pence at university history professor matthew restall talks about how visitors to the capital experience the art and architecture. including the statue of freedom and talk to capitol dome. he also discusses how christopher columbus, native americans, and females are depicted. mr. matthew restall is a fellow at the library of congress and u.s. capital historical society. this is about an hour. >> welcome to the u.s. capital historical society lunchtime lecture series. i'm the chief historian here at the society. it's really great to see everyone here. our speaker today is a guy named matthew restall. i want to read his title. because it's kind of ponderous. i don't believe anything out. he is the head of an early sports professor of latin american history and director of american studies at penn

state, latin american studies. educated at oxford, ucla, published numerous books and articles on the african diaspora and spanish america, and the spanish conquest period. some of you might recognize his name and some of the themes who will be touching on from our last dome where he has an article on how montezuma keeps on surrendering in the art of the capital. it is its historical implications. from his various titles, the subjects of his books, you might infer correctly he is not an art historian, per se. but this after all is a chance for us to highlight how interdisciplinary approaches the capital is. allowing us here to have the stories of matthew, political historians, it takes a village. they tell the story of the

capital. he has publishing a book when montezuma cortez, the true story of the meeting that change history. it will be out next month. there will be a nice christmas gift for people. he's currently the library of congress, a capitol fellow of ours. we are honored to have him as one of our capital fellows. currently. he is a fine fellow in his own right. help me welcome matthew restall. [applause] thank you, check. and picking up on what chuck just said, as i'm looking around the room, i'm guessing everybody here knows academics, professional scholars, we are supposed to stay in our cages. by which i mean cages defined by our discipline and our field. mine is history, mexico and central america, colonial period. i'm not supposed to get out of my cage. and wonder around, disagreement

other peoples cages. being here in d.c., being a capital fellow, a case like fellow, means i have a rare opportunity, a privilege to be able to do that. and in august i really enjoy the time that i spent in the archives and in the capital. which is where this paper comes from. it's a work in progress. i may be saying things that you already know. i'm hoping that most of what i'm saying are things that you already know but you have forgotten. it seems like it's new material. i also want to thank doctor michelle cohen, the curator at the capitol. i don't see her in here. but like chuck, her support and encouragement made all of it possible. as well as the others who work in the curators office. i have enough images to get us through about one of every 45 seconds. so i'm going to move fairly quickly through them. and you've already been warned

i'm not really an art historian. if you are particularly interested in something, make a note of it, i can go back at the end. and maybe ask one of the art historians in the room to talk about it. and the proper terminology. albert ports, p, oh, our, tea, as, with a scout footing rigor who first met the 16 and a half foot statue at the top of the capital building in the closing years of the 19th century. climbing up to give the bronze lady a bath, he would repeat the process countless times across the decades of his adult life. the intimacy of the experience put ideas in his head. year after year he yearned to place his own moustachioed lips on the statue oversized bronze lips. yet he resisted. after all they were both married. and not to each other. for the statues popular name,

the one imports himself used to refer to her, was uncle sam's wife. and in 1923 he surrendered to lustful imports and delivered a kiss of which we dream for so long. but guilt's came over him. wow scrubbing uncle sam's wife's face years later, he fell from the school funding to the balcony below, breaking an arm and a leg. ports was convinced the cause was her indignation over his adulterous liberties. only after confessing the entire story to a d.c. newspaper reporter in 1931, you can see that newspaper report right here, did ports sense absolution was finally at hand. a year following his illicit kiss another bronze figure on the exterior of the capital building suffered a non consensual indignity. evidence of the incident is preserved in the because of the

capitol police. on november 12th, 1928, lieutenant clarence similar reported to the captain that the previous night, quote, i have lots of quotes in my paper, if you see me waving my fingers like this, it is to say quote unquote all the time. some unknown person has broken a sword off of one of the figures for a souvenir from the door. and quote. by rodgers bronzes door, the lieutenant meant the bronze doors designed by randolph rodgers an 1853, the eastern entrance into the rotunda, popularly known as the columbus door's. the victim was possibly cortez, the famous conqueror of the aspects who also appears inside the capitol. we will come back to him later. but it was more likely bartolomeo cologne, the brother the man representing multiple times inside and outside the building, christopher columbus. the lieutenant showed his

captain he was soliciting information regarding this trick, he now had a man preventing anyone from approaching the doors when the building was close. today of course there is more than one man on guard to ensure no visitor can get close enough to the columbus doors to even see them, cortez and cologne, let alone steal their sorts. whatever dominic of these anecdotes? how do they offer us a new way to approach a much studied building in its works of art? let me answer that question or begin to answer by william carlos williams. after visiting the capital, this celebrated poet physician wrote a poem about its art. first published in 1924, the poem was titled it is a living coral. in his metaphor, the city is ac. the capital building and island, in the sea. and its art and architecture a

