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The Faulkner Murals Come to Life in the National Archives

In 1933, a government building boom was on to lift the nation out of the Great Depression. The new National Archives building in Washington D.C. was to house the nation’s founding documents, including the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Today they’re known as the Faulkner Murals.

Barry Faulkner of Keene, N.H., had been selected to create two great murals that would become known as the Faulkner Murals. They would tell the story of the preparation of the two documents. But how to begin?

Barry Faulkner

Faulkner, born in 1881, owed much of his skill to working with Dublin, N.H., artist Abbott H. Thayer and sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens. Later in life, Faulkner learned a trick that served him well when creating murals about historic figures: find a children’s book about the topic.

Children’s books were written in simple language, focusing on the grand strokes of a story, not the minute details. But at this stage in his career – he was only in his early 40s – he hadn’t discovered that shortcut. So Faulkner immersed himself into reading the history of the founding fathers, trying to focus on the most prominent to bring the stories to life. But he was hopelessly lost. Biographers all tended to exaggerate the traits of their chosen subject and it became nearly impossible to select the characters for his murals.

Who’s Who

Faulkner then consulted John Franklin Jameson, a Massachusetts scholar in charge of collecting manuscripts for the Library of Congress. Jameson had thoroughly studied of the formation of United States. He had particularly emphasized the struggle to control the governance of the new nation and who would profit most.

Jameson quickly helped clear away the mountain of information Faulkner had amassed, giving him thumbnail sketches of the most important players. Benjamin Franklin and George Washington as senior statesmen were critical, as was Thomas Jefferson. But he also offered details on the founding fathers from each state. Who operated behind the scenes, and who was outspoken. Who used their positions as record keepers and report writers to direct discussion. And who shaped the great compromises necessary to reach a final consensus.

A section of the Faulkner murals depicting the creation of the Constitution.

Jameson also gave Faulkner one final piece of advice: Make sure he represented every colony. With this new framework, Faulkner set about gathering portraits of the men. Ideally, he wanted four portraits or busts to work from for each character. But some subjects fell far short.

For Josiah Bartlett, who hailed from Faulkner’s own home state, he had only one pencil drawing from which to work. For others, he had only a woodcut. They were “so crude I’m sure the mothers of the men would not have recognized them,” he said.

Moody Founding Fathers

In depicting the crafting of the Declaration of Independence, Faulkner painted Jefferson handing over the finished document. He depicted the other founding fathers to show their likely mood. The more hotheaded seem ready for a fight and the calmer, compromise-minded men posed less enthusiastically.

For the mural about the Constitution, Faulkner became more literal. He depicts Massachusetts’ delegate Nathaniel Gorham with an ungainly sheaf of papers under his arm – probably the makings of his reports that helped create the final document. Elbridge Gerry, meanwhile, is shown in the background.

Roger Sherman of Connecticut brandishes a walking stick, highlighting his demeanor. Faulkner also chose to add a little foreshadowing. The clouds in the Declaration hide a profile of Abraham Lincoln, a nod to the problem of slavery and the Civil War. In his Constitution, Alexander Hamilton carries a sword, a hint of the coming War of 1812.

Faulkner went out of his way to costume the characters appropriately. John Hancock’s attire reflected his great wealth. Southerners with Cavalier origins had fancy dress, but northern Puritans dressed more simply.

The Faulkner murals in the Rotunda of the National Archives.

The Finished Faulkner Murals

Years of work finally reached their conclusion in 1936 when Faulkner took the two murals from his studio and brought them (each 14 feet by 37.5 feet) to the Archives. Inside the rotunda, workers were plastering two large framed locations on the wall in preparation for the installation.

Faulkner recalled the day: “Washington sweltered in the humidity of early October and even the interior of the Archives, whose marble walls are massive as a Roman tomb, was oppressive…they unrolled the pictures on the floor and compared them with the dimensions of the wall spaces. To my horror and dismay each picture lacked a foot and a half in length. “

But the artist’s assistant quickly calmed him, and he simply extended the background to cover the gap.

