Looking at The County Election, by George Caleb Bingham | A Primary Source Close Read w/ BRI

0:05 Hello everyone. Welcome to a Bill of Rights Institute Close Reading. My name is Rachel Davison Humphries. I am the director of outreach here at the Bill of Rights Institute. And I was a classroom teacher for ten years prior to the role. And I’m here with my colleague, Mary Patterson. Hello, I’m Mary. I’m a senior education program specialist here at the Bill of Rights Institute.

0:26 And I’m a history enthusiast and art enthusiast, and I was a high school history teacher for eight years. And we’re here today to talk about primary sources. So the point of the close reading is to dive into a primary source text image concept that has some document attached to it and really take a very close look

0:49 at that resource and see what questions come out of it. Mary and I, like we said, we’re both classroom teachers. We’re not in the classroom currently, but we love thinking about ideas with students, with young people, and we are here as kind of guides to help you come to your own questions. So today we are going to be looking at a painting, a very interesting painting

1:12 called The County Election by George Caleb Bingham. The County Election is a painting we’re going to go through in a few moments, but it’s connected intimately to the democratic process in the United States. So our previous Primary Source Close Read was on Alexis de Tocqueville, and he talks about American democracy. So we recommend you kind of think about this as a companion piece to that one.

1:36 You could read them together or read the de Tocqueville piece and then look at this painting or look at this painting and then read the de Tocqueville piece and see how they’re in dialogue with one another. Mary is here to take us through this painting. Take it away, Mary. All right. Thank you, Rachel. So that’s exactly what Rachel said. We’re going to be looking at the County Election by the artist George Caleb Bingham.

2:01 So like Rachel said, you should think of this as a companion piece to de Tocqueville. So de Tocqueville was an outsider looking in his French aristocrat, observing the United States and writing what he sees. And this artist, George Caleb Bingham, think of him as an insider, but his subject is the same thing. He’s looking at America sort of writ large.

2:23 So he’s an American, he’s from Missouri, and he’s actually known as the Missouri artist. And he paints this particular painting in 1852 he paints it and then it’s turned into an engraving in 1854. And the picture that I have up here on my screen is actually of the engraving.

2:43 So that’s why its dtated it’s 1854. And it’s interesting to note, if you think of a painting in the 1850s, you would have to travel to see wherever it is being displayed. Whereas an engraving could be copied and distributed in a newspaper, more people can see it. So this engraving is something that a lot more people could see than a particular painting.

3:06 So you might want to think about why would more people outside of his immediate audience in this place, in Missouri, want to see this particular painting? So I love using art as a primary source because the picture is worth 1000 words. There’s no words. So you have to look carefully.

3:26 And this is actually a trick question because there are a few words in this painting, but we’ll get to that and just take in what you see. So I think that’s the most important thing to do is just take a minute and observe the scene before you. And what do you see? What you notice. So, Rachel, what strikes you just looking at this painting for the first time? There are a bunch of dudes. Yeah.

3:53 And it’s all dudes. That’s the thing that strikes me first, just us being ladies. These are all dudes. Then maybe. I mean, I’d have to get really close, but it seems like it’s a bunch of dudes. What strikes me is there’s a sense of just plenty. There’s just a lot of people.

4:13 Right. You’re impressed with the fact that there are a bunch of people in this painting. It’s not like a painting of George Washington, right. It’s a bunch of people. And then this is because I also really enjoy art. I find the lighting to be really interesting because the lighting is

4:34 the only thing that really focuses your eye in this painting or this engraving. Because there’s so much activity happening, right. You don’t know kind of where to focus. There’s a lot going on. But what does focus you is like the white shirts in the middle, those in the middle.

4:58 And what does that is the lighting. So those are my first kind of thoughts. Right. So there’s a lot going on. It’s busy. One of the fun things I think about looking at a painting is you always notice something new each time you look at it. And especially if you’re looking at it with other students or other people, they’ll point something out to you that you hadn’t quite seen before.

5:19 Like, there’s kids down here playing a game, there’s a dog. So there’s just the more you look at it, the more you see. And there’s a lot going on. So there’s no one great man or woman that this isn’t a king, it isn’t a queen, it isn’t George Washington. It’s lots of different people. We don’t know who they are. But the light is sort of brighter.

5:40 It’s clear in the actual painting, the brighter on the scene here on the steps. And again, the title is An Election. So this is the process of voting going on in a Missouri election in 1850. So it’s a very particular election that the artist has chosen to illustrate. And at the time you would vote by verbal declaration.

