Original bow ornament of the 1895 battleship Maine.
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The history textbooks would have you believe that the United States is not and has never been an imperial Power. Right! And conventional wisdom has it the U.S. Navy was all business, with no time for the nonfunctional, the wasteful decoration and self-indulgent ceremonial that fairly dripped from the corrupt navies of Old Europe. Just as correct as Assertion #1.
It is true that many of the sanitized prints that have come down to us of the American fleet at war in 1898 show only the lean sinews of stripped-down warships. They look ready for battle: pugnacious ram slicing through the waves, guns probing alertly for any enemy, while Old Glory streams gallantly from the mastheads. Very true for the ships' wartime rig, when bow ornaments were often removed, packed away, and replaced by a simple painted shield: a shorthand for the fancy bronze relief and scrollwork as seen on the USS Maine (laid down 1888). Dewey's Asiatic fleet packed its finery away -- including the Aemrican chestnut paneling of Dewey's own cabin. It was stored it aboard a small flotilla of transports that accompanied the fleet, lingering below the horizon while the warships defanged the Spanish ships and forts at Cavite.
But when the shooting was over, the gilt bronze came out of the packing crates and was riveted back to the bows -- and sterns -- of Our Victorious Fleet so it would look its best during the lengthy round of victory parades and reviews that occupied the next two years. If not quite so, As this collection of American ship decorations proves, U.S. Navy decoration was fully as grandiose as the giltwork of the British or Spanish empires in the period. America's thirst for military glory was in step with its era -- just as America's hunger for territory beyond the Lower 48 reflected the fevered expansionism of the times.
American popular art reflected the surge of triumphalism that followed the U.S.'s easy win over Spain in 1898, sometimes in risqué fashion which would be off limits in our more puritanical times. The printing industry deluged the nation with often wildly inaccurate depictions of the military engagements of the late war, many of them featuring national heroes George Dewey and Teddy Roosevelt. Other prints depicted a more generalized pride in the country's newfound status as a world power. For example, this circa 1906 patriotic card invokes divine blessing on America's sea power (and U.S. dominion over Latin America). While there were plenty of critics of imperialism in and outside the government, this example is hardly unique. Indeed it is quite typical. On a more mundane level, many of the ships which had served notably in the "splendid little war" were festooned with fancy decoration to commemorate their noble feats of arms. One such was the USS Olympia, most famous of American warships, Dewey's flagship during the Battle of Manila Bay. She acquired a full-round wingéd victory figure standing atop a stylized dolphin at the bow and holding aloft a dove of peace. A circular curlicue and flowing arabesques in bas relief swept from her drapery down the sides of the bow, enclosing a full eagle and other motifs. On the stern, the Olympia's immortal name was set off by more swirls of Beaux-Arts bronze, completing an ornate decorative ensemble soon discarded as Olympia sailed off to war with Mexico in 1914.
Several other American cruisers got the treatment in 1898: a period shot of the gunboat Montgomery shows a nearly identical "trailboard carving" plastered like so much cake icing along the ship's prow. The smaller the warship, the more extravagant the decoration: as our photos prove, the gunboats Yorktown and Concord could hold their own with armored cruisers and battleships in this one category.
Although the decorations shown depict predictable patriotic themes, there was no regulation design. There was some standardization in ships built by the Brooklyn and Norfolk Navy Yards, seen on the Connecticut class, whose ornate bow decoration resembled President Theodore Roosevelt's bushy mustache from a distance. Admittedly, these decorations are variations on a narrow set of themes, but America's artisans, sculptors and bureaucrats created ornaments that, at their best, could be called high art. Since the days of Samuel Chamberlain, the precocious wood carver and architect of Salem, Americans had shown themselves adept at the decorative arts; they were not found wanting in pre-dreadnought times.