coral that steadily grows. the metaphor might equally be applied to any museum with an expanding collection. but the capital is not a museum. nor is it viewed as such by visitors. their lies and other side to the cool metaphor. one that struck me most but one with which williams was not concerned at all. for he could not have known that during the 20th century they would develop an entire feel the city devoted to coral mortality. understanding why and how the cold reefs of the world suffered catastrophic destruction, as a result of human, land use, fishing in tourism. just as a human impulse upon visiting a coral reef is to break off a piece of coral to take home. so have visits to the capital of been tempted to take a piece of it for souvenir. those souvenirs have any rare cases, such as that of colon and his sort, been a physical objects. or they've been memories of

physical interactions with the buildings art objects. such as the case. and that physical component of the experiences a first outlined in the next half hour. but more often the takeaway has been in the realm of ideas, not objects. and the 21st century thousands of visitors leave the capitol every week with a digital representation of themselves posing with a piece of the building or its art. selfies that fall intriguingly into a limited space between objects and ideas. like a hologram of a piece of the capitals coral. this is not the place the draw on any depth of reception theory, i don't really understand it, and that is a study of how readers and viewers respond to literature, art, cinema and so on. but at the heart of reception studies there is an idea that is very relevant here. the raiders respond to attacks based on their horizon of expectations, the cultural framework they bring with them to the taxed.

so with respect to the capital, visitors come to the building with a sense of proprietorship. a belief that they own a share of it, of all that is senate, and that it tells them something about themselves. or more specifically, it reaffirms something they already believed about themselves and their nationality. so visitor response to, for example, the identity of the statue atop of the dome, or the meaning of the paintings in the rotunda, is determined by the ideas of such imagery that visitors bring with them. and the same applies to the historical events they are encapsulated and referenced in in the capital art. the ideological reception of the capitals art is the second topic i will briefly outline. my third and final section circles a snack to freedom. who's true identity, i shall refer to at the end of my top, in order to arrive back at freedom on time, i have selected one a cluster, albeit a complex one a visual and

historical themes. those themes are the usage of people into places from elsewhere in the americas, especially columbus, the representation of indigenous peoples in the capital and the buildings gendered representation of the america and its history. those are obviously the last topics, threaded together in the capital and away i hope to show you offers visitors a simple take away, something almost as simple as a stolen kiss or a stolen sword. no, that is not me. but it's one of the conservator's. somebody in the room might actually know who that is. you can see how tempting it is, right? okay, so, part one, for a souvenir, that is a reference to a quote i just read out a little while ago. the american sculptor, horatio green owl, i think i'm

pronouncing that correctly, complaints in a letter to his brother in 1842 that statues of washington in columbus and the capitol had received considerable injury in the few years they had been standing. he was referring to as much reviled sculpture of washington which was located in the center of the rotunda from 1841 to 43, before being moved out to the capitol grounds where it's seen here in this 1899 photograph. you'll recognize it because it's in the museum and national history. soon after the discovery of america made its place in and it was placed on one of the blocks of the buildings. and you could see it here in the distance. in this 1846 pitcher. the space behind it was an ideal spot for war games. shortly before his death in 1852 he grumbles that quote i have seen several times boys

that play on the puerto rico of the capital which if right it makes it wrong. he was right to worry about the portico of america. in 1912, he wrote it is somewhat to the nations discredit the vandalism after long years have mutilated in a degree the beauty of personal codes work. among the various sculptures on the east part of the building their hands broken off, grapes crushed and the marble nose was missing its tip. the blade of a short sword was broken. with due to exposure to the elements of the garment that suez the indian girl has a moth eaten look. from 1871 through to the 21st century when the building was closed so to wear the columbus

doors but the columbus scenes look into the eastern part of the city available to any visitor day or night. the stolen soared was hardly the first casualty. a self identified congressional wife wrote in january of 1899 in her diary, the last eight policemen arrived just in time to say one of the figures from a head hunting savage from indiana. and fought cortez in columbus were both frequently subject to the tugs of a souvenir seekers in the art of the building. they are inside the building was almost as vulnerable. in the 18, the sculpture in statuary hall featured a group of indians to me was breaching. one has his bow stolen and

