Local Leaves: Murfreesboro, TN

It is November 2009 in historic downtown Murfreesboro, Tennessee. The trees along the streets have shed many of their leaves onto the sidewalks. Some of the leaves have been raked into small piles between the sidewalk and the road while others crunch beneath people's feet. These people are Middle Tennessee State University college students en route to and from class, business men and women strolling down the street to eat lunch, joggers, visitors, children, wanderers. Over the past hundred years, an outstanding variety of people have walked these streets for various reasons, their feet crushing leaves from many of the same trees that stand along these streets to this day. These leaves are a small reminder that the present will soon be past--and that every day we are, in essence, making history.

A walk from the Middle Tennessee State University campus to the public square in Murfreesboro is full of historic homes and passing cars. Start walking on Lytle Street. Here sits a parking lot where MTSU students swarm to find a good parking place. Just a few blocks down the same street is where one of Murfreesboro's most famous residents, Jean Faircloth MacArthur, grew up.  Jean married General Douglas MacArthur, who was a prominent and much-admired general in World War II as well as the Korean War. (Wagnon/Hidalgo, Murfreesboro, 107)

In 1951, General MacArthur and his wife returned to Murfreesboro to visit. The long stretch of East Main Street that is calm on a normal Tuesday afternoon was bustling with people celebrating the MacArthurs' visit (Wagnon/Hidalgo, Murfreesboro, 108). Where currently the only sounds to be heard are those of cars driving past and leaves crunching beneath the feet of people walking on the sidewalk, a grand parade was taking place almost 58 years ago.

Closer to the public square are non-residential buildings. The large brick building that sits cater-cornered to the First Baptist Church now houses the downtown branch of Sun Trust Bank. "No skateboarding" signs posted on the brick columns outside the building are much less hospitable than the location's original purpose as the site of the James E. Polk Hotel. The original building was demolished in the mid- 1970s (Explore Historic Murfreesboro, 8). In 1960, that building served as the campaign headquarters for the election when Richard Nixon lost to John F. Kennedy (Wagnon/Hidalgo, Murfreesboro, 111).

As one nears the Rutherford County Courthouse, which rests at the heart of the public square, it may be necessary to stop for lunch at a small restaurant called City Cafe. This cafe is one of the city's oldest businesses. A glance inside its large windows reveals tiled floors, tables and booths, walls full of old photographs and paintings, and patrons who are enjoying hot meals and good conversations. The restaurant is not in its original place on the Public Square. However, its patrons are carrying on the same traditions (Wagnon/Hidalgo, Murfreesboro, 22).

In the early 1900s, the west side of the public square boomed with grocery stores, shoe stores, banks, and hardware stores. One such hardware store was Haynes Hardware (Wagnon/Hidalgo, Murfreesboro, 20). Today, the storefront of Holden Hardware, which was established in 1948, is a reminder of the 1950s with its stone-veneer and a neon sign (Explore Historic Murfreesboro, 5).

To the northwest is a less bustling side of town, with the Murfreesboro Electric Company and Firestone in the vicinity. On the corner of Maple Street and College Avenue sits The Heritage Center. At one time, here sat the remarkable movie complex, Princess Theatre (Wagnon/Hidalgo, Murfreesboro, 45). Across from the theatre was Batey's Service Station, where Pan Am brought news reports to Murfreesboro during World War II. Pan Am's slogan during the time of this war was "Free Movie News At All Pan Ams" (Wagnon/Hidalgo, Murfreesboro, 21).

As cars made by foreign automakers such as Nissan, Honda, and Kia make their way across town, it is surreal to imagine the days in the past when the only vehicles traveling these roads were made by American automakers such as Ford, Chevrolet, Dodge, American Motors, Studebaker and Packard (to name a few).

A photograph of a Murfreesboro street today has historical importance, not only for documentation of buildings and businesses, but for documentation of the cars that are driven--the cars being bought. American automakers are suffering in the current state of the economy; and the evidence of why they are suffering is apparent in a single photograph--American citizens are buying less and less domestic-made automobiles. Something similar happened in 1958, when American auto sales plummeted. The decrease in sales forced the Eisenhower White House to encourage Americans to buy American cars with the slogan “You auto buy now” (Bennet, Small Car, Big Shadow).

