https://padlet.com/sarafields4/6tzohlb8g7qllerf A Research Presentation for United States History at Austin Community College by Sara Fields en-us 2023-07-31 21:51:29 UTC 2025-12-06 13:27:25 UTC hello@padlet.com sarafields4 https://padlet.com/sarafields4/6tzohlb8g7qllerf/wish/2652990076 2023-07-29 20:49:59 UTC https://padlet.com/sarafields4/6tzohlb8g7qllerf/wish/2652990076 sarafields4 https://padlet.com/sarafields4/6tzohlb8g7qllerf/wish/2652991831 Carrie Mae Weems on From Here I Saw What Happened and I Cried (1995-1996) in an interview at the Museum of Modern Art in 2000.]]> 2023-07-29 21:08:10 UTC https://padlet.com/sarafields4/6tzohlb8g7qllerf/wish/2652991831 sarafields4 https://padlet.com/sarafields4/6tzohlb8g7qllerf/wish/2653182794 2023-07-30 19:35:21 UTC https://padlet.com/sarafields4/6tzohlb8g7qllerf/wish/2653182794 sarafields4 https://padlet.com/sarafields4/6tzohlb8g7qllerf/wish/2653765873 2023-07-31 21:55:16 UTC https://padlet.com/sarafields4/6tzohlb8g7qllerf/wish/2653765873 sarafields4 https://padlet.com/sarafields4/6tzohlb8g7qllerf/wish/2653765999 Initially established as a money-making venture, the representatives at the Indian Congress spent much of their time participating in contrived battles while also selling goods and wares to white visitors. At the conclusion of the event, Rinehart sold copies of his portraits as souvenirs to white Americans living on stolen land. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, expositions and world fairs were exploitative events motivated by racism and imperialism. Because of this, Red Star’s patriotic adornments can be interpreted as facetious pomp signifying the colonialist ambitions of these events.]]> 2023-07-31 21:55:52 UTC https://padlet.com/sarafields4/6tzohlb8g7qllerf/wish/2653765999 sarafields4 https://padlet.com/sarafields4/6tzohlb8g7qllerf/wish/2653766145 The original portraits were made by Frank Rinehart during the Indian Congress that occurred alongside the Trans-Mississippi and International Exposition in 1898. The months-long event hosted five hundred attendants from 35 tribal nations, making it “the largest gathering of Native Americans of its time.” Yet, as Red Star makes clear, the portraits and surrounding event have a complex and sordid past.]]> 2023-07-31 21:56:36 UTC https://padlet.com/sarafields4/6tzohlb8g7qllerf/wish/2653766145 sarafields4 https://padlet.com/sarafields4/6tzohlb8g7qllerf/wish/2653766224 Wendy Red Star’s most recent project is a site-specific artwork installed at the Joslyn Art Museum in Omaha, Nebraska. Indian Congress is arranged in a narrow room resembling an assembly hall; tiered tables are adorned with an array of extracted photographs and the space is embellished with bunting flags.]]> 2023-07-31 21:56:56 UTC https://padlet.com/sarafields4/6tzohlb8g7qllerf/wish/2653766224 sarafields4 https://padlet.com/sarafields4/6tzohlb8g7qllerf/wish/2653767410 2023-07-31 22:00:27 UTC https://padlet.com/sarafields4/6tzohlb8g7qllerf/wish/2653767410 sarafields4 https://padlet.com/sarafields4/6tzohlb8g7qllerf/wish/2653768876 In March of 1880, six chiefs of the Apsáalooke tribe traveled to Washington, D.C. to negotiate the boundaries of their land. After five weeks and threats from President Rutherford B. Hayes, the Apsáalooke conceded twenty percent of their homeland representing 1.6 million acres to the United States government.]]> 2023-07-31 22:08:20 UTC https://padlet.com/sarafields4/6tzohlb8g7qllerf/wish/2653768876 sarafields4 https://padlet.com/sarafields4/6tzohlb8g7qllerf/wish/2653768958 While in the capital city, the tribal leaders were photographed by Charles Milton Bell, each appearing like criminal mugshots or anthropological specimens. The images were originally made for the Bureau of Ethnology, an archive used to categorize individuals into types. Later, the images were used in various advertisements, from cigarette cards in the nineteenth-century to modern iced tea marketing.]]> 2023-07-31 22:08:45 UTC https://padlet.com/sarafields4/6tzohlb8g7qllerf/wish/2653768958 sarafields4 https://padlet.com/sarafields4/6tzohlb8g7qllerf/wish/2653769037 Like the redrawing of boundaries on a map, she amends the photographs using red pen. Through her diligent research and recorded testimonies, Red Star recovers the histories of the leaders’ regalia, achievements, and dignity.]]> 2023-07-31 22:09:09 UTC https://padlet.com/sarafields4/6tzohlb8g7qllerf/wish/2653769037 sarafields4 https://padlet.com/sarafields4/6tzohlb8g7qllerf/wish/2653769155 The photographs represent one of many tribal delegations and the Apsáalooke were constantly pressured into surrendering their land, declining from 38.5 million acres to just over 2 million acres. In order to dispel the notion of passivity to colonial domination, Red Star appropriates Bell’s work in 1880 Crow Peace Delegation. ]]> 2023-07-31 22:09:39 UTC https://padlet.com/sarafields4/6tzohlb8g7qllerf/wish/2653769155 sarafields4 https://padlet.com/sarafields4/6tzohlb8g7qllerf/wish/2653770309 Wendy Red Star (b. 1981) is a Native artist of the Apsáalooke (Crow) tribe. Her artwork confronts flawed understandings of Indigenous peoples. While she works in a cross-disciplinary approach, photography has been a consistent part of her methodology. In many of her projects, Red Star uses historical photographs to liberate Native voices from the white gaze. Such examples can be seen in her series 1880 Crow Peace Delegation (2014) and Indian Congress (2021).]]> 2023-07-31 22:15:06 UTC https://padlet.com/sarafields4/6tzohlb8g7qllerf/wish/2653770309 sarafields4 https://padlet.com/sarafields4/6tzohlb8g7qllerf/wish/2653770535 It's our history. I can't tell you how much I have to repeat that. Like telling non-Native people, people who live in the U.S., this is their history. It's not segregated. You know, it didn't just happen to Native people. It's what made you, you, and your experience living here. So that's why [these] images are important.

