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Letter from the President
Aaron Podolefsky, UCM President.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Message from the Editor
Davie Davis, Writing Center Coordinator.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
The Feminization of Poverty: Is There Hope for Social Mobility?
Naomi Shonkwiler. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Gap Is a Proud Partner of (Product) RED
Jana Thomas.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
The Effect of Racism in Othello
Andrew Stallman. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Book Review: Mama Lola: A Vodou Priestess in Brooklyn by Karen McCarthy Brown
Kevin Courtwright.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Malindy’s Freedom
LaKesha Johnson.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
An Alternative Service: The Green House Project
Alexandra Echelmeier. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
Investigating Children’s Drawings and Development in Art
Christina Bergstrom.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
The Yellow Wallpaper
Cristina Fernandez.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
An Evidence-Based Approach To the Effects of Hourly Nursing Rounds
Rachelle L Carter.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
Gentle Giant
Lenise James.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
Living It Up in the Loop
Stephen Nemeth.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
Guilty Partners: An Examination of Confederate Prison Camps
Jackie Keehn.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
Why Adrian Piper Made Sense to Me
Chelsea Pankratz.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
All Contributors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
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Letter from the President
Greetings,
It is a great pleasure for the University of Central Missouri to share its Distinguished Student
Writers Collection. As an institution of higher learning, the university encourages opportunities
for students to develop strong writing skills through scholarly research papers or creative writing projects.
This collection is part of the Writing Across the Curriculum program that is made possible
largely through the hard work and commitment of faculty members such as Davie Davis, coordinator of the Writing Center. We’re fortunate to have faculty who recognize the value of teaching students how to effectively present their work in writing, and who are willing to mentor
them and nurture writing achievement. Because of such dedication, our students will develop
skills which will serve them well in the future in whatever career path they choose.
We invite you to take a look at our students’ fine work in this new online format. We know
you’ll appreciate the wide variety of different subjects covered in different academic disciplines
and the diverse writing styles. Our thanks are extended to the many faculty members who contributed their students’ works for this collection, and to the students who are allowing us to
share their writing with you as readers.
Sincerely,
Aaron Podolefsky, President
University of Central Missouri
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Message from the Editor
Colleagues,
Writing across the Curriculum at UCM is truly a labor of love. Despite its lack of
budget, space, director, staff, or other resources, the program manages to survive and
even thrive through the efforts of hardworking faculty members who invest enormous
amounts of energy in assigning, encouraging, and overseeing the very best in student
writing.
Each year, these faculty have the opportunity to recognize outstanding classroom writing by submitting their students’ work to the Distinguished Student Writers Collection,
a showcase for models of the best undergraduate writing in disciplines encompassing
the entire curriculum. This year, for the first time, the Collection is available for viewing online.
Much appreciation is due all those faculty who promote and reward exemplary writing
from their students. The Distinguished Student Writers Collection is the result of their
dedication to the Writing across the Curriculum program at UCM.
Davie Davis
Coordinator, Writing Center
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The Feminization of Poverty: Is There Hope for Social Mobility?
By Naomi Shonkwiler
The feminization of poverty is a term that emerged in the sixties and seventies in the United
States and throughout the world. The term refers to a poverty shift that affected women and those
residing in female-headed households. The number of women and children caught up in this
phenomenon increases steadily each year despite attempted policy reform surrounding the issue.
By becoming educated about this trend and its causes, we could be more successful in our attempt
to find a solution. A resolution is necessary to effectively reverse the feminization of poverty and its
effect on women and children as a whole.
Causes of this increased number of women in poverty can be linked to several issues. There
was a great change in society in the sixties and seventies which allowed women more freedoms
and recognition for their contributions to society. One expert in the field says, during this time the
increased occurrence of divorce and a large salary gap negatively affected women’s ability to thrive
financially (Pressman 360). While social norms now allow women to work, they are still paid only
a fraction of what their male counterparts receive. Laws have been made to ensure equality in the
workplace, but the fact is the problem still exists. Women are paid only cents on the dollar of what
men are paid.
Divorce often causes great financial deficit. Women are left without the income their spouses
contributed, but few of the financial burdens of the family are reduced. Experts have found that
divorce impoverishes the females involved in the situation. Studies show, “[h]alf of all marriages
eventually end in divorce, and they affect 10 million children each year” (Henderson 1). Women
remain responsible for supporting their children although their incomes make it nearly impossible.
Fathers who neglect to pay their child support in a timely manner further complicate the problem.
Obviously, there are serious flaws in our child support enforcement policies. One researcher
comments, if the current child support system were functioning correctly, there would not be a $4.6
billion deficit in unpaid child support payments. She has found, “ [o]nly half of divorced women
who are entitled to child support receive the full amount” (Henderson 2). In addition to divorced
mothers, the number of unwed or teen mothers is increasing with incredible speed. According to
research, in 1992 the number of teen births rose to 518,000, a major increase when compared to data in
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1986 that reported 472,000 (Payne 161). No matter how a woman becomes the head of her household,
the effects are very similar.
Mothers working the equivalent of two full-time jobs, or more, are barely keeping their
heads above water. Traditionally, the work women have done has been unpaid and undervalued.
Having and caring for children alone often limits a woman’s options for finding gainful employment.
Women are not as valuable to employers due to the assumption that they will demand flexibility to
care for their children and thus be less productive than a man. Two researchers found that arguments
have been made that women who live in poverty are just lazy and have chosen that life. While this
may be the case in a small number of impoverished households, the majority of women try hard to
better their families’ situation. Lawmakers have begun to consider other factors of poverty (Tiamiyu
and Mitchell 47). The expense of education, divorce, and inability to obtain employment despite
effort contribute to women’s heightened risk of living in poverty (48). As a single mother, finding
suitable employment is a challenge. “A woman with high school education only, in a pink-collar
job (the only job she is qualified for), cannot become self-sufficient” (52). Without some educational
advancement, women in these types of jobs will need continued support from government programs.
One researcher reports, men have an advantage after a divorce as they suffer only a fortytwo percent drop in their standard of living. Women and children endure more than double the loss
with a seventy-three percent reduction of their standard of living (Henderson 1). That is a drastic
difference and an extreme blow to female-headed households’ ability to provide a suitable lifestyle
for their children. According to research, divorce has a direct correlation with the feminization
of poverty. No-fault divorces do not take into consideration the mother’s ability to provide or
contributions she has made to allow her husband to sustain his career. When a couple divorces, the
men involved bounce back quickly. In about five years, the female and usually children will have
climbed back up to seventy percent of their previous standard of living while the male tends to
exceed his previous standard of living (Henderson 1). There are obviously extreme differences in
how the sexes experience poverty. Even in a no-fault divorce, the financial situation of the mother
and children needs serious consideration if only to protect the children from a number of negative
outcomes of poverty.
Acceptable childcare is often expensive and unreliable, causing women to take jobs they are
overqualified for in exchange for greater flexibility. This situation affects mothers financially as
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well as psychologically. Director of Human Development for the United Nations Sakiko FukudaParr writes, “Human poverty is multidimensional. Lack of material means for a decent standard of
living is an important dimension of poverty. . . . Poverty of choices and opportunities can be more
relevant than income. . .” (100). A difficult challenge for women to overcome is sacrificing so much
time with their children. Many feel guilty about having to take so much of their attention away
from their children just to survive. Women do not want a baby sitter raising their children but many
times are left with no options as they have to work two or more jobs to provide for their family.
Although women show unquestionable effort, they just cannot get ahead. Studies show, accepting
help from the state programs is almost unavoidable and many experience a great blow to their pride
upon accepting state or federal assistance (Payne 47). Education for these women would open up
opportunities for them that would change their lives and the futures of their children.
Solutions, like education, do exist, but some are so difficult for women to obtain that this
trend has continued to grow substantially. Education is one route to higher paying employment and
financial comfort, but it is terribly expensive and most women do not have enough financial freedom
to quit their jobs to focus on school. Although education would raise their incomes, it is not feasible
to work full time, raise a family, and go to school. But leading poverty expert Ruby Payne writes, one
of “[t]wo things that help one move out of poverty [is] education. . .” ( 3). Education is an important
tool to establish a life above the poverty line. While this is a probable solution to this problem, many
women cannot find a way to achieve this goal. Payne also reminds us that “[b]eing in poverty is
rarely about a lack of intelligence or ability” (62). Poverty in most women’s cases is not about a lack
of desire for a better life, but merely the means to make that life a reality.
In addition to financial deficiencies, there are other dangers related to this trend. Experts
in the area suggest that poverty tends to be generational, or passed on to children who grow up
in impoverished female households (Payne 48). The effect of poverty on children is disturbing.
According to research, poor children are clearly disadvantaged. Studies show health and nutritional
well being, likelihood of higher education, and cognition all correlate with origins from low income
households (Bianchi 326). The majority of these children have grown up in impoverished femaleheaded households. Millions of children are living in poverty in the United States, suffering a
multitude of negative outcomes (Henderson 1). With this knowledge, we as a society need to find
a way to intervene and help families find solutions to their situations. Parents generally want
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their children to have more and live better than they did, so they are motivated to succeed in any
opportunities they are given. Since we know that education is critical to breaking the generational
chains of poverty, I believe that changes need to be made to make higher education more accessible to
mothers who are straining to survive. The suggestion has been made that “universities must become
aware of the growing number of moms on their campuses and consider programs and policies that
will enable them to combine and cope with the demands of academics, home, and work” (Tiamiyu
and Mitchell 52). Women have many demanding roles to live up to. Without education and support,
the effects of this trend of poverty are only intensified.
Left alone, these women and children really do not have much hope of escaping their
circumstances. With well-coordinated, considerate assistance, we could provide them with
options. We need to become a family-friendly society. Ignoring this problem will not make it go
away. Although the feminization of poverty focuses on women, it is an important thing for all of
us to recognize. We need to work toward a family-friendly society by asking for things such as onsite childcare facilities, paid parental leave, a more efficient child support enforcement, truly equal
employment law, and more flexibility to make more jobs an option for women. With the knowledge
we have of the nature of the problem, we need to encourage our educational institutions, legislators,
congressmen, and government to take heed of the situations and find a permanent solution to reduce
the trend. Many children and women will continue to suffer if no changes are made, and I do not
think any of us want that to happen.
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Works Cited
Bianchi, Suzanne M. “Feminization and Juvinilization of Poverty: Trends, Relative Risks, Causes,
and Consequences.” Annual Review of Sociology 25 (1999): 307-333. Academic Search Complete.
EbscoHost. U of Central Missouri, Warrensburg, James C. Kirkpatrick Lib.11 Nov. 2007.
Fukuda-Parr, Sakiko. “What Does Feminization of Poverty Mean? It Isn’t Just Lack of Income”
Feminist Economics 5 (1999): 99-103. Academic Search Complete. EbscoHost. U of Central Missouri,
James C. Kirkpatrick Lib. 11 Nov. 2007.
Henderson, Zorika P. “Divorce Impoverishes Women and Children.” Human Ecology 21.1 (1993): 2.
Academic Search Complete. EbscoHost. U of Central Missouri, Warrensburg, James C. Kirkpatrick
Lib. 6 Nov. 2007.
Payne, Ruby K. A Framework for Understanding Poverty. Aha! Process, 1996
Pressman, Steven. “Feminist Explanations for the Feminization of Poverty.” Journal of Economic
Issues 37.2 (2003): 353-361. Social Sciences Full Text. WilsonWeb. U of Central Missouri,
Warrensburg, James C. Kirkpatrick Lib. 1 Nov. 2007.
Tiamiyu, Mojisola, and Shelley Mitchell. “Welfare Reform: Can Higher Education Reduce the
Feminization of Poverty?” Urban Review 33.1 (2001): 47 Academic Search Complete. EbscoHost.
U of Central Missouri, Warrensburg, James C. Kirkpatrick Lib. 6 Nov. 2007.
9
“Gap Is a Proud Partner of (Product) RED”
By Jana Thomas
During the course of this semester, we have learned about a very diverse realm of subjects,
all of which go back to the driving factor of globalization. One of the subjects that we learned about
was the problematic sweatshop industry located in third world countries: workers who are paid low
wages to produce goods for first world countries, which then turn around and sell those same goods
for nearly 100% profit. One of the pointed companies that Globalization: The Transformations of Social
Worlds addressed during this semester was Gap. Gap was being criticized, in this book, because of
the type of labor force it was choosing to use to produce its clothing. The book discussed Gap using
workers as young as 12 years old in Uzbekistan to pick cotton in the fields, working up to 9 hours a
day, and then turning around, and only being able to sell the cotton for two cents per pound (Eitzen
& Zinn, 2006). This process continues through a long line of workers who are underpaid and under
appreciated, until you get to the final retail store where the articles of clothing are sold at a price that
is far above what it cost Gap to make them (Eitzen & Zinn, 2006).
As horrible as Gap may seem, as of right now, with the limited amount of knowledge that has
been learned from this brief synopsis of the labor force and product development, Gap is seemingly
trying to make some changes to start heading in the right direction. Gap has come up with what they
call “Gap (Product) RED,” which is a brand that was created to raise money for the Global Fund,
and by doing so, Gap is teaming up with some of the most popular brands to produce (product)
RED products. These popular brands sell these (product) RED products and then send a portion
of their profits directly to the Global fund, which in turn is used to help fight AIDS in Africa (gap.
com). (Product) RED launched on October 13, 2006, in the United States, and on March 1, 2006, in the
United Kingdom. Since (Product) RED was launched, it has contributed $49.8 million to the Global
Fund (joinred.com). The color RED was chosen particularly because RED is the color of emergency,
and RED is also the color of blood, which is the main way AIDS infects the body. (Product) red is not
a charity; it is actually a business model designed to create awareness, as well as a tremendous flow
of money from the private sector, which then drops into the Global Fund to help fight against AIDS,
tuberculosis, and malaria in Africa.
RED was created by Bono (U2 singer and activist) and Bobby Shriver (chairman of DATADebt, AIDS, Trade, Africa). Bono and Shriver set up DATA together in 2002, and it became obvious to
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them that DATA was great leverage from the public sector, but that the Global Fund needed private
sector investments as well. RED works with the biggest companies or brands, such as Gap, American
Express, Converse, Emporio Armani, Motorola, and Apple to make distinguished products that are
the color RED, which are sold, after which 50% of the gross profit from those products goes to the
Global Fund. The Global Fund then takes the money and develops AIDS programs in Africa, which
are mainly focused on women and children (joinred.com). More than $49 million has already been
raised, and more than $30 million in grants has already been given out. The current Global Fund
grants are being placed in Rwanda, Ghana, and Swaziland.
The Global Fund was created to intensely decrease the number of those who are dealing with
three of the world’s most destructive diseases: AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria. As an “innovative
approach to international health financing,” the Global Fund is a partnership between civil society,
governments, the public and private sectors, and the affected communities (theglobalfund.org).
The Global Fund was founded on seven domineering principles, which cover everything from
governance to grant-marketing. The first principle says, “Operate as a financial instrument, not an
implementing entity.” This is basically saying that the Global Fund does not implement programs
themselves; they rely on the local experts, and only fund the money that is needed to create these
programs. The second principle says, “Make available and leverage additional financial resources.”
What this principle is implying is that the Global Fund will only finance programs when it is positive
that it is not replacing or reducing other sources of funding. The third principle says, “Support
programs that reflect national ownership.” What the Global Fund is going for here is that they
are wanting not only transnational support but also local, civil support and alliances to be formed
from within. The fourth principle says, “Operate in a balanced manner in terms of different regions,
diseases, and interventions.” This is the basic principle that the Global Fund supports those countries
with the greatest need, the largest burden of disease, and the ones most lacking financial resources.
The fifth principle says, “Pursue an integrated and balanced approach to prevention and treatment.”
Quite simply, this is the approach to AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria that treats and prevents the
spread based on the local needs. The sixth principle says, “Evaluate proposals through independent
review process.” This is quite effective in that new proposals go through what is called the “Technical
Review Panel,” which promises that resources are sent to well-grounded programs with the greatest
chance of success. The seventh and final principle says, “Establish a simplified, rapid, and innovative
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grant-making process and operate transparently, with accountability.” As one can deduct, this is
the ethical principle of the bunch. This is basically saying that efficiency and accountability are the
highest priority in the realm of what the Global Fund is ultimately trying to create (theglobalfund.
org).
AIDS is the leading cause of death in Africa, where 33.2 million people are living with AIDS;
4,400 people in Africa die everyday because of this horrible disease. It only costs us, here in the
United States, 40 cents for two pills each day to keep someone with AIDS alive in Africa, but those
who call Africa their home, on average, live on less than two dollars a day, so they cannot afford the
medicine. This is where the Global Fund comes to the rescue. The Global Fund is the number one
donator of funds to developed programs to fight AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria (UN Chronicle,
2006). As the first international financing body, the Global Fund funded a “massive-scale up of antiretroviral treatment in developing countries, starting in 2003” (joinred.com). In light of this, as far as
Africa is concerned, 100% of the money that is collected from RED is put to work on the ground in
Africa. Because of the Global Fund’s great rapport with its grants in Africa, it ensures that each and
every dollar that is raised is immediately transformed into saving lives, and that every life that is
saved is accounted for (joinred.com). As of 2006, 544,000 people had begun the treatment program
that was implemented for AIDS, which was up from the 384,000 six months before (UN Chronicle,
2006). The Global Fund’s Executive Director, Richard Feachem, explained this phenomenon as the
“results demonstrate that where countries are given the resources they need, progress against this
pandemic is possible” (UN Chronicle, 2006).
The Global Fund is a public private partnership, which allows countries to create and design
their own programs, but the Global Fund is performance based, so it only gives to those programs
which produce good and lasting results. Another positive attribute of the Global Fund is that its
operating costs are less than 3%, which ensures that the funds that are collected go specifically where
they are most needed (joinred.com). With that being said, the Global Fund is responsible for 56%
of the $5.4 million that has been given to programs to fight AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria in 131
countries (UN Chronicle, 2006). Also, over the past three years the Global Fund has helped almost
53 countries switch from medication that was ineffective in treating malaria to the new vibrant
artemisinin-based combination therapy (ACT). Furthermore, the expected results that are to come
about after 5 years of Global Fund funding are more than 1.8 million people on anti-retrovirals, 62
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million people being tested for AIDS, one million orphans being medically treated and educated,
5 million tuberculosis cases being cared for, and 264 million people being treated for malaria (UN
Chronical, 2006).
