Michael Omalley Associate Professor of History and Art History George Mason University
U.Due south. citizens today are all familiar with "cash," the paper money we use to conduct daily business organization. Nosotros're even comfortable with electronic money! But in the late 19th century, not everyone was ready to accept greenbacks, originally issued during the Civil War, equally "real" money. Michael O'Malley, associate professor of history at George Bricklayer University and associate director of the Center for History and New Media, works on the cultural history of the 19th and early on 20th century and digital media. /sites/default/files/media/video/Omalley1.mp4 video/mp4 I was actually stunned past the other half of Reconstruction, which we never paid any attention to, which was the coin fence. There was a huge contend about money during the same time—these were these bully issues: what do we do nigh the ex-slaves and what practice we practice with the money? Considering the Northward used greenbacks to finance the Civil War; they didn't desire to tax people, so they only printed money, they made it legal tender. I think 240 one thousand thousand dollars in greenbacks, which are purely paper money—they have no value other that what people are willing to believe is in them. And they're very successful during the state of war: they don't cause a lot of inflation, they allow Lincoln to prosecute the state of war without having to raise taxes, and go on the sort of massive dissent under control. But after the war what practise you do with them? That's an interesting question. 1 argument is you only get rid of the cash—they're not real money; they don't accept whatever real value; they're a lie; they're a fraud and a crook. "Burn 'em," some people would say. "Contract them" and—they call it contracting the currency—"bring 'em back in and burn 'em, destroy them and get back to real coin," which at the fourth dimension was supposed to exist gilded. And the other argument is that we need more than paper money—money is just a social convenience—it's whatever nosotros say it is, and we should get rid of gold. The document comes out of that argue—it comes out of this debate about the nature of money. And as I started to look at it, I got really fascinated by that question. I mean, why non use newspaper money? What'due south the argument for gilded? And when I started to read the arguments for aureate, they became really fascinating and absurd. I mean they're superficially rational. Economists in the 19th century would become through this long rational caption about prices and supply and demand and then you'll finally get to the cadre of the metaphor, which is golden simply is valuable, because information technology is. And that'south always there: it just is. And sometimes they'll say, God made it to be money. And they'll say this; I meet this again and again: God made gold to be money. Okay, this is the coin, this is going to be burned for oestrus, I hateful it'southward actually…it's that clear. And there's this what you'd take to call a fetish virtually gold. That it has this magical value—that's independent of what people think—information technology just has this magical value. And I got really interested in that question. So this Nast cartoon was produced as office of the attack on paper money. Nast was a really strong hard-money guy, and he referred to paper coin equally the "rag baby," that was his name for it. Cause newspaper money was also referred to as "rag coin." It was made out of rags—old rags, rags and trash, and inflated paper trash he'd say. This was part of an argument against newspaper money. And information technology'due south a really good expression of the gilt standard position. Information technology'southward a really stiff expression of the gilded standard position. And considering Nast is proficient, information technology's pretty coherent. What does it embody? Well in this affair the rag baby cannot embody a existent baby. He's pointing out the futility of trying to embody qualities in things they don't have. And it'southward connected to forms of economic prosperity—like this is a business firm and lot—these are symbols of economic success. Or this is a cow, which I think refers to farming—you know information technology refers to the sentimental symbolic place farming has in American life, it's where real values are, information technology's where existent work comes from. This is money by Act of Congress, this is milk by Deed of Congress—you tin can't feed yourself on pure paper—it'southward not a rag baby, but a existent infant. And so it became a really good embodiment of the problem of substituting signs for things. And it seems like a pretty straightforward, and generally commonsensical bespeak of view. I mean yous can't manus a baby a milk bill of fare and get a baby to drink it. I hateful it's a witty expression of that. Simply because of the structure of it, with the signs, it'southward really too, I think, critique of ad in the 19th century, and the emerging culture of mass sort of…signage—advertisements, placards, billboards, competing signs. It's likewise a comment on the chaoticness of postal service-Civil State of war life. And then it'southward not but commenting about coin, it'due south also commenting most, what would y'all call it? The virtualness of industrial capitalism. Industrial capitalism is increasingly virtual, where you market something equally a chair that looks similar a handmade chair merely information technology's actually stamped-on pressed and there are twenty thousand of them. The watch looks similar it's golden but it's actually plated in some new technological process. There'due south a quote from Henry Ward Beecher where he says that we live in a civilization of lies—lying flour in our bread, our apparel are lies: they expect like things they're non. And it'south partly a commentary on that commercial globe. And it uses money equally the door to open that kind of critique. 