Wendy Red Star

]]> 2023-07-31 22:16:31 UTC https://padlet.com/sarafields4/6tzohlb8g7qllerf/wish/2653770535 sarafields4 https://padlet.com/sarafields4/6tzohlb8g7qllerf/wish/2653771113 2023-07-31 22:18:56 UTC https://padlet.com/sarafields4/6tzohlb8g7qllerf/wish/2653771113 sarafields4 https://padlet.com/sarafields4/6tzohlb8g7qllerf/wish/2653774908 Throughout her long career, Carrie Mae Weems (b. 1953) has explored a variety of subjects ranging from family to memory to iconography. Her work reflects on the ways in which media disseminates stereotypes and she uses materials considered traditional, such as ceramics, fabric, and glass. As a diligent and thoughtful researcher, her creations push the audience to reconsider their conceptions of American history. The two most well-known bodies of work reassessing the past from her extensive oeuvre are From Here I Saw What Happened and I Cried and Blues and Pinks.]]> 2023-07-31 22:34:25 UTC https://padlet.com/sarafields4/6tzohlb8g7qllerf/wish/2653774908 sarafields4 https://padlet.com/sarafields4/6tzohlb8g7qllerf/wish/2653778319 2023-07-31 22:45:03 UTC https://padlet.com/sarafields4/6tzohlb8g7qllerf/wish/2653778319 sarafields4 https://padlet.com/sarafields4/6tzohlb8g7qllerf/wish/2653779976 2023-07-31 22:50:21 UTC https://padlet.com/sarafields4/6tzohlb8g7qllerf/wish/2653779976 sarafields4 https://padlet.com/sarafields4/6tzohlb8g7qllerf/wish/2653780095 The image was made by Clem Albers for the Department of the Interior through the War Relocation Authority in April 1942. Immediately after the bombings of Pearl Harbor, anti-Japanese frenzy escalated and spread throughout the United States. In February of 1942, Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, “giving the army the power, without warrants or indictments or hearings, to arrest every Japanese-American on the West Coast.” His authorization of the order, and the creation of the War Relocation Authority (WRA), sanctioned the imprisonment of more than 110,000 Japanese-Americans in various concentration camps within seven states. While many protested their captivity up to the Supreme Court, most would remain in detention for at least three years.]]> 2023-07-31 22:50:56 UTC https://padlet.com/sarafields4/6tzohlb8g7qllerf/wish/2653780095 sarafields4 https://padlet.com/sarafields4/6tzohlb8g7qllerf/wish/2653780198 Clark’s chosen dinnerware for Franklin Delano Roosevelt is an oyster plate decorated by a simple blue bar with gold stars and with the Great Seal of the United States at its top. Beneath this patriotic symbol rests a blue-tinted photograph of the Relocation Center for Japanese-Americans at the Santa Anita Assembly Center in California.]]> 2023-07-31 22:51:21 UTC https://padlet.com/sarafields4/6tzohlb8g7qllerf/wish/2653780198 sarafields4 https://padlet.com/sarafields4/6tzohlb8g7qllerf/wish/2653780364 2023-07-31 22:52:05 UTC https://padlet.com/sarafields4/6tzohlb8g7qllerf/wish/2653780364 sarafields4 https://padlet.com/sarafields4/6tzohlb8g7qllerf/wish/2653780548 Newly-elected William McKinley had previously signed an annexation treaty for Hawaii in 1897, although it was temporarily stopped through petitions of Queen Lili’uokalani and Native Hawaiian citizens. With the onset of the Spanish-American war and the hopes of gaining economic influence through “open” door foreign policy, Hawaii became a valuable asset for naval installations. McKinley signed the “Newlands Resolution” into law on July 7, 1898 and appointed Sanford Dole of the Dole Fruit Company as governor of the territory. In doing so, white plantation owners extracted resources through cheap imported labor.]]> 2023-07-31 22:52:27 UTC https://padlet.com/sarafields4/6tzohlb8g7qllerf/wish/2653780548 sarafields4 https://padlet.com/sarafields4/6tzohlb8g7qllerf/wish/2653780660 President William McKinley’s bread plate has dark blue and gold patterns, spattered with delicate pink roses that surround a black-and-white portrait of Hawaiian Queen Lydia Kamakaeha Kaolamalii Lili’uokalani. Her photograph was made at Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee in January of 1887 by Stanisław Julian Ignacy Ostroróg, better known as Walery. The Grover Cleveland administration, along with thirteen American businessmen, staged a coup d’état and took control of Honolulu in January of 1893. In deposing the queen, capitalists seized 1.8 million acres for an oligarchy of white planters.]]> 2023-07-31 22:52:51 UTC https://padlet.com/sarafields4/6tzohlb8g7qllerf/wish/2653780660 sarafields4 https://padlet.com/sarafields4/6tzohlb8g7qllerf/wish/2653781078 Aiming to correct certain historical omissions, I began this project in the spring of 2016 to explore the iconography and incongruity of an America established through violent conquest yet framed by elegant theory and language. A country once perceived as a beacon for democracy has at its root the constant struggle for social justice. Embedded in a patriotic narrative, the rise and economic glory of the United States was fueled by the eradication of indigenous people, the enslavement of Africans and the exploitation of natural resources. The White House was no exception to this opportunism.

