A Better War: Post-Civil War, Re-remembering the American Revolution and the Founding of the Republic
These stereographs exemplify the photographs’ publishers (and American society’s) attempt, after the Civil War, to reconstruct a republican spirit through reflection on the American Revolution. The photographs document official efforts, like the establishing of a National Museum of American History in Independence Hall, as well as function as late19th-century and early 20th-century records of retrospection on the founding of the United States. These stereographs, ranging from the 1870s to the 1920s, illustrate the ways in which Americans were reinventing a collective identity and promoting assimilation through revisions of the collective “memories” of the American colonies and independence.
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Soldier’s Home “Mustered Out,” Philadelphia, ca. 1866.
Soldier’s Home “Mustered Out,” Philadelphia, ca. 1866.
The title creates a subtle commentary on the price of war by juxtaposing the military phrase “mustered out” (i.e., granting departure) with the image of rows of gravestones – symbols of death and loss. The stereograph acknowledges that the national spirit of post-Civil War society has suffered from the conflict. It invites the viewer to answer the questions of how to rebuild social and civic bonds and how to revise and interpret a common history that allows for healing.