Transportation was a large factor in the growth of Murfreesboro. Further west from the Public Square is the Railroad Depot. This railroad opened from Nashville to Murfreesboro in 1845, mostly running postal trains. However, it also served passenger rail (Wagnon/Hidalgo, Murfreesboro, 91). To this day, trains can be seen and heard making their way through Murfreesboro.
The African American community in Murfreesboro established a neighborhood on the south side of town (The Heritage Center). This is also where Bradley Academy was formed in 1884 (Wagnon/Hidalgo, Murfreesboro, 76). On Vine Street, leaves fall on buildings that were once part of the Sunshine Hosiery Mill, which employed mostly women (Wagnon/Hidalgo, Murfreesboro, 22).

Returning to the Public Square, dead leaves are tracked in to Mullins' Jewelry shop as folks make their way through the door to find bargains at the "Going out of Business" sale. Mullins' Jewelry has been a part of the Murfreesboro Public Square since 1938 when Herschell and Mildred Mullings opened it (Wagnon/Hidalgo, Murfreesboro, 18). Its going out of business is an example of how history is happening right now. This is a stark reminder that we are consequently living in the past. The current state of the economy will inevitably force many businesses out of business. Photographs of the Mullins' Jewelry "Going out of Business" sign will be in local history books several years from now. However, the significance of long-lived businesses suffering and closing down is not of local interest so much as it is of national historical interest. It is close-to-home evidence of the impact of the current state of economy in America. History lies in the future and in what will become of the vacant buildings.

Every town, every city, every place is rich in history. Whether or not original buildings are still standing, old businesses are still operating, or well-known people lived and died in a particular place, that place has a story. Just as fallen leaves exist in piles or under the feet of passersby and eventually disappear, people come and go. However, unlike leaves, people leave a mark. Some of their buildings still stand, some of their stories are still told, and some of their 
actions have an everlasting effect on the lives of people who are living decades later. It is important to be aware that things haven't always been the way they are. Consequently, it is important to be aware that things will change. Every action and every day will inevitably become a part of history.

La Victoria: Orozco’s Vision for Mexico, 1944

The imagery in a 1944 oil painting, La Victoria, is a personified look at Mexico at the end of its Revolution via the perspective of one of the country's most renowned muralists, Jose Clemente Orozco. Produced 34 years after the beginning of the Mexican Revolution, this painting utilizes symbols, expression, and personification to describe the victorious finale for Francisco I. Madera and the Revolutionaries in Mexico. In several ways, it also describes Orozco. 

Visual Description

Painted with expressive strokes in violent reds, the center figure (La Victoria) is a winged and grossly obese woman. She is wearing a golden crown and a laurel wreath on her head. She is wading to her knees in a pool of red liquid, which immediately reminds us of blood. Her right hand is open and raised to the sky and in her left hand is a pole to which a large flag is attached. To the right of the woman is a group of four skeletal figures reminiscent of calaveras, which were made popular by Mexican graphic artist Jose Guadalupe Posada (1852-1913). The figures are raising their right hands as well; and they are facing the large woman, as if they are joining her in her victory. At the bottom right corner of the composition, in addition to the skeletal figures, is the helmet of a Spanish conquistador. To the woman's right is a very expressively painted area of color that suggests chaos, destruction, and violence. 

What can we make of this imagery? Given Orozco's background in political art and our knowledge of his paintings of prostitutes in the slums, it is easy to conclude that this painting personifies the victorious Mexico immediately following the Revolution as a warped and grotesque female prostitute. In addition, we can conclude that the skeletal figures in the bottom right corner of the painting represent post-Conquest (and pre-Revolutionary) Mexico. The chaos in the background expresses the chaos, violence and destruction that Mexico and its people suffered as a result of the Mexican Revolution. The following sections will be dedicated to explaining specific areas in the painting. 

Necessary Orozco History

Jalisco-born Jose Clemente Orozco grew up down the street from Vanegas Arroyo's printing press where the famous Jose Guadalupe Posada worked. Orozco didn't begin his artistic studies until around 1906 (Charlot); but in his autobiography, he talks about watching Posada hand color his prints through the window of the retail shop: "...it was in watching this operation that I received my first lessons in the use of color" (Orozco). Ironically, at one point Orozco took a job drawing cartoons for Dr. Atl's periodical La Vanguardia (Helm) and he created many political cartoons and caricatures as did his first 'teacher'. 