Kathleen Clark

]]> 2023-07-31 22:54:05 UTC https://padlet.com/sarafields4/6tzohlb8g7qllerf/wish/2653781078 sarafields4 https://padlet.com/sarafields4/6tzohlb8g7qllerf/wish/2653781576 2023-07-31 22:55:50 UTC https://padlet.com/sarafields4/6tzohlb8g7qllerf/wish/2653781576 sarafields4 https://padlet.com/sarafields4/6tzohlb8g7qllerf/wish/2653909149 Throughout her career, Kathleen Clark (b. 1968) has created artwork imbued with concepts of social justice, history, and the home. Her most recent work, The White House China, combines archival photographs of dismissed historical moments with the ostentatious dinnerware of its corresponding president.]]> 2023-08-01 03:03:03 UTC https://padlet.com/sarafields4/6tzohlb8g7qllerf/wish/2653909149 sarafields4 https://padlet.com/sarafields4/6tzohlb8g7qllerf/wish/2653913407 2023-08-01 03:11:30 UTC https://padlet.com/sarafields4/6tzohlb8g7qllerf/wish/2653913407 sarafields4 https://padlet.com/sarafields4/6tzohlb8g7qllerf/wish/2653914271 Between 1995 and 1996, Weems created From Here I Saw What Happened and I Cried, a series containing thirty-three appropriated portraits that have been circularly-cropped, tinted red, and placed behind glass etched with words and phrases. She presents her succession of images in chronological order, with pictures beginning in the mid-nineteenth century and ending in the late-1960s.]]> 2023-08-01 03:13:10 UTC https://padlet.com/sarafields4/6tzohlb8g7qllerf/wish/2653914271 sarafields4 https://padlet.com/sarafields4/6tzohlb8g7qllerf/wish/2653915000 These daguerreotypes of enslaved men and women made by Joseph T. Zealy in the 1850s. Originally commissioned by Harvard University anthropologist Louis Agassiz, the images were used as a facet of scientific racism and offered as “proof” of Black inferiority. In her appropriation of this work, Weems highlights the ways photography has been used to typologize and criminalize.]]> 2023-08-01 03:14:29 UTC https://padlet.com/sarafields4/6tzohlb8g7qllerf/wish/2653915000 sarafields4 https://padlet.com/sarafields4/6tzohlb8g7qllerf/wish/2653915720 Across the frames she has etched You Became a Scientific Profile and the phrase & A Photographic Subject, delineating the original use of the pictures while at the same time humanizing the women featured.]]> 2023-08-01 03:15:58 UTC https://padlet.com/sarafields4/6tzohlb8g7qllerf/wish/2653915720 sarafields4 https://padlet.com/sarafields4/6tzohlb8g7qllerf/wish/2653916136 These anti-segregation protests were organized by Martin Luther King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), and have come to be known as the “Children’s March” because many participants were students. She constructed this series in 2020 at a time when waves of nonviolent protests materialized in response to the police murders of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd.]]> 2023-08-01 03:16:57 UTC https://padlet.com/sarafields4/6tzohlb8g7qllerf/wish/2653916136 sarafields4 https://padlet.com/sarafields4/6tzohlb8g7qllerf/wish/2653916214 In one of her most recent bodies of work, Blues and Pinks, Weems investigates injustice, cultural memory, and the consequences of power. Each artwork is comprised of several images from past events in American history. In the multi-framed singular composition Blues and Pinks 3, Weems utilizes renowned images from activist photographer Charles Moore who captured the brutality inflicted upon activists in Birmingham in 1963.]]