The Annals of Iowa Volume 71 Number 4 Fall 2012 A QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF HISTORY In This Issue TONY KLEIN, a high school social studies teacher at Estherville-Lincoln Central High School, compares and contrasts Civil War commemorations —Memorial Day observances, GAR encampments, and monuments— in Keokuk and Sioux City. He argues that Keokuk’s commemorations, based on the significant role that community played in the Civil War, followed national patterns of Civil War commemoration as its citizens remembered and mourned the dead, honored surviving veterans, and celebrated the city’s Civil War history. Sioux City, with little direct experience of the Civil War, commemorated the war as a means to celebrate westward expansion; it enabled liberty-seeking and patriotic people to move west to places like Sioux City and prosper. BRIAN EDWARD DONOVAN, a Ph.D. candidate in American history at the University of Iowa, describes how the Iowa Soldiers’ home secured the political support from the Iowa legislature that it needed to survive financially by requiring the veterans it cared for to display themselves as wounded warriors—that is, to perform their disability by marching in uniform and living under military discipline. Front Cover The National Cemetery in Keokuk (established in 1862 but pictured here in about 1940) is Iowa’s only National Cemetery. It is an important part of Keokuk’s Civil War legacy. For the impact of Keokuk’s Civil War legacy on the ways it commemorated the Civil War—and for the ways its com- memorations contrasted with those in Sioux City—see Tony Klein’s article in this issue. Photo from State Historical Society of Iowa, Des Moines. Editorial Consultants Rebecca Conard, Middle Tennessee State R. David Edmunds, University of Texas University at Dallas Kathleen Neils Conzen, University of H. Roger Grant, Clemson University Chicago William C. Pratt, University of Nebraska William Cronon, University of Wisconsin– at Omaha Madison Glenda Riley, Ball State University Robert R. Dykstra, State University of Malcolm J. Rohrbough, University of Iowa New York at Albany Dorothy Schwieder, Iowa State University The Annals of Iowa Third Series, Vol. 71, No. 4 Fall 2012 Marvin Bergman, editor Contents 291 Memorializing Soldiers or Celebrating Westward Expansion: Civil War Commemoration in Sioux City and Keokuk, 1868–1938 Tony Klein 323 Like “Monkeys at the Zoo”: Politics and the Performance of Disability at the Iowa Soldiers’ Home, 1887–1910 Brian Edward Donovan 347 Slavery, Emancipation, and Reconstruction in the Midwest: A Review Essay Leslie Schwalm 352 Book Reviews and Notices 371 New on the Shelves 373 Index A QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF HISTORY FOUNDED IN 1863 Copyright 2012 by the State Historical Society of Iowa ISSN 0003-4827 Review Essay 347 CHRISTOPHER P. LEHMAN, Slavery in the Upper Mississippi Valley, 1787–1865: A History of Human Bondage in Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin HUGH DAVIS, “We Will Be Satisfied with Nothing Less”: The African American Struggle for Equal Rights in the North during Reconstruction by Leslie Schwalm Book Reviews and Notices 352 ROBERT MORGAN, Lions of the West, Heroes and Villains of the Westward Expansion, by David A. Walker 354 JAMES JOSEPH BUSS, Winning the West with Words: Language and Conquest in the Lower Great Lakes, by Stephen Warren 356 MICHAEL DICKEY, The People of the River’s Mouth: In Search of the Missouria Indians, by Thomas J. Lappas 357 COLETTE A. HYMAN, Dakota Women’s Work: Creativity, Culture, and Exile, by Catherine J. Denial 359 TOM JONES ET AL., People of the Big Voice: Photographs of Ho-Chunk Families by Charles Van Schaick, 1879–1942, by Jane Simonsen 360 NICOLE ETCHESON, A Generation at War: The Civil War Era in a Northern Community, by Kenneth L. Lyftogt 362 JON K. LAUCK ET AL., EDS., The Plains Political Tradition: Essays on South Dakota Political Culture, by Michael Schuyler 364 CYRIL ROBINSON, Marching with Dr. King: Ralph Helstein and the United Packinghouse Workers of America, by Bruce Fehn 366 JOHN A. JAKLE AND KEITH A. SCULLE, Remembering Roadside America: Preserving the Recent Past as Landscape and Place, by Mary Anne Beecher 368 CALLIE MARSH, A Lively Faith: Reflections on the Iowa Yearly Meeting of Friends (Conservative); and DON AND LOIS LAUGHLIN, Friends for a Lifetime: The Saga of a Sixty-Three Year Quaker Love Affair, by Bill R. Douglas 369 CHRISTOPHER R. ROSSI, ED., David