6:04 So it’s funny now when we vote, you go into the booth or you have a sort of parameter thing around you and you mark it on the ballot. No one knows who you’re voting for, but you would announce it publicly. So it’s sort of everyone’s come together. There’s this big scene and that’s what’s happening here at the top of the stairs.

6:25 Man in the shirt is voting. The orange shirt. The orange shirt is voting. So because there’s kind of a lot going on here, I think it’s helpful to take look at it like quadrants, as if you were in geometry class. So one, two, three and four. We’re going to do it that way because there’s a lot to unpack here. These are geometry quadrants.

6:46 So they go counterclockwise just like yes. And it’s been a while since I’ve been in geometry, so I did double check that. So again, the light is sort of hitting on this guy in the orange shirt. He has his hand on a Bible. Oh, it’s on a Bible voting. He’s declaring who he is going to vote for. So you have some sort of court official holding the Bible and you have other

7:10 people on the stairs presumably waiting their turn to vote. And you do have some words. That was a trick question. Again, it’s cut off in the picture on the right. On the left it says the will of the people, the Supreme Law, democracy in action in 1850. So all of these men are coming to vote and you can take a look at their clothing.

7:35 We have men from different walks of life, right? This guy up here a little more fancy dressed. He’s some sort of official. Other men are kind of more humbly dressed. You have guys in a top hat up here. This guy is particularly interesting. Yeah. What’s that little slip of paper? What’s going on there? Yeah.

7:56 So George Caleb Bingham actually ran for office in a particular election that he is depicting, and he won. This man right here that’s tipping his hat and offering a card to the next person in line to vote was the man that won the election. So what is the artist trying to say about this particular that won the election over him?

8:19 And again, if you think of an election today, there’s all sorts of laws about how close you can be to a polling place. This is a clear violation of that. Of these laws that exist today. Right. For those of you that don’t know, if you work for a campaign, you can only be within, I don’t know, it’s like 50 or 100ft of the polling place. So when you’re like the first time you go to or when you go to vote,

8:41 there’s going to be this wall of people, but then they stop. And then you go into the voting place and they’re not allowed to solicit your vote while you’re in line. Once you’re so close to the voting, great. And then you have these guys down here. So what are they doing? Yes. I don’t know.

9:02 Well, it looks like they’re chatting, right? They’re like we’re having some sort of debate or something. I do notice that the guy I don’t know, the one is talking. The two are looking intently at him, and their hats are slightly fancier than the guy they’re looking at who’s chatting. I don’t know how to rank hat.

9:26 fanciness. That’s true. But I mean, the man that’s talking looks like he’s a hand talker. He’s gesturing in some way. His hat looks not more, I don’t know, roughly made, I would say, than the other two. But the other two are clearly listening to him. Clearly it’s in town. You have this image of perhaps a corrupt guy or he’s trying to doing something.

9:51 He’s talking to a guy who’s just about to publicly declare his vote two steps away. But you also have a sort of orderly discussion where people are listening, like they’re actively listening. You can tell from the way they’re looking at each other. Head tilt. I’m engaged. Head tilt. So let’s go on to see what else is going on in this election here.

10:13 So further down the steps here, you have another sign off in the distance in front of this building right here. And it says the Union Hotel. And again, this was painted in 1852. So the antebellum period sectional tensions are rising.

10:34 Missouri itself enters as a slave state union. So there’s this nod to what does it mean to be a union, what’s the role of voting in that, who has a voice and what the union means. So there’s all these things in the choice of the word union here upon the sign on the hotel.

10:55 And you just have again, this is the gentleman who won the election. And this gentleman down here, this is actually the artist himself. So it’s always fun to find where the artist is in the painting. If they put themselves in there, I cannot paint, but if I could, I would definitely be putting myself in the painting somewhere. And then you have these two boys here playing the game.

11:19 And the game that they’re playing is called Mumble the Peg, and it’s a game that you play with a knife. So, again, is politics a game? Is voting a game? Is there a danger playing this game? So there’s all these little allusions to the scene on election day. Over

11:43 to the next quadrant. So this is a pretty interesting one. This is fascinating. Notice here, Rachel. There seems to be a lot of drunkenness. Yeah, this man here, his cheeks are a little pink. He’s the way he’s sitting,

12:04 it’s like this is not his first glass of whatever alcoholic drink he’s drinking. So this man right here is the only African American man in the painting. African Americans, of course, cannot vote in 1852 or 54, and many of them are enslaved. And Missouri, again, is a slave state, which is the subject of this painting.

