Overview
| Currier &
Ives | The
End of an Age
Nostalgia
The most common response to the turmoil was nostalgia,
a longing for a golden age in simpler, more harmonious times.
(4)
Michael Kammen, in Mystic Chords of Memory: The Transformation
of Tradition in American Culture states that "[n]ostalgia
is especially likely to occur in response to dramatic or unanticipated
alterations, like a revolution or a civil war, a stunning transformation
of the sort that rapid industrialization brings, or the crumbling
of a venerated value system, like revealed religion. All of those
phenomena, and their predictably attendant concerns, were present
during the years from 1860 until 1917."
(5)
| Looking backward during the period from the Civil War to
World War I helped Americans to accept dramatic political,
economic, and social changes. Without emotional anchors
to secure themselves to traditions, mores, and notions of
an ideal past, Americans could not face an uncertain and
frightening future. "Nostalgia meant more to them than
consolation. It provided identity, integrity, and perhaps
even a sense of security–however false." (6) |
 |
Public monuments and myths spread through novels,
tracts, art, sermons, and music are some of the ways that people
try to create a memory and a history–a usable mythos–for
themselves. Often, the repository for a nostalgic mythos is
in the archives of the affluent–in America, as well as Europe,
these took the form of private collections, many of which were
eventually turned over to museums. Ironically, it was one of
the nation's first production lines–that of Currier and Ives–that
provided the middle and lower classes with their own venue.
This was the lithograph
print, published by numerous printing companies but most notably
and most successfully by Currier and Ives. The firm sold prints
that virtually everyone could afford. The least expensive prints
sold for six cents each, but even the most expensive were no
more than three dollars. They ranged in size from 8 x 12.5 inches
to 28 x 40 inches. (7)
Overview
| Nostalgia
| Currier &
Ives | The
End of an Age
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