another one lost a finger. in 1889, a group of soldiers grew rowdy and drink seems to have been involved, when they started stabbing at the artwork with their bayonet's. they were thrown out of the building, which was and closed to visitors for the rest of the day with the columbus doors locked. it seems to be one of the few occasions in the team history that the great key was actually turned. there were host to an event called the garfield fair, where the barrier put up to protect the paintings. it was extraordinary to imagine that this was done. it was winter, furnaces were set up to warm the space, and by means of an impromptu flew, he was discharged heat was discharged onto the battle of pocahontas. which had cracking holes and other damage. the bears of a seed, so the capitals archives are full of

detailed reports reflecting the various ways in which human beings had to endanger the building and its art. and if i pursue that for the last five minutes in the archives of the capitol police themselves, there would be enough material for something book length. i don't know if it would be really interesting, but it would be interesting to me anyway. in 1995 a congressional subcommittee on appropriations received a proposal today to protect the building from visitors. because people, wear down the steps and brush against the walls, and here i'm paraphrasing, generally poke and pull at the artwork, and entrance fee should be charged. that's what's was suggest by the heritage foundation. democrats in the house announced the idea as republican dishonesty, saying that the republicans saw

themselves as the proprietor of the capital. they don't charge american families usage fees to see what belongs to them. the democrat senators chimed in, senator from north dakota said does anybody really believe it is too old-fashioned to think that those who own the building, will not have to pay an admission fee to enter it? lawmaker sentiments were issued by visitors were canvassed by a reporter from the hill. and i will give you a small sample gale here. mr. mrs. brock of williamsburg new york, called visiting the capital was our privilege. we are not visitors we are taxpayers. this is my house, the. one of them said. since we already paid for the capital we deserve to be here. i pay enough admission already every year. commented a pilot from california. that and many people say we

paid for the place. best of all, the reverend donald bass of tennessee, found the feed proposal detestable and was a violation of the very concept, in the very idea of america. so the notion of ownership of walking into my house is a thread that runs through two centuries of visitor responses. attach that idea, have often been related sentiments of duty and patriotism. margaret leach wrote, back in 1860, that visitors lingered on the east portico to admire the colossal statues. it was not clear what they made of them, but they all paused to stare. in 1864, a union army officer wrote to his sister that the capital is a fine affair and the paintings are magnificent. he was particularly, taken by images of pocahontas and columbus, as historical figures that he recognized as

representations of the history. a century later, washington bureau chief, commented on the visitors he had seen year after year who bring their children to the capital. there they would take their photographs in front of the statues, seldom knowing who the sculptor figure was but the meanest of them know he was part of something and they are part of it to. i've seen fat women and ridiculous tight shorts, walking around the hall in the capital, appearing at looking at the statute of men in bronze. and not knowing who they were. kids popping gum, and wearing caps they're all part of the same saying, secret sharers. so what exactly is that? is it one of patriotism, well there's certainly no sir shortage of claims that effect. we love our capital, rosemary,

not that it's perfect but because being faulty is still great and worthy of our reference. may bell pendergrass, told californians in 1967, that a visit to the capital will stir a new patriotism in you. the history of the united states come so much closer, and becomes more than just words in a book, you can feel the red white and blue in your veins. so the is this one of education, this is a show intel history lesson? again there's no shortage of claims to that effect. for example the 1955 guide to the capital stated that john trumbull, painter of the war of independence, and the return to, developed his talent for art for the express purpose of leaving to the american people historically correct paintings of the struggle for liberty. some visitors were reassured in

the guide that buildings art was factual and historically correct. a four, the third possibility is the siege a lesson in aesthetics through negative example? but one person told his brother, in the 18 forties, that the ornamental departments of the capital seems controlled by the dean of bad taste. in 1855, a review of the baptism of pocahontas, concluded that chapman makes you regret that he ever painted it. and quote. we don't really live in a world anymore where people make mild criticisms like that dewey the? while a columbus was tame, and arranged it was destitute of atmosphere. a 1912 guide to washington's art treasures, lamented how often when encountered the work

of thom crawford, who quote of light and shaded sculpture, he was apparently ignorant. a 1915 got to the city described the sculpture work in the capital, a little short of the -- . the well they argue that the masses noticed the slowly arrangements, of those who are creating the capital. so does anyone fences fancy that they do not feel these incongruities? it is not so, but later observers were not so convinced. alfred friendly, a reporter for the washington post, joined a bus tour of capitol hill in 1966. noting that visitors in the capital seldom looked up unless directed to do so. no uploaders a flip command,

overhead beauty was missed. at the end of the 20th century, roll call wondered if the 4 million annual visitors, were a comedian toll from its art. the capital paradoxes this is easy to get into, but it's a hard building to understand. reliable information about what the visitor sees, why it is important, is fragmented and difficult for most people to obtain. the visitors can find papers about the corridors, which are lovely but hardly central to the meaning or importance of the capital. good and quote so what exactly was the buildings meeting at the time of the millennium? the senate historian at the time, the mr. baker, and he could still be the historian, dick baker said if you ask a visitor the name of the building, that's well deterring the capital, in most cases they will say the white house.