Plowden’s Iowa, by Mary Noble Memorializing Soldiers or Celebrating Westward Expansion: Civil War Commemoration in Sioux City and Keokuk, 1868–1938 TONY KLEIN TO RESIDENTS of Sioux City and Keokuk in the late nine- teenth and early twentieth century, Civil War commemoration was a celebration of Union victory and a tribute to veterans who served or died in the war. For Sioux City, however, it was also a way for citizens to celebrate their community’s growth and incorporation into the American nation. Civil War com- memoration provided western cities founded shortly before or after the Civil War, like Sioux City, the rituals, symbols, myths and narratives that were vital to becoming part of the nation. While usually echoing the same themes as the rest of the coun- try, Sioux City residents also constructed a narrative in which one result of the Civil War was to open the West to industrious and freedom-loving people. Thus, to Sioux City citizens con- cerned with their role in the Civil War, their community’s suc- cess in the post–Civil War years became part of the war’s legacy. I thank Dr. John Neff at the University of Mississippi for his guidance and for encouraging me to pursue publication of this article. I also thank Marvin Bergman, anonymous readers for the Annals of Iowa, and many friends, family, colleagues, and students who read drafts of this article. Finally, I thank my mother, Janeene, at the Remsen Public Library and staff at the State Historical Society of Iowa, Iowa Library Services, Sioux City Public Museum, and Keo- kuk Public Library for their research assistance. THE ANNALS OF IOWA 71 (Fall 2012). © The State Historical Society of Iowa, 2012. 291 292 THE ANNALS OF IOWA The importance of Civil War commemoration in Keokuk was dif- ferent because the city had played a more significant role in the war than Sioux City had. Civil War commemoration was a way for citizens of Keokuk to remember and mourn the dead, honor surviving veterans, and celebrate the city’s Civil War history. Because of the magnitude of the Civil War, historians have searched for national patterns of commemoration and memory. Keokuk’s and Sioux City’s Memorial Day observances, hosting of state Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) encampments, and monument building reflected national trends but also revealed the different ways each community remembered its role in the war.1 Keokuk generally fits into the national patterns of com- memoration and provides an example with which to juxtapose the unique aspects of Sioux City’s remembrance of the war. Resi- dents of Sioux City, while displaying similar tendencies in their commemorations, added a western narrative that historians of Civil War memory have overlooked. The neglect of a western vision in the historiography is evi- dent in David W. Blight’s Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory, where he argues that there are three primary visions of Civil War memory. First, he identifies a reconcilia- tionist vision in which veterans and citizens in the North and South put aside sectional differences in order to heal Civil War wounds. After 1890, this vision of Civil War memory was an important, though not dominant, theme in both Keokuk and Sioux City commemorations.2 Blight’s other two visions, eman- 1. I use the term Memorial Day to refer to specific commemorations after 1885 and Decoration Day for 1885 and before. David W. Blight, in Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory (Cambridge, MA, 2001), 97, notes that the name Memorial Day came to replace Decoration Day in the 1880s. The shift can be seen in the interchangeable use of the terms in Keokuk and Sioux City newspapers. In its edition of May 31, 1884, the Sioux City Journal (SCJ) used Decoration Day in a headline and Memorial Day in the text of the article. Con- versely, the May 31, 1885, edition of the Keokuk Daily Gate City (KDGC) had a headline with Memorial Day in it, but used the term Decoration Day throughout the article. Sioux City papers employed Memorial Day almost exclusively from 1885 and later. Keokuk papers used the terms interchangeably until 1890, when Memorial Day became the common nomenclature. 