> 2023-08-01 03:17:06 UTC https://padlet.com/sarafields4/6tzohlb8g7qllerf/wish/2653916214 sarafields4 https://padlet.com/sarafields4/6tzohlb8g7qllerf/wish/2653916284 By using images more than fifty-seven years old to address current events, Weems collapses time, recontextualizes the photographs, and pushes her audience to identify the similarities between then and now. For instance, the young activists of 1963 were met with firehoses and police dogs during their demonstration while the 2020 protestors encountered similar tactics of suppression, like tear gas and rubber bullets.]]> 2023-08-01 03:17:16 UTC https://padlet.com/sarafields4/6tzohlb8g7qllerf/wish/2653916284 sarafields4 https://padlet.com/sarafields4/6tzohlb8g7qllerf/wish/2653924998 2023-08-01 03:34:44 UTC https://padlet.com/sarafields4/6tzohlb8g7qllerf/wish/2653924998 sarafields4 https://padlet.com/sarafields4/6tzohlb8g7qllerf/wish/2653926370 When we’re looking at these images, we’re looking at the ways in which Anglo-America – white America – saw itself in relationship to the black subject. I wanted to intervene in that by giving a voice to a subject that historically has had no voice.

Carrie Mae Weems

]]> 2023-08-01 03:37:45 UTC https://padlet.com/sarafields4/6tzohlb8g7qllerf/wish/2653926370 sarafields4 https://padlet.com/sarafields4/6tzohlb8g7qllerf/wish/2653927372 2023-08-01 03:39:45 UTC https://padlet.com/sarafields4/6tzohlb8g7qllerf/wish/2653927372 sarafields4 https://padlet.com/sarafields4/6tzohlb8g7qllerf/wish/2653929446 Women photographers have been exploring the historical archive in their artworks in order to better understand American history. Three of these artists include: 1) Wendy Red Star, whose research has rediscovered the whitewashed histories of Native peoples; 2) Kathleen Clark, who holds leaders accountable by connecting them to omitted atrocities; and 3) Carrie Mae Weems, whose artwork recontextualizes the past in order to better understand the present. Through varying art practices revising the historical archive, these contemporary artists examine the American allegory and its dissemination through photographs in order to illuminate the social and political structures within the United States.]]> 2023-08-01 03:43:19 UTC https://padlet.com/sarafields4/6tzohlb8g7qllerf/wish/2653929446 sarafields4 https://padlet.com/sarafields4/6tzohlb8g7qllerf/wish/2653929834 Archival photographs constitute a place in which we can continuously engage with important cultural memory work, which helps us reread the actual making of the past and therefore reconfigure different historical narratives concerning the stories that make up history, race, rights and recognition: four vital stations in our understanding of humanity that remind us of the power relationships between the ‘observer’ and the ‘observed.'

Mark Sealy

]]> 2023-08-01 03:44:11 UTC https://padlet.com/sarafields4/6tzohlb8g7qllerf/wish/2653929834