In conclusion, Gap has what they like to call “The (RED) Manifesto”, which basically states
that first world consumers have a tremendous buying power and that they should choose to buy RED
products. If first-world consumers buy RED products, the Global Fund gets the money, they buy the
pills, then those dying from horrible diseases take the pills and stay alive, which in turn allows those
people to continue to take care of their families and contribute economically and socially to their
communities (gap.com). As much as this sounds well and good, there should be some skepticism
when reading these words that Gap has put out there on the internet for all to see. Although the
Global Fund seems as if it has a good backing and a legitimate heart for those who are hurting and
sick, not everything that is seen can be taken at face value. There are questions to be asked about the
last phrase of the “RED Manifesto.” These words are “and contribute economically and socially to
their communities.”
When I approached the Gap store at the mall, I knew that I wanted to view this RED product
line, but I was not entirely sure what to expect. I entered the store and went towards the shirts
that screamed RED, and on the inside of these shirts there was a tag, and on that tag read “African
cotton.” My heart sunk to my feet.
Although the Global Fund is doing a great work in the lives of those who are suffering from
AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria, one simple question lingers in my mind. Why is Gap involved
with the Global Fund? Helping people in Africa? Stopping their suffering? And for what? So they
can continue to contribute economically and socially to their communities? So they can continue
to produce those shirts that Gap sells for $30 a piece, that say RED on the front, and AFRICAN
COTTON on the inside? Nothing can be taken at face value, there is always something inside that
says more than the outside could ever possibly tell you.
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References
1) Bono, Mandela, Nelson, Valenti, Jack. 2005. “The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and
Malaria.” UN Chronicle 41 no4 76. Copyright 2002 United Nations.
2) Eitzen, D. Stanley and Maxine Baca Zinn. 2006. Globalization: The Transformation of Social Worlds.
Belmont, CA: Thomson Wadsworth.
3) http://www.gap.com/browse/home.do?cid=16591
4) http://joinred.com/red/factsheet.asp
5) 2006. “Global Fund’s Grants Show Substantial Impact.” UN Chronicle 43 no2 18.Copyright 2002
United Nations.
6) http://theglobalfund.org/en/about/how/
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The Effect of Racism in Othello
By Andrew Stallmann
Scholars have debated for years about the presence of racism in Shakespeare’s Othello.
However, indubitable evidence exists within the dialogue to suggest that the title character’s race
fuels conflict and plays a key role in his tragic downfall. Othello’s segregation from the Venetian
community occurs within the opening lines when Iago and Roderigo emphasize their loathing of him
by using derogatory, racist remarks. The division continues to become apparent in both his marriage
and relationships with prominent members of white society. Although some characters look beyond
his physical appearance and see the valiant general underneath, it is not enough to prevent his bitter
demise.
It is important to note the racial themes that arise in Shakespeare’s other works to better
understand their significance in Othello. The principal conflict in Titus Andronicus stems from a
forbidden love between the villainous moor, Aaron, and the adulteress Tamora. Shakespeare sets a
precedent in this play for using the term “Moor” to describe black characters. Aaron is often called
black, and even fathers a black child with Tamora. The point, as Philip Butcher explains, is that
“Though he is a black man, Aaron, like Othello, is always called a Moor” (246). Butcher also draws
the same connection with another of Shakespeare’s works: “In The Merchant of Venice, Lorenzo
says to the clown: ’I shall answer that better to the commonwealth that you can the getting up of
the Negro’s belly: the Moor is with child by you, Launcelot’ (III, v, 40-43). It is significant that here
the term [Negro] is synonymous with Moor” (246). Further proof of Othello’s racial separation is
contained inside the script of the play itself. On many occasions Othello’s race becomes apparent, as
in the first scene where he is referred to as “the thick-lips” (1. 1. 66), which is a racial epithet. Also,
more obvious links can be seen in Act two, where Iago toasts “to the health of black Othello” (2. 3.
26), and in Act three, where Othello quite plainly states: “I am black” (3. 3. 263). Shakespeare clearly
intended for his tragic hero to experience this alienation, what Arthur Little Jr. calls “The ‘primal
scene of racism’…where an audience at one and the same time reactively and proactively constructs
the signification of race” (305). The audience is supposed to draw these racial themes out of the
dialogue and apply them to the play’s conflicts.
The ugliest, most brutal racial attacks occur in Act one. In the opening scene, Iago and
Roderigo set out to poison Othello’s reputation and begin by casting him out of his place in society.
15
The words they use to describe the elopement present strong innuendos suggesting rape and violence
and compare Othello to a vicious animal, as Iago warns Brabantio: “very now, an old black ram
is tupping your white ewe” (1. 1. 88-89), and “you’ll have your daughter covered with a Barbary
horse” (1. 1. 112). In fact, Edward Berry describes it best when he says: “These characters [Iago,
Roderigo, and Brabantio] evoke, in a few choice epithets, the reigning stereotypes of the African on
the Elizabethan stage” (319). He observes that Othello’s blackness connotes ugliness, treachery, lust,
bestiality, demonism, and witchcraft, all of which are referenced in the degrading insults of Iago,
Roderigo, and Brabantio. Certainly bestiality is mentioned in Iago’s remarks above, where Othello
and Desdemona’s sexual union is likened to goats, and he covers the demonic taboos of interracial
sex in his plea to Brabantio: “Awake the snorting citizens with the bell. Or else the devil will make
a grandsire of you” (1. 1. 90-91). Brabantio’s low opinion of Othello reveals itself when he finds out
about his daughter, and immediately charges the Moor with witchcraft. In his bigoted opinion, the
black devil must have used spells or potions to possess his innocent daughter. His quarrel is an
additional confirmation of conflicts arising out of racial prejudice, because it would not make much
sense if the Moorish general were white. Othello wins the court over with his noble and honest love
for Desdemona, proving for the time being that he is a respectable human being.
The racism displayed in Act one carries on and lurks behind every plot against the tragic
hero, spreading like wildfire until all are consumed. Unquestionably, the first scene is a testament
to the whole play, as Eldred Jones examines: “Nowhere in this whole scene is Othello once referred
to by name. In these contexts even the term ‘Moor,’ by which Iago and Roderigo habitually refer
to him, suggests overtones of contempt” (41). His observation indicates a reoccurring theme of the
tragedy: racist characters refuse to acknowledge Othello’s name. Berry discusses this issue as “the
most pervasive sign of Othello’s alienation” (322). These villains take away his honor and respect by
replacing “Othello” with “lusty Moor,” “cruel Moor,” and even “thief,” or “devil.” Two-faced Iago
only calls the general by name while in his presence, Roderigo despises the “lascivious Moor,” in
Brabantio’s fit of rage he refers to Othello in a number of ways – none of them kind – and after the
murder of Desdemona, even to Emilia, the Moor becomes a “blacker devil.” Othello is segregated in
conversation, and classified according to stereotypes and generalities regarding his race. Iago uses
these stereotypes to support his treachery. For example, while convincing Roderigo that Desdemona
is within his reach, he states: “These Moors are changeable in their wills” (1. 3. 335-6). In another
16
speech, Iago refuses to believe the miscegenation, “a frail vow betwixt an erring barbarian and a
supersubtle Venetian” (1. 3. 342-3), will be successful, and he tells Roderigo that “If [Desdemona] had
been blessed, she would never have loved the Moor” (2. 1. 236-7). Iago’s racism is without a doubt the
most frequent, but Roderigo paints a grotesque picture announcing to Brabantio that his daughter has
been stolen away into the “gross clasps of a lascivious Moor” (1. 1. 126), and Brabantio insists that his
daughter would never “run from her guardage to the sooty bosom / Of such a thing” (1. 2. 70-71).
Martin Orkin summarizes these ideas by saying what now seems obvious, that “there is
racist sentiment within the play, but that it is to an important degree confined to Iago, Roderigo,
and Brabantio” (168). He also touches on a new idea as he continues: “Furthermore, the racism
displayed by Iago, Roderigo, and, in his uglier moments, Brabantio contrasts with others” (169).
What Orkin spotlights here is that not all characters see Othello any differently from themselves. In
truth, prominent members of society still hold Othello in high esteem. The contrast between these
characters and those that shun Othello racially is visible in the former’s increased usage of his name.
Unlike the villains who spite the warrior by referring to him constantly as “Moor,” Cassio and the
others present much loftier titles such as “valiant general,” “noble Othello,” and “worthy Othello.”
Even when the term “Moor” is used, the negativity is removed and more positive labels are attached
to add a respectful, almost affectionate tone, much as Desdemona does in her fear to part from “the
Moor, my lord” (1. 3. 188). Berry’s key argument states: “Othello’s blackness is not only a mark of
his physical alienation but a symbol, to which every character in the play, himself included, must
respond” (319). While some respond negatively, characters such as Cassio, Montano, and Desdemona
greet Othello more warmly. Montano welcomes the general’s arrival to the island of Cyprus, and
after hearing that he will be put in charge, he expresses his elation: “I am glad on’t. ‘Tis a worthy
governor” (2. 1. 30). Cassio is honored to become Othello’s right-hand man, and is stricken when his
service becomes in jeopardy: “I will rather sue to be despised than to deceive so good a commander”
(2. 3. 250-1). The Duke receives Brabantio’s charges against the Moor and delivers judgment only
when events prove to be in his favor. The head of the Senate trusts Othello’s leadership completely
and even tries to convey his opinions to Brabantio: “If virtue no delighted beauty lack, your son-inlaw is far more fair than black” (1. 3. 288-9). As the audience knows, Desdemona remains loyal to her
husband, and even in the worst times she does not sink to Iago’s level as Emilia does to debase him
with racism.
17
That loyalty is questioned only due to the deception of the evil Iago, who takes advantage
of Othello’s outcast state to pursue his own agenda. He stresses the Moor’s physical and social
difference to persuade him that Desdemona’s infidelity is inevitable. Othello’s defense is simple, and
develops the fact that though she could have chosen to marry one of her own race and class, she fell
in love with him: “Nor from mine own weak merits will I draw / The smallest fear or doubt of her
revolt, / For she had eyes, and chose me” (3. 3. 187-9). Iago moves to disprove this illusion and the
Moor’s will begins to crumble. At that moment, Othello begins to doubt: “And yet, how nature erring
from itself–” (3. 3. 227), and the villain seizes upon it:
Ay, there’s the point! As (to be bold with you) Not to affect many proposed matches Of
her own clime, complexion, and degree, Whereto we see in all things nature tends –
Foh! one may smell in such a will most rank, Foul disproportions, thought unnatural.
(3. 3. 228-33)
Iago accentuates his argument that Desdemona has already betrayed her father with the fact that
Othello is physically unappealing and that her attraction to him is very suspicious. This realization
sparks a transformation in Othello; from what once was a gentle, respected soldier arises a savage,
revenge-seeking fiend. Orkin expresses the psychological concerns going though Othello’s head: “as
his sense of betrayal intensifies, he intermittently refers to the racism that, present in his world, must
lurk at the edges of his consciousness or identity” (174). As he reserves judgment for himself, he sees
Desdemona differently as well: “Her name, that was as fresh As Dian’s visage, is now begrim’d and
black As mine own face” (3. 3. 386-7). As the “proof” of her adultery swells, he removes all chains
and converts into a fanatic monster: “Arise, black vengeance, from the hollow hell!” (3. 3. 447). The
demonic murderer he becomes in the end consumes him. When he tells his captors to “speak of me as
I am” (5. 2. 342), he, who had once been opposite to the stereotypes of his kind, destroys everything
he has worked for and accepts them in his death.
The metamorphosis Othello undergoes in the murder scene evokes the racial tension threaded
in Iago’s poisonous remarks. Edward Berry clarifies: “Infected by Iago’s imagery of licentiousness,
Othello converts Desdemona into his own alter-ego, subjecting her to the same abuse that Roderigo
and Iago had hurled against him in the streets of Venice” (328). Desdemona begins to doubt near the
end: when Othello asks her to “Think on thy sins,” she replies: “They are the loves I bear to you”
(5. 2. 39-40). Celia Daileader interprets Desdemona’s response as racism: “her love for the Moor
18
could not be anything less than a sinful perversion” (5), but she is just overwhelmed with her lord’s
unnatural distress. Even after he strangles her, she proves her love is true and unbiased by defending
Othello against the charge of her own murder. The Moor finally realizes her loyalty after it is too late,
and succumbs to fate, committing suicide to hasten his arrival into the black hell from whence he
came.
19
Book Review: Mama Lola: A Vodou Priestess in Brooklyn by Karen McCarthy Brown
By Kevin Courtwright
When Karen McCarthy Brown wrote Mama Lola, she had several different theses in mind. It
was her intent to show the nature of women’s roles in traditional Haitian Vodou, to show the liminal
status of Vodou practitioners within American culture, and to teach Americans what Vodou is and
is not about. She manages all of these tasks well, though, in my opinion, the main theme of the
book is more subtle and difficult to grasp until the very end. Karen McCarthy Brown has, whether
purposefully or not, written a book that is an example of the malleable nature of Vodou. The book
can be interpreted to stand for many things based on the reader’s perspective; just as the spirits that
Mama Lola serves can take on different personalities and roles based on the practitioner’s particular
world view.
The many reviewers of this book come from different walks of life, but most seem to say the
same types of things about it. One review, which Joseph M. Murphy published in the Journal of
Religion in Africa, states that Ms. Brown “brings the reader to the deepest understanding of vodou
available” (Murphy 286). While I agree with Murphy, I feel that he and others are missing an
important aspect of this book. Mama Lola is not just an ethnography as most like Joseph M. Murphy
believe, it is a window through which the reader can witness the complex metamorphosis of an
ancient religion that is still in practice in modern times. A less favorable review written by Eugene
V. Gallagher and published in the Journal of the American Academy of Religion gives a nearly complete
retelling of the book and then at the end almost seems to dismiss it as just a cute little book about
Vodou. He says, “Though the book is only lightly encumbered by the trappings of scholarship, it
succeeds in raising interesting questions about Brown’s announced theoretical concerns” (Gallagher
773-775). I believe that Gallagher has missed the point totally; Mama Lola is a book about the nature
of Vodou and the perceptions of its practitioners. To down play this book as a cute little book about
Vodou is to miss the amazing way that it presents the reader with the ideological mindset of those
who practice Vodou.
The stunning clarity with which Brown presents the plastic nature of Vodou is, in my opinion,
the most important aspect of the book. The ability of the spirits to change their personalities, their
ritual demands, and even their appearance to fit the situation and the personalities of their followers
20
is unique to Vodou. While this ability to fit itself to any situation is in evidence throughout the
book, there is nowhere that it is more obvious than in the final chapter, which is marked by one
incident after another that demonstrates the flexibility of Vodou. One example that stands out is
the discussion of how each lwa, or spirit, is both one personality and many at the same time. A
comparison can be drawn between this concept and that of the trinity in Christianity. Both refer
to several separate entities which are all part of a single spiritual individual. Gede is an extreme
example of the constant evolution of the spirits and of Vodou itself. In the book Karen McCarthy
Brown states, “[N]ew Gede persona appear every year around All Soul’s Day. These new Gede are
born at the forefront of social change, spawned by new occupations, new technologies, new social
groups” (Brown 376). She later explains that “such cosmological shifts are still very much in process”
(Brown 377) and that the general theme of the book is that of flexibility.
Another example of the changing nature of Vodou, and thus the spirits that are central to the
practice of Vodou, is evident in the spirit Ezili Dantò. According to Brown, practitioners of Vodou
believe that Ezili Dantò fought alongside of the slaves during the war that won independence for
Haiti. The most common manifestation of Ezili Dantò is of the Polish virgin known as Our Lady of
Czestochowa, who has parallel vertical scars on her right cheek. ”She was wounded, Haitians say,
and they point to the scars on Our Lady of Czestochowa’s right cheek as evidence” (Brown 229).
Brown adds later that “it seems that Dantò was rendered speechless by her own people, people
fighting on the same side, people who could not trust her to guard their secrets. When Ezili Dantò
possesses someone these days, she cannot speak” (Brown 229). These statements are testimony to the
unique capacity for change exhibited by the spirits of Vodou. Vodou’s acceptance of modifications to
fit one’s persona shows that Vodou is alterable to the extreme that even the spirits are not immune to
change.
The malleable characteristics of Vodou exhibit themselves in the various ways in which
different people practice it. In Haiti the temples have packed earth floors that readily accept the
libations of rum that participants pour out during rituals. In America, where Vodou is more of an
underground religion, basement floors or dirt stored in pots and buckets becomes the receptacles of
poured libations in the place of the living earth. To the African slaves that came to Haiti, the earth
symbolized a tie to the spirits of their ancestors and the pouring of libations was a means in which
to commune with those ancestral spirits. Brown argues that Haitians in New York have little or
21
no access to the bare earth; only concrete, asphalt, tile, linoleum, and carpet. The ability of Haitian
immigrants to commune with the spirits of the ancestors through contact with the earth is limited or
non-existent and a new method became necessary. The flexibility of Vodou allows the practitioners to
modify traditional practices, and as Brown states, “Haitian immigrants are currently negotiating this
shift in the cosmos” (Brown 377).
A striking example of the customization of Vodou to fit one’s personal world view appears in
chapter six. There is a brief discussion of how Philomese adopted a spirit named Agèou while she
was in the Dominican Republic, to which Alourdes (Mama Lola) adds that, “in Haiti, Agèou is served
only in her family. Philo’s relationship with Agèou was a product of her sojourn in Santo Domingo.
She brought him to Haiti and subsequently merged him with the group of spirits known as Ogou”
(Brown 167). Brown then states, “My impression is that the connection between Agèou (or Agaju)
and Ogou is not made in the Spanish-speaking Caribbean” (Brown 167). The most remarkable trait
of Vodou is its ability to transform, and as seen here, incorporate other beliefs and religious systems
into itself. The nature of Vodou is similar to that of wet clay; one can shape it in countless ways
dependant only on personal preference, and can dismantle it and reassemble it from different pieces.
