Men of Controversy: John Brown and John Steuart Curry

John Brown and John Steuart Curry's mural of him were both beset with controversy which, continues to exist. Herein is an explanation of the issues surrounding Brown nearly 150 years ago and Curry nearly 65 years ago.

John Brown
Few figures in American history have inspired such opposing reactions as John Brown. During his lifetime as well as today, some have regarded him as a hero and martyr. To others, he was a crazed fanatic and murderer. By most accounts, the man, born in 1800, became a firm abolitionist when as a youngster he witnessed the brutal beating of a slave about his age. He had little time to act for the anti-slavery cause because he was generally one step ahead (or behind) the creditors. He had 20 children to provide for, and his business ventures either lost or made no money.
But to understand Brown's fervor, one must look at the cauldron in which he lived. By the end of the 1850s, there were at least 3.5 million slaves in the United States. In the Dred Scott decision of 1857, the U.S. Supreme Court declared that African-Americans in the United States, whether slave or free, were not U.S. citizens and had no rights. While there were many slave revolts, the abolitionist movement led by pacifist whites was gaining momentum. There had not been a significant instance of a white willing to use violence to abolish the institution of slavery.

One must also look at the volatile territory of Kansas. The Missouri Compromise, attempting to maintain the delicate balance between free and slave states, declared that Missouri would enter the Union as a slave state and Kansas, when ready, as a free state. Thirty years later, in 1854, Congress negated that agreement by declaring those living in the Kansas territory would decide by ballot whether to enter as a free or slave state. It was the passage of this Kansas-Nebraska Act and the insistence of his sons who had settled as "free soilers" that motivated Brown to relocate to the Kansas territory.

At that time, the population of the Kansas territory was scant. Families from Ohio and Massachusetts and other free states, often encouraged and financed by the New England Emigrant Aid Society, went to Kansas to settle and be counted as free soilers. Initially, the southern sympathizers were in control of the territory. They passed their own laws that, among other things, made the speaking or writing against slavery punishable by "hard labor for a term not less than two years." At the same time, persons from Missouri and Southern states went to the territory as pro-slavers. Consequently, when elections were attempted, ballot boxes were stuffed. Election officials were run out of town. There were arguments, threats, and violence on both sides. Border ruffians from Missouri burned the entire free soil town of Lawrence, Kansas, to the ground. A U.S. congressman, after delivering a speech against slavery titled "That Crime Against Kansas," was nearly beaten to death on the congressional floor by his opponents.

It is presumed that Brown and a few followers initiated the Pottawatomie Massacre, in which five Southern sympathizers were killed. Was it cold-blooded murder? Or was it retaliation for the sacking of Lawrence and to issue a warning to the border ruffians to end their harassment of the free soilers?

Brown later stole 13 slaves from Missouri and personally escorted them along the underground railroad to safety in Canada. For this unprecedented action, the U.S. government assigned a bounty on his head.

These actions would be scarcely remembered were it not for Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry, West Virginia, in 1859. He organized a handful of men, including slaves, young sympathizers, and three of his sons. They broke into a federal arsenal in hopes that slaves in the Virginia area, upon hearing of the action, would join them and organize their own well-armed uprisings. This did not happen. A short time later, Brown was captured. A few months later he was hanged for treason. As he was preparing for his martyrdom, he wrote many letters from jail that were published in northern newspapers, letters that presented him not as a crazed fanatic, but as a man fully in charge of his destiny.

A 2000 PBS documentary titled "The American Experience?John Brown's Holy War" quotes Brown saying he hoped that slavery could have been overthrown with little bloodshed. Brown was woefully incorrect. The Civil War began a two years after his death. There were nearly 600,000 casualties in the Civil War.

John Steuart Curry
John Steuart Curry was born 38 years after John Brown's death.

Brown had died within 25 miles of the area where Curry was born and raised. Curry's ancestors had been abolitionists. Both families chose to settle in Kansas in the 1870s and 1880s because Kansas was admitted to the Union in 1861 as a free state. Curry titled the mural The Tragic Prelude to reinforce the idea that the battles John Brown and other settlers had in Kansas in the 1850s predicted what was to come.