12:29 Also in the background here, you have this gentleman that looks like he’s passed out or he’s passing out. He said too much to drink, but he’s being propped up to vote. We’re assuming he’s about to head up to the stairs. So did he already vote? Is there some corruption? Is there some shenanigans going on in this election? Is something that the artist wants you to think about.

12:52 The top hated man is more similar to the ballot guy who is propping up the straw hated man. So I wonder about that relationship as well. Right? Yeah. Again, the more you look at all the little scenes going on here, there’s more to unpack. So that’s part of the fun, I think, of this painting. And then finally, I’m in quadrant four.

13:14 We have these gentlemen again that are having their conversation. So this is some sort of courthouse where the voting is taking place. So you have a few men sitting up there and you also have this figure right here. I don’t know. How would you describe him, Rachel? He’s a little battered.

13:36 He looks like he’s kind of encountered some hard times. Yeah. And he’s all alone, so there aren’t very many people who are alone. What happened? Is he just having a bad day? Is this some sort of commentary on politics will beat you up? Again, george Caleb being lost to this election.

13:57 So is this a comment on this particular election, on democracy writ large in America? It’s up for interpretation and what you think behind him. You have three men who are all around a newspaper, and again, just this nod to the press.

14:18 And what is the role of the press in a society where your vote counts? Your vote, the sovereignty of the people is supreme. And interestingly, the title of the newspaper was Missouri Specific. I don’t have it in front of me right now in the original painting, but when it’s turned into an engraving, which is going to see a wider audience, they changed the title of the paper

14:40 to reflect that this is not a scene, and Bingham wanted that to happen. This is not a scene that’s necessarily specific to Missouri, but a scene that you couldn’t see you could see in any election in the United States at the time. So we’re back to looking at the painting as a whole.

15:03 So just a couple thoughts here. So when we were looking at de Tocqueville in our other close reading in the series, we ended with de Tocqueville’s thought that it’s hard to see, or this is the idea that it’s hard to see the greatness because it’s so vast and there’s so many things going on. Again, this is my interpretation.

15:24 And that’s part of the fun of the part is that is part of Bingham’s message. Right. The focus is not a person. It is America. It is this democracy playing out and it’s flawed. We’ve got drunk voters and we’ve got people too close, candidates that are too close to the polling station. And there’s inequalities and we’ve got yes.

15:46 There are voices that just aren’t included. Full stop, right? There’s only one African American in this painting. There’s no women. These only white men can vote at this time. But it is still something that’s uniquely American at this time, which is something I think that de Tocqueville was noticing as he traveled around the country and is observing democracy in America.

16:12 So, I mean, there’s definitely signs here that the drunkenness and the spattered man and the kids playing a game is this all a game of chance? That things are flawed, democracy is not working right? Should we but there’s also, I think, signs of optimism. There’s a blue sky there’s that guy.

16:33 Really excited riding this. And then again, how would you interpret this? Do you see this as Bingham saying this is the way that democracy is working as it should or is not. I should also say that our historians cannot come to a consensus on this question either, which is the fun part, right?

16:54 It’s fun when you don’t have a clear answer. It’s fun when there’s ambiguity. We love ambiguity and complexity and nuance at the Bill of Rights Institute. That’s what gets us excited. I think it’s a beautiful painting, too. And I think that that’s part of I mean, it has elegance and precision and there’s a beautiful flow and the fact that it has

17:16 so many details, that idea of trying to see the multitude, trying to wrap your head around how messy what we do is. And I also wonder, if you have painted this for the 2016 election, what would it look like?

17:39 What would the County Election by George Caleb Bingham 2016 look like? Yes. That isn’t excellent. That would be such a fun assignment. So, again, art is a primary source. You can read art just as much as you can read a text, as you can read to a bill,

18:01 or you can read the Gettysburg Address or any historic document. So when you encounter a piece of art or photograph from history, just take a moment. Just look. Just look. And then the longer you look and the more you think, the more you wonder, I think you’ll be surprised what you can take from it. So thank you so much for joining us for another episode of BRI’s Close Reading.

18:27 And if you have any really good illustrations of that 2016 county elections, please let us know. That would be awesome. Or predict what the 2020 one will look like. Yes. Well, thank you, Mary. As always, The Bill of Rights is here for you throughout what you’re doing in your US history classes.

18:48 We have tons of resources on our YouTube page, and we would love for you to ring the bell and subscribe. And we will be back with our next close read in the near future. So thank you very much. Thanks, everyone. Bye.