William Walcutt and the Creation of a Native Citizenry

Reynolda Mellon Fellow Wendy Katz presents her research on nineteeth-century artist William Walcutt, who heroicized colonial Americans, ordinary citizens who won their own independence. But Walcutt’s effort to revive the past in order to topple the tyrants of the present was undermined when anti-immigrant forces co-opted his working-class message.