For three years, Orozco attended the School of Agriculture in San Jacinto. After leaving the School of Agriculture, he spent four years at the National Preparatory School studying architecture. It was at the National Preparatory School that Orozco discovered his passion for painting and decided to go to the Academy of San Carlos to study art (Orozco). At the Academy Orozco was introduced to Dr. Atl, who taught him "a new conception of the relationship of art and society" (House of Tears). 

Orozco's involvement in the Revolution was minimal by choice. In an article published by the University of Miami, Orozco is described as "never an authentic revolutionary (who) hurried off to the barrios rather than the barricades" (House of Tears). However, Orozco did sign a manifesto with Rivera and Siqueiros that called for "socializing art, destroying bourgeois individualism, producing only monumental works for the public domain" and often attempted to stimulate the lower working class to "free themselves" (Maya Stendhal). In the end, Orozco saw the Revolution as a source of destruction and violence (Orozco) and this is displayed very straightforward in La Victoria. 

La Victoria

In Man of Fire, a book about Orozco and his artwork, Helm describes Orozco's experience at San Carlos: “...Orozco began to frequent the slums which lay not far from his home in the old quarter of Mexico City. He had learned from the academicians how to handle his professional instruments. From Dr. Atl, he had further learned to put his classical knowledge to spontaneous usage. Now he began to find subject matter that moved him to action. This subject matter, long ignored by his colleagues and teachers, was the human figure as one saw it warped and deformed by ill-usage and evil-doing in the slums of the city."

Orozco's experience at San Carlos is obvious in La Victoria, as it is in several of his other works. At the center of the composition wades La Victoria in a pool of blood. The rendering of this woman resembles that of the prostitutes he painted in his 1934 mural entitled Catharsis. She is grotesque and obese, open-mouthed and ragged in her appearance--not a figure one would expect to see represent 'victory'. However, in context, the prostitute was perhaps the best persona for Mexico at the end of its Revolution. 

When Francisco I. Madero called for an uprising against Mexican president Porfirio Diaz on November 20, 1910, it was not unlike the call for change that six Mexico City prostitutes demanded of Mexican president Plutarco Elias Calles in the late 1920s. One of the demands Madero called for in 1910 was universal voting rights (Mexconnect). The six prostitutes, who referred to themselves as "daughters of disgrace", called for a better sexual commerce policy; and they made a connection of prostitution with the Revolution, defining themselves as "workers" and claiming to be "nationalists" (Bliss). Likewise, when the peasants and the "Maderista" troops defeated Diaz's government and claimed the Mexican Revolution, it sparked the national belief that the peasants and the workers must be redeemed. This gave the "daughters of disgrace" the leverage they needed in their case: “...prostitutes were overwhelmingly invoked as those citizens most deserving of ‘moral uplift’ and a second chance... Legislators, public officials, and private citizens alike invoked the ‘redemption’ of ‘fallen women’ as their cause célèbre, promoting legislation to ban procuring, to train women to work in alternative occupations, to persuade clients to restrain their tendency toward sexual promiscuity, and to abolish the Reglamento itself.” (Bliss) As it turns out, women were still working as prostitutes even in the 1940s. As Bliss states, "...abolition did not really redeem Mexico City's prostitutes or their clients" (Bliss).

Because Orozco personified the victorious peasants and workers of Mexico as a prostitute, it is possible (and safe to assume) that Orozco saw the workers' victory and the Mexican Revolution as equally as 'victorious'. Thus, the battle was over and the victor was named, but the intended ideals were not yet obtained. 

The Crown of Laurel 

In 1929, shortly before the stock market crashed in the United States, Orozco was living in New York where he had several Greek friends. In his autobiography, he speaks fondly of one particular occasion at a friend's house on Staten Island when he and his friend, Van Noppen, were "crowned" with laurel wreaths and given new names as a gesture of acceptance by the Greek culture (Orozco). This must have had an impressive effect on Orozco. As he described it, "Immortal Greece had deemed us worthy to enter her studios as the lowliest and most backward of apprentices." (Orozco) 

To the Greeks, a laurel wreath symbolizes triumph -- victory. On the surface, Orozco's inclusion of a laurel wreath on the head of his female personification of Mexico symbolizes the country's victory in relation to the Revolution. However, the laurel wreath in connection to revolutionary Mexico has deeper symbolic purpose than to suggest victory. The title, La Victoria, already tells us that the woman is triumphant. 