around the same time, an english visitor to the capital summarized his impressions to the post. when it comes to monuments and things like this, ours are a lot older but yours are bigger. in 1966, friendly had concluded that real purpose of washington's famous monuments suddenly apparent, backdrops for family pictures. anticipating the culture of the -- itself, they say guitarist really want to see anything or just have been seen at the site? there i think is where the city bears are rule meaningfully found. for two centuries, visitors man felt a patriotic fervor. and they may have experienced what mark twain called, after visiting the capital, a delirium trimmings of art. but above all, the visitors have entered an exit in the

building with a sense of ownership. the building is not expected to be museum perfect our history book accurate. as we said in 1874, the capitals defects are more dear to us because above all these are human. she said no matter how lonely an american citizen was, get these historic pictures and paintings. this mighty dome, they are yours. the highest man in the nation owns nothing here, which does not equally belong to you. the goddess of liberty, yet she called it that the goddess of liberty, gazing down from her shield bestows no right upon the lofty which she does not extend to the lowest of her sons. the third and final section, the very idea of america. all this suggests that the horizon of expectations, that visitors typically bring to the

capital is at best highly abstract. and at worst, so vague and contradictory as to be almost meaningless. and yet the building is packed with specific representation of historical moments and figures. what are you among those emerges as potentially more meaningful? or at least resonant for visitors? . there are some very obvious candidates, such as george washington but my interest right now is in one man, who never set foot in what would become the united states. and yet is disproportionately represented. appropriate for this week, columbus. there have been close to 1000 works of art in the capital during its history. including items lost or stolen, destroyed and fires were trans transferred to other buildings. depending on how one accounts for an object, for example a

columbus one object or nine. a but these 40 depict non u.s. individuals. that is figures from the early european and latin american past. such as the columbus, cortez, that is and dominican less than 6%. fryers. that is less than 6%. but but almost half of almost half of all those, all those comprise are comprise were include columbus. include columbus. beginning in beginning in 1827, 1827 ducts sculpted and painted grew steadily. by 1912, when the christopher columbus memorial phantom was built in front of union station, just to show you i'm not being snobbish about people using monuments for family pictures. this is my oldest and youngest daughter. with the navigator, you can see him twice tearing towards the capital. by then they were close to 20 representations of columbus in

the capital building. or outside it. today's tally is still 15. meaning one in 50 pieces of art in the capital feature columbus. furthermore until 1958, visitors walked past a massive sculpture of columbus, the discovery, and until the opening of the capital visitor center in 2008, through the columbus doors with their nine depictions of the navigator into the rotunda where columbus appears through more times. why columbus? in part because he is not cortez. the 19th century american understanding of the spanish conquest was heavily influenced by protestant rioters, from robertson to press scott, to williams. and between them -- whose books for children on protests were bestsellers and many languages. you may not have heard of him. but he sold more books, more

famous historians, and amusingly to us today these are the books that are not supposed to be for young adults, their four children, they are structured as a father reading stories to his children. they are full of the most extraordinary violence that we never permitted to children's books today. descriptions of asset sacrifices and solace. columbus was first published in english in 1799, the library of congress has a couple copies. he called the conquistadores in this book dreadful monsters. but it explore was quote, a great and good man. courageous and resolute. opposed to idleness and effeminacy. underlying that. as a global, mainly explore untarnished by tales of massacres, columbus was not only an acceptable alternative to the spanish conquistador's, his fake national identity allowed him to be appropriated

as an american. and that is not an original statement by me, as he probably already know. if you don't, there is entire literature about how columbus is invented in the 19th century, particularly in the united states, becoming turned into an american. as an u.s.. rodgers was expressing the common opinion when he told montgomery in 1985, an important figure in the creation of the capitol, there's a footnote i cannot go into, he was expressing the opinion when he told him in 1855, columbus was only second to washington as the man, quote, most intimately connected with the history of this country. who better deserves a lasting monument to his memory? indeed his reinvention as an american is so profound that even the conquistadores in the capital, i would argue, are rendered as columbus like.