This ability to assimilate different aspects of various religions is unique to Vodou and practiced by
no other major religion. It would be difficult to imagine the Catholic Church, for example, suddenly
adopting the belief in reincarnation and sacred cows from Hinduism. While I believe that there is
no chance that the Pope will suddenly adopt Hindu doctrines, I feel that that is exactly what occurs
everyday in Vodou. Vodou is the gumbo of religions; it is comprised of many different pieces that
have come from many different cultures, and there is no standardized version of orthodox Vodou.
The very term, orthodox, seems to be an antithesis to Vodou.
The most remarkable way that Karen McCarthy Brown demonstrates the ability of Vodou to
adapt to different people and cultural views is through this books itself. Throughout the previous
weeks of this class, I have had many discussions with my classmates and have found that nearly all of
us have had a different experience with this book. The members of this class come from a myriad of
backgrounds; there are differences in ethnic background, political viewpoint, age, sex, and economic
class. Each of us has formulated an opinion of what this book means based on our experiences and
our membership in various parts of American culture. I would like to cite the book reviews of my
classmates as a final example of the evolving, individual nature of this book and of the religion of
22
Vodou that the book represents. Each of us has taken a different meaning from Mama Lola based
upon the baggage that we carry and the lens of experience through which we perceive our world.
The thesis of this book remained unclear to me until the last few pages; then I was shocked
when I realized that the book was a metaphor in miniature for the nature of Vodou. I am impressed
beyond words with the ability of Karen McCarthy Brown to create a book that utilizes the reader’s
life experience as a means to relate different ideas and concepts. Though I did not understand
the point of this book for the first three hundred and fifty pages, I have come to believe that it is a
masterful work and a brilliant lesson in anthropological writing. I now understand more about
the thought process and can feel and understand the forces that have shaped modern Vodou. The
struggle to find a place in the world has made Haiti a place of stark contrasts, and similarly, Vodou
is a religion that reverberates with the life and spirit of that struggle. Vodou has evolved since its
arrival in Haiti. It is a living religion and like any living thing it will continue to evolve, especially
considering the adaptable nature of Vodou. Anything that adapts itself as easily as Vodou has the
ability to evolve and change in the face of any opposition. Just as one cannot restrain the shifting
sand dune, neither can one restrain Vodou. It has far too many variations and adaptations.
This book is a literary example of anthropology at its best. The reactions of any group of
readers will be as diverse as the readers themselves, and will make for an interesting anthropological
study on their own. Any study of religion or world culture would be incomplete without a
discussion of this work. Few other books invoke the sense of connection to the topic as well as Mama
Lola; it is an outstanding work.
References Cited
Brown, Karen McCarthy, Mama Lola: A Vodou Priestess in Brooklyn, Berkeley, University of California
Press, 2001.
Gallagher, Eugene V. “Review: Mama Lola.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion,
(1992): 773-775.
Murphy, Joseph M. “Review: Mama Lola.” Journal of Religion in Africa, (1992): 286.
23
Malindy’s Freedom
By LaKesha Johnson
Born in 1820 into the Western Cherokee Tribe of the Cherokee Nation in Kentucky was a new
beginning for a precious child. After two days of life, this gift of life was passed over the fire by a
shaman who asked for a blessing for this young child. He asked for her to have a long and healthy
life; thereafter, he began to thrust her into the water several times. An older woman of her mother’s
clan gave her a name that reflected her exquisiteness. As Rose Dawn grew older, her then childhood
was blissful, raised in the ways of traditional Cherokees, strong with a clear understanding of their
roles in their social structures.
As Rose Dawn grew older, she learned these traditions and enjoyed her life as a child of the
Cherokee Native. As time grew on, little Rose Dawn began to enjoy playing games with the other
children, listening to her elders tell stories, and learned how to survive the hardships of being a
settler. By the late 1820’s, Rose Dawn’s clan began to travel state to state and in other territories
to sell their products. Later they came across the idea of traveling to Missouri due to the issues of
slavery in these territories. While taking a break from traveling, Rose decided to take the time out to
play and was accidently left by her clan. When the white children she played with realized she had
been left, they quickly hid her in one of their barns for a few days. After hiding so furtively, she was
then caught by the barn’s slave master. Knowing this little child was hiding out unknowingly on his
property, he quickly renamed her and erased her identity. He told his black caretaker that she was to
be known as her granddaughter and her new name was Malindy.
By the age of seven, Malindy started to experience the hardships of the life she was to live.
She couldn’t learn, and had to work for the younger white children of the household by bathing
them, cleaning their rooms, and putting them to bed. As the years passed on, Malindy grew to be
a gracious, vibrant teen. As the Mistress of the household grew fond of the work Malindy would
be capable of doing, she then gave her the title of being a household cook and being her daughter’s
maid. Later on, Malindy was sold to a very wealthy slaveowner who gave the slaves uniforms.
Instilled with the thought of being alone without someone to protect her, Malindy still held on to
her virginity as she grew older. This kept her in fear that one day a man would rape her, especially
a white man, the one thing she would rather face death for than to experience that horrific type of
episode. Many women endured rape out of fear, and as an end result, giving birth to a Jezebel that
24
brought humiliation on her family. The local Missourians engaged in fancy-trade, which was the sale
of light-skinned mulatto women for prostitution and concubinage purposes. They could be found in
separate jails in St. Louis before they were put on the auction blocks and sold for $1,500. Malindy had
almost been prone to live this lifestyle, but was smart enough to change her appearance. Living at
her new home in a room with three other roommates, her identity was almost revealed. They knew
she was not a Negro, but Malindy kept it under wraps due to trust issues.
As Malindy’s time on the farm grew, the pressure was on for her to get married, an idea she
dreaded so. In 1837, Malindy met her soon to be husband Charlie Wilson, who was a free slave
native through manumission and was mixed with Irish, Indian, and African. After a few months in
early spring of 1838, Charlie asked for Malindy’s hand. Not too long after, Malindy gave birth to her
firstborn son, Sammie, in Gray Summit, Franklin County, Missouri. Not too long after that, she gave
birth to their second son, George. By 1844, she gave birth to a baby girl she named Ellen, and had
another baby girl a year later that she named Lara. Her second eldest son George grew to be manic
and aggressive, unlike his brother Sammie, who was calm and obedient. Ellen was her mother’s
helper and took care of the two youngest, Lara and newborn brother Henry. Most of their slave
owners prohibited teaching slaves to read and write, as well as hold religious services.
Malindy had been a slave for over twenty years, and was brought out through the mistress
she had been working for. The last thing Malindy could take was harm to her children. Malindy
strangled her mistress after tossing her youngest son in the crib while breast feeding and Malindy
snapped, almost killing the mistress. The animosity in Malindy was righteous, and she felt that the
way the mistress treated her children by not letting them read and telling them to do hard chores
that a young child should not be attempting was wrong. Ellen stood firm when the mistress told
her daughter to do work the mother would not let her. Their father Charlie bought books for his
children and taught them how to read only a little, for it was too much to endure if they were to get
caught. Finally the day came for Malindy to be beaten. The master beat her back until disfigurement,
bringing rage in her daughter Ellen from there on out.
By 1852, Malindy and her family were taken to St. Louis to be sold on the courthouse steps.
Malindy wore a gunnysack skirt that was made so her children could hold on to it if this day had
ever come. Then a civil farmer requested the entire family, and took them to a wooden cabin, where
Malindy and her children would soon enjoy. As rage built, George was attacked by racial slurs from
25
the master’s sons, who he believed were his friends. Out of rage he attacked them. As the end result,
the master banished him from his property, leaving George to fend for himself for several years.
By now, Sammie was in his early twenties and was the ideal slave. Sammie was so perfect that the
master gave Sammie away to his son as a wedding gift when he moved to St. Louis. Not too long
thereafter, George came to rescue his family in the dead of the night, only to come to find out his
mother did not want to live that life of running to freedom, but by law of freedom. George said his
goodbyes and continued his journey off.
In 1862, the sixteenth president Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. This
document offered Confederate States the chance to keep their slaves if they returned to the Union,
but the Confederates didn’t trust this and rejected it. On January 1, 1863 the Proclamation took effect
freeing all slaves in those states, which caused many wars in the states. A lot of slaves even ran away
from their masters to go fight in the Union Army.
Now that the family was free, the master asked them to stay on his farm to be paid fifty cents
a day, but by 1865, long after Lincoln’s assasination, their freedom was lost. Union soldiers came to
take census and property damage. Thirty-eight years Malindy had been enslaved, only to be set free
on this farm and live as a human-being. Out of her children George was never heard from again, and
when Henry grew older, he left, to never be heard from again. In 1870, Malindy died, leaving her
husband and eleven grandchildren behind. Ellen was soon taken to St. Louis by Sammie to work and
go to school, but it was still dangerous for blacks to live freely and hard for Ellen to live this lifestyle.
Ellen married, and lived with husband Nelson, while her sister Lara stayed with them only to die at
a young age, leaving Ellen to care for her only child, Liza. Ellen continued to have eight children of
her own, growing to give Ellen thirty-four grandchildren. Ellen’s husband died at a fairly young age,
leaving Ellen to live her life for many of her descendents.
When relating Malindy’s stories with others such as that of Elizabeth Harris, who was born
in Augusta, Georgia, in 1867, of slave parents, it is a great resemblance. They both married to have a
big family and live life as planned and not expected, only Elizabeth never endured the hardships of
slavery as Malindy did. Elizabeth married Jacob Walker Harris in 1883 at the age of 15 and was the
mother of nine children. She lived until 1942, outliving her husband and two of her children. She was
a profoundly religious woman who spent much of her life in service to her church. She undoubtedly
valued education, both for herself and her children. She had several of her poems and vignettes
26
published in various newspapers during her lifetime. She included these in the manuscript of her life
story, which she started writing at the age of 55 in 1923. As for Hannah Valentine and Lethe Jackson,
they led a hard fearing life. Both were house slaves at Montcalm, with the family David and Mary
Campbell, which was located in Abingdon, Virginia. Hannah Valentine came to the Campbell family
in 1811, when she was 17 years old. She moved with them to Montcalm when it was built in 1827.
She and some of the other servants actually lived in the basement of the main house. She lived on to
have eight children, who became slaves too. In the spring of 1840, the Campbells, including niece
Virginia, returned to Abingdon. Virginia Campbell and Mary Burwell, a literate slave whom David
Campbell had purchased in 1840, taught Hannah, Lethe, and the other house slaves to read and write
at that time. Lethe Jackson belonged to Mary Campbell’s family while she was growing up. Mary
brought Lethe back home to Abingdon with her in 1818. Lethe had one daughter, Lucy, and several
grandchildren. During the time of their written letters, Lethe worked in the family garden milking
cows and churning butter.
These slave letters are very rare documents and also hard to come by. The letter from Vilet
Lester is one of the few letters identified among the cosmic amount of plantation records held at the
Duke Special Collections Library. Vilet’s letter is very unique with no other documents, no slave lists,
work records, or owner’s letters to understand more about her. It is clear that the Pattersons, who
had owned Vilet Lester, were related to the Allreds, which would account for Vilet’s letter to Patsey
Patterson being in the Allred Papers. Nevertheless, the Allred collection was very small and as a
result does not give much on Vilet Lester’s life. Vilet was once owned by the Patterson family who
lived in Randolph County, North Carolina. Vilet signed her letter “your long loved and well wishing
play mate as a servant until death,” which may have indicated that Vilet and Patsey Patterson were
raised together as children or that Vilet’s mother was one of the Pattersons’ house servants. In the
letter, Vilet mentions that she was sold several times before reaching her stay in the James B. Lester
household. Vilet had been away from the Patterson home for at least five years by the time she sent
this letter. Records also show that Vilet had a child while owned by the Pattersons. Vilet’s age and
place of birth are unknown. Documents are so scarce that it isn’t even proven that Vilet wrote this
letter herself or had someone to write it.
Each encounter that a slave had was a traumatic experience that can never be told adequately
through other persons, but can only be sought out through documents or family history. Each
27
narrative can only explain what little a person can endure, but depicts emotion through tale. Malindy
lived a difficult life, but came together in the end as she always hoped for. As for the other slaves’
narratives, they became consumed in this lifestyle only to be either given the choice of freedom or be
taken away from it for good. All wrote their narratives to let their stories reach others and continue
throughout history. This can give people a reasonable viewing on the lives of these intricate stories.
28
An Alternative Service: The Green House Project
By Alexandra Echelmeier
Introduction
The Green House Project is a new movement that is working to bring about change in the way
society and health care looks upon extended long-term care for the aging population. In the past,
nursing homes have been the only choice for individuals who could no longer live independently.
The focus of nursing homes is to medically treat the resident until his or her life ends. There have
been various attempts to help improve the nursing home experience; however, Kane, Lume, Cutler,
Degenholtz, and Yu (2007) brought forth this fact:
A 2001 Institute of Medicine report noted improvements in overall health care [within nursing
homes] but little reduction of societal dread of nursing homes or improvement in quality of
life. The problems…are well documented in decades of anthropological, ethnographic, and
ethics studies. (p. 832)
The Green House Project was designed by William H. Thomas to create an alternative to the
nursing home lifestyle that is “designed to transform traditional skilled nursing facilities into homes
providing meaning and growth for the people who live and work in them” (Robert Wood Johnson
Foundation [RWJF], 2007, p. 1). Society connects the words “nursing home” with the idea of wasting
away, whereas the hope is that society will begin to connect the words “Green House” with the idea
of growing and blossoming into the next stage of life.
The Green House project is important to study, because it is a movement of alternative housing
for long-term care that focuses upon the aging individuals and their well-being and life continuity.
The Green House projects are services that are working towards positive change for the aging
population by revamping the way long-term care buildings look, the care that is given within the
buildings, and the practices that are implemented within the buildings. The Green House projects are
a hopeful alternative to the institutional setting that a nursing home provides. It is also important to
study The Green House projects because there is a rise in the elderly population due to the amount of
Baby Boomers who are continuing to live and age, so there are more people who can potentially be
helped through the positive changes that the Green House projects provide.
Currently, there are twenty-three Green House communities throughout the United States,
29
and the Green House replication program hopes to have “the development of 50 or more Green
House communities by the end of 2010” (RWJF, 2007, p. 1). Within each Green House there are six
to ten residents housed, and within each community there are multiple Green Houses. So, with fifty
Green House communities being built and run by 2010, there is a potential for a minimum of 500
individuals who could be directly affected by the care given within the Green Houses, and hundreds
more people who could indirectly be effected through having family members in the homes, etc.
(RWFJ, 2007).
The topic of the Green House projects is important to me. It has the potential to positively
affect hundreds of people on a macro level of intervention and has the potential to grow even further
to change the attitudes of society as a whole on their ideas about aging. I feel that it is important that
the negative views of aging and the impersonal interventions for treatment of the aging population
get removed because these views and interventions are oppressing a vulnerable population that
continues to grow. I feel burdened by the reality of the oppression of the aging population who is
involved with long-term care. I think that there must be action taken in order to spur change within
society and that the action of building Green House projects throughout the United States has the
potential to cause societal change on a macro level if enough people join in on the movement. I feel
the need to educate myself on the Green House projects movement in order to join in “overcoming
the culture and creating the potential for a society that celebrates the elder as a still complex, growing
person with an equal opportunity for dignity in daily life” (Keane, 2004, p. 44).
History
Eden Alternative Program
The first movement towards de-institutionalizing nursing homes that William H. Thomas,
M.D., created in early 1990s was one that attempted to solve three problem areas that the aging
population was experiencing in nursing homes. The three areas that intervention was necessary in,
according to Thomas, were in the problem of loneliness, in the problem of helplessness, and in the
problem of boredom (RWJF, 2007). To work towards decreasing the amount of these problem areas,
Thomas created the Eden Alternative, which later he took and intertwined the ideas from the Eden
Alternative on a wider range within the Green House projects.
30
The Eden Alternative was a “prescription for encouraging meaningful relationships among
nursing home residents by improving the physical and social environment” (RWJF, 2007, p. 2). In the
process of “Edenization” the long-term care facilities encouraged children to come and be involved
with interacting with the residents, along with providing plants and animals for the residents to
enjoy and care for during their stay (RWJF, 2007). Within ten years of building an organization that
promoted the Eden Alternative approach through education and demonstration, Thomas and his
wife, Judith Meyers-Thomas, helped the approach to spread and be used throughout the United
States, Canada, and Australia in over two hundred nursing homes (RWJF, 2007).
The Green House Project
Although the Eden Alternative showed great improvements within the nursing homes that
adopted the approach, Thomas was not satisfied due to the fact that although “Eden training has
been widely sought, …few formal evaluations had unimpressive results, suggesting that, without
more-systematic changes in nursing homes, this model [The Eden Alternative] will have limited
effects” (Kane, et al., 2007, p. 832). Thomas decided to take the Eden Alternative a step further and
create an entire new environment that not only looked more like a home, but that was a home.
The creation of the Green House project was birthed in 1999 and by 2000 the Samuels Foundation
provided $52,000 planning grant to the Center for Growing and Becoming, where Thomas is the
founder and president, followed by a supplement of $50,000 in 2001 (RWJF, 2007). “The Robert Wood
Johnson Foundation supported the work [with four pilot Green Houses in Tupelo, Mississippi] from
January 2002 through January 2006 with three grants totaling $1,003,118...” and “approved a national
Green House replication effort…which runs through October 2010” which they gave $9,584,202 in
funding “to stimulate development of fifty or more Green House projects by the end of that year
(RWJF, 2007, p. 5).
Society has embraced the Green House project. The way society has embraced the Green
House project can be seen through the way media has brought attention to it. The Green House
project has been covered in the New York Times, in Newsweek, on PBS’s NewsHour, in the Philadelphia
Inquirer, and by giving Thomas the “Twelfth Heinz Award in the Human Condition” (RWJF, 2007, p.
10). Overall, the Green House project received proper funding and a good report with society as a
whole due to the fact that it promotes a solid plan that can be implemented at a reasonable price in
order to improve the well-being of the aging population. The Green House project received approval
31
from the administrator, Leslie V. Norwalk, of the Department of Health and Human Services, who
said
We have reviewed the program and policy materials that guide the Green Houses, as well as
their standard architectural plan, and have found no barriers that would prevent them from
being qualified as nursing homes under Federal regulations. We are supportive of this effort
and the larger culture change movement, of which is a part. (2007, p. 1)
The Green House project has been studied and evaluated by a team from University of Minnesota
that have found research evidence that supports that the Green House projects are successfully
accomplishing the goals of creating a place where “people are coming… to live, not to die” (RWJF,
2007, p. 14).