A full-color enameled medallion formed the center of Columbia and Minneapolis (above right), with a bas-relief eagle standing proudly spread on it and classical scrolls propping the medallion outwards. The Brooklyn's crest was similar but had sparer scrollwork in curvilinear wire. But then, there were the idiosyncratic opulence of the Olympia and the Mississippi. Worked around their protruding hawseholes, the Indiana class battleships had a two-tiered eruption of scrambled eggs, with the discrete areas of decoration divided by a protruding strake on the hull. This treatment was unique among the ships of Uncle Sam's Navy. The best way to characterize American themes at this time would be, no three exactly alike. Yet they compare favorably the the sometimes exuberant decoration being mounted on Continental ships of the time. The Maine is saved from dullness by the spirited depiction of native wildflowers used as the decoration. Half-hid by the hawseholes and anchor handling gear, these finely worked sculptural bits tended to get lost when mounted on the ship. But since 1922 they have adorned a splendid war memorial in Bangor, Maine in which they are the chief point of interest and really get a chance to shine. Since a recent gold-leafing and rededication, that shine is quite literal and dazzling.
At left, the stern of the New Orleans as she appeared during the war with Spain. The foreign-built cruisers New Orleans and Albany were begun in Britain for Brazil, and purchased from Saõ Paolo by the U.S. in time for the Spanish-American War. Both came lavishly decorated, in the flowery Hispanic taste, and their glorious curlicues remained in place during their first decade of service.
Some time after the turn of the 20th century, these pretensions vanished; the seriousness of the battleship's warlike purpose was more plainly stated as the drift toward world war accelerated. The white-and-spar paint scheme was abandoned and the U.S. fleet adopted haze grey over all in 1912. Paradoxically, armored cruisers were being rolled out through 1909 with fully filigreed hulls, but as the many pre-dreadnought ships were refitted for service in Mexico and then the European War, decorative flourishes were eliminated, never to return. Welcome to the No-Nonsense 20th Century! As noted below, many of the discarded ornaments found their way to state legislatures and universities where they remain treasured parts of their memorabilia collections. You will note similarities to the sculptural decoration in Beaux Arts architecture, so popular at that time for monumental public buildings. Stylized flourishes and eagles did for most American warships, and some sailed without any decoration at all. Building architects could choose from a broader sculptural vocabulary than naval architects: somehow a Beaux-Arts goddess or Cupid seems less preposterous adorning a stately façade than perched on the prow of a ponderously processing pre-dreadnought.
Turn-of-the-Century U.S. Navy Figureheads and Frou-Frou
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Some Patriotic Motifs of 1895 - 1917
A spirited bit of lithography honors the victor of Manila Bay: a sailor and a Marine hold up the hero's laurel wreath. So popular was Dewey that he made a run for the presidency in 1900, only to be trounced by Rough Riders hero Teddy Roosevelt, who ran for vice president that year under incumbent President McKinley. Dewey -- who once likened the pleasures of tussling with Teddie to those of catching a well-aimed spur in the backside -- lived on until 1917, a huge national hero still at the time of his death.
An icon of pop culture, the battleship Monopoly token, was likely adapted from the profile of the USS Oregon.
Below, in a vintage promotional poster, a young, vigorous Uncle Sam and Miss Liberty welcome the world to Chicago for the World's Columbian Exposition. For enlarged view, click here. Liberty here is an erect, engaged goddess: classic Gibson Gal features, not unlike the Bartholdi statue -- and two steps behind Uncle Sam. Other depictions of Lady Liberty ranged from the demure to the Rubenesque: but all express grace, power, vitality, even explicit sex appeal in many cases. No distant goddesses these, they in general emulate the buxom hourglass figure so prized in the Naughty Nineties. The headwear in Row Two is the liberty cap, first worn by firebrands in the French Revolution. And the graphics are all you could expect from that era of brilliance, the Gay Nineties. It's a decade whose cluttered elegance resonates with us yet, in crowded popular prints and over- ornate typography, in Beardsley and Mucha and Art Nouveau. The homespun patriotism of the time is celebrated in our webpage.
In 1917 came this iconic depiction of a gimlet-eyed Uncle Sam used as a WWI recruiting poster. The idea was borrowed from the omnipresent British "Your Country Needs YOU" poster featuring Lord Kitchener. Donated by celebrity illustrator James Montgomery Flagg to aid the war effort, this stern, compelling image is reputedly a faithful self-portrait of the artist.
Relevant Weblinks
