Norman Rockwell by Laura Claridge Page B

of “being American,” the achievement of which the multitudes of immigrants could then make their goal. In curricular reform that reflected education across the country, the New York Board of Education began emphasizing a formal study of history that celebrated a mythic America of a decidedly Protestant-Puritan bent, an account distorted, as one teacher of the era recalled, by “omission” more than commission: “They left out all the terrible things that happened.” Such a focus on the country’s manifest destiny implied that the torch of civilization had passed from the (corrupt) Old World to America’s virtuous shores, an ideal picture thought sustainable only if the image of America was writ bold and clear and unified.
    George Horace Lorimer used the
Post
as an instrument of such “Americanization.” Worried that the country would be caught up in global concerns best deferred until the national identity of the United States had congealed, he urged his countrymen (and, later, women) to see their business as that of building a new nation, one where hard work, fair treatment of others, and rigorous if imaginative thinking would triumph against an effete intellectualism tainted with European elitism and decadence. Most important, he celebrated the ideal of an American community made safe by a shared vision of right and wrong. If he challenged readers to live a virtuous and informed life, he also encouraged them to look to their own backyards first and foremost. The
Post
aimed its advertising at an inchoate ruling class in search of an identity. The message found its audience among the country’s aspiring middle-class, largely Protestant population, which could consistently afford to buy the modestly priced magazine.
    Waring Rockwell typified the kind of customer targeted by the new
Post.
He liked its unpredictable mix of worldly cover drawings and the occasionally vivid illustration; the magazine was clearly undergoing major changes, and he was eager to see what would happen each week. And in spite of its slight sheen of sophistication, it still met family standards of modesty and decorum. Why, even the subjects that captivated the Rockwell boys showed up in this adult forum: the famous illustrator J. C. Leyendecker’s first cover for the
Post
appeared on May 20, 1899, a black-and-white drawing for a story on the Spanish-American War, around the time that Jerry bribed his talented brother into making him a paper fleet of ships.
    And, by 1900, Norman was already taking advantage of any opportunity to increase his skills and his repertoire of recognizable pictures. He had quickly realized that his brother would allow him to hang around his friends as long as the younger boy kept reproducing the various ship models that celebrated Admiral Dewey’s recent feats, cardboard pictures of which were now included in cigarette boxes. The child took meticulous care with each picture, effort that went utterly disregarded when Jerry and his latest buddy engaged in instant warfare once the objects were handed over. The older kids would take scissors and see who could cut up the other’s ship first, a too quick end to his art, even the six-year-old artist felt. A scorched-earth policy ruled, so that after ten minutes, hours of Norman’s craft crumbled to the ground. Years later, he still rued the contrast between his efforts and the disposable commodity he had brought forth: “It was sort of a frustrating form of art for me: five minutes after I had drawn the fleets, laboriously copying with much smudgy erasing, Jarvis and his friends would have cut them to shreds.” The memories the brothers later recounted of the mock war games speak loudly of the division between their sensibilities. One tended toward action, the other, contemplation: “I do recall playing sham battle in a vacant lot across the street,” Jerry writes during the same period that Norman reconstructs in his memory in terms of the artist’s role, meant to