Description of Services
The Green House project ideas for how to properly provide service for the elderly in long-term
care was inspired, according to Thomas, “by the courage and imagination of leaders who gave us the
concepts embodied in OBRA ’87, restraint-free care, individualized care, the regenerative community,
and many others” (Keane, 2004, p. 45). The focus of the care is to bring about empowerment of the
residents that are referred to as the “elderhood” in order to strengthen the confidence and rights of
the aging population that are rightfully theirs (Keane, 2004). There are some core adjustments and
creations within the services that the Green Houses provide that have been put in place to create
satisfaction and growth for both the residents and the workers (NCB Capital Impact, 2007). Part of
the services are offered through creating the environment of a home through incorporating warmth
through “the floor plan, décor, furnishings, and the people,” green through providing an abundance
of “sunlight, plants, and access to outdoor spaces” in a small space in order to promote socialization
among the residents and promote “less use of wheel chairs” (NCB Capital Impact, 2007, p. 1-2).
The Green Houses appear to be large homes where each resident has their own private room and
bathroom while having a large hearth, kitchen and dining room area in the center of the houses to
increase socialization between the residents (NCB Capital Impact, 2007). “The Green House avoids
nurses’ stations, medication charts, and public address systems” (Kane et al., 2007, p. 834). Overall,
one service that the Green Houses provide that are not offered in an institutionalized nursing home is
the house environment.
32
Another service that is offered through the Green House that is unique is the service that is
provided through the Shahbazim. A Shahbaz is “the midwife of the elderhood” whose duties include
that of a normal nurses aid with the addition of the duty to nurture the elders and serve the elders
through bringing forth their strengths in skills and capacities in order to empower the elders and
encourage personal growth (RWJF, 2007, p. 3). The Shahbaz is specially trained for their position
and is considered a valuable staff member within the inter-dimensional team, which helps to provide
individuals, who would normally be considered nursing assistants who ranked at the bottom of the
chain-in-command, a position of meaning and worth. Consequently, with the Green House projects,
the rate of Shahbaz turnover is increasingly less than the turnover rate in nursing assistants in longterm care nursing homes (RWJF, 2007).
Overall, the professional team that includes nurses, physicians, social workers, dieticians,
pharmacists, therapy staff, and activity personnel “form visiting clinical support…that provide
specialized assessments and order and supervise care within their spheres of expertise” (Kane et al.,
2007, 834). The professional team come in and out of the Green Houses in the fashion such as home
health is operated and the Shahbazim are the only staff members who are on the frontlines in the
Green Houses at all times to assist the residents and spend time with the residents according the
residents’ preference (Kane et al., 2007). According to a two-year longitudinal quasi-experimental
study done through comparing one Green House of residents with two nursing homes of residents,
the “visits to Green House residents are more likely to resemble a home-care visit than a nursing
home visit. The Green House [project] also poses opportunities and challenges to providing posthospital recuperation, rehabilitation, and palliative care within Green Houses themselves” (Kane et
al., 2007, p. 838).
The study that was conducted revealed that the residents interviewed from the Green Houses
scored higher than the two comparison nursing homes in the areas of better quality of life, emotional
health, overall satisfaction with their residence, overall satisfaction with care, recommendation of
faculty, and independent activity participation (Kane et al., 2007, p. 836). Among the comparison
results between the two nursing homes and the one Green House, the residents from the Green
House showed “no reduction and some improvement…in quality-of-life appraisals of meaningful
activity and relationships” (Kane et al., 2007, p. 837). The importance of the services offered at the
Green Houses is evident because of the strong improvements in the quality of life for the individual
33
that this study has shown to be true, but also because of the strong evidence that this study showed of
decline or lack of quality when the Green House is not being implemented with long-term care for the
individuals. The Cedars residents, when interviewed about their stay the nursing home, told of their
lack of feeling the ability to have privacy, to be given dignity, to have relationships with other people,
to enjoy their meals, to express individuality, and to have quality care given by the professional
team. They also expressed the prevalence of experiencing clinical depression while living in the
nursing home. All of the problematic areas that the nursing home residents at The Cedars said they
experienced personally during their stay, were problematic areas that were expressed less among the
Green House residents, revealing that those who do not live in a Green House are at higher risk of
experiencing these problematic areas. (Kane et al., 2007)
Policy Implications
The Green Houses are constructed in such a way as to adhere to the environment in which
Thomas designed in order to de-institutionalize the care and to also adhere to the legalities that must
be met in order to meet the standards of being approved by the government. The Green Houses are
recognized as efficient long-term care homes by the government of the United States due to having
all the regulations met and up to the government’s standards. Consequently, the Green Houses are
cost effective and are as affordable as a nursing home. “A group of Green Houses on a campus or
scattered in a residential neighborhood operates under a nursing license and within a state’s usual
Medicaid reimbursement amounts” (Kane et al., 2007, 835).
From the Department of Health and Human Services within the United States government,
the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) endorse the Green House projects. The CMS
stated in a letter to Senator Thad Cochran that they feel the Green House projects “innovations more
fully implement the Nursing Home Reform provisions of the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act
of 1987, from which out CMS nursing home regulations are derived” (Norwalk, 2007, p. 1). The
letter that was sent to Senator Thad Cochran was partially written in order to give him thanks for
endorsing the Green House model. So, the Green House model has reached national attention and
there is representation within the United States government who is working towards a cultural
change in the way long-term care is formatted. In order to increase awareness the Administrator
of CMS are providing educational information for Cochran to pass on to other fellow senators and
34
government leaders. Also, CMS is taking action to reach their goal “to have State agencies assist
innovative providers in determining how changes they wish to make to improve the lives of their
residents can be compliant with the Federal regulations that protect all residents” (Norwalk, 2007, p.
2).
To effectively create change within the greater society, the government needs to endorse the
Green House projects, the media needs to endorse the ideas behind the Green House projects, and the
aging population needs to support the Green House projects along with the rest of society. Thomas
is working towards change on a macro level and is taking action through “explaining and promoting
the Green House concept through public appearances, written documents, and mass media and
other communication strategies” (RWJF, 2007, p. 6). The policy of how to handle long-term care
clients needs to shift from a medical model to a model that “emphasizes individual growth and
development and a good quality of life under normal rather than therapeutic circumstances” in order
for societal macro change to take place, according to Thomas and his supporters (Kane et al., 2007, p.
835).
Ethical Standards
Importance of the Human Relationship
The Green House model implements the ethnical standard of the importance of human
relationships in several different ways. One way in which this ethnical standard is put into action
within the Green Houses is through the work done by the Shahbazim that focuses on serving
the residents through having relationships with the residents and building the residents up in
conversation and interaction throughout the day as they do their duties. The Shahbazim are “likely
to know the residents and to feel they could influence the residents’ lives,” which shows that the
Green House not only implements the importance of human relationships upon the residents, but
also among the Shahbazim (RWJF, 2007, p. 9).
Another way that the Green Houses make human relationships a standard within the work
done is through offering an environment that is home-like in order to create a more welcoming
environment for the outside community to visit and interact with the residents in personal
relationship and connection. “Family members of Green House residents also demonstrated greater
satisfaction” when comparing the family members’ satisfaction with nursing home facilities (RWFJ,
2007, p. 9). The social interaction and activities are encouraged by the Green House architectural
35
layout by making the kitchen and dining area at the center of the Green House. Those residents
in the Green House have shown the same amount of interaction with organized facility activities
as a resident within the nursing home, but with an increase also in activities that they participate
in outside of the facility, such as organized trips into town (Kane et al., 2007, p. 836). Overall, the
importance of human relationship is accurately implemented into the Green House model.
Dignity and Worth of the Individual
The Green House model demonstrates how the dignity and worth of an individual should
be given to all individuals as long as they are still living. “We believe that anybody regardless of
frailty or mental capacity, still can continue to grow. And that’s what Green House does. It’s an
environment that enables growth,” said Steve McAlilly, the developer of the pilot Green House
project in Tupelo, Mississippi (RWJF, 2007, p. 14). The supporters of the Green House project believe
that people who are alive should be given the dignity they deserve and be treated like human beings
instead of less than human due to their declining in certain abilities. The Green House project focuses
upon creating a staff that uplifts the residents by building upon their capabilities and strengths as
individuals instead of only looking at the residents’ medical diagnosis and treating them like a label
or problem.
The Green House projects are designed in a way as to promote and require care to be centered
on the resident and his or her needs and desires as an individual (RWJF, 2007). When residents from
the a Green House project were compared with nursing home residents, in a qualitative study, it
was found that the Green House residents felt a great sense of dignity and individuality than those
residents who were interviewed that lived in nursing homes. The residents from the Green House
ranked higher than the nursing home residents in their subscales when asked to rank different
aspects involved with their overall quality of life, which included ranking the amount of “privacy,
dignity, meaningful activity, relationship, autonomy, food enjoyment, and individuality” they felt
they were given (Kane et al., 2007, p. 836). This study supports the fact that the Green House model
fits with the ethical standards of the dignity and self-worth of the individual.
Evaluation
I would rate this paper assignment as moderately good. I only feel it was a moderately good
assignment because of the amount of time I had to spend searching for resources due to the fact that
36
my topic is very new and has had few studies done concerning it. Also, two of the articles that I
needed to further explain and learn about the inner workings of the Green House Project were not
available through the University of Central Missouri. The electronic-journal said that the university
had a copy of The Gerontologist from the year 2006; however, after asking for help at the library
and spending an entire hour and a half speaking with someone about the location of the article or
journal, the person helping me told me that the library did not have article at all. Normally, I would
have had the library ship in the journal, but they said due to Thanksgiving break there would be no
shipping going out in time for me to receive the journal article. The lack of scholarly journal articles
on the topic of the Green House created a problem within my research for the paper. Also, the lack
of research completed at the time on the topic created a lack of statistical information to provide the
reader with in the paper. Despite these downfalls in writing this paper, I did feel the topic studied
and the information found helped to educate me upon the Green House project, which I feel is
very relevant for a time such as now where the population is booming and change needs to be
implemented. So, overall, the paper was a moderately good assignment.
References
Kane, R.A., Lum, T.Y., Cutler, L.J., Degenholz, H.B., & Yu, T. (2007). Resident outcomes in smallhousing nursing homes: A longitudinal evaluation of the initial Green House Program. Journal of the
American Geriatrics Society, 55 (6), 832-839.
Keane, B.K. (2004). Building the new culture of aging—One leader at a time [Electronic version]
Nursing Homes Magazine, 44-46.
NCB Capital Impact. (2007). The Green House concept. NCB Capital Impact Official Website. Retrieved
November 19, 2007, from http://www.ncbcapitalimpact.org/default.aspx?id=148.
Norwalk, L.V. (2007, February 27). [Letter to Senator Thad Cochran]. Department of Health and Human
Service: Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, 1-2.
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. (2007). “Green Houses” provide a small group setting alternative to
nursing homes—And a positive effect on residents’ quality of life. Retrieved November 19, 2007, from
http://www.rwjf.org/reports/grr/057114.htm.
37
Investigating Children’s Drawings and Development in Art
By Christina Bergstrom
This investigation of children’s drawings and their development in art began around six
o’clock at night in my room. The children gathered together in excitement and anticipation because
they had been looking forward to this since they were told about it an hour before. At first, there were
only four children: Elizabet, age 10y 9m, 5th grade, Madalynn, age 9y 6m, 3rd grade, Lauren, age 7y
11.9m, 2nd grade, and Nathan, age 4y 10m. Later on in the session, their little sister Gwyneth, 2y 11m,
came in and insisted on joining in the fun.
Initially, each of the children was given a blank sheet of white paper and told to draw a picture
of him or herself. The children were given the option of regular pencils, colored pencils, crayons, or
markers. They all wanted to use watercolor but were told it had to be a drawing in order to avoid
having to get the watercolors out. Elizabet settled on the bed with her paper on a book, Madalynn lay
down on the floor with a board, Lauren sat herself purposefully in front of a mirror with an art board,
and Nathan did not really sit still. Elizabet asked some general questions and was satisfied, Madalynn
wanted to know exactly what to do and became frustrated at the lack of specific instructions, Lauren
immediately went to work without a word, and Nathan just would not sit still. Gwyneth came in
later, and after refusing to draw herself, finally picked up a marker and began drawing.
Gwyneth, age 2y 11m, when asked to draw a picture of herself, replied, “I can’t momma, I
don’t know how momma, I can’t draw myself momma, because I don’t know how to draw myself
momma,” and then scribbled. At first, she used orange because her favorite color was not available,
but once she found the pink, she became very animated in drawing pink circular formations. When
asked if it was a picture of herself, she replied, “No, it’s a pink.”
Gwyneth is in the controlled marking phase of the Mark Making stage. She drew these
controlled circular formations on page after page. She did not go off the edge and she purposefully
chose her color. Gwyneth also chose marker as opposed to other media presented, unlike her older
sisters, who all chose colored pencils. She did not necessarily name her pictures but said they were all
“pretties.” These exhibited behaviors fit the controlled marking phase because she did not go off the
edge, showed preference to markers, and named her drawings (Kerlavage, 1998, p. 34). However, she
did differ in that she took her time and really worked on each drawing.
38
Nathan, age 4y 10m, was not content with one piece of paper. He would draw a little on a
piece and then ask for another, while refusing to draw anything else. The first picture was a circle
with eyes, a nose, and a mouth. He then drew two legs and added hair on the top. He drew another
on the back, and on the two dozen other pieces of paper he drew various forms of this person.
Nathan demonstrated a short attention span that leads to quick work as in the Mark Making
stage (Kerlavage, 1998, p 36). He told elaborate long stories about each of his drawings, but we could
not understand what he was saying because he was so excited about them. He still lacks the largemuscle control and fine motor skills needed for more precise drawings. His actual drawings reflected
the Early Symbol Making stage with regard to the circular body with features and legs attached
(Kerlavage, 1998, p. 37). He displayed no color preference and simply used what was available. The
aspect that differed from the examples in the text was the refusal to draw more than one or two things
on a page. I would ask if he was really finished or if he wanted to draw more, and he would insist on
a new piece of paper.
Lauren, age 7y 11.9m, 2nd grade, was the most into this project of the five children. She is the
only one who asked to use a mirror. She then she got out an art board of her own accord and sat in
front of the mirror. She began intently drawing, leaning the board against the wall as she drew. She
never asked any questions but did make the comment that she wished she could draw a horse as
well. When told she could add whatever she wanted, she became very excited and continually added
to her drawing. She kept drawing even when everyone else was finished. I told her she had to be
done for now but that she could finish it another time.
Lauren is, for the most part, in the Symbol Making stage. There is a “distinct head and torso”
created by a “contour line” (Kerlavage, 1998, p. 43). She used colors she liked and colors that were
relative to what she was drawing. The way she drew the hands and feet is an example of finding a
symbol that worked and sticking with it (Kerlavage, 1998, p. 44). She differed from this stage since
even though she used a single baseline, her images do touch, overlap, and go off the page (Kerlavage,
1998, p. 44). Her use of fine motor skills and the attempt to understand proportion were evident as
she repeatedly erased and redrew the facial features. Without studying these stages, I would have
thought that Lauren would be defined as being in a higher stage than Madalynn. However, that
ended up not being valid. Lauren fit the Symbol Making stage in all the areas except the touch,
39
overlap, and going off the page aspect. Madalynn fits the Emerging Expertise in how her drawing is
regressing and rather cartoonish.
Madalynn, age 9y 6m, 3rd grade, approached this activity with excitement at first, which soon
turned into frustration. This and other aspects fit with the Emerging Expertise stage. She became very
upset that she could not get the eyes even, then that her nose did not look right. She wanted help
and guidance. She wanted me to show her how to draw everything. When I would not comply, she
became more frustrated than I had ever seen her. She ended up quickly sketching a picture of her face
and telling me she was done.
Madalynn’s scenario was interesting because the next day she drew me another picture and
insisted I use it. I included it because it was an attempt to draw like her sisters. In her new picture it
is obvious that she was remembering how her sisters drew and then incorporated that into her new
drawing with the teeth and the background. Instead of attempting to figure out how to draw on her
own, she relied on what she had been told but remembered it incorrectly and therefore drew the
nose backwards. The interesting thing to me was that she used the “real” colors even when outlining
as opposed to Lauren using a pencil and then coloring it in. However, she never colored it in; she
outlined it and left it, and this was a work she put time and effort into.
Just looking at these two drawings, Lauren’s and Madalynn’s, I thought it was really odd
that Lauren’s seemed to be more skilled than Madalynn’s. However, the text states that there is a
regression in drawing during the Emerging Expertise stage (Kerlavage, 1998, p. 50). Madalynn’s
drawing is rather cartoonish and she did become very dissatisfied with it. Her original drawing
was empty as the text states, her focus mostly on the facial features (Kerlavage, 1998, p. 50). It is
interesting that on both drawings there are no shoulders; the neck goes right into the arms. She used
realistic color and she used colored pencils. She did use comparisons and based her work on the
accomplishment of her sister (Kerlavage, 1998, p. 53).
Elizabet, age 10y 9m, 5th grade, began this activity with eagerness and confidence. She joked
about wanting to create “a Picasso-like work, with eyes and ears and noses in the wrong places,”
laughing as she described this method. I told her she just needed to draw herself, however she
wanted, and she was content with that. She drew a picture of her face cut off at the top and when
asked why, she said because it looked cool. Then she questioned if she should color it in or not. I told
her to do whatever she wanted, and so she chose to use color pencils. She was fine until she tried to
40
match the skin color and couldn’t. At that point she said she wished she had just left it but went on to
finish, resigned but not frustrated.
Elizabet is in the Emerging Expertise stage. She uses realistic color yet it is interesting that
there is no color behind the glasses and within the ears. When asked why, she just shrugged and
said she didn’t want to. It says that at this time they may eliminate color and she did ponder that
(Kerlavage, 1998, p. 51). However, she did really want to use watercolor, which is a medium that
limits control. I think she may have moved into the Artistic Challenges stage a little early, but she
will be 11 in three months. She uses an “aesthetic concept of design” and attention to proportion and
space (Kerlavage, 1998, p. 54). However, she did not choose to use a model. She did experiment with
altering reality and viewpoints and solved the problem of how she wanted to draw by looking at
different solutions (Kerlavage, 1998, p. 56).
