The Superficiality of the White House of the Confederacy

The White House of the Confederacy on East Clay Street.

One of the major issues in studies of remembering and forgetting is a tension between what is revealed and what is concealed. As Lawrence J. Prelli discusses in his Rhetorics of Display, “Even skeptical acts of ‘decipherment and unmasking’ depend upon perspectives that necessarily foreclose alternative possible meanings even as they disclose purported truths and, thus, conceal as well as reveal. There is, to put it directly, no way to see that which is displayed as it really is, unencumbered by our own partial points of view” (Prelli, 10). The White House of the Confederacy, located in conjunction with the Museum of the Confederacy in Richmond VA, posits a fascinating look at the center of the Confederacy during the Civil War, not only through the message of the exhibit, but even more so through what the exhibit chooses not to address. Visitors to the White House of the Confederacy looking for justifications or apologies for the mission of the Confederacy will be disappointed as the house tells a decidedly superficial tale of the Davis family’s decorating choices and wealth during their time in the White House.

Visitors to the White House of the Confederacy begin their journey in the un-restored basement of the house. The tour then works its way up the next two floors, not venturing up to the attic/third floor area. From the very first stop on the tour in the lobby, the decoration contemporary to the time of the Civil War was pointed out- floor tiling, false marble wallpaper, statues and crown molding. Our tour guide Bryce went into great detail about the two statues of drama and comedy, original to the house. In passing, Bryce mentioned the Davis family’s ‘rented slaves,’ in the capacity that they would answer the door and chauffer guests in. The tour continued to the formal dining room, the men’s parlor, the women’s parlor, and the intimate library. Like the front lobby, Bryce discussed the original China in the dining room, authentic porcelain statues in the parlors, and the intimate setting of the library. What I was left to desire was more information on Bryce’s brief mentions of battle-planning meetings in the dining room and Jefferson Davis’s meeting with Abraham Lincoln in the intimate library.

Upstairs, the tour continued with Jefferson Davis’s office, the bedroom and the nursery. In an even more intimate part of the house, the details of the family’s tastes and lifestyles were given even more attention. I learned that Mrs. Davis was outspoken to a fault, that the couple had a double bed, and the stories of the five children. While it was indeed interesting and a valuable insight into the history of the city of Richmond to see so many genuine artifacts, I expected a much different story from the White House of the Confederacy, a story that took a strong stand either on apologizing for past wrong-doings of the South or on defending the ideals of the Confederacy.

The approach of focusing on the details of style and day-to-day family life reminded me of the article “Spaces of Remembering and Forgetting: The Reverent Eye/I at the Plains Indian Museum” by Greg Dickinson, Brian L. Ott & Eric Aoki. These authors analyze the Plains Indians Museum and its use of the ‘rhetoric of reverence.’ While the White House of the Confederacy does not aim to necessarily ‘revere’ the practices and cultures of the South during the Civil War, it employs several other factors of the rhetoric of reverence. Dickinson, Ott & Aoki say, “The social guilt associated with the violent colonization of the West is assuaged by a discourse of reverence, which erects a new social hierarchy in which respect for and celebration of difference becomes the valued social virtue” (Dickinson, Ott, & Aoki, 29). It seems that the message of the White House of the Confederacy aims to assuage the guilt of the South indirectly by distancing itself from its own history. The critics of the Plains Indian Museum go on to discuss modes of looking at history, and it seems to me that the White House of the Confederacy aims to look through what Dickinson, Ott & Aoki call ‘anthropological looking.’ They say, “The museum invites the visitor first and foremost to identify with (even become) the scientist and the curator. Identifying with the professional analyst helps the visitor keep the native Other at a distance and thereby hold the tragedy of colonization at a distance as well” (Dickinson, Ott & Aokie, 35). In the same way, the White House of the Confederacy attempts to hold its own ‘Other’ (or the African Americans wronged by slavery) at a distance by making visitors feel like their own anthropologists in studying design, fashion, and customs of the era.

The White House of the Confederacy takes an interesting approach to issues that history of the South constantly face- issues of guilt, apology and justification. Through the White House of the Confederacy, these issues are pushed aside and avoided by a strong focus on respecting and understanding the practices of the wealthy at the time. While visitors looking for answers or reason regarding the history of the Confederacy will leave wanting more, the White House of the Confederacy paints a lovely picture of Richmond, Virginia during the late 1800’s.

Robin Hawbaker

RHCS 490 Capstone

WORKS CITED

Dickinson, Greg, Brian Ott, and Eric Aoki. "Spaces of Remembering and Forgetting: The Reverent Eye/I at the Plains Indian Museum." Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies 3.1 (2006): 27-47.

Prelli, Lawrence J. Rhetorics of Display. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina, 2006.

"The Museum of the Confederacy: Visit the White House of the Confederacy." The Museum of the Confederacy:. The Museum of the Confederacy. Web. 17 Feb. 2012. <http://www.moc.org/site/PageServer?pagename=visit_wh_main>.