this soto peacefully discovering the mississippi in an echo of columbus is discovery of america, and cortez peacefully accepting the surrender of montezuma. here is the same list plug for my book coming out. which nowhere in the book, it's 600 pages long, do i make that connection because it was only by spending time in the capital that there is another way to understand who all these other spanish conquistador's are. you have to understand how columbus is americanized and therefore they are all columbus size if you will. as a sidebar i think a totally fascinating one, note his substitution of columbus for cortez also took place in the mid 20th century. in the mexican embassy right here in d.c.. this is the building that was the embassy through most of the 20th century, now the mexican cultural institute. here the americanized januaries

is an actress flee inserted into and has tech meryl. you can see where the mural is. you have the depiction of as tech people. on the left you can see a figure of columbus. that allows you to see him where he is more clearly. that should be cortez approaching. you can see other conquistadores behind him, and you can see more clearly including figures like, the confused or with the red beard. any mexican knows instantly the red bearded conquistador is petrol out of a raw show. it makes no sense at columbus is there. it should be cortez. that was what was originally planned. however, all that is only part of the explanation to the

colombian phenomenon in the capital. the rest of it lies and the parallel depiction of indigenous peoples. who appear in roughly 50 artworks in the building. some 7%. these are mostly from within would became the united states, so historical figures such as south korea, pocahontas, but include some from latin america such as montezuma. as well as generic indians. but that small percentage, the 7%, is misleading because it's cue down by the hundreds of statues, busts and portraits of politicians most of whom visitors walk right past are no longer are allowed to see. furthermore depictions of indigenous peoples are concentrated on the eastern front of the people in the rotunda. the focal point of tourists in the building. as a 1912 guide noted, the fortunes of the american indians finish a theme that constantly workers throughout the decorations of the capital. and quote. east front rotunda sculptures

demonstrate, quote, but the coming of the new race was to mean for the old. that's for capital visitors columbus and indians have always been inescapable as george washington, arguably more so. those representations of indians fall into two main categories. either they display indigenous men engaging in acts of violence against europeans or euro americans, here a good example is the relief in the rotunda. or they show indigenous men and women calmly welcoming settlers in ways that are either openly accepting a permanent presence or passively acquiescent. francis milton trollope captured this duality as early as 18 thirties. as well as its intended impact on visitors. her comment on early indian portraits could apply to succeeding generations a

portraits of all indigenous people. they have but two sorts of expression. one is that up noble and warlike daring. the other of a gentle and naive simplicity. that has a mixture of falling in it but which is an expressively engaging, and more petro perhaps. from 1844 to 1958 the same duality was presented to all visitors as they climbed the east front. in the stark and controversial form of person coast discovered on the left. you've seen it before. and of the rescue. blatantly racist 20 per century eyes the pieces were denounced from the very start. he has survived everything from egging nation by visiting tribal chiefs in 1855 to house resolutions in 1939 in 1941. calling for the removal or destruction. finally going into permanent storage in 1958. now this duality, the two ways

of presenting indigenous peoples, was not an american invention of course. and a deep roots going back to the era of columbus himself. when they did eunice peoples of the caribbean with place into categories. into invented races. the noble savages, innocent and childlike who accepted, even embraced christian civilization, in the bloodthirsty, barbarians who resisted and were labeled caravans after the accusation that they were all cannibals. both of them are present here. across the americas for the next three centuries those two categories were reinforced by spanish and supporting his law regarding the enslavement of indians. those who toiled away peacefully as christianized colonial subjects could not be in slate. those who resisted such subjugation in any way could be branded and sold were slaughtered. it's not america, the latter category was applied more than the former, as the english were less interested in this and

which had we -- . as is well known i think insufficiently discussed, in 19th century north america, indigenous people were systematically displaced and virtually eliminated. the history reflected in the sequencing of art in the capital. thus, depictions of violent indian warriors tend to come earlier with peaceful and passive indians dominating later in the century. for modern visitors, that sequencing is largely irrelevant as the two categories are experienced all at once. if you're standing in the rotunda looking on and taking all in. but i suspect the visitors instinctively grasped that the violent indian is a figure from the distant past, historical, elusive harmless and possibly even fictional. while the passive indian is more accessible. close to the president, more suitable as a character and let's say a disney movie. indeed the passive indian, is

most obviously represented by pocahontas. who appears three times in the rotunda. in all cases she placed a cure a clear role, as the antidote to the violent indian. including her own relatives. foremost in the train of the wandering children of the forest. snatched from the thanks of some -- to become lamps. or in the phrases of a modern art historian, pocahontas has turned this into a highly anguish sized mirror maiden, diminish in the painting and in life just as your fellow indians would be soon. among the awkwardly posed relatives of pocahontas, seen to the right, only your sister is caught in the light and properly rendered. yet her highly passive pose on the ground, scandal-y clad almost topless, ties large

depictions of indigenous women in the capital. especially in the rotunda. other women are likewise passive, loosely clothes and as so categorized. the columbus area era of people, were not intended as a vision of men and women but it soon became gendered. over the centuries that followed, the process of discovery conquest and colonization, became gendered as male with indians and indigenous americans gendered as female. this could take the form of how history was narrated. this is an 18th century engraving. that is cortez receiving the indigenous woman the who goes down in, history as his mistress. and he knew she was his interpreter. but she was actually a 12 year old girl.

