago Picasso’ which was built using their Cor-Ten alloy.  Cor-Ten, launched in 1933, was an alloy patented to US Steel and promoted for industrial use because of its resistance to corrosion.  Cor-Ten developed an outer layer of corrosion when exposed to the elements and although it required more steel than aluminium buildings, it had a higher profit margin because costs, such as painting, were eliminated. 

The steel industry faced a problem because rust had negative associations and US Steel itself was described as the ‘rusting giant’.  Rust was visible to the public and was viewed as evidence of bigger problems that were affecting the industry.  In an effort to improve its corporate image and promote itself as a community partner, US Steel began to promote the use of Cor-Ten for public projects, such as the ‘Chicago Picasso’.  Although Cor-Ten had been around since the 1930’s, US Steel promoted its use in the 1960’s as innovative and progressive.

The success of the John Deere Administration Centre in Illinois in 1964 led to US Steel promoting Cor-Ten for architectural purposes and by the late 1960’s there were a burgeoning number of buildings which had used the material.  US Steel itself used it for its own new building in Pittsburgh.  In a significant change in the perception of steel, Cor-Ten’s skin of rust was seen as a sign of beauty and durability, rather than decay. 

Cor-Ten was used to build the Chicago Civic Centre in 1967 and this led to the ‘Chicago Picasso’ sculpture on the same site also using Cor-Ten.  This was the first prominent use of the material in a public context.  Until then, artists had previously used stainless steel for their sculptures.  During the planning of the sculpture, Picasso had avoiding committing to using a particular material.  However, he did approve the use of Cor-Ten after being shown the material and the modifications to his design which would be needed for practical reasons.  It is interesting to note that Picasso, who donated his sculpture to the people of Chicago, never visited the city or saw the finished product.

US Steel played a role in promoting the ‘Chicago Picasso’.  American Bridge, which was a division of US Steel, produced the sculpture at a cost of $300,000 which was much cheaper than producing the sculpture using a material such as bronze.  US Steel’s public relations staff recognised the potential of the ‘Chicago Picasso’ in showcasing Cor-Ten.  The Civic Centre and its sculpture were considered a work of art which had positive repercussions for US Steel.  Not only did the sculpture promote the potential of their material as artistic and durable, it also promoted the company as interested in the cultural life of the community.

As Dr Taylor explained, the ‘Chicago Picasso’ was not US Steel’s first foray into the art and cultural life of America.  The 1964-1965 New York World’s Fair displayed ‘The Unisphere’ – a stainless steel representation of Earth which had been made by US Steel.  The company realised the promotional value of the sculpture, which represented global interdependence, and a mandatory credit line was attributed to US Steel.  The company’s subsidiary, American Bridge who had produced the ‘Chicago Picasso’ also displayed Picasso’s maquette in 1966 before the sculpture was unveiled in 1967.  Picasso’s modernist refusal to explain the sculpture’s meaning led to interpretations of steel as being positive and progressive.  As a result, Cor-Ten showed US Steel as innovative despite the material having been invented thirty years previously.  Rather than steel being viewed as toxic and decaying, US Steel were able to focus on it durability and aesthetic value.

The ‘Chicago Picasso’ was theatrically unveiled to a crowd of 50,000 in August 1967.  Public and religious leaders were present, speeches were made and a Presidential telegram was read.  US Steel had a documentary made about the building which was shown on TV.  Apart from highlighting the positive aspects of their material, Dr Taylor pointed out that it also promoted the idea of masculine labour activity.  The sculpture was used in US Steel adverts and Cor-Ten was described as ‘handsome’, another gendered attribute.  Being so closely associated with the ‘Chicago Picasso’ enabled US Steel to portray itself as being concerned with civic aesthetics, community engagement and social responsibility, as well as its corporate interests.  The company also successfully used this opportunity as a political lobbying tool and successfully secured limitations on the import of foreign steel.  US Steel also donated Cor-Ten to art schools in return for them supplying photographs of the students’ art which would be placed in US Steel’s corporate magazine.  The schools they donated to were often in areas with connections to the steel industry and their efforts once again presented them as a socially responsible corporation.

