Relics of War
The History of a Photograph
Published on 10. September 2024
Book
Hardback
224 pages
978-0-691-17997-1 (ISBN)
Description
How a single haunting image tells a story about violence, mourning, and memory
In 1865, Clara Barton traveled to the site of the notorious Confederate prison camp in Andersonville, Georgia, where she endeavored to name the missing and the dead. The future founder of the American Red Cross also collected their relics-whittled spoons, woven reed plates, a piece from the prison's "dead line," a tattered Bible-and brought them back to her Missing Soldiers Office in Washington, DC, presenting them to politicians, journalists, and veterans' families before having them photographed together in an altar-like arrangement. Relics of War reveals how this powerful image, produced by Mathew Brady, opens a window into the volatile relationship between suffering, martyrdom, and justice in the wake of the Civil War.
Jennifer Raab shows how this photograph was a crucial part of Barton's efforts to address the staggering losses of a war in which nearly half of the dead were unnamed and from which bodies were rarely returned home for burial. The Andersonville relics gave form to these absent bodies, offered a sacred site for grief and devotion, mounted an appeal on behalf of the women and children left behind, and testified to the crimes of war. The story of the photograph illuminates how military sacrifice was racialized as political reconciliation began, and how the stories of Black soldiers and communities were silenced.
Richly illustrated, Relics of War vividly demonstrates how one photograph can capture a precarious moment in history, serving as witness, advocate, evidence, and memory.
In 1865, Clara Barton traveled to the site of the notorious Confederate prison camp in Andersonville, Georgia, where she endeavored to name the missing and the dead. The future founder of the American Red Cross also collected their relics-whittled spoons, woven reed plates, a piece from the prison's "dead line," a tattered Bible-and brought them back to her Missing Soldiers Office in Washington, DC, presenting them to politicians, journalists, and veterans' families before having them photographed together in an altar-like arrangement. Relics of War reveals how this powerful image, produced by Mathew Brady, opens a window into the volatile relationship between suffering, martyrdom, and justice in the wake of the Civil War.
Jennifer Raab shows how this photograph was a crucial part of Barton's efforts to address the staggering losses of a war in which nearly half of the dead were unnamed and from which bodies were rarely returned home for burial. The Andersonville relics gave form to these absent bodies, offered a sacred site for grief and devotion, mounted an appeal on behalf of the women and children left behind, and testified to the crimes of war. The story of the photograph illuminates how military sacrifice was racialized as political reconciliation began, and how the stories of Black soldiers and communities were silenced.
Richly illustrated, Relics of War vividly demonstrates how one photograph can capture a precarious moment in history, serving as witness, advocate, evidence, and memory.
Reviews / Votes
"Winner of the Charles Rufus Morey Book Award, College Art Association" "A groundbreaking study of a little-known nineteenth-century image documenting objects made and used by Union prisoners in the infamous Confederate camp at Andersonville. Raab's vivid insights, paired with her concise, evocative prose, make the book both engaging and reflective. Ultimately, Relics of War shows how a deep investigation of a single work of art can illuminate far-reaching cultural histories, provided that the narrative is crafted with precision and care."---Morey Award Committee, College Art Association "Those who lost loved ones in the U.S. Civil War were doubly bereaved: they not only grieved for their dead but also mourned their inability to care for them properly. . . . In Relics of War, art historian Jennifer Raab uses a single, idiosyncratic photograph to explore in rich and often astonishing detail these circumstances. . . . Raab's original approach-recursive, research-intensive, meditative-has the power to once again put [Clara] Barton's 'strange assemblage of insistently material things' to work-this time as the basis for historical analysis that is invigorated by these objects. . . . Embodying the will to live in the face of death, they stand in for the historian who reconstructs the past while honoring the materiality and persistence of objects that must, by definition, remain mute." * The Journal of Military History * "Raab's text provides an important lens through which to view our current moment." * ARLIS/NA * "It takes daring and bravado to write an entire book on a single artwork, especially when that artwork is a little-known nineteenth-century photograph. Jennifer Raab's new book, Relics of War: The History of a Photograph, takes on this challenge. . . . Readers come to grasp the gendered, racial, and material contours of Civil War memory and mourning through Raab's layered visual and literary frames of analysis." * West 86th: A Journal of Decorative Arts, Design History, and Material Culture * "Raab explores her view of the transformative role played by Relics of Andersonville in a critical issue for Civil War-era America, namely, the location, identification, and burial of hundreds of thousands of war dead. . . . Relics of War combines unique perspectives, along with some fascinating research in a work that should especially appeal to those interested in the convergence of art and American history." * On Point: The Journal of Army History * "Beautifully illustrated. . . . If, as Raab contends, Barton recognised the power of objects to bring 'the pain of the past into the present', Relics of War enacts a similar temporal bridging for the twenty-first century, challenging contemporary readers to reckon with a tumultuous and consequential moment through the photograph as an enduring relic." * History of Photography * "Relics of War is an exploration of how the nation used photography to capture what words could not." * H-Net Reviews *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
New Jersey
United States
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
Trade binding
Illustrations
126 color illus.
Dimensions
Height: 192 mm
Width: 251 mm
Thickness: 21 mm
Weight
880 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-691-17997-1 (9780691179971)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
09/2024
1st Edition
Princeton University Press
€48.99
Available for download
Person
Jennifer Raab is associate professor of the history of art at Yale University. She is the author of Frederic Church: The Art and Science of Detail.