Recently I have been blessed with a number of sources of writing support that have helped me maintain my productivity over the summer. Both in person with fellow academics and online with Twitter, I have found a community of writers brimming with ideas on how to keep the words coming. This post is dedicated to all those who have helped me to build momentum over the past few months.

For the past two weeks, I have been meeting weekly with a group of fellow art historians to talk about our writing process. We were inspired to create this group from a number of sources. First, there was an excellent article in the Chronicle of Higher Education by Joli Jensen on the importance of writing support to keep academic writers accountable and productive. In the article, Jensen describes a type of writing support group that focuses not on content critique, but on setting goals and establishing an effective writing process. She writes:

What academics need from a writing group is not criticism but, rather, encouragement and accountability. We need advice on overcoming the obstacles that keep us from writing in the first place. We need help getting our writing done — not just planned and agonized over. Productivity techniques often work best when someone is there reminding us of them. And committing to an academic writing group that focuses on setting regular writing goals helps hold us accountable. – See more at: https://chroniclevitae.com/news/955-don-t-go-it-alone#sthash.90kdK39u.dpuf

• We keep a notebook where each member can write her personal goal for the next week of writing; and
• Each week, one member circulates a short piece about some aspect of the writing process for group discussion.

So far, our meetings have covered methods for building a daily writing process, the travails of organizing mounds of research into coherent articles or chapters, ways to get unstuck when writing is not coming freely, and many other topics. It is not yet clear whether we’ll be able to keep up the frequency of meetings once the fall semester starts, as some of us are heading back into the classroom while others are embarking on fellowships in other states, but for now, the group is a source of inspiration.

I have also been lucky to tap into online writing communities with Twitter, both academically and with fiction writers. I am deeply indebted to the writers who tweet under the hashtags of the monthly Writing Challenge. These writers have the daily goal of producing 500 words or spending one hours on the editing process. Writers who succeed tweet their progress with the monthly hashtag (this month’s is #JulyWritingChallenge), and members congratulate each other on their success. I began participating in the challenges at the beginning of June, and while I have not managed to hit the benchmarks every day, I have been very happy with my overall progress, and I have been overwhelmed with the warmth and inclusiveness of this writing community.

Likewise, I have enjoyed following the conversations under the hashtags #acwri and #GetYourManuscriptOut, where academics herald each other’s successes and offer support and encouragement along the difficult road of academic publishing. This community has given me the courage to tackle difficult edits and send manuscripts out, and for this I am grateful.

If you are struggling at some stage in your writing process, I highly recommend adopting one or more of these methods to support you as you pursue your goals! Academic writing (or any other form of writing) can be a lonely road, but discussions with other writers can make a great deal of difference.

I’ve been staying out in Lincoln, MA during my two-week research stint at the Massachusetts Historical Society, and in honor of my last night in town, I drove over to the Minute Man National Historical Park to visit Daniel Chester French’s 1875 Minute Man. I have a lot of personal history with this sculpture: it was the main focus of my dissertation chapter on post-Civil War monuments to Revolutionary War soldiers, and I’m hoping that an article I’ve written based on that chapter will find a home in an academic journal soon. On this cool, overcast summer evening, I found the statue looking as handsome as ever, and for once I had the site all to myself for some quiet contemplation.

Daniel Chester French, Minute Man, Concord, MA, 1875

This statue was the first major work by Daniel Chester French, who would go on to become one of the most celebrated American sculptors of its era. Sculpted when he was just twenty-three, the statue betrays some youthful mistakes in modeling, and there are some angles from which it looks distinctly awkward. But from this particular spot, the young soldier vibrates with youthful vigor and agility. The strong diagonals of the musket, the strap of the ammunition bag, the handle of the plow, and the gracefully extended right leg all contribute to a dynamic forward-facing directionality. And from this angle, the upturned brim of the hat adds an air of insouciance to the figure.