You can see Faulkner’s work across the country in other murals, including the Eastman Theatre in Rochester, N.Y. He also created murals at the RCA building at Rockefeller Center in New York City, the Hancock Building in Boston and the Senate chamber in the New Hampshire Statehouse in Concord.

Thanks to: The Faulkner Murals: Depicting the Creation of a Nation, which includes detailed research on Faulkner’s processes and the obstacles encountered in creating the murals.

This story about the Faulkner murals was updated in 2022. Image of National Archives By Kelvin Kay – Photo taken by Kelvin Kay. w:en:Image:NationalArchives2.jpg, which is modified from w:en:Image:Archives.jpg, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1346058.

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The 1730 and 1774 Marblehead Riots Against Smallpox Inoculation

In 1730, the fishing village of Marblehead, Mass., did everything it could to ward off the dread and loathsome smallpox disease then raging in Boston – everything, that is, except smallpox inoculation.

Marblehead a century or so after the riots

Marblehead a century or so after the smallpox inoculation riots

Instead, they rioted against the practice. And then they did it again 43 years later.

A prominent Salem minister named Edward Holyoke was indirectly responsible for the first riot by proselytizing for smallpox inoculation. Decades later, his son, Dr. Edward Augustus Holyoke, began the successful inoculation of hundreds of patients in nearby Salem. But not before the Marbleheaders had another riot.

The Speckled Monster

Smallpox was the most feared disease in the American colonies. ‘The Speckled Monster’ killed as many as 30 percent of its victims, and often blinded and scarred survivors.

Cotton Mather

Boston’s smallpox epidemic of 1721 created the worst public health crisis of the 18^th century. It caused three-fourths of all deaths in the town that year.

Rev. Cotton Mather believed smallpox inoculation was the way to prevent the disease. He practiced it, and he argued passionately for it. A physician, William Douglass, argued just as passionately against it. Douglass and most of the public believed inoculation would make the disease spread faster.

Inoculation involved deliberately infecting a person with smallpox in his bloodstream. That way he or she could suffer a mild form of the disease, which would stimulate the immune system to avoid infection later.

Edward Holyoke served as president of Harvard College and pastor of the Second Church of Marblehead. He submitted to inoculation in 1721 and survived.

Fearful Ravages

Edward Holyoke

In May of 1730, word reached Marblehead that smallpox raged in Boston. The news agitated the townspeople almost to the point of frenzy. Citizens voted to build a fence with a locked gate across the road into town, and four men were stationed there with orders to restrain all strangers from Boston. The watch stayed on 24 hours a day for two months. African-Americans, Indians and slaves had a nine o’clock curfew.

In October, a young Marblehead woman named Hannah Waters came down with smallpox.

Edward Holyoke advocated for smallpox inoculation, as did his influential parishioners: Richard Dana, Justice of the Peace Stephen Minot, merchant John Tasker and trader Joseph Blaney.

Smallpox Inoculation

The townspeople were skeptical. They believed God, not man, should decide who lived and died. They also knew there wasn’t enough money to inoculate everyone, only the wealthiest citizens. At Town Meeting on Oct. 12, 1720, they voted to ban the practice unless everyone in town received a smallpox inoculation.

Rumors spread that some people – like Stephen Minot – planned to openly defy the ban. Emotions ran high. A mob formed, and 50 armed men threatened to tear down the homes of Dana and Minot.

“A great mob raised in this town,” wrote Holyoke in his diary on December 10^th.

The rioters had public sympathy on their side, and town officials charged only a handful with rioting.

But the disease spread from house to house, afflicting nearly every family in town. Businesses closed, the ferry to Salem stopped running and people fled Marblehead. All loose dogs were killed.

