Posted by: Erin Longbottom | 15th Oct, 2009

Semi-Whitman Related Findings in Front Royal

I spent my break in Front Royal, and happened to go there on a day where they were having a street festival or something. Anyway, they had a little Confederate museum tucked away in the downtown area, and because of the festival we got to go for free! So two things that I think are of interest:

This flag was flown during the battle of Fredericksburg, as well as some other big name battles. The lighting isnt great, but you should be able to make out Fredericksburg embroidered on the bottom.

This flag was flown during the battle of Fredericksburg, as well as some other big name battles. The lighting isn't great, but you should be able to make out "Fredericksburg" embroidered on the bottom.

This is a list of places where the flag was flown.

This is a list of places where the flag was flown.

This flag was flown at the Spotsylvania Court House battle.

This flag was flown at the Spotsylvania Court House battle.

And also just for fun:

This is made entirely out of locks of human hair from a bunch of different people, including...

This is made entirely out of locks of human hair from a bunch of different people, including...

See where the 1 is? That would mark off Jefferson Davis hair. Awesome.

See where the 1 is? That would mark off Jefferson Davis' hair. Awesome.

Apparently this was an art form back in the day…strange.

My pictures/blog  from our field trip should be up soon, Flickr wasn’t letting me upload anything for a while.

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Awesome post, Erin! Actually, making wreaths and jewelry out of dead people’s hair was not uncommon in the 19th century, but this is particularly cool. Here’s a few links about it:

http://bushhousemuseum.blogspot.com/2009/08/collections-spotlight-hair-wreath.html

and

http://www.victorianhairartists.com/VictorianHairFlowers.html

By: Mara Scanlon on October 15th, 2009
at 9:07 am

This is really cool!

By: emilym on October 15th, 2009
at 12:17 pm

Great post! These pictures were all really intersting and relevant to Whitman’s prose/poetry. That wreath is a bit disturbing, but interesting none the less. What would people think if someone made one of those now??

In Cambodia there is a monument made out of human skulls, to show all the people who lost their lives in concentration camps in Siem Reap. Check it out if you ever have the time.

By: jessicaa on October 15th, 2009
at 5:54 pm

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