{"id":18499,"date":"2011-11-26T21:15:24","date_gmt":"2011-11-26T21:15:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=18499"},"modified":"2011-11-27T00:10:02","modified_gmt":"2011-11-27T00:10:02","slug":"from-barefoot-madonna-to-maggie-the-ripper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=18499","title":{"rendered":"From Barefoot Madonna to Maggie the Ripper"},"content":{"rendered":"

From Barefoot Madonna to Maggie the Ripper<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Kendall Blog<\/a>
\nKendall College of Art and Design<\/a>
\nFerris State\u00a0University, Grand Rapids, Michigan<\/em>
\n2011-11-07<\/p>\n

Pamela Patton<\/strong>, Editor
\nKendall Portfolio<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nMargaret Garner<\/a> or The Modern Medea (1867)<\/em><\/p>\n

I always find lectures by visiting art historians fascinating. Looking at works of art in historical context, examining the details, and hearing the backstories leaves me hungry to learn more. Such was the case on Wednesday, November 2 when I attended a lecture by Jo-Ann Morgan<\/a> describing cultural history from the 19th century…
\n\u00a0
\n…Morgan\u2019s lecture was titled \u201cFrom Barefoot Madonna to Maggie the Ripper: Mulatto Women in Nineteenth Century Visual Culture.\u201d \u201cMulatto<\/a>\u201d isn\u2019t a word heard often these days, and is defined as, \u201cthe first general offspring of a Black and White parent; or, an individual with both White and Black ancestors. Generally, Mulattoes are light-skinned, though dark enough to be excluded from the White race.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMaggie the Ripper\u201d is Margaret Garner<\/a>, a 23-year-old enslaved Black woman in pre-Civil War America<\/a>. She and her family had escaped in January 1856 across the frozen Ohio River<\/a> to Cincinnati<\/a>, but were captured. When she was apprehended, she had cut the throat of her youngest daughter, and was attempting to kill her other children and presumably herself, rather than be returned to slavery. Margaret Garner’s defense attorney moved to have her tried for murder in Ohio<\/a>, in order to get a trial in a free state as well as to challenge the Fugitive Slave Law<\/a> as well…<\/p>\n

Garner was described in newspapers as mulatto with \u201cwhite blood,\u201d and \u201cdelicate\u201d and \u201cintelligent\u201d eyes. By the time Kentucky<\/a>-born Thomas Satterwhite Noble<\/a> (1835-1907), son of a slaveholder, and former Confederate<\/a> soldier, chose, in 1867, to paint the famous slave fugitive<\/a>, Garner\u2019s case had all but faded from memory, but perceptions of mixed-race women had changed markedly from gentle, light-skinned madonnas<\/a>, often painted cradling a babe and wearing a shawl draped about them, reminiscent of images of Mary<\/a> (as shown in the painting, \u201cThe Last Slave Auction in St. Louis\u201d). Gone were Garner\u2019s delicate features, and instead, the frantic woman has the face of a cornered animal, teeth bared and holding a knife dripping with blood, while her dead daughter lay at her feet.<\/p>\n

In her lecture, Morgan reminded the audience that prior to the Civil War<\/a>, Black and Mulatto women were considered nothing more than breeding stock, and the children they bore, whether Black or mixed-race, were little more than property to be sold for profit. After the War, as abolition spread across the country, the same women and children were a guilty reminder of the indiscretion of slave owners, and the image of Mulatto women began to change…<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From Barefoot Madonna to Maggie the Ripper Kendall Blog Kendall College of Art and Design Ferris State\u00a0University, Grand Rapids, Michigan 2011-11-07 Pamela Patton, Editor Kendall Portfolio Margaret Garner or The Modern Medea (1867) I always find lectures by visiting art historians fascinating. Looking at works of art in historical context, examining the details, and hearing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,459,1196,8,6940,20,25],"tags":[494,8419,8418],"class_list":["post-18499","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-history","category-literary-criticism","category-media-archive","category-slavery","category-usa","category-women","tag-jo-ann-morgan","tag-kendall-college-of-art-and-design","tag-pamela-patton"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18499","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18499"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18499\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}