The children followed the stages Kerlavage described for the most part. The younger the
children were, the more closely they followed. Since I am their mother, I have more insight into these
projects they created than someone who would simply look at just these drawings. I know that the
younger children are allowed to draw whatever they want and have had little help in drawing. I
know that Lauren, Madalynn, and Elizabet have had not only participation in a formal art classroom,
but also some help from me.
This was the first time I had witnessed Lauren have confidence in drawing a person. For
Madalynn, this was not a typical drawing for her and the regression was very apparent and puzzling.
Elizabet had implemented the use of skills that she had been given, but instead of simply trying
to remember and do it, she figured out why they worked. Madalynn simply tried to do what she
remembered without putting thought into why. When asked what she was doing, she explained she
was mimicking what she had been shown. Gwyneth and Nathan were just making marks and seeing
what they could do.
This brings us to the educational benefits of the teacher’s understanding of children’s
development in art. With the three older girls, we see Symbol Making, Emerging Expertise, and going
into Artistic Challenges, side by side. Without having knowledge of the stages of development, art
teachers could get the completely wrong impression about students such as Madalynn. Teachers
walking into a classroom with no knowledge of the stages of development would most likely
assume that children in the Emerging Expertise stage are lacking in skill and ability, rather than
41
understanding that the students are moving into a different cognitive stage where they are trying
to create more lifelike art. If the art teachers were to witness a change in the level of drawing as a
student went from the Symbol Making stage to the Emerging Expertise, without realizing the changes
that were taking place, teachers could become frustrated and think the students were not trying. For
the Artistic Challenges stage, the knowledge of differing stages shows art teachers that the students
are moving into an experimental time in their art and that it is okay if their drawing is different, such
as Elizabet’s being cut off at the top.
The benefits to the art teachers are that they will know the appropriate level to create lessons
for in order to challenge the students yet not frustrate them. The benefits to the students are that
they will have teachers who understand what they are going through and can therefore be more
helpful by giving them the skills and tools necessary to progress (Kerlavage, 1998, p. 69). If teachers
are uninformed or ignore these stages, they could end up with bored or frustrated students. This
could lead to the students not liking art or believing that they do not have any artistic ability and
giving up on it altogether. With the knowledge of artistic stages, art teachers will be able to encourage
the Elizabets’ experimentation, guide the Laurens to gain the skills to draw more realistic, help the
Madalynns overcome their frustration, and encourage the Nathans and the Gwyneths to continually
play with art-making materials. For each of these stages and students, they will be able to give them
the tools and the skills to build their confidence to succeed.
Reference
Kerlavage, M.S. (1998). Understanding the Learner. In Creating Meaning Through Art: Teacher as Choice
Maker (first edition) (pp. 23-72). Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Merrill, an imprint of Prentice Hall.
42
The Yellow Wallpaper
By Cristina Fernandez
“It was not intended to drive people crazy, but to save people from being driven crazy, and it
worked”(Reesman, 820). These words were written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman after writing her
infamous The Yellow Wallpaper. The Yellow Wallpaper invites the reader into a world where a woman
is slowly being driven insane, all the while surrounded by hideous walls. The narrator of the story
is the woman, and she invites the reader into her world by writing in a secret journal. The journal
goes against her “rest-cure,” which is supposed to save her sanity. However, the “rest-cure” does
exactly the opposite. The woman falls deeper into her fantasies, and her relationship with the yellow
wallpaper becomes profoundly personal. The narrator has to completely lose herself in order to
rediscover and comprehend her true self.
Many factors contributed to the narrator’s insanity. One of them includes the narrator’s
relationship with her husband John. At the time when the story was written, gender divisions
were deep in societal institutions, one of these institutions being marriage. Almost immediately
the reader sees how the narrator’s marriage functions. When the narrator shares her opinion of the
house being queer, her husband disregards her opinion with a laugh. “John laughs at me, of course,
but one expects that in marriage”(Reesman 808). John feels that he is superior and all-knowing in
matters concerning his wife, and it does not help that he is also her physician. For these reasons he
completely disregards her thoughts about her illness, which forces her to hide what she truly feels
about the matter. When she attempts to give an opinion about her mental and physical states, he
patronizes her. He calls her such things as “little girl” and “blessed little goose,” and never really
listens to her. He does not feel that she is really sick, or even close to it. To John, his wife merely
suffers from “hysterical tendencies.” When the narrator writes in her journal of these dismissals,
she repeatedly states, “And what can one do” and “But what is one to do” (Reesman 808, 809).
This reflects her attitude, and her feeling that it is out of her hands if her husband ignores her. John
prescribes her medicine to be taken hourly, and he seems to have direct control over her life. The
strict control and the dismissal of what his wife truly feels leaves his wife in an almost childlike
state. The narrator appears almost ignorant, and when she attempts to stand up for herself, she feels
disloyal. Even when the narrator is just recording her thoughts in her journal, she will excuse John
or excuse herself for disagreeing with something that he has done or said. “Gilman’s story makes
43
clear the connection between male control of textuality and male dominance in other areas, and in it
we feel the fact of force behind what is usually passed off as a casual accident of personal preference
or justified by invoking ‘absolute’ standards of ‘universal’ value…”(Flynn 159). John dominates
nearly every part of the narrator’s life, and she begins to lose herself when only in her fantasies can
she abide by her own rules and her own thoughts.
The narrator has a hard time expressing herself. She is forced to hide her anxieties and fears in
order to preserve the picture of a happy marriage, and she must make it seem that she is winning
the fight against her weighty depression. From the beginning of the story, the worst aspect of her
treatment is the silence and redundancy of the “rest-cure.” She is told to be completely passive,
and to leave her mind at an absolute blank. Her insanity is partly caused by the repression of her
imagination and thoughts. Desperate for some type of intellectual outlet, the narrator starts a secret
journal. Her true feelings can only be seen when she writes in her journal.
With nothing to do and no one to talk to, the narrator becomes more and more fascinated with
the wallpaper, while also becoming more and more dissociated from everyone else. At the time
when the narrator decides to keep a secret journal (the beginning of the story), she begins to slip
more and more into her fantasy world, and she starts keeping her true feelings even more hidden
from the outside world. Also, the narrator is continually being instructed on maintaining selfcontrol. Her husband is always warning her to be careful not to give in to any of her fancies, and
to be careful of what she thinks and how she acts. This only further suppresses her, and leaves the
narrator a trapped woman. It is around this time in the story that the narrator turns an inanimate
object into a reflection of herself.
There is a lot of symbolism involving the wallpaper. The narrator is obsessed with the paper,
and feels that it stands for something that involves her directly. In this way, the wallpaper develops
its symbolism as the story continues. In the beginning, the wallpaper was merely distasteful, and the
narrator disliked its unclean color and its ripped edging. “The color is repellent, almost revolting;
a smouldering unclean yellow, strangely faded by the slow-turning sunlight”(Reesman 810). Then
the narrator begins to comment on the pattern, which is disorganized and formless. Eventually, the
pattern gives form to a woman, who is always crouching and crawling. The woman is desperate to
escape from behind the main pattern, or what the narrator now believes to be a cage. The wallpaper
represents the institutions of marriage, family, and even tradition. “…so she recognizes in the
44
wallpaper elements of her own resisting self”(Flynn 162). All of these institutions have trapped the
narrator, and now hold her captive in her assigned gender role. In this way, the narrator becomes
the woman in the wallpaper, and even further loses herself.
Once the narrator identifies with the woman trapped in the wallpaper, she is able to see
that her life has been one of creeping and hiding behind the domestic duties of her life, and
that she is in fact the one in need of rescuing. Through losing herself mentally, the narrator has
unraveled the pattern of her life, although she has also torn herself apart in the process. “…the
narrator’s resistance to “conjugal, heterosexual maternity” and suggests that her “discovery” of
a woman, and a queer one at that, in the wallpaper patterns that fascinate her constitute a form
of (self) recognition”(Greer). No one could have imagined how much the narrator would need to
sacrifice for self recognition. Towards the end of the story, the narrator makes a final split from
reality. When talking to her husband, the narrator declares, “I’ve got out at last, in spite of you and
Jane!”(Reesman, 819).A Jane had not been introduced before this point, which makes it very likely
that “Jane” is the name of the narrator, who has been a stranger to herself and all those around her.
Now she has escaped the bonds of her marriage, her society, and her attempts to stifle her mind.
The narrator no longer has any restraints or ties that she needs to be aware of. Through the
process of separating and dissociating herself from those around her, the narrator now has a chance
of discovering who she really is. Her insanity is her escape, and she can finally be free. However,
not all sources take this stance. “…though the narrator is consciously rebellious, as a prisoner and
an infant-like feminist, she is doomed to be destroyed as a result of contradictory forces rather than
freed at last”(Wang) The narrator’s fate is not sealed. Now that she has escaped from her domestic
cage, she can attempt to find her way out of insanity.
45
An Evidence-Based Approach To the Effects of Hourly Nursing Rounds
By Rachelle L Carter
Evidence-based practice is the application of the best available evidence in the clinical decision
process, emphasizing the findings from disciplined research. “Nurses who incorporate high-quality
research evidence into their clinical decisions and advice are being professionally accountable to
their clients” (Polit & Beck, 2006, p. 4.) In order to provide quality care to his or her patient, a nurse
should always be prepared and armed with the cutting-edge approach to clinical processes. Nurses
should be prepared to take the initiative, to be leaders in making changes and advancements within
the clinical setting. Familiarizing oneself with the latest evidence-based practice and research is
necessary in order to deliver quality and pro-active nursing care.
In applying the Iowa Model, a systematic model used in organizing and implementing
evidence-based practice findings, there must first be a trigger identified when initiating evidencebased research (Polit & Beck, 2006.) The following question might be asked: Would hourly rounding
by nursing staff improve patient satisfaction and safety? When a clinical practice presents as having
potential to improve patient satisfaction, and more importantly, patient safety, it is fair to assume that
it is of sufficient priority in terms of exploring the possibility of implementing the change; with this
said, the first critical decision point of the Iowa Model is met. In terms of sufficient research base, the
second of the critical decision points outlined by the model, the information available from conducted
studies is minimal. However, the information available might be considered sufficient in itself, due
to the magnitude of the findings in the study on the effectiveness of hourly nursing rounds. Based on
the conclusions of the research studies and the review of literature available, it would be appropriate
to implement the hourly rounding practice, for the benefit of both patients and nursing staff.
The basis for choosing the hourly nurse rounding practice as a priority for care in the medical
surgical setting stems from my experience as a patient care tech on a medical telemetry unit that
currently utilizes hourly rounding by nursing staff, and from the supportive information available
on the impact on patient safety. A search performed in Google returned several articles regarding the
benefits of hourly rounding using the keywords: nurse hourly rounding. Using the keywords hourly
rounding nursing in searching the CINAHL, MEDLINE, and Health Source databases, a research
article from the September 2006 issue of the American Journal of Nursing resulted.
46
A quasi-experiment performed by staff at the Alliance for Health Care Research was designed
to determine the reasons for patients’ call light use and the effects that hourly rounding by nursing
staff had on the number of times call lights were used as well as the effects of hourly rounding on
patient satisfaction and safety (Meade et al., 2006.) The quasi-experiment is ranked III on Stetler’s
evidence hierarchy (Polit & Beck, 2006.) The conductors of the study identified a need for such a
study, based on the fact that “several studies have documented the unfavorable effects of patients’
frequent use of the call light on the effectiveness of patient-care management on inpatient units,
which may already be compromised by staffing shortages”(Meade et al., 2006.) There is limited
information on ways to reduce the amount of call light use, especially by conducting patient bedside
rounds. The conductors of the study hypothesized that “nursing rounds on medical, surgical and
medical-surgical units, conducted on a regular schedule by nursing staff who perform a specific set
of actions, would: reduce call light use, increase patient satisfaction and improve patient safety, as
measured by the frequency of patient falls” (Meade et al., 2006.) The experiment was conducted
among 27 units in 14 different hospitals, using one-hour or two-hour intervals following specific
protocol. Baseline information was collected for two weeks, while the rounding schedules were
utilized and measured for four weeks. The findings from the research supported that regular
rounding by nursing staff reduced patient call light use, which reduces the number of interruptions
experienced by nurses while performing patient-care management. Patient satisfaction increased in
the facilities that implemented hourly rounds. Lastly, patient falls were significantly reduced among
the facilities that had the one-hour rounding protocol in place. Aside from the evidence supporting
their stated hypothesis, the research group found that nursing staff was positively affected due to the
noise reduction from decreased call light use. As stated by Meade and associates, “taken together,
these analyses suggest that one-hour rounding positively affects patient and nursing staff welfare”
(Meade et al., 2006.)
In a related article published by Debra Wood, of Nursing News, a hospital in Cleveland, Ohio,
had utilized the previously mentioned research study and its findings, ranking this literature as V on
Stetler’s evidence hierarchy. Euclid Hospital in Cleveland began implementing hourly rounds and
found that their call light volume decreased by 75%. Before leaving a patient’s room, the nurses at
their facility check on “the three Ps: pain, potty and positioning” (Wood, 2006.) Some nurses at this
facility felt that the rounding program was not anything new, but rather a formalization of how they
47
already cared for their patients. Another finding, in one unit that wore pedometers at this facility,
revealed that during a 12-hour shift, walking decreased from 5.2 miles to 4.3 miles after implementing
rounding (Wood, 2006.) However, to some, this might be interpreted as a negative outcome if they
are depending on the exercise.
An article found on the Allina Hospitals and Clinics website shared the opinions of some of
the respected authorities and staff at New Ulm Medical Center on hourly rounding as related to a
reduction in the number of patient falls and an increase in patient satisfaction. According to Stetler’s
hierarchy, this article is ranked VI, making it the weakest among the data sources. “National studies
have shown that hourly rounding can reduce falls up to 60 percent” (Allina Hospitals and Clinics.)
This article focused primarily on the impact that they found hourly rounding to have on their
patients’ safety.
The primary recommendation that I would make, based on the evidence found, would
be for all facilities to implement an hourly rounding program by nursing and supportive staff.
As mentioned before, the very fact that an increase in patient safety is a potential outcome of
implementing such a program makes the practice a success. I feel very strongly about implementing
any practice that may reduce patient falls. In order for such a program to be successful, there must
be specificity with protocol. As seen in one hospital’s practice involving the “three Ps” (Wood, 2006),
nurses and supportive staff should have a goal when making rounds. Another recommendation, one
that I am familiar with personally, would be to alternate the hours of rounding between RNs and the
support staff (i.e., C.N.A., PCT). Rounding sheets and documentation should also be considered. I
feel that documentation on rounding should be done within the patient’s room; that is, each patient
room should have an assigned sheet that would be initialed and documented when rounds are
made. One collective assignment sheet would not be as effective, as staff might be more tempted to
document uncompleted rounds. The evidence reveals that hourly rounding, if used pro-actively, has
the potential to benefit both patients and nursing staff.
The role of the nurse in implementing an hourly rounding practice might be as simple
as taking the initiative to approach management about the available evidence-based research,
familiarizing his or herself with the findings and making the information available to the Nurse
Manager. One might become active in creating a committee to create and organize the rounding
protocol and create documentation forms to be used. The key to the nurse role is being pro-active.
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Based on my own experience with hourly rounding as a PCT and the evidence-based findings,
I feel that hourly rounding by nurses and their supportive staff is a simple and cost-effective way
to increase patient satisfaction and safety, decrease the amount of call light use, reduce the noise
and stress level among inpatient units, and increase the nurse’s ability to manage patient care
more efficiently. The potential for hourly rounds to reduce interruptions experienced by RNs
could potentially lead to a decrease in medication errors, due to the very decrease in interruptions.
Structured hourly rounding programs have the potential to positively impact both patients and
nursing staff.
References
Hourly rounding reduces falls, increases patient satisfaction. Retrieved December 1, 2007, from Allina
Hospitals & Clinics Web site: http://www.allina.com/ahs/newulm.nsf/page/HourlyRounding
Meade, C, Bursell, A, & Ketelsen, L (2006). Effects of nursing rounds on patients’ call light use,
satisfaction, and safety. American Journal of Nursing, 106(9), 58-70.
Polit, D, & Beck, C (2006). Essentials of nursing research: Methods, appraisal, and utilization.
Philadelphia: Lippincott, Williams & Wilkins.
Wood, D. (2005). Rounding cuts call-light use. Retrieved December 1, 2007, from RN.com Web site:
http://w3.rn.com/news_news.asp?articleID=14521
49
Gentle Giant
By Lenise James
“How did we fail him? How did he slip through the cracks?” I saw the pained look on the
nurse’s face, her eyes brimming with unspilled tears, as she asked me those questions. I didn’t know
the answers then, and more than four years later, I’m not sure that I’m any closer to the answers
now. In remembering, in traveling down the road he traveled, I am attempting to come closer to the
answers. Hindsight has a way of sometimes bringing the indistinct into focus. There were people
in his life whose ethical choices made a direct impact on his existence. I am not looking back to cast
blame; I simply want to understand what could have made a difference. He was worth taking the
time to find out how we failed him; how he slipped through the cracks. Today is his birthday. Ben
would have been forty-one years old today, and there hasn’t been a day since he has gone that I
haven’t thought of him.
Ben spent his early childhood in a small Midwestern town. His parents had an unstable
relationship during most of their marriage, and they divorced when Ben was about halfway through
grade school. After the divorce, Ben, his mother and older sister moved to a larger city in another
state. In speaking with Ben, I learned that his father was not a stable presence in his life. After the
move, Ben rarely spoke with his father by phone, and his visits with his father were even more
sporadic. Ben’s father had a new family to care for and a new life to live. I wonder the difference it
would have made to this young boy for his father to remain a constant in his life. I wonder if this
required more than his father was willing or able to give. There are times in our lives when we come
to a crossroads. The more crucial of these junctions can mean the difference between everything and
nothing; between hope and desolation.
Ben was in the principal’s office on and off after the move, and was often chastised by teachers
for getting out of his seat and talking out of turn. He was a curious child and had an endless supply
of questions for nearly anyone who crossed his path. While the objects of his curiosity were varied,
he did seem to have a particular interest in matches and small fires. Ben told me when his teacher
would send him to the principal’s office to wait for her, he would pull the matches out of her desk
to play with, and then carefully replace them. He was amused that when the principal would finally
appear in the office, she would ask Ben what the burning smell was. At the time Ben was labeled as
hyperactive, but there would be more diagnoses to come.