Before sculpting the Minute Man, French was an aspiring sculptor making small tabletop figural groups for sale in Parian porcelain. When conceiving the statue, the Concord monument committee initially envisioned a granite statue that could have been one of the many dotting the American landscape after the Civil War. But in French’s young hands, the statue became something else entirely: a first entry in what would prove to be an exciting artistic career. After he delivered the Minute Man to Concord, French sailed for Italy to further his artistic training, and this first major work opened many doors for his advancement.

Detail of Daniel Chester French, Minute Man, Concord, MA, 1875

There is much more to the story, and I hope to share it all someday. I have thought a lot about how this statue honoring vigorous youth, sculpted in honor of the centennial of the battles of Lexington and Concord, is related to the sectional crisis that had occurred only ten years before. For me, this electrifying sculpture of a Revolutionary soldier would not have been possible without the shadow of the Civil War, which filled American hearts and minds with images of young men going to war. The Revolutionary men who answered the call at Lexington and Concord were all in their graves by the time this statue was dedicated, and those present at the ceremony who remembered them knew them as frail elders. But the statue pulses with the energy of a generation that had seen its own bitter conflicts, and that went to war with a notion of completing unfinished Revolutionary business. As I pursue further writing and publishing on this statue, I hope to advance this interpretation of the Minute Man‘s story.

Cyrus and Darius Cobb, designers, Civil War Memorial, Cambridge Common, MA, 1870

My research stint in Boston hit a slight bump this week in the form of a flat tire – one of four tires that I probably should have replaced before driving all the way from Delaware to Massachusetts. But I was able to turn this inconvenience into an advantage by dropping my car off in Cambridge for service while I went to work at the Massachusetts Historical Society. On the way to retrieve my car yesterday afternoon, I made a few stops to photograph monuments, and then went on for a brief visit in Mount Auburn Cemetery.

The first stop on my journey was Cambridge Common, where I paused to photograph a Civil War soldier monument designed by Cyrus and Darius Cobb and erected in 1870. This elaborate granite pile honors the soldiers and sailors of Cambridge who perished during the war, each of whom are named on bronze plaques on the base. In the center of the architectural structure is a bronze statue of Abraham Lincoln sculpted by Augustus Saint-Gaudens and added to the structure in 1887. Materials I’ve consulted at the MHS suggest that the alcove where the Lincoln statue stands was once a source of disagreement for members of the committee who erected it, as different members suggests various types of statuary to fill the niche. I hope to pursue this line of inquiry further as an element of my book project.

Prince Hall Monument, Cambridge Common, erected 2010

After visiting this monument, I wandered around the Common a little bit to look at some of the other memorials. One of the themes of my book project will be the ways in which Civil War monuments were often placed in civic spaces that became magnets for other types of memorial sculpture. I hope to think further about whether this activity of adding additional monuments to a space alters or colors the meaning of monuments that are already present. A potentially potent example is this monument erected in 2010 to Prince Hall, an African-American abolitionist and community leader in colonial Boston who founded the African Grand Lodge of North America. The five polished granite plinths are engraved with words by and about Hall, decrying the dehumanizing evils of slavery and promoting efforts to abolish it. This new monument claims a portion of the Cambridge Common to call attention to a narrative of abolition that centers on the freedmen who worked tirelessly to bring it about. Placed at a slight remove from a Civil War monument featuring the Great Emancipator, this memorial brings additional shades of meaning.

Theo Alice Ruggles Kitson, Spanish-American War Memorial (The Hiker), Cambridge, MA

As I left Cambridge Common and walked down Concord Avenue to pick up my car, I stumbled upon one of the many casts of Theo Alice Ruggles Kitson’s Hiker that appear throughout Massachusetts and elsewhere in the United States. These monuments to citizen soldiers of the Spanish-American War appeared in one of my dissertation chapters, and I am currently working on shaping that chapter into an article to send to a journal. Personally, I am struck by the sheer physicality of Kitson’s soldier, especially in comparison to some of the more slender soldiers that grace Civil War monuments. And I can’t help but wonder whether her emphasis on heroic masculinity was meant as an antidote to the real experiences of Spanish-American War soldiers, who perished in droves from malaria and other tropical fevers in Cuba, the Philippines, and stateside camps in Georgia and Florida. Over the past few days, I’ve been reading accounts of Massachusetts regiments deployed to Cuba during the war, and all of them describe a miserable ocean voyage, a few days of frenzied campaigning, and weeks of suffering in pestilential camps – a far cry from the heroic endeavor romanticized by men like Theodore Roosevelt. Kitson’s burly Hiker restores the romantic notion of war that the realities of 1898 eroded.