1 of the things that's unconsciously revealed hither is a certain corporeality of anxiety nearly reproduction. Why choose a rag baby? Why choose to embody it that way? A babe in some means is a symbol of concreteness. It's a new life but it's made out of two other forms of life, and its unimpeachably real. It's the symbol of a kind of realness, and the idea of declaring something a baby which isn't a baby, is kind of the ultimate expression of the arrogance of people. You can't create life—life is the most bones thing you lot tin can't make—and you can't brand a baby out of parts or pieces. And then it has something…it's not dissimilar Frankenstein—it seems to me it has some of that same concern about generation and reproduction. So one of the things I'd say is that information technology'south not an accident that he chose a rag baby. And you could say, it has a lot of values; on the 1 hand it mocks children's fantasy play, and information technology says that newspaper money is a kid's foolishness, sort of a foolish childish act. It was the most naked, I recollect, and frank description of the gilded standard position. Y'all tin can't substitute paper for the real affair. An thought can't be a matter. A thing has to be something material. Simply of class, in fact, it's an economy where a firm and lot is just a piece of paper. And in fact, the ownership of the business firm and lot is purely a fictional paper title. Ownership doesn't exist physically, it just exists in constabulary. It only exists in custom. And for the purposes of the market a newspaper representation of a house and lot is exactly equally adept as a house and lot. Then that was sort of interesting to me. The cow—obviously you can't milk a piece of paper, but you can purchase and sell symbolic cows which are cypher more than pieces of paper. And from the perspective of the greenbackers, the money itself is an embodiment of all these other tangible physical goods, which are part of the United States. And then it seemed like a overnice mode to go at both a really strong expression of the aureate standard position and some of the incoherences of it at the same time. The first thing I'd ask them is why did he cull to make paper money into a rag doll? What are the rhetorical strategies of this thing? And the merits that paper coin is a rag baby is an interesting claim to make; I mean why does he choose to symbolize it that way? Why not call it, you lot know, a scarecrow? Why a baby? Why a rag baby? And so I'd ask why would he want to have information technology in the form of this weird incommunicable situation of a shelf with signs put around information technology. I would want to ask them why the argument takes that form. Try to go them to say, "Well, maybe information technology has something to practice with the commercial street, and the earth of signs and advertising." If I had to describe a methodology, I'd say you have to have some factual context. Yous take to understand why certain terms announced. Yous have to know what's going on in the era the document appeared in, just beyond that yous want an attitude of skepticism almost the rhetoric, virtually the strategies of argument the document makes. You desire to exist able to question not just the points the statement makes, but the means past which the arguments go at that place. The more complicated way to say this is you don't only want the answer to the question—yous want to know what does asking that question do? What effects does request that question produce; what kind of outcomes does that question always point towards? The offset thing I practice when I'm talking about reading images is I say in that location'south absolutely nothing in an image that can be taken for granted. And if you're going to read it, you have to go sector by sector. Yous have to enquire the "why" question about every slice of an image. Why is this detail thing here and not somewhere else? Why exercise you choose to draw it this way? You take to actually interrogate images. I mean that's the basic method I want to bring when I'chiliad using an image. At that place's nothing in it that's a product of gamble—well, if at that place is something in information technology that's a product of adventure information technology might be more interesting than the things that are in there deliberately. The offset matter they'd want to do is take careful notes, either on paper or mentally, about what the thing depicts and how information technology depicts it. And sometimes just writing it downward is a large aid. Yous know, it'southward a infant and information technology's in front of…I find when I'm taking notes, that when I write down the paradigm I often learn a lot about it. So the outset thing they want to do is give information technology a careful formal written report of the construction of the matter—what is it depicting and how? You have to take some sense of what the historical references are. Then if they run into this every bit railroad stock, they would have to investigate something about railroad stock and feelings about the railroad in the 1870s. They'd have to discover some sense of historical context. But I'd also want to know something nigh Nast. Particularly because he's such a…there's so much stuff past Nast, and he has such a stiff influence. He'south a very powerful artist. I would desire them to investigate how else Nast depicted babies; how else he depicted money; how he depicted business and finance in full general. So I'd desire them to have some sense of the author, and the author's feature forms of…his rhetorical tricks—the author's characteristic rhetorical style. And how does this deviate from his characteristic style. I would ask them to await for other iterations of that phrase. You know, where else does "rag baby" show upwards and who else uses it? Well, ane thing I'd ask them to do is look at how else Nast drew babies. I hateful what else did Nast do with babies and how else did they appear in his piece of work. Did he sentimentalize them equally the exact contrary of this? Or, how were babies depicted in the popular culture by and large? And I retrieve the answer normally is they're highly sentimentalized. They're the objects around which real feeling is generated, and the objects that correspond genuineness. And then I'd ask them to contextualize it—what is the context of babyhood?At a Glance
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Michael O'Malley analyzes an 1876 editorial cartoon past Thomas Nast that criticized cash and "greenbackers." How did Nast use symbols in his cartoon? What context was he working in?Virtually the Author
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Thomas Nast Cartoon
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Source: https://teachinghistory.org/best-practices/examples-of-historical-thinking/25201
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