It seems logical that Curry would chose to paint the figure of Brown dominating the history of Kansas in the most prominent section the of Kansas statehouse. Brown, as positioned by Curry, looks directly into the office of the governor. Kathleen Sebelius wrote about the mural shortly after becoming governor in 2003. "This 10-foot image painted by Kansas artist John Steuart Curry is directly across from my office," she wrote. "It is a continual reminder to me of the defining issues of the Civil War and the challenges we still face today in attaining equality for all."

In her 1986 book about the murals, Rethinking Regionalism (Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, D.C.) author Sue M. Kendall described Curry's 10-foot tall depiction of Brown as "one of the most stirring images in the lexicon of American art."
However, that is not the way everyone in Kansas felt about the mural at the time it was painted. In 1940, the Kansas Council of Women passed a resolution objecting to Curry's depiction of Kansas with "freaks, tornadoes, and John Brown," rather than as a "law-abiding, progressive state." In the press, there was skepticism and ridicule of all of Curry's murals. In 1941, the Kansas legislature passed a resolution that prevented Curry from completing his trilogy of murals. In great disappointment, he left them unsigned.

As partial explanation for the reaction against the Brown murals, one must realize that in Kansas, prior to when Curry began the murals in 1937, there were an estimated 100,000 members of the Ku Klux Klan. Kendall quotes a Kansas City Star article of that year: "The long dormant Ku Klux Klan arises to renew activity, its membership stimulated as ladies take their place beside knights of the hooded rank." Curry was committed to social justice, and one can sense his reaction to the situation in the mural and better understands his decision to portray Brown as a Kansan Moses.

Today, it is difficult for visitors of the statehouse, especially the thousands of school children, to comprehend the controversies surrounding both Brown and Curry's depiction of him. Tour guides, including one who sings songs appropriate to the times of Brown and Curry, attempt to tell the stories and teach the lessons of Kansas in American history.


ADDITIONAL NOTES
? Our story by Don Lambert and his association with John Steuart Curry's widow detailing the importance of Curry's John Brown mural is of added importance this year, as Kansas recognizes the Sesquicentennial of the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, which prompted John Brown's trip to Kansas the following year. Among the many activities planned in Kansas for the sesquicentennial is a special exhibit at the Kansas Museum of History in Topeka, which includes the actual Kansas-Nebraska Act document, on loan from the National Archives in Washington, D.C. The exhibition is on view April 3 through October 3.

? It is fortunate that many of Curry's drawings were placed in permanent collections when they were. In 1997, there was a flood in the basement of the Chicago gallery that housed many of Curry's works. More than 75 Curry drawings were destroyed. Among the drawings, which had been stored in that basement and retrieved prior to the flood, were the Brown mural study featured in the May 2004 issue of American Artist, as well as the other mural studies acquired by the State of Kansas for the Kansas Museum of History.

? Don Lambert, the author of this Online Exclusive and the feature article on Curry in the May 2004 issue, has suggested the following three books to learn more about Brown, each of which features a variation of Curry's mural on its cover.

The Legend Revisited, John Brown, by Merrill D. Peterson (University of Virginia Press, Charlottesville, Virginia). This book recounts how the image of John Brown has been treated over the last 150 years in history, philosophy, art, song, dance, film, theatre, and opera. (Kirke Mechem's large-scale opera, "John Brown" will have its world premiere in Kansas City in 2007.)

John Brown: The Thundering Voice of Jehovah" by Stan Cohen (Pictorial Histories Publishing Company, Missoula, Montana).

War to the Knife: Bleeding Kansas, 1854-1861 by Thomas Goodrich (Stackpole Books, Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania).

? In addition, Lambert suggests John Steuart Curry: Inventing the Middle West, edited by Patricia Junker with essays by Curry scholars and reproductions of Curry's paintings displayed at most major museums (Elvehjem Art Center/University of Wisconsin?Madison, Madison, Wisconsin).

? Finally, Lambert's is spearheading a campaign for a U.S. postage stamp to be issued of Curry's Brown mural. The idea has been endorsed by both Kansas senators, governor, historians, and relatives of both Brown and Curry.

? The John Steuart Curry Boyhood Home and Museum in Oskaloosa, Kansas, is open weekends during the summers and by appointment throughout the year.