Our First Trek: The Woodruff-Fontaine House!

By now I hope that most--if not all of you--have had an opportunity to visit and tour Memphis's beautiful Woodruff-Fontaine house and museum, built in 1871. I was so delighted to share this tour with Carter, Preston, Bonnie, Theresa, Anna, and Micaela, along with a lovely couple from North Dakota! I am very eager to hear your thoughts, reflections, and insights about your experience there, and, if I may, to share my own impressions of this beautiful home.

This was my second tour of Woodruff-Fontaine, though I have visited it twice before as a photographer and as a wedding guest. I am always taken aback at the beauty of the place, how well-maintained it is, and the sheer grandeur of the structure itself. Particularly striking to me is the way architecture and interior design reflects not only the personalities and tastes of the people who lived there, but the social mores of the time.

The Victorians were a culture steeped in social signifiers--symbols and gestures, social customs and behaviors that were used to imply meaning rather than to express direct meaning. For instance, the "Language of the Fan," was explained in one small installation on a table in the main parlor. Women would gesture with their (often beautifully adorned) fans to communicate to their suitors. One gesture meant "Kiss me" while the other indicated "I'm engaged," and so on. Calling cards (like modern business cards) would subtly indicate to the mistress of the house the intent of a visitor. If he was welcome, he'd be seated in a soft, comfortable chair in the foyer; if not, he would be relegated to a stiff, hard-back chair opposite the soft one. This way, he was subtly--but emphatically--made aware of his host's opinion of him.

Placards explain the social conventions of the fan and the calling card:

So now I'd like to hear from you. Please respond with some of your initial impressions of the home and of the tour, and think a bit about what the home and its contents tell us about Victorian Memphis. Were they merely representatives of a cultural age? Or, was there something distinctly Memphian about their lives? What might be said about the gender expectations of the time? How might gender roles be reflected within the contents of the home?

Just some food for thought.

I snapped the photo above in 2013, hopeful to give justice to Woodruff-Fontaine's height and elegance.

If you have checked your syllabus, you know that we are scheduled to meet on Macon Campus this Tuesday evening (2/21). We will discuss upcoming assignments as well as discuss quizzes. I hope to see all of you, and if you cannot be present, you need to contact me ASAP.

Another word on the smART auction: Doug and I continue to need your support in collecting artwork. Please file that in your mind this week. On the evening of the event, you will be asked to be there early to help Mr. Branch and I set up. See you soon!

Bertha Looney Presentation, February 9th

By Thomas J. O'Halloran - Gelatin silver print.U.S. News & World Report Magazine Collection, Prints and Photographs Division (202)http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/brown/brown-brown.html, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=10872925

Students,

I hope that many of you were able to make the Brown Bag Lunch Series' presentation by Bertha Looney this afternoon. I had to teach a class this afternoon at Macon, so sadly I was not able to make it. However, I hope to hear from those who were able to attend. If you did not, please try to offer some insight on a moment in Civil Rights history. You might watch a documentary on the integration of public schools, read up on a famous civil rights activist or events (there are several I can name below), or, if there is another event taking place in honor of African American History Month that you would like to attend and report on, please do so by February 12th (this coming Sunday).

Some civil rights activists you might consider reading up on:

Fred Shuttlesworth
Medgar Evers
Ralph Abernathy
Michael Schwerner
James Chaney
Andrew Goodman
Brown v. the Board of Education of Topeka
Rosa Parks
Montgomery Bus Boycott
Ida B. Wells
A. Philip Randolph
Southern Christian Leadership Conference
The March on Washington
Malcolm X
Vernon Dahmer
Memphis Sanitation Workers' Strike

These are just a few names and events that come to mind readily--there are certainly more to consider.

Proposals!

Hello All. I hope everyone's semester is off to a good start. I want to apologize again for the troubles with email that seem to have beleaguered me so far, but I have reported the problem, and with luck it will be resolved soon.

Please let's not forget to begin collecting art for the smART auction on Cooper, which takes place on Saturday, March 18th. This may sound like an early start, but in order to have a successful auction, we need to have a sufficient supply of artwork by the end of February! So, if you are an artist and would like to donate one of your drawings, paintings, prints...or know someone who is, contact me or Doug Branch.

Also, Bertha Looney's talk, "The Desegregation of The University of Memphis: A Personal Account" takes place on February 9th at 12:30 p.m. in the Farris Auditorium. Please try to make that event and show your support for Ms. Looney and for the Honors Program.

Without further delay, the topic of this post is, of course, your ideas for the Memphis: City as Text semester long project. What ideas are you considering? Your response need not be completely etched in granite, but you do need to have some idea about what interests you, and what you want to spend the rest of the term researching. So, I'm eager to hear your ideas and to give you some feedback.