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When Ben spoke to me about his grandfather, Joseph, he would usually get a little misty. Ben
told me that he had been closer to his grandfather than anyone, and always felt so happy when he
was with him. It was Joseph who taught Ben to ride a bike. It was Joseph who would put Ben in the
shopping cart that was left at his apartment complex, and race him fast around an abandoned lot
as Ben laughed uncontrollably. Ben told me that he felt loved and important when he was with his
grandfather. He mattered. Joseph passed away not long after Ben’s parents divorced.
The relationship that Ben had with his mother was often strained. After the divorce, she tried
unsuccessfully to rein in Ben’s impulsive nature. Ben’s behavior became more and more erratic. By
the time Ben was fourteen years old, his mother had checked him in to a psychiatric facility to find
some sort of cause for his behavior. During his stay at the psychiatric hospital, his behavior was
so unpredictable that the staff accused him of sneaking drugs in. The doctor prescribed Thorazine;
after which Ben would sit in front of the television, convinced that the broadcasters were sending
telepathic messages meant only for him. After some time, Ben was diagnosed with bipolar disorder.
Eventually, the doctors prescribed lithium and Ben was closely monitored to make sure that his levels
were exactly where they needed to be. With his lithium there was a fine line between an effective dose
and a toxic dose.
After the diagnosis, Ben was moved to a residential facility for children with behavioral
problems and lived out the remainder of his adolescence in residential facilities. With the assistance
of lithium and learned coping skills, Ben’s bipolar disorder was soon under control. Ben’s mother was
perhaps unsure that she could care for her son at home. Maybe she had come to become comfortable
with her life with her daughter and new husband. Her visits to Ben began to fall off. She came to
visit on some holidays, and with the exception of those occasions, was absent from his life. After
some time, Ben’s mother decided to terminate her parental rights. This had something to do with
receiving healthcare from the State. There was a couple that considered adopting Ben, but in the end,
they chose to withdraw from the adoption. Whatever the reason, Ben was parented by an institution.
I can’t possibly know if Ben’s mother would have been able to care for him after the diagnosis,
although I do wonder the difference that it could have made for him to be at home with his family.
I do know that the residential facility became his home, and Ben often spoke of how much he had
learned about life from his time there. He was taught life skills: how to budget, balance a checkbook,
cook and fill out a job application. He spent time learning how to manage his bipolar disorder and
51
fully function in society. He spent time in therapy pouring out his heart to someone who would
listen. By the time Ben left, he had grown to over 6 ft 3 inches and had the build of a linebacker. I
heard him referred to as a gentle giant. Body and soul, he had become a man at this home.
The residential home where Ben lived used an integrative approach to his care. He spent time
with a therapist who worked closely with Ben; exploring his feelings and finding creative outlets
for his energy. The nurses dispensed Ben’s medication, but also taught him to be responsible for his
own medication when the time came. Ben was surrounded by other boys who became, in a way, his
siblings. Even the people who worked in the cafeteria took a vested interest in Ben succeeding. They
all worked together as a team and met together to decide what would be the best care for each child.
They celebrated each birthday, each milestone. They applauded for Ben as he walked across the stage
to accept his hard-earned high school diploma. Each of these people who passed through Ben’s life
made an ethical choice regarding his care. They could have just as easily chosen to simply put in their
time each day. They chose to build him up, give him the time he needed and genuinely care for him.
After his graduation, Ben spent some time at a group home, but eventually found an
apartment of his own. He found a job at a nearby grocery store and spent his nights there restocking
the shelves and cleaning up. The interactions that he had with most adults outside of his residential
home had not been positive. He told me that the lithium sometimes dulled his senses and made him
plodding and methodical. It sometimes took him longer to get his ideas across or do his work. He
said that he was more comfortable working nights and keeping to himself. He took great care to keep
his appointments with his doctor to monitor his levels, and he wore a watch that sounded an alarm
when it was time to take his lithium.
A few years went by. Ben was introduced to a woman at a birthday party at a downtown
Chinese restaurant. They flirted over his plate of egg fu yung, and in time they fell in love. After
moving in with his girlfriend, he found a night job with a nearby bottling company. He said that
the work schedule appealed to him, and he was able to work without much interaction with the
public. Some of the men he worked with in the warehouse ridiculed Ben for his methodical nature; it
sometimes took him longer to do a job, but he was careful to do it right. He carried a red and white
Igloo cooler with him each day, packed with a couple of sandwiches, some chips and a few bananas.
Each night, Ben ate his dinner at work alone, and each night he called and talked to his girlfriend.
They would talk about their day, sometimes joke around, and sometimes talk about his frustrations
52
at work. While Ben’s coworkers had no obligation to him, many of them did make the choice to
ostracize him, to ridicule him. What difference could it have made if they had chosen to befriend him
instead? I think of this when I consider how I have interacted with my own coworkers. There are
times when I haven’t been kind and haven’t considered the impact of my exchanges with others.
A few years after Ben started his new job, his mother was diagnosed with Stage IV cancer.
Ben had been with his mother as she received the results of her biopsy. She was told that she had
about three months left to live. As much as he was able, Ben had remained a constant in his mother’s
life. Before she passed away he told me that he had long ago forgiven his mother for anything that
she might have wanted forgiveness for, and he hoped that she had done the same for him. Ben had
a capacity for forgiveness that I have never seen matched in another individual. Gandhi once said,
“The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong”. Ben was a man of infinite
strength. In spite of the pain that he had experienced in his life, I never knew him to hold a single
grudge against another. Ben’s mother passed away on a snowy February morning. He brought CD’s
with ocean sounds for her to listen to, and he held her hand as she slipped away.
Six years into Ben’s relationship with his girlfriend, he decided that he wanted to stop taking
the lithium. He had told his girlfriend that he was so tired of living his life in a cloud, and the lithium
slowed him down. He was also embarrassed by the way his hands would tremor. Ben had said that
his girlfriend was resistant to him changing medication, but she did support his decision. It was his
decision to make; no one had the right to make it for him. She has said that in hindsight, she wonders
why she had not attempted to learn more about the medication. She left most of that up to the doctor
and Ben. She knew that everyone had the right to decide their own quality of life; she just wishes that
she had leaned more about the differences between the lithium and the new drug.
As I consider this I think about the spouses and significant others who live with those with
bipolar and other mental disorders. How do you know how much you should involve yourself in
your loved one’s decisions? Would it have made a difference for Ben if she had learned more about
the new medication, or would he have tried it anyway? Whatever the answer, Ben started taking
the new drug. The drug that he began taking had been an anti seizure medication that was being
prescribed off label for some patients with Bipolar disorder. At first Ben became much more animated
and energetic, but did seem more agitated at times. For the short term, he was happy with the results
of the new medication.
53
Ben left his girlfriend roughly six months after starting the new medication. Ben’s girlfriend
had been living with depression for a good part of their time together, and he told her that he
couldn’t handle being around it anymore. Any selfishness that some might have perceived Ben to
have, others may might have interpreted as self preservation. I think that he needed to do whatever
he could to care for himself in a world where few cared about him. Soon after, Ben moved into a new
apartment and met the woman who would become his wife.
Ben’s new girlfriend was upbeat and positive and they seemed to get along well together. They
met in January and soon planned for a wedding that fall. During those months prior to the wedding,
Ben learned that his father was dying of cancer. His disease progressed rapidly and he died just a
few days after his son’s wedding. Ben was there with his father when he died. Ben’s relationship
with his father had been a distant and difficult one over the years. On one visit a few years prior,
Ben’s father, a doctor, told him that he had told some of his colleagues that Ben was headed to law
school. He asked Ben to cover for his lie, and he did. Ben wore a Star of David that hung from a chain
around his neck. Ben’s father asked him to take off the chain when he came to his work with him. I
think that Ben must have felt so ashamed that his father didn’t think that he was good enough, or
that his religion was something that he had to hide. I wonder what Ben would have gained from the
acceptance of his father. I wonder how much that could have built him up. After his father’s death,
Ben’s stepmother gave him a few of his father’s effects. She sent him home with his father’s doctor’s
bag, gun collection and cameras. Ben had developed an interest in photography a few years prior. He
took photos of old building from unexpected angles and amazing sunsets. He was a natural.
Less than one year later Ben’s wife told him that she was pregnant with his child. Earlier
in his life, Ben had said that he didn’t want to be a father. He was afraid of passing on his genes, and
worried that he wouldn’t have the patience needed to raise a child. After some time, Ben and his wife
decided to have a baby. His daughter was born premature, weighing little more than two pounds. He
spent hours in the NICU, rocking her and singing to her. Over time the baby gained strength and Ben
and his wife were able to take her home. Because of the baby’s special needs of being a preemie, they
moved to Ben’s wife’s hometown a few hours away. There her parents would be able to help with the
baby.
Ben’s baby needed constant care and was on special monitors when she slept. Ben found a
job in the town that they moved to, but was layed off after a short time. His wife then went back to
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work as a preschool teacher and Ben stayed home with the baby. He had not spent much time around
children, but learned to take care of the needs of his child and became her primary caregiver on the
days that his wife worked. Ben made a decision to return to school. His first class would be a speech
and public speaking course. On a summer day, when the baby was six months old, Ben drove to an
area college and enrolled in classes. He came home and put his headphones on, the headphones that
he had been wearing so he could listen to music while he was dry walling the basement. Although
the baby wasn’t home, he spread her pink blanket out on the floor, where she laid earlier as he
worked downstairs. He then put his father’s gun to his heart and pulled the trigger. When I later
spoke with Ben’s wife she said that he had been listening to a Puddle of Mudd CD. I looked up the
song list. One of the songs on the CD was “Drift and Die”.
I found out about Ben’s death while I was at work. A friend of Ben’s called to give me the
news. Later that week, as I spoke with Mike again, he told me that Ben had shared with him during
the last few phone calls that he had been thinking about suicide. Mike did not, as I would have
hoped, put Ben in the hands of professionals who could have helped him. I suppose that I blamed
Mike at the time for Ben’s suicide. I was looking for someone to blame. Now I believe that it may
have been a matter of Mike not knowing the best thing to do. In the months that followed I spoke
with people that Ben knew, trying to make some sense of this senseless death. One man that I talked
to, a former counselor and a friend of Ben’s echoed my thoughts. Ben was on a new medication,
one that was not proven for bipolar and did nothing to treat his depression. In the space of a few
short years he lost his mother, his father, his job, and moved away from the city he had known as his
home. He was living in a town isolated from everyone but his wife and her family, and his baby that
required constant care. It was a recipe for suicide.
Would Ben have ended his life if he hadn’t chosen to have a child? Would he have fared better
if he had stayed in the community that he had called home for some years? Was it the recent deaths of
both of Ben’s parents, making him an orphan that contributed to his bottomless despair? Could better
support from family, friends and the community have made a difference? When Ben chose to stop
taking the lithium and start taking an experimental drug, did he know what might happen? As much
as I ache to know, I have no answers to any of these questions.
The pharmaceutical company that manufactured the drug that Ben was taking had allegedly
paid to have “successful” clinical studies written up in medical journals and told their salesman to
55
market the drug as a successful monotherapy treatment for Bipolar to physicians. Physicians were
also rewarded with lavish trips and other gifts when they wrote certain levels of prescriptions of the
drug. The pharmaceutical company settled the felony case in which it paid over $400 million dollars
in penalties. The company admitted that it had aggressively marketed the drug by illicit means
for unrelated conditions including bipolar disorder. The director of a renowned bipolar research
program designed and conducted a study for the drug company. The director of the research program
commented that the bipolar test subjects did better with placebos than with the drug Ben had taken.
The drug company chose to keep the results of the study secret until the patent on the drug was
ready to run out.
I wish that there could have been an interdisciplinary team caring for Ben, much like when
he lived at the residential facility. I believe that Ben would have benefited from an interdisciplinary
approach from his health care providers as well as multiple strategies. Ben’s prescriptions were called
in by a psychiatrist who practiced in a metro area an hour and a half away from his new rural home.
Ben did drive in from time to time to see a counselor for sessions, but these sessions were sporadic.
In my opinion, Ben needed a team. He needed a psychiatrist who practiced in or near the town that
he. He needed to see his doctor face to face for sessions. He also needed his psychiatrist and social
worker and primary care physician to be in contact with each other.
I spoke with Ben’s wife for the first time on the evening of his funeral; we were on the phone
for an hour. We have spoken a few times since, in the four years since Ben’s death. After Ben had been
gone for a year, Ben’s wife wanted to meet. We talked for hours about Ben’s sometimes quirky habits,
incredible sense of humor, obsession with office supplies, uncanny ability to identify the actors doing
commercial voice-overs, his tenacity and his goodness. I met his daughter Kiki that day; she was
about eighteen months old. Kiki favors Ben, right down to her dimples and the matching birthmarks
on their legs.
After being close to Ben for years, it was heartbreaking to learn that he had taken his own life.
I had a dream, one night a few months after Ben passed away. He was in a flight suit standing next
to an airplane that he had made entirely out of stained glass. It was a striking image, this man who
I once heard described as a gentle giant, standing next to this thing of beauty that he had created. In
the sunlight it shone with an incredible brilliance. I knew that Ben was leaving, and he wouldn’t
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be back. I also knew that he was leaving alone. Neither of us said a word as he took his place at the
controls and then disappeared in the distance.
One morning, a month or so after Ben’s death, his former nurse at the residential home asked
me those questions, “How did we fail him? How did he slip through the cracks?” I felt my throat
swell closed with emotion. Ben’s death had devastated me, and I had no words of explanation that
would help her. Now, four years later I still have more questions than answers about Ben’s life and
death. I do think that I have learned how crucial our ethical choices are. We each make decisions
daily that have a profound effect on those around us. I miss this gentle giant, who left us all too soon.
A large part of his legacy was in teaching me that a person comes to a crossroads each time they
interact with another. Ben taught me that the power of forgiveness and the ability to give hope each
lie in our own hands. My hope for Ben is that somewhere beyond the horizon, he has finally found
the peace that seemed to elude him in this life.
57
Living It Up in the Loop
By Stephen Nemeth
No matter where I look, I see goths walking with their collars popped, preps wearing black,
jocks trying to learn how to play music while the musicians play catch, pyromaniacs dancing to the
beat of the bongo circle, choosing the devil’s favorite element as their dance partner, strangers lying
together watching the stars and telling stories, and the rotten yellow pearls of the homeless man
flashing as he receives money from his loving brothers. The weird thing is all of these events are
happening within just feet of each other. Most people would think this is an episode of X-Files, or the
season premier of The Twilight Zone, but for me, this is what I call home.
The Delmar Loop, located in St. Louis, Missouri, is a six-block stretch down the street of
Delmar, and it never dies. By the time somebody has walked that sixth block, that person has seen
what the entire city of St. Louis is all about. People get a taste of our food, an idea of our art, music
lovers can get all levels and all types of music, and most of all, anybody can enter this extremely
diverse setting, and without knowing anybody, he or she will feel like family. The Loop is home to
talent that most people only dream of, a talent that people wish they had, but could never perfect,
and the thing that gives The Loop this strived-for talent is acceptance. People do not have to be
amazing at what they do; in fact, they could be the worst trumpet players ever, but they are treated
no differently than one of the best trumpet players to ever come through The Loop, Miles Davis.
Unfortunately for The Loop, somebody standing on the outside looking in only hears the
exploding gunshots, only sees the diverse and weird culture, they only smell the filth of the homeless,
they have a taste of only bitterness and hatred for this so called “abnormal” and distasteful place, and
as a result, they only speak about the dark times, forever shunning on the place called The Loop. So
what is it like on the inside looking out? Sit down, lace up a pair of sneakers, and let’s take a walk
down Delmar Ave., down The Loop.
Here we are at the beginning of The Loop, standing at the blue and white stone entrance of the
MetroLink bus station. Crowds rush together in intervals of seven minutes towards The Loop, like
a colony of ants chasing a young boy eating a melting popsicle on a hot summer day. As we closely
follow the crowd, we immediately come upon probably the most popular attraction in The Loop,
with its radiant red and white lettering starting all the way from the top of the building, and working
its way to the street side, spelling out its name proudly, The Pageant.
58
The Pageant is where stars are born, and The Pageant is the one place that every star wants
to return. The flashing events sign has spoken the names of Pink Floyd, Dane Cook, Bill Cosby, and
local talent such as The Urge, Lojic, Nelly, Chingy, and Core Project. With cigarettes acting as cheap
fog machines, the scent of beer becoming everybody’s cologne, and the fans close enough to touch
the performers, live shows take on a brand new feeling, an experience that nobody can get anywhere
else. Now stand here in front of this historical site; pay no attention to the poorly groomed hotdog
vendor trying to sell his overcooked, water-logged dogs. Stand here and think about all the amazing
talent that has been born in this old brick building. Miles Davis, Chuck Berry, Steve Ewing, these are
all people that have walked the same streets as we have; these are all people that have made it big.
As we keep walking, the wind starts to pick up, rushing down the narrow, shoulder-toshoulder packed sidewalk, blowing the basketball net high trees around like they were nothing
more than feathers in the wind. The mouse-like sound of children’s laugher starts to get a little
louder. Every time the door to our right swings opens, a loud roar comes jumping out. The sounds
of laughter and yelling, a general sound of dozens of conversations mixed into one, and the frequent
sound of the thunderous crashing of bowling pins. Above the active door that an African American
family has just walked in, is a mural of a woman, appearing to be from the 80’s; she is mid-stroke of a
hopeful strike in her high heels and short skirt. This is Pin Up, the new bowling alley added onto the
Loop.
Food that is greasy, twice cooked, and pretty much a heart attack waiting to happen, can get
old at the bowling alley, so what is there to eat? Well, if the mood is not right for Thai, Mexican,
Chinese, good ol’ fashion southern BBQ, burger joints, St. Louis’ best pizza, or the typical food chains,
then I think I know the place. Let’s continue walking a few more blocks until we get to the restaurant
of choice. As we keep walking, notice the sounds of a saxophone playing simple show tunes. The
gentle breeze is carrying the music towards us, as well as making the crisp day all the more enjoyable.