Although the 1930’s-created Cor-Ten had been lauded for architectural and artistic purposes in the mid-20^th Century, its shine began to wear off when it became apparent it was highly problematic for use in sculpture.  US Steel’s claim that Cor-Ten was ‘self-repairing’ was not the experience of those trying to conserve it and they were instead faced with a material which had a very fragile surface finish.  By 1981, destruction and decay were again seen as symbolising steel and the industry itself.  Despite their earlier self-promotion through the ‘Chicago Picasso’, US Steel refused to sponsor one of the artist’s latter exhibitions.

Dr Taylor’s paper was an interesting juxtaposition to Professor Glenn Willumson’s seminar during last year’s Centre for American Studies seminar series.  In ‘Exploiting the Archive: The Photographs of America’s First Transcontinental Railroad’, Professor Willumson focused on the photographic archives of the Central Pacific Railroad Company.  In the same way Central Pacific used material culture to promote their agenda, it appears US Steel acted in similar ways to promote Cor-Ten through its association with the ‘Chicago Picasso’.  Central Pacific highlighted the importance of technology, innovation and progress to their project to ‘sell the dream’ to the public and investors.  US Steel promoted Cor-Ten as innovative (despite its thirty year history), durable and culturally relevant in its efforts to convince consumers, and the public, of steel’s worth and relevance to mid-20^th Century America. 

Valerie MacKenzie

PGR – University of Glasgow

The next lecture will be given by Prof. Kristin Hoganson (University of Illinois and University of Oxford) and is entitled: ‘Farmers’ Alliances: Grass-Roots Perspectives on Trans-Imperial Politics.’ This will take place at 5.15pm on Wednesday 23rd March 2016, and will be held in Room 208, 2 University Gardens. All very welcome    

The Gentle Weapon: Social Ostracism as a Weapon of Massive Resistance in Montgomery Alabama

Yesterday, 2^nd March 2016, the Centre was pleased to welcome Dr. Helen Laville (University of Birmingham) as part of the 2015-2016 seminar series. In what was a fascinating and informative talk, Dr. Laville discussed ‘The Gentle Weapon: Social Ostracism as a Weapon of Massive Resistance in Montgomery Alabama.’ This area of research developed out of a book project, titled ‘Women, Guided and Misguided: Organized White Women and the Challenge of Race Relations 1930-1965’ and concerns the opinions and reactions of women to segregation and integration in the South. The paper Dr. Laville gave yesterday focused more specifically on the efforts of citizens in Montgomery, Alabama to repress support for racial integration in their city in the years after the bus boycott. Below is this listener’s brief summary of the lecture.

Dr. Laville’s talk began with an event: a secret interracial meeting of a women’s prayer group at St. Jude’s Hospital on September 27, 1957 in Montgomery. In the midst of the civil rights movement, these women, under the auspices of the ‘Fellowship of the Concerned’, met to discuss their role after a string of events, including the Bus Boycott and an historic Supreme Court decision, had brought the issue of integration in the South to the fore. With a copy of the newspaper that reported on the meeting, it was clear that these moves were not welcomed by a large contingent of the local community. As the paper reported,

Montgomery, our home town, the Cradle of the Confederacy, long regarded as a stronghold of the Deep South now holds the distinction as being the site of a recent itner-racial (sic) meeting devoted to the general theme of “the problem of integration.”

Indeed, the racism that respectable white southerners had hidden behind a veneer of civility and respectability was forcefully challenged by moves to integrate the south. For example, Car Tags were also printed in the newspaper report to reveal the names of those attending the rally. (Although it was the names of the husbands that were printed, the newspaper went to great lengths to show that no men attended the event). As Dr. Laville highlighted, this was part of a larger effort by groups like the White Citizens Council (WCC) to make a pariah out of anyone who did not fully embrace segregation.

Fearing that the wall representing segregation would come crushing down if even the slightest crack appeared, these groups moved quickly to supress support for racial integration. As Dr. Laville demonstrated, not all of these integration opponents were comic-book southern racists, exemplified by groups like the Ku Klux Klan. The WCC for example, was seen as a respectable alternative to the KKK. They preached a policy of law and order, and their attempts to silence moderate women in the south tended to rely on forms of social and economic isolation, rather than intimidation or physical harm (that is not to say that all of the WCC’s supporters marched to the same drumbeat though).

