Jonathan Wardle and Dr. P. Alf Pratte, Communications
At the suggestion of a professor, I wrote a 20-page term paper on images of newspapers in American genre painting for a history of communications class. At first I was going to conduct a general survey of images of newspapers and journalists in American art, but some interesting findings in my early research prompted me to take a more detailed look at images of newspapers in genre painting, specifically from 1830 to 1865.
While doing preliminary research for the general survey, I noticed that almost no newspapers appeared in American paintings until about 1830. After that time, newspapers seemed to become a sprout up in American paintings almost overnight. The change was so sudden, one could almost pinpoint a moment in time at which it happened.
I was aware of two significant things that happened at this time: the rise of genre painting in America, and the advent of the Penny Press. A close look at each revealed that the two could be studied more effectively together.
Genre painting could be defined simply (and rather inadequately) as scenes of everyday life. Images depicting the common and urbane, through genre painting, reached a zenith of popularity spanning the period between 1830 and 1865. Elizabeth Johns explains the rise of genre painting in America: “For three decades, from 1830 until the outbreak of the Civil War, the socially ambitious and typically urban group of American citizens who were patrons of paintings and reviewers for cultural journals championed images of ‘American’ subjects” (Johns; American Genre Painting, The Politics of Everyday Life, p. xi). It could be said that American art was trying to create a uniquely American persona, similar to what James Fennimore Cooper and Washington Irving had created in American literature.
During this same period, the American newspaper system was entering a new stage. The Party Press had brought newspapers to a new level of readership. But in 1830 the advent of the Penny Press, selling papers cheaply to the masses, redefined the entire industry. Beginning in New York, the system soon enveloped the entire country. In urban centers the newsboy was born, images of which were championed by genre artists like Thomas Le Clear and William Page. In more rural areas, every citizen, it seemed, had access to the paper through the post. Images of country politicians and farmers discussing issues with newspapers in hand were also popular subjects of genre artists such as George Caleb Bingham and Richard Caton Woodville.
Whether the growth of the penny press affected the popularity of genre painting, or whether the rise of genre painting affected an increase in newspaper circulation was beyond the scope of this research. But I am satisfied that it was the combined and simultaneous occurrence of both events that created a burst of images depicting newspapers.
It become apparent from the outset that nothing extensive had been compiled linking the advent of the Penny Press with genre painting to explain this surge in depictions of newspapers in American art. Among art historians, the fact seems explained simply by the genre painter’s interest with scenes of everyday life. But this does little to explain the continued presence of newspapers at the end of the genre period, emerging in images the idyllic and the common alike. Among journalism historians, little work has been done on images of newspapers in art, and I could find nothing about images of newspapers from this time period.
After completing the paper, Professor Pratte suggested we submit the paper as a work-inprogress to be presented at the October 2001 conference of the American Journalism Historians Association. The paper was accepted, and we presented in San Diego that October. I submitted and received an ORCA scholarship to continue work on the paper during the Winter semester of 2002.
During that semester I conducted a literature research that was sorely needed, and began searching out more images of paintings from the time period. Between the two semesters, I looked through thousands of images of paintings, using various books about genre painting, period painting in America, and specific painters.
During the semester for which I had been awarded the ORCA grant, the literature search proved the most valuable. I spent a good deal of time reading accounts written by foreign visitors, such as Alexis de Toqueville, who chronicled their excursions to the new country. Each one described with amazement the prevalence of newspapers in America, particularly in the country, and with what interest they were devoured. Frances Wright said: “The Americans are certainly a calm, rational, civil, and well-behaved people . . ., and yet if you were to look at their newspapers you would think them a parcel of Hessian soldiers. An unrestricted press appears to be the safety valve of their free Constitution, and they seem to understand this” (Wright, Views of Society and Manners in America, p.209).
While the paper itself is not yet completed, the experience has been of great worth. By studying these two specific areas in greater depth, I have increased my understanding of that time period generally. And only by increasing my understanding of the period generally, was I able to fully comprehend those two specific areas. Perhaps genre painting’s popularity was due to a desire to understand, or even curb, the growing conflict that erupted in civil war. It is possible that its rapid decline was in favor of more idyllic and escapist pieces, to take the mind off of the tragic conflict. Feeling during that same antebellum period was probably intensified by the increased presence of sentiment publicly expressed through newspapers, as caused by the advent of the Penny Press. Conditions in cities may have worsened as the public, as well as artists, became disenchanted with the street-urchin newsboys.
This research has taught me that to understand the whole, all parts must be considered; and to understand one part alone, the whole must not be forgotten. That experience will continue to shape my research in the future.