Art and Muralism
Working Relationships:
Impressions of Labor and the Contemporary Viewer
Suzanne Scanlan
Ernest Hamlin Baker's The Activities of the Narragansett Planters, commissioned for the Wakefield, RI post office, clearly depicts scenes of slave labor supervised by a Colonial planter prominently positioned in the center of the panel. From a historical perspective Baker provided the contemporary viewer with "an arrangement of groups and forms that symbolize the basic activities upon which the Narragansett Planters built their wealth and a unique culture during the early days of South County, Rhode Island."[1] Upon entering the post office, the patron was confronted with a vision of Wakefield's past; a pictorialization of a largely suppressed local history that emphasizes abundance, social and racial hierarchy and robust male workers. Yet the mural also had contemporary implications for viewers living and working in New England in the late 1930s and early 1940s. A review of socio-economic conditions and labor dynamics of depression-era Rhode Island offers compelling parallels with eighteenth-century life, and should be considered when examining the local conditions under which the mural was received.
During the early decades of the 20th century, much of Rhode Island's labor force consisted of factory and mill workers, largely derived from immigrant populations. These "new immigrants," predominately Italian, but also Polish, Jewish and Armenian, faced not only the difficulty of finding work, but also a language barrier that excluded them from many employment opportunities.[2] Wealthy mill owners also capitalized on the availability of low-wage workers competing for scarce jobs, creating precarious and oppressive conditions for laborers. The result was a population strongly divided along class lines: a wide gulf between "high" and "low" society became evident, and a two-class order emerged.[3] Although there are significant differences between wage labor and slavery, they both invited the exploitation and even abuse of a disempowered labor force and both were supported by ideological systems that attempted to naturalize social, economic, racial, and ethnic hierarchies. The superior position of the planter over his laborers could certainly have resonated with the contemporary worker, who may well have made a connection between his current working situation as a poor immigrant and that of the African slaves in the painting.
The leaders of Narragansett society were wealthy, well-educated men. They were the largest landholders in the county, and as such enjoyed vast political and juridical power, since only freeholders (landowners) could vote.[4] The planters were also credited with being of "superior birth."[5] Similarly, in the 1930s prominent businessmen and well-known political families considered themselves ordained by God to "lead and give them the fruits of the earth," fostering a sense of entitlement and class hierarchy. [6] These sentiments echoed from the pulpits of both eras. One Rhode Islander recalled that during the Depression, "The [Catholic] parish became a teaching agent." The workman was taught to be subservient, because he had no one to teach him not to be subservient."[7] In churches and Sunday schools, clerical supporters of mill owners espoused the "godliness of capital;" [8] just as the Episcopal Reverend James McSparren, himself a prosperous planter, preached obedience and subservience at services specifically for slaves in the eighteenth century.[9] This juxtaposition of the privileged and the oppressed is clearly delineated in Baker's mural, potentially allowing viewers to identify this past struggle between capital and labor with the conflicts marking contemporary society.
Figure 1. Henry Billings, "The Golden Triangle of Trade,"
Medford, MA
Post Office,
1938
Further evidence of the contributions of the slave economy in New England can be seen in another federal mural, created for the post office in Medford, Massachusetts by Henry Billings in 1938 (Figure 1). Billings' mural consists of three panels and is titled The Golden Triangle of Trade. Two side panels depict economic activities of eighteenth-century Medford, specifically shipbuilding and the production of rum. On the left panel, a still alludes to "Distill House Lane" where rum was produced into the early twentieth century; the ship's hull represents Foster's Shipyard whose vessels carried the necessary sugar cane from the West Indies. [10] This transaction is reflected in the right panel's rendering of a West Indian sugar shack and cane press, with the ship in the background presumably bound for Massachusetts. The central panel bridges these two worlds, literally connecting Guinea, Africa, the West Indies and New England with a golden triangle. Two figures occupy the corners of this panel: a white sailor, aligned with Massachusetts on the left and a black slave, adjacent to the West Indies on the right. However, unlike the Baker mural, this slave is surely free, as his open shackles are cast off at his feet and he is not shown in a relationship of subordination.
While there is no white master depicted in Billings' mural, the eye is drawn to a large eagle at the top of the central panel, emblazoned with a shield and arrows, and perhaps most curiously, perched atop what appears to the Masonic symbol. The artist's inclusion of patriotic emblems and religious imagery lead the viewer to understand that this "golden triangle of trade" was somehow sanctioned by God: that there is a "divine right" at work. Perhaps this iconographic imagery acts on behalf of the absent master, symbolizing his power and authority. Since slave-owning is documented in the town of Medford, [11] Billings' mural reinforces the issues of class struggle and division of labor both spatially (within his composition) and figuratively, creating an ideological connection to Baker's depiction of eighteenth-century Rhode Island.
Labor strife figured prominently in Rhode Island society, both in Baker's time and in the era of the Narragansett planters. During the decade leading up to the execution of the Wakefield mural workers in Rhode Island mills were attempting to unionize; strikes and violent outbursts were frequent as tensions between management and laborers escalated. In Woonsocket, for example, "mobs struck out at the symbols of their oppression, the worst of the mills and the haughtiest of merchants," often leading to intervention by the National Guard. [12] Eventually, labor leaders wielded enough power to induce corrective legislation, but this was not the case in 1939. Similarly, the slaves depicted in Baker's mural were not yet free. Still wholly at the mercy of the planters, they appear resigned to their respective tasks, completely unaware of one another. Yet one has to believe that emancipation and revolt are not far from their thoughts. Legislation preventing slaves from congregating or gathering was enacted during the eighteenth century, and contemporary sources document instances of escape and local uprisings. [13] Ultimately, it was the abolition of slavery that lead to the planters' economic decline. [14]
This essay has argued that Baker's Activities of the Narragansett Planters offered visitors to the Wakefield Post Office more than a static window into a distant past. Coming at the end of a decade marked by economic depression, high unemployment, and social unrest, the mural may well have prompted certain contemporary viewers to reflect not only on the difference between this prosperous past and the present, but also on the continuity, based on long-standing patterns of social and economic inequality.
Notes:
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1. Letter from Ernest Hamlin Baker to Forbes Watson of the Section of Painting and Sculpture, December 7, 1938.
2. Buhle, Paul, ed. Working Lives: An Oral History of Rhode Island Labor, Providence: Rhode Island Historical Society, 1987. P. 9. Professor Buhle and his co-editors conducted interviews with Rhode Island residents who had personal experience in and knowledge of Rhode Island labor history. "Working Lives" is a compilation of those interviews.
4. Channing, Edward. "The Narragansett Planters: A Study of Causes" reprinted in Johns Hopkins Studies in Historical and Political Science, Volume 4, 1886. Pp. 7, 12-14.
5. Ibid, p. 6 and William Davis Miller, "The Narragansett Planters" reprinted from Proceedings, the American Antiquarian Society, n.s. 43, 1933. P. 46.
6. Buhle, p. 30, particularly footnote 3.
7. Buhle, p. 33 (interview with Al McAloon)
9. Miller, p. 57. Also Christian M. McBurney. The Rise and Decline of the South Kingstown Planters, 1660-1783. Brown University Honors Thesis, 1981, p. 113.
10. Sammarco, Anthony Mitchell. Images of America: Medford. Charleston: Arcadia Publishing, 1999, p. 57 and 81-86.
11. Ibid. p. 28. Sammarco cites the Royall family who "brought 27 slaves from their sugar plantation on Antigua to run their new estate in Medford in 1737." Note: The Royall slave quarters are the only surviving example of such housing in New England.