Nevertheless, by focusing on the WCC’s attack on this small interracial women’s prayer group, Dr. Laville used this episode to examine the extent to which the WCC sought to define massive resistance as a socially acceptable position, encouraging women to use their social influence to exclude and supress any suggestions that the city yield to racial integration. Social ostracism became the ‘gentle weapon’ as society shunned those that supported the civil rights movement, however subtly. It was not clubs, fire hoses, or vicious attack dogs, but this form of deep-seated psychological pressure still had an impact and the pain of social persecution was very real for these women.

Therefore, in an engaging talk, Dr. Laville provided a more nuanced – and accurate – understanding of what white southerners believed and what they did in reaction to integration in southern communities. Away from the headline events of bus boycotts, restaurant sit-ins, and harrowing protest marches, the subtle resistance or support of the civil rights agenda by white women is an important and underdeveloped field of scholarship. Indeed, it is only through projects like these that we can get a well-rounded view of history.

The seminar series will continue next week (Wednesday 9^th March) with Professor Elizabeth Natalle (University of North Carolina at Greenboro) 'Michelle Obama and the Rhetoric of American First Lady Politics.' Here Prof. Natalle will share a case study of Michelle Obama's highly successful Let's Move! campaign in which the strategy of using co-rhetors to create communal agency for change has lowered childhood obesity and influenced federal policy for healthy eating. This will take place in Room 208, 2 University Gardens at 5.15pm. All very welcome!

Joe Ryan-Hume

PGR at The University of Glasgow

Theodore Roosevelt in the Eyes of the Allies

Happy New Year, and welcome back to the postgraduate run blog for the Andrew Hook Centre for American Studies at the University of Glasgow. Yesterday, 20th January 2016, the Centre was pleased to welcome Dr. Michael Cullinane (Northumbria University) as part of the Centre’s 2015-2016 seminar series. In what was an engaging and highly informative talk, Dr. Cullinane discussed ‘Theodore Roosevelt in the Eyes of the Allies.’ This area of research developed out of an AHRC Early Career Fellowship for his project on ‘Memorial Communities and Presidential Legacy: Remembering Theodore Roosevelt’ held at Northumbria University and concerns how the memory and legacy of Theodore Roosevelt has been appropriated since his death, particularly from the point of view of the Allies after World War I. Below is this listener’s brief summary of the lecture.

                                      

As Dr. Cullinane pointed out, most projects begin with the subject’s birth. Yet his begins when Theodore Roosevelt (TR) passes, on January 6, 1919. At that time, President Woodrow Wilson (a political and personal foe of TRs) was on route to Europe to forge a post-War world. Indeed, when told of the news of TR’s passing, Wilson was said to have underwent an array of emotions before settling on a wide grin, stretching from cheek to cheek. With Wilson’s hesitation to enter the war in the first place, European leaders were cautious of his plans to remake the world through his ‘Fourteen Points.’ Conversely, many of them adored TR.

Not only had TR strongly supported the Allies from the start, repeatedly and angrily denouncing the foreign policy of Wilson in the process, calling it a failure regarding the atrocities in Europe and the violations of American rights, but he also experienced personal sacrifice through the war effort. All four of his sons served with valor, each receiving an array of medals and awards, but TR’s youngest son, Quentin, a pilot with the American forces in France, was shot down behind German lines on July 14, 1918, at the age of 20. This loss deeply affected TR and Europeans were far more sympathetic to TR than they were to Wilson, who had no sons to serve, and had supported the neutrality act. Indeed, the feeling of camaraderie with TR was so strong that Quentin’s grave in Europe became a pilgrimage site of memory/mourning for Europeans grieving the loss of the former President. The British signaled a national day of mourning upon news of TR’s passing, while the French labeled him the ‘Champion of the Entente.’ In fact, most of the eulogizing focused on TR’s fight to get the US into the war from an early stage, instead of his upbringing, presidential terms, or progressive ideals.

