On March 9, 1862, in the placid waters of Virginia’s Hampton Roads, the ironclads USS Monitor and CSS Virginia (aka Merrimack) met in battle. Their four-and-a-half hour engagement, while technically a draw, ushered in a new era in naval warfare. It also ushered in over 150 years of popular music, art, literature, and even kitchen appliances inspired by this event.
Immediately after the battle, the Monitor captured the imagination of the Northern public and was dubbed “the pet of the people.” Stephen C. Foster, working in New York, addressed his adopted city’s pride in the Brooklyn-built Monitor in a broadside published in 1862. Other composers wrote patriotic marches, galops and polkas, while a popular broadside entreated designer Captain Ericsson with the musical plea, “Oh, Give Us A Navy Of Iron!.” Southern scribes reminded the Union that the “The Virginia’s Still Knocking Around.” Playing cards, toys, and imagery flooded the market in 1862.
Neither vessel survived that year, however. The Virginia was destroyed by her own crew to keep her out of enemy hands and the Monitor succumbed to a storm off of Cape Hatteras on December 31, 1862 – taking 16 of her 63-man crew with her. Yet the passing of both vessels did little to quell the public appetite for them. The iconography of the two ironclads continued to influence art, music, industry, and household appliances long after the vessels had left the stage. In fact, the most recent musical offerings about the ironclads appeared on March 9, 2010 with the release of indie shoegaze darlings Titus Andronicus’ second album simply entitled The Monitor.
I propose a richly illustrated, musical presentation which will track the arc of the imagery, music, literature, etc. devoted to the ironclads and how this has moved from representational to metaphorical over the past 152 years.
About the presenterAnna Gibson Holloway
ANNA GIBSON HOLLOWAY is the Vice President of Museum Collections and Programs at The Mariners’ Museum in Newport News, VA, where she oversees the Curatorial, Collections Management, Education, Conservation, Photography & Licensing, USS Monitor Center, and Exhibition Design functions of the institution. At the Mariners’ she holds the Archer M. Huntington Chair for the Study of Maritime History and is also serves as the Curator of the USS Monitor Center. Known as one of the leading experts on the Union ironclad, she has lectured internationally on the subject and has published several articles in national magazines and journals, with a monograph forthcoming from Kent State University Press. Her exhibition “Ironclad Revolution” won the American Alliance of Museum’s Excellence in Exhibitions Award in 2007. She also serves as adjunct faculty in the Leadership and American Studies Department of Christopher Newport University, and on the board of directors of the Virginia Association of Museums, the Council of American Maritime Museums, and is on the advisory board for both the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation in Williamsburg, VA and the Museum of Science Fiction in Washington, DC. Before the cheesebox on a raft entered her life, she was the Director of Education and Resident Pirate, also at The Mariners’ Museum. During the waning years of the 20th century, she served as Manager of School Tour Programs for the Chrysler Museum of Art in Norfolk, VA; as interpretive and sailing crew of the Susan Constant, Godspeed, and Discovery at the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation; as a puppeteer and understudy fire eater for the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation in Williamsburg, VA; and managed import and indie LP buying, insurance appraisals, and retail operations for the Record Exchange in Greensboro, NC. This Winston-Salem native graduated from The University of North Carolina at Greensboro with baccalaureate degrees in English Literature and Medieval Civilization, neither of which was particularly helpful in allowing her to reach her goal of rock stardom. Neither was her Master’s degree in Tudor/Stuart History or her Ph.D. in American History from the College of William and Mary. But she’s ok with that.