2. Blight, Race and Reunion, 2. For another reconciliationist interpretation, see Nina Silber, The Romance of Reunion: Northerners and the South, 1865–1900 (Chapel Hill, NC, 1993). Civil War Commemoration 293 cipationist and white supremacist, are trends that were also present in Keokuk and Sioux City, but appear in their Civil War commemorations only implicitly and infrequently.3 Other historians of Civil War memory have identified addi- tional trends, but they, too, have ignored western communities. John Neff focuses on Northern and Southern memory, but unlike Blight, he argues that postwar reconciliation was not dominant. Neff believes, instead, that the “clearest evidence of a persistent divergence in American society—of a lack of reconciliation—is found in the commemoration of the war’s soldier dead.” Con- firming Neff’s observation, citizens of Sioux City and, even more, Keokuk resisted reconciliation with their Confederate foes.4 3. Blight, Race and Reunion, 2. For a description of the emancipationist vision expressed and celebrated in Iowa, see Leslie A. Schwalm, “Emancipation Day Celebrations: The Commemoration of Slavery and Freedom in Iowa,” Annals of Iowa 62 (2003), 291–332. According to Schwalm, southeastern Iowa and Keo- kuk had a vibrant African American community that celebrated Emancipation Day until World War II. Another example comes from the May 30, 1939, edi- tion of the KDGC, which ran a story about John Draine, a 95-year-old ex-slave, who was Keokuk’s last surviving Civil War veteran. Draine, however, spent most of his life after the Civil War in Jefferson City, MO. White supremacy was more common in Sioux City. William L. Hewitt, in “So Few Undesirables: Race, Residence, and Occupation in Sioux City, 1890–1925,” Annals of Iowa 50 (1989/1990), 160, described Sioux City whites as “dissent[ers] from the ex- treme manifestations of Negrophobia. . . . Few of them questioned the as- sumption that blacks were inferior to whites or that they should remain sepa- rate . . . [but] they still regarded their relationships with black people as more just and progressive than southern race relations.” Additional evidence of white supremacy in Sioux City was the popularity of blackface minstrel shows. See Hewitt, “Blackface in the White Mind: Racial Stereotypes in Sioux City, Iowa, 1874–1910,” Palimpsest 71 (1990), 68–79. Rare occasions of white suprem- acy in Civil War commemoration were in the speeches of J. D. O. Powers in 1902 (SCJ, 5/31/1902) and Judge J. S. Lawrence in 1905 (SCJ, 5/31/1905). 4. John Neff, Honoring the Civil War Dead: Commemoration and the Problem of Reconciliation (Lawrence, KS, 2005), 5. Other themes in Civil War memory are identified by Stuart McConnell, Glorious Contentment: The Grand Army of the Republic, 1865–1900 (Chapel Hill, NC, 1992), who suggests that Union veter- ans, who wanted to reconstruct prewar society, used Civil War memory to exclude blacks, women, immigrants, and the working class from the postwar political and public world; and Gary Gallagher, who, in The Union War (Cam- bridge, MA, 2011) and Causes, Won, Lost, and Forgotten: How Hollywood and Popular Art Shape What We Know about the Civil War (Chapel Hill, NC, 2008), emphasizes the idea of Union as the motivating factor among citizens of Union states who fought in and supported the Civil War. 294 THE ANNALS OF IOWA William C. Lowe, in a recent article on the Iowa Civil War monuments tour of 1906, tries to make sense of the various vi- sions of Civil War memory. During Iowans’ tour to dedicate Civil War monuments in battlefields in the South, Iowa digni- taries demonstrated elements of all of the themes present in Civil War memory nationally: reconciliation, anti-reconciliation, celebration, preservation of the Union, and restoration of Union veterans’ worldview. In addition, Iowans on the monuments tour emphasized that the “young state of Iowa had more than done its part” in the Civil War.5 Lowe’s observation of Iowans’ desire to commemorate service in the Civil War highlights the differences between Keokuk and Sioux City. Keokuk residents had clear evidence that their city had “done its part” and could draw on that experience during commemorations. Keokuk could be proud that its young men had fought in the Civil War. In addition, most Iowa regiments had mustered in the city before departing for the war, and its residents had nursed Union soldiers back to health in the city’s several war hospitals and honorably buried those who did not survive. Sioux City, in contrast, had almost no impact on the war between the Union and Confederacy because it was a village oriented toward the West during the 1860s. Its residents could not claim that their city was vital to the war’s outcome, so they needed some other way to praise