This all ensured that a dark cloud of ‘Rooseveltianism’ hung over post-war proceedings in Versailles. The polish of Wilson’s European visit (the first of a sitting US President) wore off quite quickly when contrasted with TR’s memory. Wilson did not visit the battlefields until prompted to and did not consult European powers when crafting the Fourteen Points. As Dr. Cullinane highlighted, David Lloyd George, the British Prime Minister, provides a real insight into this tension though his memoirs, demonstrating how the debates at the time were framed as ‘Wilsonianism’ vs. ‘Rooseveltianism.’ The British Press for example, termed opponents of the Treaty of Versailles as ‘friends or agents of TR.’ Republicans at home also used the memory of TR to cast a shadow over proceedings in Congress, ultimately leading to rejection of the Treaty.

As Dr. Cullinane demonstrated then, the selective process of mourning and use of a pivotal figure to advance ones own cause is not uncommon, but the size of the shadow TR cast over Versailles and the Congressional debates is a fascinating point of history. The War helped to shape TR’s legacy, and how European powers co-opted this legacy for their own campaigns against Wilson’s post-war vision is crucial to our understanding of the eventual outcome. Dr. Cullinane is clearly on to something here and I am intrigued to see how this research develops in the future.

Joe Ryan-Hume

PGR at The University of Glasgow

‘Jefferson’s Orphan: Colonization in Theory and Practice, 1779-1826’

Thomas Jefferson by Rembrandt Peale (1800)

On Wednesday 25^th February, the Andrew Hook Centre was delighted to welcome Dr Nick Guyatt for the penultimate lecture in the 2014-15 series. Dr Guyatt is the author of Providence and the Invention of the United States (Cambridge University Press, 2007) and the forthcoming Bind Us Apart: A Pre-History of 'Separate But Equal' (Basic Books, 2015). The topic of the discussion was Thomas Jefferson’s shifting position on black colonization during the period 1779-1826. More broadly, Dr Guyatt wished to demonstrate that colonization featured heavily in abolitionist discussions, an argument previously neglected by historians in the mainstream narrative of anti-slavery in the United States. In doing so, Dr Guyatt brought to our attention a noticeable gap in the extant historiography on Jefferson, race and colonization efforts in the early republic, absent even from Annette Gordon-Reed’s brilliant studies of the Jefferson and Hemings families - Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings (1997) and The Hemingses of Monticello (2008).

In discussing his reasons for choosing to examine Jefferson more closely, Dr Guyatt asserted that Jefferson held an extremely unique position – first as the Governor of Virginia and then as the President of the United States. Occupying as he did a prominent and influential place in American society, Jefferson corresponded with a multitude of high-profile individuals, many of whom were concerned with the topic of black colonization or the seeds of ‘developmental separatism’ in the aftermath of slave uprisings. As such, Dr Guyatt identified three distinct phases of Jefferson’s life, during which time discussions of colonization had figured prominently. Firstly, in the early 1780s when Jefferson wrote the (in)famous Notes on the State of Virginia (1785). Secondly, in the negotiations between Jefferson, James Monroe and John Page (both Governors of Virginia) in the aftermath of Gabriel’s Rebellion in 1800 and lastly, on Jefferson’s engagement with colonization during retirement.

  

Thomas Jefferson’s Notes on the State of Virginia (1785)

Dr Guyatt began by pin-pointing the moment in which Jefferson first proposed the idea of the gradual emancipation of slavery in June 1779. In the years that followed, this idea fermented in Jefferson’s mind, until he put his views on slavery and colonization to paper in Notes on the State of Virginia (1785). In this document, Jefferson was explicit about the physical difference between slaves and their masters – more so, in fact, than any of his contemporaries. Where in Europe, slavery opponents believed in the unity of mankind and attributed the current intellectual inferiority of slaves to the social and environmental factors of slavery, Jefferson took no such approach. The inferiority of the black population, he believed, was attributable to ‘the real distinctions which nature has made.’ Comparing the problem of slavery in the early republic to that of the Roman Empire, Jefferson wrote:

Among the Romans emancipation required but one effort. The slave, when made free, might mix with, without staining the blood of his master. But with us a second is necessary, unknown to history. When freed, he is to be removed beyond the reach of mixture.

Thus, Dr Guyatt highlighted the fundamental difference between Jefferson’s inherent belief in racial prejudice and accompanying fears of miscegenation, juxtaposed with those of his contemporaries and enlightened European counterparts whose argument rested on natural rights. Moreover, Jefferson’s curious emphasis of black biology over social environment helps to explain why the Notes were not referenced by anti-slavery advocates thereafter. Nonetheless, close examination of Jefferson’s slavery ‘query’ is integral to inform an understanding of Jefferson’s belief that colonization be part of any plan to emancipate the American slave populace.