“The disease continued its fearful ravages till late in the summer of 1731, and gathered its victims with an unsparing hand,” wrote Samuel Roads in 1881. “Rich and poor, old and young, the learned and the unlettered were alike afflicted by this impartial agent of death.”

History Repeats Itself

Years later, Edward Holyoke’s son, Edward Augustus Holyoke, became a physician and an advocate of smallpox inoculation. He, too, went to Boston for inoculation and took careful notes on the procedure.

In June 1773, a smallpox epidemic again struck Marblehead. Two months later the town debated building a public inoculation hospital on one of the islands in the harbor.

The proposal failed, but the town did permit four prominent citizens to build a private hospital on Cat Island. They were John Glover, his brother Jonathan Glover, Azor Orne and Elbridge Gerry. They bought Cat Island on Sept. 2, 1773 and began building the hospital. Doctors inoculated three groups of patients during the last three months of the year. Most survived, but a few died.

Cat Island today (now called Childrens Island)

The furious townspeople began rioting for several days. They blackened their faces, burned a small boat that brought supplies to the hospital and broke the windows of the proprietors’ homes.

In January, four Marbleheaders were caught stealing contaminated clothing from Cat Island, presumably to spread the epidemic and discredit the hospital.

The next day they were tarred and feathered, placed in a cart and exhibited through all the main streets of Marblehead. Then they were taken to Salem, followed by a procession of men and boys marching to the music of five drums and a fife.

Twenty-two cases of smallpox broke out, and the inflamed Marbleheaders threatened to lynch the hospital proprietors. John Glover, whose regiment later ferried George Washington across the Delaware, supposedly placed two small artillery pieces in the front rooms of his house.

The Riot Against Smallpox Inoculation

Edward Augustus Holyoke, a believer in smallpox inoculation.

The owners agreed to close the hospital. But on Jan. 25, 1774, about 20 heavily disguised Marbleheaders sneaked onto the island and burned it down. Town officials arrested two suspects February 25 on a fishing vessel in Marblehead Harbor, and took them to Salem jail.

“Jail Broke open,” noted Edward Augustus Holyoke’s wife in her diary.

A large number of Marbleheaders marched to Salem and surrounded the jail. At the signal they broke open the doors, overpowered the jailers, freed the prisoners and carried them home in triumph. Several days later the sheriff gathered 500 citizens to march to Marblehead and recapture his prisoners. The Marblheaders organized a mob equally as large. At that point, the hospital owners decided to abandon the prosecution and the sheriff disbanded his posse.

A few years later, Edward Augustus Holyoke took charge of the a smallpox hospital in Salem. Six hundred patients received the smallpox inoculation, and the disease never took hold in the town.

With thanks to The History and Traditions of Marblehead by Samuel Roads. This story about smallpox inoculation was updated in 2022.

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How the Longfellow Bridge Got its Name

[jpshare]Elbridge Gerry was the first person allowed to walk over the new West Boston Bridge connecting Boston and Cambridge 220 years ago today. A private company had built the toll bridge for $76,700. Gerry was a signer of the Declaration of Independence, a wealthy merchant and Cambridge resident. His name is the source of the word ‘gerrymandering.’ The bridge, which replaced a ferry service, was described as ‘a magnificent structure.’ ‘For length, elegance and grandeur not exceeded by any in the United States, if in any part of the world,’ reported the Independent Chronicle. Its opening created a building boom along Main Street in Cambridge. Two rows of lamps lit the bridge for its mile-and-a-quarter length, presenting sweeping nighttime views. Years later, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow frequently crossed the West Boston Bridge to court Fanny Appleton, the daughter of industrialist Nathan Appleton. She rejected him for seven years, then finally gave in and married him. Longfellow published a poem called ‘The Bridge’ in 1845, which made the West Boston Bridge famous. It has been interpreted as describing his misery at Fanny’s rejection of him contrasted with his later happiness. The bridge was replaced in 1906 with – you guessed it – The Longfellow Bridge.

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