their community during Me- morial Day ceremonies, GAR encampments, and monument ded- ications. To do so, they claimed that one of the reasons the Civil War was fought was so that liberty-seeking and patriotic people like themselves could move west to Sioux City and prosper. BEFORE THE CIVIL WAR, Keokuk boosters envisioned their city as another Chicago or St. Louis because of its location at the confluence of the Des Moines and Mississippi rivers. In the early 1850s Keokuk boomed because it was well positioned to control the vast agricultural produce of Iowa’s interior. If steamboats had remained the primary vehicle of commerce, then perhaps the city would have continued to grow in size and importance, but railroads and bridges over the Mississippi undercut the im- 5. William C. Lowe, “‘A Grand and Patriotic Pilgrimage’: The Iowa Civil War Monuments Dedication Tour of 1906,” Annals of Iowa 69 (2010), 43–50. Civil War Commemoration 295 portance of Mississippi River towns. The Panic of 1857 stunted Keokuk’s growth at around 15,000 residents, where its popula- tion remained until declining in the past few decades. In the late 1850s Keokuk went from being an active river port to a place that represented the bust of the economic crisis of the late 1850s. By 1861, residents of Keokuk, despite their best efforts to reverse the town’s fortunes, had little reason to feel pride or confidence.6 The Civil War gave new energy to Keokuk, which played a more important role in the war than any other city in the state. Because of its location, it became home to four army camps, and many of the state’s regiments mustered in and embarked from Keokuk. It was an important hospital center for the Union, eventually supporting six hospitals and treating tens of thou- sands of troops during the war. The largest of the hospitals was the Estes House, which later served as the local GAR posts’ headquarters until the 1910s. Because of the hospital presence, the federal government created Iowa’s only National Cemetery in Keokuk in 1862. After the war, the Estes House and the Na- tional Cemetery remained visible physical reminders of Keo- kuk’s participation in the war. No comparable symbols were present in Sioux City.7 Because Keokuk played an important role for the state of Iowa in the Civil War, it was among the first cities in the state to celebrate Decoration Day, doing so in 1868.8 On May 30, the 6. See Michael A. Ross, “Cases of Shattered Dreams: Justice Samuel Freeman Miller and the Rise and Fall of a Mississippi River Town,” Annals of Iowa 57 (1998), 201–39. 7. For the importance of public places for creating memory, see Pierre Nora, “Between Memory and History: Les Lieux de Memoire,” Representations 26 (1989), 7–24; and G. Kurt Piehler, Remembering War the American Way (Washington, DC, 1995). For background on Keokuk’s role in the Civil War and early obser- vances of Memorial Day, see William J. Petersen, “Memorial Day,” Palimpsest 49 (1968), 164–65. There is a plaque in downtown Keokuk where the Estes House once stood. See KDGC, 4/4/1928. 8. The proceedings and speeches delivered on Memorial Day were important because they provided an annual opportunity for citizens to reflect on the meaning of the Civil War. Blight, Race and Reunion, devotes an entire chapter, “Decoration Days,” 64–97, to Memorial Day as a source of Civil War memory. Others who emphasize Memorial Day as a source of memory include James M. Mayo, War Memorials as Political Landscape: The American Experience and Beyond (New York, 1988), 51–53; Neff, Honoring the Civil War Dead, 136–40; and Piehler, Remembering War, 6–7, 57–60. 296 THE ANNALS OF IOWA The Keokuk National Cemetery, ca. 1940. The corner- stone of the Estes House is to the left of the Unknown Soldier monument. From State Historical Society of Iowa, Des Moines. local GAR post heeded the national GAR order to decorate the graves of deceased soldiers. The first program, which was spon- taneous and unorganized, included a procession from Main Street to the National Cemetery; songs, speeches, and prayers at the cemetery; and the decoration of graves. The Keokuk GAR Decoration Day committee chairman used newspapers to ask for donations of flowers and money and to invite groups to par- ticipate in the procession by simply showing up on the morning of the parade.9 Despite the spontaneity of the celebration, the Keokuk Daily Gate City believed it to be a huge success. “Keokuk honored it- 9. Keokuk Daily Constitution (KDC), 5/30/1868.