Orozco's Greek friends often compared the Mexican people to their own. Orozco best describes this: "To my Greek friends it seemed that their people of today have characteristics in common with the Mexican, just as the two countries bear a certain physical resemblance to each other. Alma Reed, who knew Mexico, confirmed this: the same primitivism, the same good taste in shaping and coloring objects of daily use, the same ferocity in defense of liberty." (Orozco) 

The comparison of Greek people to Mexican people is reason enough for Orozco to crown La Victoria with a laurel wreath. However, it is not completely convincing. A statement by another friend at that same party suggests a more persuasive motive: "Then Dr. Kalimacos rose and solemnly declared: to the Greeks, all true artists the world over, of whatever period, are Greeks." (Orozco) Thus, being crowned by a laurel wreath and being given a Greek name, Orozco was deemed a 'true artist'. Since Orozco represented Mexico in his group of colleagues, the crowning of the laurel wreath represented an acceptance of Mexican art by the most important critics in art, the Greeks. La Victoria wears a laurel wreath to symbolize Mexico's liberation as well as the country's progression in the arts.

Post-Conquest/Pre-Revolutionary Calaveras 

Orozco was not fond of the way the Mexican people defined themselves by their race and its history (Orozco). His explanation of the Mexican mindset is this: "At any given moment the Conquest looms more immediate than the forays of Pancho Villa. The attack upon Great Teocalli, the Noche Triste, and the destruction of Tenochtitlan did not take place early in the sixteenth century, but just last year." (Orozco, 107) 

Therefore, the skeletal figures in La Victoria are of reference to Orozco's belief that the Mexican people live in close quarters with their past. The helmet of a Spanish conquistador does not suggest that these particular figures are of Spanish descent. The helmet alludes to the Conquest and to how tightly the Mexican people cling to their past. 

The position of the helmet being on the ground and behind the skeletal figures is also important. Orozco believed there was no benefit from racial separation. In his words, "To achieve unity, peace, and progress, it would be enough, perhaps, to dismiss the racial question for good and all." (Orozco, 108) We can assume that the helmet symbolizes the Conquest and its closeness to the Mexican people. In addition, we can now assume that the laurel wreath on La Victoria's head references Dr. Kalimacos's statement that any ‘true artist’ from any time and any place is considered 'Greek' to the Greeks; and that Orozco is portraying this idea as superlative since the woman representing victory is a leader whom the skeletal figures are cheering on, admiring and following. The painting suggests that the mindset of the Greeks is the mindset Orozco had hoped would be adopted by the Mexican people.

In conclusion, La Victoria is more than an image of a large woman holding a flag over a small group of skeletal figures. It is more than a symbolic representation of the victor at the end of the Mexican Revolution. La Victoria is an artistic proclamation that Mexico and its people should rise above their past and become unified. As of 1944, it was Orozco's vision for the mindset of the people of his homeland, Mexico.

References

Bliss, Katherine E. Compromised Positions: Prostitution, Public Health, and Gender Politics in Revolutionary Mexico City. University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State UP, 2001.

Charlot, Jean. Mexican Art and the Academy of San Carlos, 1785-1915. Austin: University of Texas P, 1962.

"Jose Clemente Orozco: Landmark Solo Exhibition Maya Stendhal Gallery, Chelsea, New York." Hispanic PR Wire - The nations leading Hispanic press release distribution service. 3 June 2006. 14 Apr. 2009 .

"Jose Clemente Orozco: Paintings, Drawings, Graphics." Chelsea Art Galleries. 31 Mar. 2009.

"Jose Clemente Orozco: Paintings, Drawings, Graphics." Chelsea Art Galleries. 31 Mar. 2009.

MacKinley, Helm. Man of Fire: J.C. Orozco. Westport, CT: Greenwood P,, 1953.

Orozco, Jose Clemente. Jose Clemente Orozco: An Autobiography. Austin: University of Texas P, 1962.

"Orozco's House of Tears." Journal of Inter-American Studies.

Twenty Centuries of Mexican Art. New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1940.