and as romanticism sweeps art and history telling, a century later, we have a similar kind of representation. so how history was narrated, or how the continent was presented allegorical. here we are back to this 16th century image. that's vespucci holding the banner, and then the naked woman is supposed to be america. and i'm going to come back to one of these the 17th century representations of again, and this is america. moving forward to the 19th century, and into the capital itself, columbus and the indian maiden. which i think is absolutely extraordinarily and not often discussed piece of art. the only way doesn't quite fit in my argument is how for some reason they decided to portray

the indian maiden not as really an indian at all. the clothing is all completely wrong, it's sort of a slightly later aarian orientation iced. there's a layer on his face, which can only give us an idea of what he's really thinking. so this is obscure, but highly revealing example of the genders. even sexualized nature of the phenomenon. the capital is packed full of female allegories of course. as befitting its near classical style, and freedom the statue of freedom is not only the only female allegory in the capital, but this view here on the right as you look up at her, this there's three more right in front of her there. but only one fits into a tradition, that is so deeply and specifically rooted in how europeans and euro americans

have depicted and imagined america. that is as female, it digit is, wealthy, and ripe for the taking. as captured in these images, particularly this front is peace and that was first published in amsterdam in the 16 seventies. highly influential, and much copied and it might not be an image familiar to you, but it was familiar to any literate or summary some semi literate european or your american, running all through the early 19th century. and it appears in multiple variants. so the origin of the feathered headdress, a freedom that's well known. it's repeated in guides for visitors. at least that is the immediate origin. that immediate origin, was jefferson davis is ordered to

crawford, to remove the statue of liberty. deemed inappropriate for a nation where slavery was still legal. the secretary of war, davis would soon become capital prison of the confederacy. and it was replaced by a bold arrangement of feathers, suggested by the costume of indian tribes. and repeated in some form or another up to the official description of the curators office. but the deeper origin of the headdress, is the role pay role play offenders by -- . throughout the capital, indigenous peoples are stewart real typically mark why feathers. a symbol that has now function officially in the west for five centuries. for that reason, i would suggest freedom has struggled her entire life to be recognized by her official name. newspaper reports on her as america's most misunderstood

woman. or one of the most misunderstood, and misinterpreted girls in the capital. far more often has she been called with her creator dubbed her, armed freedom, or what the creative creator of the capital calls her, statute of freedom, but it is female and indigenous. in my serving of newspapers from the late 20th century, i came frequently upon miss liberty, miss freedom, the lonely lady, and significantly mesoamerica. other names marked both her sex, and her divinity. goddess of freedom, goddess of liberty, but also variants such as the -- goddess. and she's been called, the statue of liberty. crawford imagined, that the statue that there was an olive

branch, and it was a message are people would easily understand. people would identify her as freedom triumphant. but it would prove to be the feathers, not even part of the design when crawford wrote those words, that would be meaningful to the masses. as a washington post explained in 1989, freedom is an indian with a cross eyed look. i camp-y headdress, and robes for trim. three decades earlier, the statue wears a headgear, usually described as a feather headdress, but at close range it resembles a dead eagle. another reporter, says a silly headdress looks more like a chicken than an eagle. so despite or perhaps part and parcel of such disdain, the statues female identity has been a consistent threat, the indian goddess has been one of her names going back to the late 19th century. and in 1939, the washington post article stated that

tourists most commonly took the statue to be pocahontas. as well as a replica of the statue of liberty, miss america and various other things. the post stated in 1945, because of those miscellaneous feathers in her headgear, most people speak of that indian on the dome. but they in fact, and this is ironic, this is 1945, ironic in view of the alignment of nations in the recently concluded world war. they said she is no indian, she is italian. the explanation for that is a footnote, which we will come back to but i suspect you all know. in 1961 a reporter for this week magazine, pulled locals and tourists walking in the area, as some about the statue. none called her freedom. instead guesses included in reverse order popularity. are you ready for this?