Martin Milmore, American Sphinx, Mount Auburn Cemetery

After picking up my car (four new tires!), I drove over to Mount Auburn Cemetery, founded in 1831 as America’s first garden cemetery. Mount Auburn is a magical spot for its landscape, its sculpture, and its history, all of which contribute to a deeply moving experience.

I first stopped in front of the American Sphinx, Martin Milmore’s 1872 Civil War memorial carved at the behest of Mount Auburn founder Dr. Jacob Bigelow. I last visited Mount Auburn in 2007, when I was working on my first paper on American monuments at the graduate level and chose the Sphinx as my subject. I don’t think I was quite able to tease out all the implications of carving a giant Sphinx in honor of Civil War soldiers back then, and I still don’t think I’ve figured it all out. In the meantime, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about other works by Martin Milmore, especially his Roxbury Soldier Monument for Forest Hills Cemetery, replicated in several other locations. As a research subject, Milmore is somewhat Sphinx-like himself – he left almost no written record, and died under shady circumstances at the age of 39. For me, the mystery may be part of the allure.

Martin Milmore, Angel of the Resurrection, Mount Auburn Cemetery

While at Mount Auburn, I took the opportunity to photograph another statue by Milmore, his Angel of the Resurrection carved for the Coppenhagen family plot in 1872. While working on the dissertation, I spent some time thinking about whether or not Civil War soldier statues could be understood as akin to cemetery angels, and I still think there may be something to this idea. Both were often mass-produced, carved by artisans whose names are often lost to history and marketed through catalogs. Both are also easily recognizable figures that communicate abstract concepts through the human form. And both could be interpreted as explicitly funerary – the cemetery angel is placed on a grave, and the soldier monument is often a placeholder for graves on distant shores that cannot be easily visited. Martin Milmore was known primarily for his soldier monuments, but the fact that he also made at least one cemetery angel is, to me, suggestive. His involvement in these various memorial projects is one of many indicators of the ways in which public commemoration intersected with the funerary sphere in the nineteenth century.

Grave of Lieutenant Huntington Frothingham Wolcott (right)

But my primary reason for taking a trip to Mount Auburn was to visit the grave of Lieutenant Huntington Frothingham Wolcott, with whose letters I spent so many poignant hours at the Massachusetts Historical Society last week. As I mentioned in a post last week, Wolcott was a young soldier who served only four months in the 2nd Massachusetts Cavalry before dying of malarial fever on June 9, 1865, at the age of nineteen. In letters to his parents written between February and May 1865, he described the sometimes grueling pace of his life in the army, his impressions of the Virginia countryside in early spring, his first foray into battle at Five Forks, his joy at the surrender of Lee’s army, his grief at the assassination of President Lincoln, and many other topics. While reading and transcribing the letters of this young man, I began to feel a sense of affection for him, and it felt right to visit his gravesite to process some of these emotions.

Jacob Bigelow, designer, Washington Tower, Mount Auburn Cemetery

My final stop in Mount Auburn was the Washington Tower designed by Jacob Bigelow and erected between 1852 and 1854. My experience climbing to the top of this tower was almost the exact opposite of my climb up the Bunker Hill Monument last week. This tower is not nearly as tall as the one at the Bunker Hill battlefield, but it is placed at the top of a high hill that offers a magnificent view of greater Boston. Also, I had the tower to myself, so I was able to enjoy the view in solitude. There are two viewing platforms on the tower: one at the circle of battlements about two thirds of the way up the tower, and the other at the very top, which is open to the sky. I have already mentioned my fear of heights, and the experience of emerging from the darkness into the sunlight at the top of this tower was a little extreme, especially with the brisk wind threatening rain that buffeted me as I stood at the rampart. But the view from the top is sublime, certainly one of the best in Boston and to my mind better than the experience I had at Bunker Hill, especially with the structure being so open. Given how deserted it was, it seems this may be one of the best-kept secrets in the Boston area.