Across the street is Antwon, a sixteen-year-old regular to The Loop, who has stolen a piece of
everybody’s heart. He isn’t loved because of his 350-plus-pound physique, or because he begs for
money or food whenever he has the chance. In fact, people who do not know Antwon get extremely
afraid and even defensive when they see this massive beast of a man begging for food, and I guess
that’s understandable. But for those of us that know Antwon, we know what he is all about. Antwon
was born with a mental handicap. He is much slower than the average human, and as a result, he
59
doesn’t believe he is good enough for school or to become something big, but he does know that he is
loved. We don’t care that it takes five minutes for him to say, “Hello,” because to us, it doesn’t matter;
he is one of us.
The sounds of the saxophone are now getting louder, and we can even see a rugged man
playing his even more rugged saxophone. The thing that separates this streetside musician from all
the other musicians is he doesn’t have his case or a hat put out for money. He is simply playing to
play, doing the best that he can to make others happy. He is sitting right in front of the destination,
so let’s go in. As we walk in, embrace the old diner-like setting. Black and white pictures of famous
people wallpaper the entire room. Condiment bottles hang upside down from the ceiling, looking
like a family of red and yellow bats in a cave. The radio is blaring loud music, and the entire wall is
lined with plastic tubs, ready to shoot out any kind of cereal on command, all while the aroma of hot
dogs fills the air. The ring leader behind this crazy show is standing behind his little counter, doing
the best that he can to keep up with the steady crowd.
This is Archie’s American Café, the only place in town that sells nothing else but drinks, cereal,
and various types of hotdogs with a very simplistic, picture-only menu. A person can order any kind
of hot dog that he or she may be craving, and then watch it be made with a smile, and share a few
laughs as well. As soon as this Indian family can get across what they are trying to order, we can
place our order as well, but in the meantime, let’s head back outside for a bit. Just stand here and
look around. Take in the surroundings. Cars are sitting bumper to bumper in traffic as people run
in between them to get to the other side of the street, but notice not a single car is honking, and not
a single person is showing off America’s favorite finger. Instead, the people in the cars are talking to
people that they know on the streets. Across the street is a group of aspiring young artists trying to
sell their new rap album. To the right of them is a professional looking man, wearing his suit and tie,
talking on the phone, paying little attention to his surroundings. To our left is another mob from the
MetroLink. The followers, wearing black and baggy clothes, thick eyeliner, and fingernails that have
been wiped black, are mingling with the leader of the pack, the jocks.
Let’s skip Archie’s for right now, and let’s walk to a more family-oriented restaurant that has
been around for the longest time, Blueberry Hill. With its uncountable number of arcade games,
the kids are happy, and with its adult entertainment such as darts, pool, or the Duck Room, where
musicians can perform, the adults are happy. They have vast collections of everything all around
60
the building. A crowd favorite is the massive glass case filled with priceless Simpsons memorabilia.
The entrance of Blueberry Hill welcomes people with a bold blue and white sign that spells out the
name in calligraphy, as well as a white archway leading inside. The narrow sidewalks are now cut to
become even narrower by a row of tables on both sides, encircled by chairs that are filled with various
types of people. I have been lucky enough to catch a snapshot of this restaurant and its diverse
scene in my attached picture. The picture shows young and old together. There is a man making a
statement with his red Mohawk, as well as a woman making a statement with her oversized orange
hat, groups of people sitting together, and a woman in pink sitting alone just reflecting on the day.
There are multiple black people, as well as white people, and Chinese. Such close quarters for such
diversity should be a recipe for disaster, yet somehow in The Loop, everybody is just smiling.
On the walk, I have yet to point out the St. Louis Walk of Fame with its gold stars on the
sidewalk flashing the names of people that have originated from this great city, or have had a great
impact on this city. Most of the stars flash names of musicians, which leads us to Vintage Vinyl, the
music store with it all. Whether it is instrumental jazz, vocal jazz, rap, rock, R&B, country, gospel,
local talent or radio talent, old vinyl, DVDs, t-shirts, or stickers, it can be found here at Vintage Vinyl,
and for a cheap price. Granted, this is a hangout for people that try to be individuals in the world
with their weird piercings and tattoos, and their own style of clothes, but I promise they won’t bite.
Let’s cross the street now, and head over to The Market, where some form of entertainment
is always going on. As we walk past the Mexicans at Quedoba, and the health nuts at Subway, the
sound of music starts to play in the evening sky, as if playing the sun a bedtime song. Crowds are
starting to gather around, and as we turn the corner, we see that members of the bongo circle are
doing their thing. Amongst this massive open space, sprinkled with a few picnic benches and chairs,
is a group of men and women, both young and old, and of all races sitting in a circle with their
various percussion instruments. People are joining the circle as they please, and people are leaving
the circle when needed. All of these musicians come into the circle with many different types of
experience, but with one man directing everybody, he will walk around and give each person his or
her own specific part. Once put together, the songs and beats that are produced provide a strong and
inspirational feeling that is to hard to put into words, so people speak with dance. When the sun
finally goes to bed, the fire spinners come out, twirling their balls of fire, flirting with death every
time they light up. There are people showing off their various skills such as juggling, kids playing
61
hacky sac, people singing or painting, friends telling stories, and musicians playing instruments, and
all of them have an appreciative audience.
All of a sudden, the bongo circle starts to play Hotel California, an instant Eagles classic. The
vibe in the air is hard to describe. Everybody is watching somebody perform, and at the same time,
dancing and singing to the music. One of the first persons to chime in with the lyrics is the hot-dog
vendor from way back in front of The Pageant, trying to sell his water-logged hotdogs. He has closed
up shop for the night, and has decided to stick around, despite a long day of work, to relax and let
loose for a little bit. In the middle of the circle, amongst many dancers, is the African American
family that we saw diving into the chaotic bowling alley. The brothers are trying to show each other
their best moves, while the mom and dad share a rare dance together. Right next to them are the two
aspiring rappers, not trying to sell their CDs, but instead they are dropping some of the money they
have earned into the various donation buckets. Standing in the back is the businessman trying to
act professional, but temptation starts to take over as he dances to the beat. The Indian family that
could barely order a hot dog are now standing and admiring the fire spinners, faces full of awe and
disbelief, amazed that nobody gets hurt. The Mexicans and the health nuts have finished their meals,
and for dessert, they too have decided to stick around and take advantage of the amazing talents
being put on display. Strangers lay together on the raised, altar-like cement section of The Market,
letting the beat of the music pulse through their body as they stare together at the stars. Even the
individuals in front of Vintage Vinyl that work so hard to be different from other people are coming
together to be one with everybody else.
As we come to the end of the sixth block, we are met by statues of a female and male lion. The
statues are in the place where the trolleys used to make their loop to head back to the city, giving
this area the name, The Loop. These lions overlook The Loop, symbolically keeping all of us in our
place, and keeping away the hatred. Looking back over The Loop, being shadowed by the night
sky, and flickers of light, like little fire flies, showing the life of the street. Just like every other place
in the world, there are unfortunate accidents that occur in The Loop, but for the most part, there is
practically no hatred here. Everybody of every background, no matter what the circumstance, will be
able to find a place here in The Loop.
62
Guilty Partners: An Examination of Confederate Prison Camps
By Jackie Keehn
The smoke cleared off the silent battlefield covered with blood-stained uniforms of blue and
gray. A soldier, accepting of his defeat, looked around to the almost 2000 comrades expected to
join him on the march to the train that would deliver them to Confederate captivity.1 Becoming a
prisoner on that April morning changed the Union soldier Lieutenant Alonzo Cooper’s life forever.
Like most Civil War prisoners, Lt. Cooper was captured on the battlefield and marched miles to the
train that took him to the prison camps. Lt. Cooper would ultimately end up in the infamous Camp
Sumter prison located in Andersonville, Georgia.2 Many men, mostly soldiers, met their fate in
the overcrowded, disease-stricken camps located in the Union and Confederate states. Historically,
the Confederacy has been held solely responsible for the conditions of their prisons, but the Union
refusal to exchange prisoners caused an influx of prisoners into the Southern camps, and more men
meant more disease and worse conditions. The Confederacy should not be cleared of her crimes and
wrongdoing in regards to the Union prisoners; however, blame should have been cast partly on the
Federal government as well. An examination of the Union’s faults regarding the prisoners held by the
South will show that the Confederacy should not have shouldered all of the blame.
During the American Civil War, prison camps were built in many areas of the United States.
Throughout the North, Confederate prisoners were held in New England, the Ohio River Valley,
Washington, D.C., and Missouri. Union soldiers were contained in prisons sprinkled across the South
in the Carolinas, Georgia, Virginia, Alabama, and Texas.3 Both Union and Confederate prisons held
enemy soldiers, spies, and political dissenters. Other than the typical male soldier, prison camps
also housed female spies like Belle Boyd, a spy of the Confederacy who was held in the Old Capitol
Prison in Washington, D.C.4 All of the prison camps in the North and South have histories tainted
with horror stories regarding the treatment of the prisoners held within their walls, but the prisons
of the South were the most notorious. The Confederate prisons barely fed their prisoners and were
unable to maintain adequate shelter for the souls unlucky enough to be detained in the South. Both
the Confederate and Federal leadership were largely to blame for the hardships faced by the Union
soldiers who were captured. Neither the Federal nor Confederate governments felt that the war
would last very long and did not make sufficient arrangements for the enemy soldiers that each
side captured.5 In the South especially, more men were being imprisoned than there were prisons
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to house them. Both the Union and Confederacy created makeshift prisons as quickly as time and
resources allowed. Land and resources for prisons were plentiful in the South, but there was not
enough industrial technology to use either one efficiently. For example, Andersonville was situated
in a dense forest, but there were no sawmills to make use of the lumber to create barracks for the
prisoners held there. 6
Confederate camps suffered from overcrowding and poor conditions because the governments
of the North and South refused to seek a compromise on the prisoner exchange system. In July of
1862, the Confederate and the Union governments entered into the Dix-Hill cartel, which explained
“points of exchange and ratios of prisoner exchange.”7 The terms agreed upon were that officers
were exchanged rank for rank, and soldiers were traded man for man.8 Another aspect of the
cartel involved the ratio used to exchange men of unequal rank. The agreement outlined that,
“A non-commissioned officer was equal to two privates, a lieutenant to four, and so on up to a
commanding general who was worth sixty privates.”9 Other than the exchange option, prisoners
were also paroled, which prevented them from rejoining the conflict. Paroled prisoners took oaths
that they would “not take up arms [against their captors] until formally exchanged.”10 The Lincoln
administration agreed to the cartel but refused to see the Confederacy as a government.11 Many in
the North expressed that the Confederacy was not an independent nation from the United States. For
example, one man wrote to the Editor of the New York Times saying that “were our Government to
exchange prisoners, customary in modern warfare, it would amount to an acknowledgement of the
enemy, as a belligerent—a sovereign power possessed of the right of waging war.”12 The exchange
and parole system remained in use until May 1863, when it was suspended by the United States
Department of War and stopped entirely by General Ulysses S. Grant.13
Two reasons contributed to the cease of prisoner exchanges. First and foremost, racial politics
brought an abrupt end to the exchange process.14 For example, the Confederacy refused to exchange
slaves fighting for the Union and sought to return the blacks to their owners.15 Aside from the refusal
to exchange blacks, the Confederate government also passed a law that stated black soldiers who
were escaped slaves could be tried and executed along with their white commanders.16 The refusal
to exchange blacks caused the Federal government to halt all exchanges until the Confederates gave
blacks the same exchange opportunities as whites.17 At this time, Lincoln had already issued his
Emancipation Proclamation and to exchange only white soldiers would have been hypocritical.18 The
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second reason exchange and parole came to a halt was that mismanagement of the system led to men
skipping their parole.19 Men on both sides of the battlefield took the oath to not fight until officially
exchanged and engaged in battle anyway. For example, Union General Grant recaptured some men in
Chattanooga that had been placed on parole and never officially exchanged.20 Confederate prisoners
fighting while on parole gave General Grant and President Lincoln another reason to suspend
the Dix-Hill cartel. Due to the inflexibility of the Union, the failure to exchange prisoners led to
devastating effects in the Confederate prison camps.
Among the Union soldiers retained in the Confederate prison camps, anger and resentment
towards the Federal government grew at the halted exchanges. Some of the Union prisoners and
their loved ones in the North cast the blame for their continued detainment upon the Federal
government.21 Furthermore, Northern newspapers like the National Intelligencer began to report that
the North was responsible for the nonexistent prisoner exchanges because of its unwillingness to
work out a compromise with the Confederates.22 The prisoners themselves began to doubt the Union
government and lamented that President Lincoln had allowed his racial politics to come before his
country’s soldiers’ well being.23 For example, Sergeant Gould proclaimed disgust with the Union
government in his diary by writing, “[O]ur folks allow us to remain here dying off like sick sheep,
but it seems they are more for the [Negroes] than for us.”24 Throughout the prisons of the South,
Union prisoners voted in mock elections held in 1864.25 The men voted with different colored beans,
and the results were shocking in some of the camps. Lincoln continued to hold the majority but the
margin of his lead diminished greatly among his soldiers imprisoned in the South. An illustration
of the feelings of some of the Union prisoners was written in a letter by H. Henderson, a prisoner in
Cahaba, Alabama, who stated, “Do all that you can to put the Democratic party in power. I think if
this can be affected, the inhumane war will speedily end.”26 The mock election proved that the Union
soldiers were beginning to lose faith in the Lincoln administration because the margin between the
president and General George B. McClellan had narrowed. In the Andersonville prison, Lincoln
held onto only a slim fifty-four percent majority of the vote, and overall, he had a sixty-one percent
majority in the prison camps.27 Union prisoners began to lose faith in their leadership and suffered
greatly under the crowded conditions caused by the halted exchanges and the cruel punishments
enacted by the Confederate prison guards and operators.
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Aside from the deterioration of the Union prisoner mentality, the ceased exchanges led to
immense crowding in the Confederate prison camps. In the Southern camps, more prisoners were
being captured than there were facilities for them.28 Especially throughout the Confederacy, prisons
were not built quickly enough to provide adequate shelter for the Union prisoners. Prisoners were
crowded into already cramped prisons, and the only way more room was created was with the death
of prisoners. Other than death providing more room, Union prisoners were constantly transferred
between prisons in the South. Many of the prisoners spent time in multiple prisons before the war
ended. For example, Lt. Alonzo Cooper wrote in his diary that he spent time in Andersonville, Camp
Oglethorpe, Charleston, Danville, Camp Davidson, and Columbia, South Carolina.29 The crowded
conditions only added to the spread of disease and death, but Grant still refused to reinstate the
exchange process.30 Grant’s plan to stop exchanges left the Union men in the Confederate prisons,
but he felt that the Southern forces would suffer more than the North from the loss of troops in
prison.31 The Union regretted that its soldiers were suffering from disease, malnutrition, and death
but felt that its forces could sustain the losses.32 Some Union prisoners were unable to remain in the
prisons and sought a new kind of escape.
Overcrowding, death, disease, and despair led Union prisoners to seek escape by switching
sides. “Galvanized Rebels” emerged when Confederate leaders gave Union prisoners the option to
take an oath and fight for the Confederacy.33 The new additions to the Confederate army often were
made to stand guard at the prison they were held in because there was a shortage of soldiers in the
South.34 Men who did take an oath to the Confederacy became very unpopular with their former
Union comrades. Union Private William Tritt noted in his prison diary the number of those who were
switching to the Confederate army and noted, “Nothing but force will make me work for a Reb or
Rebs.”35 Northern support, however, did not come to those men trapped in the Confederate camps,
and loyalty to the Union Army continued to diminish. In fact, in his diary, Sergeant Gould stated that
he “would rather be shot as a deserter than ever fight another day for the [Union Army]” because
of the failure by the Union government.36 The failed prisoner exchanges left the Union soldiers
imprisoned in the South to fight the horrible conditions of the Confederate prison camps.
The Southern camps were full of diseases that wreaked havoc on the Union men who were
left exposed to the elements with little shelter and barely any food. Some of the diseases that struck
the Union prisoners were smallpox, scurvy, typhoid, pneumonia, diarrhea, and dysentery.37 Highly
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contagious, those diseases like smallpox spread throughout the Confederate prisons like wildfire
because of the crowded conditions. Other diseases like scurvy were caused by a lack of fresh fruits
and vegetables. Sergeant Gould explained how the lack of vegetables affected the imprisoned
soldiers in his diary by recalling, “Thousands have got the scurvy and many getting it every day.
We have no vegetables at all.”38 Gould also wrote in his journal that the amount of food he received
while in prison was on some days only a “[one quarter pint] of raw beans and a piece of cornbread
three inches square.”39 In his diary, Lt. Cooper stated that the rations he received daily while at
Danville prison were less than what an ordinary man ate for breakfast each day.40 A shortage of food
did not allow disease-stricken men to get their strength back from their illness, and some men simply
starved. Lack of supplies caused the Confederates to build camps with insufficient shelter. Camp
Sumter in Andersonville, Georgia, was built as a barren stockade, which consisted of an open area
surrounded by a high log fence.41 Exposure to the elements and poor medical care ensured that men
stricken by disease had a decreased chance of survival. Little shelter from the elements contributed
to the spread of disease because men exposed to the extreme cold and heat had little chance to
recuperate. Upon learning of the harsh conditions of the Confederate prisons, the Northern home
front accused the South of deliberate murder and neglect of their Union prisoners of war.
The men who suffered in the Confederate prisons often blamed the South for the poor rations
and conditions of the camps. Lt. Cooper, for example, stated that the Confederates “practiced a
systematic course of starvation and cruelty.”42 Most historians now believe that the conditions in the
Southern prisons were caused by a lack of industry and supplies.43 During the war, the Confederacy
struggled to feed its own soldiers and people, which made providing for the Union prisoners of
war hardly possible. The Confederate government did not make any long-term plans in regard to
the prisoners and “did not have the industrial capacity to turn resources into goods”; furthermore,
lumber and forests were plentiful in the South, but the sawmills were barely able to replace the
railroad ties that the Union destroyed and could not spare the time to make boards to build barracks.