dolly madison, betsy ross, columbus, vespucci, queen is a beloved spain, commander cortez, balboa, john paul jones, paul revere, the roman senator, susan b anthony, joan of arc, sitting bull, and with hiawatha at number two, and the most popular guess, you'll be able to get already, pocahontas. albert ports, thought of her as mrs. uncle sam. most visitors identify her is pocahontas. i suggest to you that she since she was placed on the capitol stone, she has been widely understood in various and sometimes vague, sometimes particular ways as being america. and female in an female indian form. and to tiny fresco images, hitting in the ceilings of meeting rooms in the capital,

made the connection obvious. this one left, is on the front cover of the spring 2014 capitol dome issued by the way. visitors do not need to get special permission to see america, as we recall both of these figures. you've seen enough now, even if you didn't already know the things i've been talking about this morning. you can sear up there with her colored feather headdress. you don't need to get special and mission to get into h 1:44, or s 1:27. her ornamental position at the top of the capitol, combined with the artwork inside the building, reinforces visitor expectations that the building, the whole capital building, is a complex of visual expression of history empower racialized in gender. no wonder person codes discovery, was hated removed

and hidden. it made it way too and comfortably obvious, that freedom is really america. thank you. >> yes? >> interesting lecture thank you. could you talk a bit about the depiction of other non whites in the capital building and how that has changed over the years? and particularly whether there was any big change before and after the civil war? >> you mean slavery and depictions of african americans? >> yes and asians yes? >> no i can't. i could have a go, and i started to look into that. and i started this project in august in the archives, and i

start to realize that there was a separate topic there, and it has been studied and i found references to articles so i'm not sure if there's a whole book but what i began you know when i began this subject a thought about talking about the statue itself, and the freedoms. and i was surprised to discover there was not a serious or even semi serious entire book just about the statue. but this massive material in the archives, in the capital building. and in the early version of this project, there was a chapter on that exact topic. and i hovered on this material, that if you pay close attention in your tour of the capital building, or you read the plaques any visitor will know this. that, the statue of freedom when she was cast in bronze right up on the borders of the

district of columbia in baltimore. but the work was done by slaves. and that the timing of when the statue was created, not the original plaster model in rome, but the bronze one that was created here was such that it was right when the war was happening, and once when slavery was abolished. there is an individual slave with some information is known about, and the archives they found copies of primary source material relating to not his selling but his emancipation so that's really ironic. right? because of jefferson davis saying you have to take the liberty cap off because it's the emblem of slavery. by the time the statue was put on the down slavery's been abolished. there was all kinds of nice ironies there. of course i realize that people

had spotted this before me. and i think that if i was to be able to do more research, i could say that's the beginning moment. that is the anecdote to begin that story. and it's one to do with layers of irony. those stretch up to the present day. two there's an article i very quickly looked at. i thought, no, i cannot get sucked into this rabbit hole here to do it african-american responses to the capital building. it was not recent, i think the 19 eighties, early 1990s. and which somebody interviewed people coming out of the building. and they are saying, yes, i guess this isn't really about our history. we're not really in their much. okay, wow, but then you go all the way back to the headdress on the top, the feathers, the cap. that opens up a whole another

story that i thought was interesting. also, at some point, i imagined wrongly that the museum of african american history, i'm getting the name wrong, african american culture and history museum was somehow visible. i had this idea that you could walk up the steps to the capital intern around and see that museum. that would be a visual sense of how the way the buildings are structured, the art in them, reflects the changes in american history. how the united states is dealing with all of this. looking back, saying, yes, the way indigenous peoples and african americans are presented in the capital is very much a 19th century one. that's where the attitudes. so we haven't changed that. what we've done is put it in silos, in separate buildings. which is either great or terrible depending on your perspective. unfortunately when i stood up there, i looked, i realized it doesn't work like that. can we just move those buildings up? they should be right there,

hovering on the edge of the capital. this anyone have a question about something i know anything about? there to be great. i know, that is a tough one. >> i think i understood what's -- the point you were trying to make by the substitution of columbus for cortez in the mexican cultural center. i'm not sure what the mexican cultural center was trying to accomplish by doing that. maybe the larger question to that is, when you latin americans, south americans, think when they see the whitewashing, cortez is disappearance, or making cortez columbus like? which i imagine is a way of making them look like purveyors of civilization, really good guys, instead of conquistadores, conquerors. >> i think that --

that kind of cracks open an entire topic to do with mexican nationalism. and the way the mexican history and culture has developed in the last 200 years as -- all countries grapple with this notion of national identity, how you deal with your past. right? that kind of paradox of wanting to only pull the positive things up in a way that you can engender everybody with a sense of loyalty, patriotism, but then in the course of doing that you will distort and rewrite history. so you're teaching your children lies, right? so there's been a particular interesting and well studied story along those lines in mexico at the last 200 years. i think mexicans have been very open and transparent and how they tackled that. so they've left it with a superb trail of art, literature in someone that's allowed historians to pursue it.

