Liberty on the Border: A Civil War Exhibit Cincinnati Museum Center, April 5 – September 1, 2003

Review Essay Liberty on the Border: A Civil War Exhibit Cincinnati Museum Center, April 5 September 1, 2003 This outstanding exhibit enlightens,entertains, and challenges visitors to contemplate liberty and what it meant before and during the American Civil War in the western border states of Ohio and Kentucky. From the moment visitors enter, they are surrounded by the sights and sounds of history brought to life. Music comtemporary to the time plays in the background and applies appropriately to the subject under consideration. In the soldiers ' camp, for example, one hears the singing of songs such as " Tenting on the Old Camp Ground." This reviewer visited the exhibit on a Tuesday afternoon , and was impressed with the reaction of the other visitors who obviously enjoyed experiencing history " upclose . Some were standing before artist Rudolf Tschudi's large painting of Appomattox when a man told his son, " Your grandmother, mother,and I stood in that room in Virginia. This is very historic." One considers the dilemma of slavery from several perspectives. For example, an interactive disto a Union army camp in search of freedom and lift the panel for this choice,they learn that the chances are great that their master wi]1 find them, brilig them back,and punish them. If they decide to stay where they are, they learn that they will continue iii slavery indefinitely. Another display asks what would c, ne do if she or he were a white resident in Ohio and a fugitive slave family appeared at their door Cincinnatian William Haines Lytle 18261863 ) led tbe loth Obio Volunteer 1,! fantry Regimelit. Wounded twice in battle at Carnifex Ferry and tben Perryville,Lytle died at tbe Battle of Cbickamauga on September 10,1863. Pbc, tograpb and Print Collection,Cincinnati Museum Center play asks what the viewer would do if he or she were a slave in Unionoccupied Kentucky in 1862? Two choices emerge: If viewers decide to run away askiiig the meinbers of the household to participate in the Underground Railroad and protect them? If viewers decide to help, they learn that they might be arrested for violating federal law,and if they decide not to assist the fugitives,they will have to live with their consciences. The exhibit is in three sections , and the first, " Liberty Denied ," challenges visitors to consider the conflicting definitions of liberty in the antebellum period . Immediately slavery confronts theman enlarged photograph shows slaves picking cotton under the watchful eye of a mounted white overseen An interactive console of slave songs features a spiritual, ringshout , parlor song, and boatman's dance,and as viewers move on, the melancholy music hangs in the background. Graphic panels , photos, documents, and artifacts show how Henry Clay walked " the tightrope of compromise and advocated gradual emancipation and colonization. A minority of KentuckSUMMER 2003 47 REVIEW ESSAY ians, such as John G. Fee, demanded immediate focus the disagreement of the Ohio Valley public emancipation and Lincoln' s father,Thomas, voted on the slave issue. Color art from the period illuswith his feet by moving out of Kentucky. trates how Garner,a fugitive slave from northern Although Ohio was free of slavery,white resi- Kentucky, when surrounded by slave catchers in dents denied African Americans liberty by law, Cincinnati, murdered her twoyear old daughter social pressure, and mocking entertainment. The rather than have the child returned to slavery. Black Laws c, f Ohio discriminated racially with re- Proslavery people argued that the crime simply ilstrictions such as the requirement that a black fam- lustrated the brutality and in feriority of black ily had to prc, ve they were free before settling in the people. Antislavery spokespersons said that a state. Two handbills invited mother killing her child rather people to minstrel shows in f than have her live in slavery ilwhich white performers in t lustrated how horrible slavery blackface makeup degraded really was. black Americans with jokes, flks.. 1 I Cincinnati and northern songs,and dances that wreaked Kentucky had two great milienormous social daniage that tary alarms during the war and lasted for generations." On the f * 1./ 4 jL,* 4 4.-, the exhibit's second part, other hand, Levi Coffin and 1...