Democracy, Entrepreneurial Pride and the Classical Notion in the New World

In comparison to this, how does the re-use of the same classical models manifest itself in a country that for so long lacked any foundation in classi-cal archaeology as a scholarly discipline and educational pursuit?¹⁴ America actually offers the richest variety of Greek-inspired architecture in the world,¹⁵ in both a quantitative and qualitative sense. American classicistic architecture is often closely associated with the idea of democracy. Hence, the title of Henry-Russell Hitchcock and William Seale’s book on state capi-tols erected in Doric, Ionic and Corinthian order: Temples of Democracy.¹⁶

11 Traeger 1987; Schneider and Höcker 2001, pp. 32–4; Nerdinger 2002.

12 The gate, executed in iron technique, is a free adaptation of the Propylaea on the Athenian Acropolis. It commemorated Russia’s successful war against Turkey and Poland in 1834–38.

Schneider and Höcker 2001, pp. 34–6.

13 Merz, this volume, is also concerned with the reading of images that are indicative of ideals (such as the IBM logo rendered by nanotechnology), as opposed to images that are accu-rate in conveying the phenomena in the travels of facts.

14 Yeguel 1991; Dyson 1998; Meckler 2006.

15 Downey 1946; Newton 1952; Scully 1973; Waddel and Liscombe 1981; Crook 1987;

Ackermann 1990; McCormick 1990; Curl 1991; Peck 1992; Höcker 1997; Reed 2005. Most of these architectures in the United States were not designed by professional architects but rather by builder-carpenters (Minard Lafever calls them operative workmen). Written records are rare. The following literature mainly stems from or deals with renowned and literally well-documented architects: Benjamin [1833] 1972; Lafever 1839; Downing 1850;

Lafever 1852, Lafever 1856. Gallagher 1935; Downing 1988; Bryan 1989; Lane 1993; Lane and Martin 1996; Seale 1996.

16 Hitchcock and Seale 1976.

And in a sense they are that. Nevertheless, the title is a misnomer, for it sug-gests that Greek-inspired forms were primarily understood as an expres-sion of democratic principles. This was not the case.

In the first place, it does not fit chronologically. Greek-inspired architec-ture swept across the states from New England, through the Midwest, and out into the most remote locations. This wave started no earlier than the second decade of the nineteenth century¹⁷ – more than a generation after the “fathers” of American democracy.

These fathers, the signatories of the Constitution, had also adamantly associated themselves with antiquity, as evidenced by written sources. But it was not classical Athens with its undesirable fate that they chose for a model, but rather the Roman Republic. Roughly speaking, their attitude seemed to be Antiquity, yes; Greece, no. Therefore, they never compared themselves with Pericles, but always with figures such as Cato or the leg-endary Cincinnatus: Roman politicians who were in antiquity, as well as in modern reception, representatives of a hard-working and austere life-style – not unlike American farmers and ranchers at the time, people who would in literature be portrayed standing behind a plough but at the same time were concerned with the community and the state.¹⁸ Later, as Greek elements became fashionable in architecture, decoration and sculpture, this attitude persisted. So visualisation of democracy was not primarily the impetus of this wave, and even later Greek forms were generally not inter-preted in this way.

Admittedly, Thomas Jefferson was well acquainted with French rev-olutionary classicistic architects and intellectuals, who introduced him to Winckelmann’s thoughts.¹⁹ So one finds various speculations in schol-arly texts that these connections strongly influenced the American artis-tic and architectural scene at the turn of the eighteenth century into the nineteenth.²⁰ However, this alleged impact is just not based in reality.

Neither George Washington’s residence, Mount Vernon (1743 and later), nor Jefferson’s Monticello are characterized by anything that could be called Greek revival. The same applies to Washington’s governmental archi-tecture during this time period. Both the White House and the Capitol²¹

17 Meyer Reinhold 1984.

18 Kennedy 1989, pp. 7–103.

19 Höcker 1997; Bernstein 2005.

20 Hitchcock and Seale 1976, Höcker 1997; Bernstein 2005.

21 1793–1863: The Doric columns in the room under the Old Senate. Architects: William Thornton, B. H. Latrobe, Charles Bulfinch, Robert Mills. Allen 2005; Reed and Day 2005.

are overwhelmingly Roman. Truly Greek forms were introduced no earlier than 1818, by Charles Bulfinch. And it is only in the basement of the Capitol where you find archaic-looking Doric columns copied not from a building in Greece but from an early temple at Paestum,²² which here supports a cap vault. However, this Greek element remained isolated within the architec-tural complex and remained isolated historically in the sense that it inspired no successors in the United States.

Rather, it was the new self-confidence of the next two generations, fuelled by Andrew Jackson’s victory over the British troops in 1812, a new pride following years of depression, that was visualized by this fashion. So it was not so much “temples of democracy” in a strictly political sense as it was an expression of the new economic prosperity and the new trend towards conspicuous consumption while at the same time signalling diffusion of civilisation.

It is revealing that it was not so much the old founding families who fol-lowed this fashion, but rather the young entrepreneurs. I think this is one explanation for the fact that – although you find some examples of Greek revival in places like Boston – there are, by far, more and more impres-sive examples found further west, in newly developed areas: in Troy²³ or Geneva²⁴ (both in upstate New York).

This new class of entrepreneurs neither saw in classical Greece a demo-cratic model, nor did they in any way reverentially look back to a distant past. For them, Greek forms were something akin to a garment suitable for their social status and new-found wealth. A telling example of this attitude is Whale Oil Row at New London, CT, aligned by houses with truly Greek Porticos in Ionic order (Figure 3.4), all copying a tiny temple at Athens that has meanwhile completely vanished but was drawn and published in print-ings by James Stuart and Nicholas Revett in their famous work of 1762–94, The Antiquities of Athens Measured and Delineated. (Figure 3.5). “Whale Oil Row,” indeed! The clients and owners of these wooden buildings of c. 1850²⁵ definitely were not classical philologists or any other ardent admirers of the ancient past, nor were they civil servants or politicians schooled in and devoted to ancient democracy. Instead, they were more like Melville’s Ahab.²⁶

22 Major 1768, Table XII.

23 Scully 1973, pp. 23–6; Smith 1976, p. 189; Smith 1981, pp. 468–9; Schneider 2003, pp.

154–6.

24 Smith 1976, p. 188; Smith 1981, pp. 434–5; Schneider 2003, pp. 154–6.

25 J. R. Ruddy: New London, Connecticut (1998).

26 Melville, 1851.

Figure 3.4. New London, CT. “Whale Oil Row”. c. 1850.

From: Photo Lambert Schneider.

Figure 3.5. Ionic temple at the Ilissos River at Athens, no more extant.

From: Drawn by Stuart and Revett (1762).

4. Transformations of the Classical Models