and i'm wildly guessing, i am imagined if we were to beam thousands of people, mexican nationals from mexico into the old american embassy, now the mexican cultural institute, have them look at that, tell us about that, they would have a lot of things to be able to tell us. they would respond to that about their opinions of columbus, cortez, so on. so i think it's very obvious to mexicans why it was done. that cortez is a controversial figure, mexicans will say, we don't even have statues of cortez and mexico, mexico city. you cannot find him. there is occasionally things that are vaguely named after him. but there's no big monuments. there is nothing even remotely close to what you would see in washington d.c. for columbus, george washington, so on. nothing like that. it would not be surprising. what's interesting to me is the parallel in the capital

building, or on capitol hill generally, maybe in the whole city. perhaps maybe in the whole of united states. the way columbus is used is not as transparent. not even remotely. every columbus day, different things are said about columbus day, indigenous peoples day, so on, that shoulder isn't that kind of same level of transparency. instead it becomes part of these little battlegrounds we've seen recently over monuments, their significance. >> i have a question that's literary rather than art historical. >> and other discipline i have no business talking about. >> i think you should wonder into it. you quoted the ways in which people talked about how people have looked at the capitol art over the centuries. words like vandalism, souvenirs,

protecting the building from visitors, poking, pulling out the artwork. do you sense any kind of shift over time and the ways in which those who were in charge of preserving the capital thought about the visitors? >> now, i know where you are going. i looked for that. the archive, the courageous archive in the capitals not catalog. there's a basic index. i say i'm interested in the columbus doors, there's drawers of documents labeled columbus drawers. nothing in that has catalogued. so was not searchable in any way. i wanted, i was curious about that. like official curated positions. no, not official. because the official curator position some really change. they're obviously diplomatic,

right? our job is to preserve artwork from damage, allow people to come in and enjoy it, boom, that hasn't changed. beneficial ones are the ones i was interested in. i caught little snippets, usually snippets of somebody talking about somebody else. like this poor guy dick baker, i said i forgot to google, you might be in the room. whether he's still around. him making that quote about visitors, right, which is what i think a lot of people think, but no curator has officially said something like -- people came from the white house. you know, they don't understand what the artist. therefore it's fine to not let them see it. let me answer the question and another in direct way that refers to person coast discovery. i understand from talking to cohen, the current curator,

some of the current documents i found, that they wanted to remove that and the greenhouse rescue for a long time. but they weren't sure how to do it. right? once the curator, or the architect of the capital starts moving aren't around, taking it out, you open up a can of worms. you don't do that. under what circumstances where the removed? in a 58 is when they began the renovation product of the east front. as you probably know. east port was moved, and built forward. everything had to be removed for the dismantling to take place. and then the new columns were put up, someone. they were just temporarily moved into storage in the smithsonian. and then accidentally, on purpose, somebody forgot to put them back up. that gives you some insight into various aspects of this.

the whole visitors center, right, there are official reasons why that was built. but unofficially with that meant was having hordes of people coming freely to the building, the way it's always been, you walk up through the steps, through the rotunda, you walk around and look at the art. that came to an end. because of reasons of security. not because the curator said the corridor is getting damaged, because people, kids with backpacks, things like that. now. i think attitudes, official attitudes, the unofficial one, particular circumstances provide opportunities. >> which would be available if we contacted in the little time left, why you're here in d.c., if they have other questions or comments? >> yes, particularly things like, dude, there is a whole

book on that. i don't want to raise that. >> hey, i'm alive, i'm not dead yet. >> i would like to very much. >> let's wrap this up. thank you again. [applause]

a few months prior to the january 6th u.s. capitol attack, tweeted robert poll shared some of his most unconventional serves with the u.s. capital historical society.

he talks about the late 19th century fad of honeymooners visiting the capital. the electric car that traversed the underground passages and a violent episode on the capitals mini subway system. he is the author would get capitol hill, and unruly history of believing badly. the historical society hosted this talk and provided the video. >> we are honored to have each of you signed on with us today. for our lunch bites with stephen jane, with a special guest robert pohl. robert pohl has worked for many years, he started out as a computer programmer. but he recovered from that to be a full-time stay at home dad and now his son is in school so he expanded his horizon and became a self taught historian. he's written books about his house, as well as emancipation in the district of columbia. he has a collection