44
In the South, the economy was built upon an agricultural society. Rich in natural resources, the
Confederacy relied upon the cash crops of cotton and tobacco, but wars were not fought with textiles
and smoking supplies. With the Northern blockade of the Southern ports, the Confederacy had no
way to trade with countries abroad and receive the funds it desperately needed. Unlike the industrial
society in the North, the South did not have factories to provide weaponry and ammunition.
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Therefore, the conditions of the camps in the South were not insufficient intentionally because
the Confederates barely had enough resources to go around. In reality, the Union prisons in the
North were not equipped much better than those camps in the South because war caused financial
hardship for either side. Southern prisons, however, were the most notorious in regards to the
harsh conditions, increased death rates, and unusual punishment. In fact, Southerners even voiced
concern about the conditions of the Confederate prison camps. After viewing the Florence, South
Carolina, prison, one Confederate woman stated that she had “not yet become quite brute enough
to know of such suffering without trying to do something, even for a Yankee,” and she feared how
the intolerable prisons would bring “awful judgment upon [her] country.”45 In addition to the Rebel
camp conditions, the Union prisoners were subject to harsh punishment as well.
Throughout the prison camps of the South, the commanders and guards enacted harsh
punishment in order to intimidate the Union inmates. All of the Confederate camps had a “dead
line,” which was the boundary line of the camp.46 If prisoners crossed that line, the guards were
ordered to shoot to kill. Adjutant S. Byers mentioned the dead line in his diary and wrote that
“any prisoner crossing [the line] would be instantly shot, and without challenge.”47 The dead line,
however, was used in prisons in the North too. Men were punished for small infractions as well. For
example, in Belle Isle prison in Virginia, a Union prisoner without clothes cut his tent into sections
to protect himself from the freezing weather; furthermore, his punishment was to be “bucked, then
hung by the thumbs, and then set on a fence post.”48 In Camp Oglethorpe located in Macon, Georgia,
some prisoners were punished by “pegging” or the process of stretching the arms and legs and
placing a forked stick over the extended limbs, placing a similar stick over the neck, and rendering
the man completely immobile.49 Yet another cruel punishment across the South involved prisoners
riding the “horse,” a tall sawhorse that prisoners straddled with weights tied to their ankles, and the
men stayed there until exhaustion overcame them.50 Due to the harsh conditions and punishments
throughout the South, many in the North still believed that all of the responsibility of the dead and
diseased men should rest solely upon the Confederacy.
One fault of the Confederacy that affected the conditions of the prisons and exchange policy
involved the status of the Southern government. The Lincoln administration used every option in the
exchange process to keep from recognizing the Confederacy as a government.51 Common knowledge
is that the Southern succession caused the American Civil War, and following the break from the
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United States, the Confederacy set upon building its own independent government. During the
four years of war, the South operated under its own President Jefferson Davis and the Confederate
Congress. Since the South seceded from the United States, many were unfamiliar with how to deal
with the short-lived country. In fact, the Southern leaders were not really prepared and experienced
in building an independent country. The Union, however, could not have afforded to recognize the
Confederacy. In all arenas, the South had its own government, but the North refused to recognize the
Confederate States of America and to do so would have defeated the Federal stance on the war.52
Aside from not being an official government in the eyes of the Union, another fault of the
South was the treatment of black soldiers who fought for the North. The Confederacy refused to
see black soldiers as regular prisoners because black slaves were to be returned to their masters.
Furthermore, the South threatened to reenslave or execute black soldiers; however, the Union
responded by suspending the exchange cartel in order to hold Confederate prisoners hostage.53 A
Union prisoner in Andersonville recalled that “black [prisoners] often get lashed by their masters or
overseers…When the Rebels acquire a Negro soldier [that is wounded] they shoot him instantly.”54
White officers in command of the black troops were not immune to punishment and were to be killed
for “inciting servile insurrection.”55 These orders of execution enraged the Union further and many
wanted to retaliate against the Confederate prisoners held by the Union. Lincoln offered a solution
that would punish the Confederate prisoners equally to those Union prisoners harmed in the South;
furthermore, the President ordered, “For every soldier of the United States killed in violation of the
laws of war a rebel soldier shall be executed; and for every one enslaved by the enemy or sold into
slavery, a rebel soldier shall be placed [in] hard labor the public works.”56 This policy was never
really carried out because the Union realized that if a circle of retaliation began, it would never end.57
The South soon realized that its position on black prisoners caused more harm to its own forces and
began to exchange blacks in January 1865.58
Many also believed that the prisoners of war who were detained throughout the South
suffered harsh conditions and punishment because the Confederates were avenging their prisoners
of war kept in the North. Dirty and disease-filled, the Confederate prisons were inferior in terms
of management, shelter, and medical care for the sick. The prisoners often were subject to harsh
treatment in the Southern prisons. Ration cutting often punished prisoners when escape plans were
discovered, and men caught crossing the boundary lines of the camp were shot.59 Horror stories of
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the Union dead at Andersonville made their way to the Northern home front and cries for retaliation
began.60 A scapegoat for the sins of the Confederacy, Henry Wirz, commander of the Andersonville
prison, was the sole person who was tried and executed for war crimes related to the prisoner of war
camps.61 Wirz was convicted on “conspiracy to impair the health and destroy lives of prisoners.”62
Aside from the conditions, Union prisoners suffered cruel punishment; however, those men
imprisoned across the South found ways to escape the harsh treatment and inferior conditions.
The hells known as prison camps were most likely some of the worst places to be during the
Civil War, and as a result, many prisoners sought to escape. A popular method of escape throughout
the Southern camps was tunneling under the fences of the prison.63 In Andersonville, many tunnels
were found including one that “was 130 feet in length.”64 Other ways to escape were bribing the
guards, hiding in containers leaving the prison, swearing allegiance to the Confederacy, and death
as a last resort.65 One fantastic tale of escape came from Castle Thunder in Richmond, Virginia. A
suspected spy for the Union, James Hancock faked his own death, was carried out of the prison on a
wagon headed for the cemetery, and disappeared between locations.66 The ultimate and final form
of escape was through death. Prisoners who died in captivity were no longer subject to the harsh
conditions of the camps. Day after day of living in conditions of death and disease caused many a
man to seek escape from the devastating effects on the minds and bodies of prisoners. For example,
a quick form of escape by death was suicide, which involved a prisoner pretending to attack a guard
or intentionally crossing the dead line, which led to being shot by the prison guards.67 Aside from the
escape methods, the death in the Confederate camps caused horrible effects on the population, both
physically and mentally, in the North.
Overall, thousands among thousands died in the prison camps in both the North and the
South. In the South, 30,218 Union prisoners died while in captivity and added to the deaths already
due to conflict.68 Wiping out almost an entire generation, the deaths were also accompanied by the
mental effects of the Union prisoners. Those men who survived the prisoner experience were also
subject to mental and physical ailments. Research has found that Union soldiers who survived the
prisoner of war experience were more likely to die earlier with more physical and mental problems.69
Conclusions have been drawn that many Union veterans and prisoners of war most likely suffered
from post-traumatic stress disorder because of the hardships they faced during the American Civil
War.70 Following the war, many Union soldiers held in the Confederate prison camps wrote and
70
published their accounts of what happened while they were detained. Each time a new diary came
out, the writer revived the feelings of hate and revenge against the South. For example, in his
published memoir, Adjutant S. Byers wrote:
Our Nation will not readily forget her [14,000] murdered sons who sleep, uncoffined, at
Andersonville alone, --nor yet her thousands of human wrecks who walk our land—the
victims of Southern cruelty and hate.71
Furthermore, the relationship between the North and the South could never hope to heal with the
constant reminder of the prison atrocities that occurred under the control of the Confederacy. These
accounts added fuel to the fire in regards to the rebuilding of the South. Following the Civil War, the
Radical Republicans sought to punish the South for all of the wrongdoing she had committed. The
diaries, sometimes written years after the fact and often somewhat embellished, mixed truth with
gruesome tales that effectively revived feelings of revenge toward the former Confederate States of
America. The wounds that were created during the Civil War took much longer to heal because the
diaries and recollections fueled the fires of revenge and hatred that required years to smolder out.
The Confederate prisoner of war camps like Andersonville and others were the worst of
the worst, but not all blame can be cast upon the Confederacy. Yes, the South was to blame for
its mismanagement of the prison camps. The Confederacy was not prepared to handle the large
numbers of prisoners held across her lands. Always blamed for the conditions of the prisoners who
died or stumbled away from the death traps, the South has been wrongfully shouldered with the
entire responsibility of the blame. This paper, however, argues that the North was partly to blame for
some of the conditions that its imprisoned soldiers faced. Furthermore, the Union halted the Dix-Hill
cartel and refused to exchange prisoners of war until blacks were also traded. Stopping the exchange
program caused an overcrowding in the prisons under the control of the Confederacy, which in
turn, caused already insufficient conditions to deteriorate. This paper was not written to justify any
of the wrongs committed by the Confederacy but to merely give a piece of the responsibility to the
other guilty party. Therefore, although most Northerners felt that the South was solely to blame
for the conditions of the Union prisoners, the Federals had their fair share of fault in regards to the
Confederate prisons.
71
(Endnotes)
1
Alonzo Cooper, In and Out of Rebel Prisons (Oswego, NY: R.J. Oliphant, 1888), 31.
2
Ibid, 32, 40.
3
Frances H. Casstevens, “Out of the Mouth of Hell:” Civil War Prisons and Escapes (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2005), 5.
4
Ibid, 155.
5
Ibid, 4.
6
James A. McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), 801.
7
Casstevens, “Out of the Mouth of Hell,” 7.
8
Glenn M. Robins, “Race, Repatriation, and Galvanized Rebels: Union Prisoners and the Exchange Question in Deep South Prison Camps,” Civil War History 53, no 2. (June 2007),
117-140.
9
Ibid.
10
McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom, 791.
11
Robins, “Race, Repatriation, and Galvanized Rebels,” 117-140.
12
New York Times, “The Disposal of Prisoners,” Aug. 19, 1861.
13
Casstevens, “Out of the Mouth of Hell,”7.
14
McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom, 792.
15
Ibid.
16
Robins, “Race, Repatriation, and Galvanized Rebels,” 117-140.
17
McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom, 792
18
Robins, “Race, Repatriation, and Galvanized Rebels,” 117-140.
19
McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom, 792.
20
Ibid.
21
Bruce Catton, Picture History of the Civil War (New York: Wings Books, 1998), 487.
22
Robins, “Race, Repatriation, and Galvanized Rebels,” 117-140.
23
Ibid.
24
Diary of Sergeant Gould as quoted in William R. Kennedy, “The Horrors of This Place”
Part 2, Civil War Times 44, no. 1 (April 2005), 18-22. Kennedy, “The Horrors of This Place,” 18-22.
25
Robins, “Race, Repatriation, and Galvanized Rebels,” 117-140.
26
Letter by H. Henderson as cited by Robins, “Race, Repatriation, and Galvanized Rebels.”
117-140.
27
Ibid.
28
Casstevens, “Out of the Mouth of Hell,” 8.
29
Cooper, In and Out of Rebel Prisons.
30
Catton, The Civil War, 487.
31
Ibid.
32
Ibid.
33
Casstevens, “Out of the Mouth of Hell,”, 10.
34
Robins, “Race, Repatriation, and Galvanized Rebels,” 117-140.
35
Diary of Private William Tritt as cited in Ibid.
36
Diary of Sergeant Gould as quoted in Kennedy, “The Horrors of This Place,” 18-22.
37
Casstevens, “Out of the Mouth of Hell,” 3.
38
Diary of Sergeant Gould as quoted in Kennedy, “The Horrors of This Place,” 18-22.
39
Ibid.
40
Cooper, In and Out of Rebel Prisons, 218.
41
Casstevens, “Out of the Mouth of Hell,” 181.
42
Cooper, In and Out of Rebel Prisons, vi.
43
McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom, 800.
44
Ibid, 801.
72
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
Ibid.
Casstevens, “Out of the Mouth of Hell, 198.
S. Byers, What I Saw in Dixie or Sixteen Months in Rebel Prisons (Dansville, NY: Express Printing House, 1868), 34.
Casstevens, “Out of the Mouth of Hell,” 197.
Ibid, 285.
Ibid, 197.
Robins, “Race, Repatriation, and Galvanized Rebels,” 117-140.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Diary of a Union Prisoner as quoted in Robert Scott Davis, “Near Andersonville”: An Historical Note on Civil War Legend and Reality, Journal of African American History 92,no.1, Winter 2007, 96-105.
Robins, “Race, Repatriation, and Galvanized Rebels,” 117-140.
Ibid.
McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom, 794.
Ibid, 800.
Casstevens, “Out of the Mouth of Hell,” 198.
McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom, 797.
Ibid.
Catton, The Civil War, 505.
Casstevens, “Out of the Mouth of Hell,” 10.
Ibid, 185.
Ibid, 10.
Ibid, 234.
Ibid, 200.
McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom, 802.
Bruce Bower, “Combat Trauma from the Past,” Science News 196, no. 6 (February 2006).
Ibid.
Byers, What I Saw in Dixie, author’s note.
73
Bibliography
Byers, Samuel H. 1868. What I saw in Dixie or sixteen months in Rebel prisons. Dansville, NY:
Express Printing House.
Bower, Bruce. “Combat Trauma from the Past,” Science News 196, no. 6 (February 2006).
Casstevens, Frances H. 2005. “Out of the mouth of hell:” Civil War prisons and escapes.
Jefferson: McFarland.
Catton, Bruce. 1988. Picture history of the Civil War: The epic struggle of the Blue and the Gray. New York:
American Heritage and Wings Books.
Cooper, Alonzo. 1888. In and out of Rebel prisons. Oswego, NY: R.J. Oliphant.
Davis, Robert Scott. 2007. “Near Andersonville”: An Historical Note on Civil War Legend
and Reality, Journal of African American History 92,no.1, 96-105.
Kennedy, William R. “The Horrors of This Place” Part 2, Civil War Times 44, no. 1 (April 2005), 18-22.
McPherson, James A. 1988. Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era. New York: Oxford University
Press.
New York Times, “Disposal of Prisoners,” Aug.19, 1861.
Robins, Glenn M. “Race, repatriation, and galvanized rebels: Union prisoners and the Exchange
question in Deep South prison camps.” Civil War History 53, no. 2 (June 2007):117-140.
74
Why Adrian Piper Made Sense to Me
By Chelsea Pankratz
Many of the artists I encountered through my research of Letters to a Young Artist, I admired and appreciated. Artists in this book, such as Thomas Nozkowski, emulate the more formalist philosophies I agree with.
However, the artists that tested my values and beliefs in what I normally appreciate excited me the most. One
such artist is Adrian Piper. Her artwork forces me to reevaluate and research philosophers and their ideas in
order to understand why I am so excited and intrigued by her work.
When I learned that Adrian Piper is a conceptual and minimalist artist, I was doubtful that her conceptual artwork would engage me. I share some of the same thoughts as Clive Bell, agreeing with his theory of
significant form. Throughout my training as an artist, formalist ideas tend to sway my opinions. As I investigated Piper’s artwork, thoughts, and ideas, I found myself engaged with her work more on an intellectual
level. Her artwork helped me relate to Dewey’s philosophy that art can be an experience. In her conceptual
work, such as her Everything Will Be Taken Away series, the process from beginning to end is emotional. She
presented the idea of “everything will be taken away” in many ways. This message was written on a variety
of media such as mirrors, papers, sandwich boards, and even people’s foreheads. These words and the context they are in force the audience to reflect on how it applies to them. I truly did have an experience with the
majority of her artwork.
Not only was I excited with Adrian Piper’s artwork, as an artist with a military background and an upbringing in an urban city, I can also identify with and understand the importance of the use of statements and
ideas concerning politics, race, and gender within her work. These ideas are also the main focus of her writings
and philosophies. Her essay on “The Rationality of Military Service” first and foremost infuriated me. Just
like her artwork, the essay tested my values and beliefs concerning something important to me. Upon further
reading, her ideas engaged me in self-reflection and self-dialogue just as her artwork does. I also read her
essay “Intuition and Concrete Particularity in Kant’s Transcendental Aesthetic.” Even though Adrian Piper’s
philosophical work is based on Kant’s work, I found it interesting that Adrian Piper applies the idea of preconceived category differently than Kant does. According to Eleanor Heartney (“Art In America”, Nov. 2001),
“For Kant, categories of understanding and forms of intuition are universal and involuntary… But for Piper…
the major thrust of her artwork is to shake us out of a dependence on simplistic and stereotypical assumptions,” to understand or experience the subject, whether person or object, itself.
Adrian Piper made sense to me as an artist and a philosopher because her work forces me to think
about her processes, the messages, and meanings, and to reflect on what all of that means to me. Her conceptual artwork requires viewers to understand it and appreciate it by more than just admiring it formally or
75
through preconceived notions. Through my process of defining what art is for me, because of Adrian Piper, I
can add the meaning of conceptual artwork to my definition of art.
76
Contributors
Sponsoring Faculty
Student
Ms. Dorothy Arnett
Naomi Shonkwiler
Instructor, English
Dr. Karen Bradley
Jana Thomas
Associate Professor of Sociology
Dr. Darlene Ciraulo
Andrew Stallman
Assistant Professor of English
Dr. Amber Clifford-Napoleone
Kevin Courtwright
Instructor of Anthropology
Dr. Kathleen Desmond
Chelsea Pankratz
Professor of Art History
Dr. Delia Gillis
Lakesha Johnson
Professor of History & Anthropology
Dr. Theresa Gordon
Alexandra Echelmeier
Assistant Professor of Sociology
Dr. Richard Herman
Zadi Khalsa
Professor of Theatre
Dr. David Kreiner
Professor of Psychology
Heather Chaffin
77
Contributors
Sponsoring Faculty
Student
Dr. Mick Luehrman
Christina Bergstrom
Professor of Art
Dr. Julie Rae Mollenkamp
Emily Dean
Associate Professor of Theatre
Dr. Phong Nguyen
Cristina Fernandez
Assistant Professor of English
Dr. Jeff Peltz
Kathleen Reid
Assistant Professor of Theatre
Dr. Janice Putnam
Rachelle Carter
Associate Professor of Nursing
Ms. Maureen Wilt
Lenise James
Associate Professor of Social Work
Ms. Brenda Woods
Stephen Nemeth
Instructor of English
Dr. Eric Tenbus
Associate Professor of History
78
Jackie Keehn