Dr Guyatt then turned his attention to the correspondence between James Monroe and Thomas Jefferson. The former sought the advice of the elder statesman over the appropriate response to the slave conspirators, which, up until that point, had involved multiple executions. Jefferson’s reply asked if it might be possible to ‘pass a law for their exploitation’ thereby using Gabriel’s Rebellion as a pre-text for his colonization plan. During the Secret Session of 1800, the legislative went on to pass a bill, where Monroe proposed that ‘persons dangerous to the peace of society’ i.e. all slaves, could be sold into Spanish slavery. After some delay, Jefferson’s response to Monroe’s letter was accompanied by five possibilities as to the relocation of slaves: north of the Ohio river, Canada (if Britain could be persuaded), Louisiana (if Spain could be persuaded), a new U.S. colony in North Africa, or in Saint-Domingue. In May of 1802, Jefferson contacted the British ambassador, Rufus King, suggesting that unruly slaves could be sent to Sierre Leone. However, this plan had one glaring problem, namely, that by securing passage for rebellious slaves, did such a plan not seem likely to incite widespread slave rebellions? Around this time, Jefferson appeared to back-peddle on his colonization plans, listing in his correspondence to Virginian politicians the great obstacles to colonization and questioning the overall soundness of the proposals.

In the final strand of the lecture, Dr Guyatt emphasized that during Jefferson’s retirement years his position on colonization during his retirement was much changed. Jefferson repeatedly stressed that he had no power or influence to enact such laws, and that ‘the national mind is not yet prepared’ for such government action. Interestingly, Dr Guyatt referenced a letter sent by Edward Coles to Jefferson on 31 July 1814, wherein Cole wrote of the ‘hallowed principles in that renowned Declaration of which you were the immortal author,’ in what was the sole example of Jefferson being directly confronted with the idea that the continuation of slavery was an affront to the founding principles of the republic. In his response, Jefferson lamented that Coles was a lone, dissenting voice, and that the fight against slavery was ‘an enterprise for the young,’ thus distancing himself once again from the anti-slavery movement.

Dr Guyatt thus demonstrated throughout his lecture that Thomas Jefferson had been an early advocate of colonization whose belief in the plans gradually eroded. In this way, Dr Guyatt suggested that colonization was Jefferson’s ‘orphan’ or, in other words, his brainchild - which he failed to execute. By way of explaining this, Dr Guyatt offered three possible explanations: First, that Jefferson was at the very conservative end of the anti-slavery spectrum, with little inclination to engage with the concept of natural rights. Second, that his lack of enthusiasm for the American Colonization Society, founded in 1816 during Jefferson’s retirement, was in part due to his constitutional issues with private societies and lastly, that, at the heart of almost all of Jefferson’s writings on slavery and colonization, lay a deep-rooted fear of miscegenation. In this line of enquiry, Jefferson’s determination that the United States avoid a mixed-race citizenry imbued all judgment, irrespective of the (now proven) racial-mixing of his own family.

Dr Guyatt’s discussion of Thomas Jefferson’s shifting position on the tangibility of colonization was both informative and enjoyable. Drawing attention to an oft-overlooked aspect of Jefferson’s illustrious life, Dr Guyatt exposed the colonization debate which came to the fore at various stages of Jefferson’s life and beyond. Jefferson’s unique engagement with the colonization debate exposes one complex sub-stratum of the anti-slavery movement. Namely, that in amongst the rhetoric of natural rights and the steadfast belief (held by some) that slavery was a plague of which the United States must rid itself, lay the deep-rooted fear, held by one of the nation’s most revered and respected men, that miscegenation was the curse most likely to befall the republic in the event of emancipation. Propelled by this fear, colonization was the ‘orphan’ of Thomas Jefferson’s career – a plan nurtured, measured and debated at length, though ultimately unattainable and unsuited to a country whose very fabric rested on the rapid economic expansion made possible through the institution of slavery.  

By Rebecca Dunbar

PGR at The University of Glasgow