I’ll finish this post with one image that doesn’t even begin to do justice to the view:

Two more days of research, and then I’ll be on my way back to Delaware and back to work on my various manuscripts!

Bunker Hill Monument, Boston, MA

I’m currently up in Boston for a two-week stay to finish out the remainder of my time as a Suzanne and Caleb Loring Fellow on the Civil War, Its Origins, and Consequences at the Massachusetts Historical Society and the Boston Athenaeum. I’m spending my last two weeks at the MHS revisiting some great material I unearthed during my previous visit last September, which is keeping me quite busy. But yesterday I had the pleasure of visiting a site that has long been on my mind: the Bunker Hill Monument on the site of the famous Revolutionary battle. This 221-ft obelisk was erected between 1823 and 1842 and dedicated on June 17, 1843. Inside, there are 294 steps leading up to a small landing with four windows that offer a remarkable view of the city of Boston and its harbor. The monument was erected after years of fundraising by an extremely dedicated Bunker Hill Monument Association, and I often come across records of the association’s activities when I am conducting research on my Civil War statues. Today, the monument may seem rather commonplace – one of many tall obelisks honoring important people or events in American history with a view of the surrounding landscape. But the Bunker Hill Monument is one of the first of its kind, and thus served as a model for the others that followed.

I left the MHS at about 3pm yesterday to take the T across town before the monument closed at 5pm. When I arrived, I obtained a free ticket for a 4pm climb at the Bunker Hill Museum across the street from the monument, and then made my way to the base of the obelisk. Inside, the spiral staircase is narrow and steep, with every 25th step numbered to encourage climbers to make it all the way to the top. About halfway up, I began to regret the fact that I haven’t been exercising lately. By the time I got to the top, I was huffing and puffing, but I was rewarding with a terrific view.

View from the top of the Bunker Hill Monument (slightly smudgy due to protective glass)

While I was admiring the view, the little room at the top of the monument grew very crowded, as several people who seemed to be part of a tour came up shortly behind me. Because of this, I left a little sooner than I might have otherwise, and encountered many fellow climbers on the way back down the stairs, waiting for their chance to get a look at the view. This part was a little panic-inducing, as I am both claustrophobic and afraid of heights, but I have found that I am willing to push a lot of my own phobic boundaries when monuments are involved.

William Wetmore Story, Colonel William Prescott, 1880

Outside, I encountered a fine statue of Colonel William Prescott by the American expatriate sculptor William Wetmore Story. Erected in 1880, this memorial to the commander of American forces at Bunker Hill depicts him holding out a hand to stay his troops’ fire until the enemy approached near enough to reveal “the whites of their eyes.” The sword in his hand is modeled on the original artifact, passed down through the Prescott family and now in the collection of the Massachusetts Historical Society, where I am currently a fellow. One thing that constantly amazes me when I conduct research in and around Boston is the interconnectedness of leading Boston families and institutions. For instance, I am currently working with letters written by Huntington Frothingham Wolcott, a Civil War soldier who joined the 2nd Massachusetts Cavalry in February 1865 and followed the regiment through the desperate last days of the war: the battle of Five Forks, Appomattox, and Lincoln’s assassination, only to die on June 9, 1865 from malaria contracted during his time in the army. His younger brother, Roger Wolcott, eventually married Edith Prescott, a great-granddaughter of Captain William Prescott. And this is only one of many family connections I have found among the various subjects of my research.

And to end this post, here I am next to the Bunker Hill Monument. It was a lovely afternoon jaunt, with beautiful weather, and I spent a few pleasant moments sitting on the grass before I departed. I expect that there will be more Boston monument adventures before I head back to Delaware.