Hello I am Asher Swartz, creator of the fictional "The Confederate Life" newspaper. This is a fictional newspaper set in the Reconstruction period following the American Civil War. A brief overview of the contents of this fictional newspaper (brief disclaimer: I do not inherently agree with the viewpoints expressed in these articles and this newspaper. They are merely fictional ideas I wished to express.): It is called The Confederate Life (as I'm sure you understand by now) and it features two main, one age long each articles. One is titled “Dirty Carpetbagger” (carpetbaggers were northerners who moved to the South after the American Civil War to benefit financially) and the other one is titled “Honorable Gentleman”. These are articles written by someone very mad about the American Civil War and Reconstruction in general and is venting their anger by writing newspaper articles promoting Southerners and bashing Northerner carpetbaggers. They each contain quotes from a main person. The Northerner is Marshall Harvey Twitchell, a Civil War veteran who lived in the South, a self proclaimed carpetbagger. The Southerner in question is Edwin H. McCaleb, a supporter of the Confederacy. The quotes are from an autobiography for Twitchell and a letter to a friend for McCaleb. The articles use these quotes, and the author rants on about this that and the other thing. End of summary. Now, there may be some points that cause some form of confusion for some readers, and I would like to clear these up. First, there are only two main articles. Everything else is for context. Secondly, once again, this is purely fictional. Everything besides the quotes themselves is completely made up. To finish up, I will tell you why this is important. Even though this is fictional, it is a representation of something that might have existed. Its just an example of how people might have thought.

Artist Statement:

For my visual for my project, I decided to create a campaign poster for President Grant during his re-election run in 1872. A big influence was the appearance, at an initial site I wanted the poster to look relatively antique, and include the word re-elect very large, so the viewer knew immediately what I was showing to them. I also decided to use the Special Elite font to mimic the typewriter letters that were used in that time.   

I wanted to include a picture of the President himself, which is why I included his portrait from the whitehouse.gov website. However I really wanted the main focus to be the things that he did during his first term to show the states why he should continue to lead. A really big note of the first time was the ratification of the 15th Amendment. President Grant really pushed for this Amendment to pass, and was indeed successful. Granting the newly freed slaves their right to vote gained him much attention, good and bad, and definitely was one of the biggest highlights of his presidency.

A vital key to my poster is the stress on Grant protecting both blacks and whites. During his presidency the fate of a stable country lied in his hands. During reconstruction the states where bonded with very weak glue, and the president had to make sure everyone was pleased. Being that typically whites viewed themselves as more than blacks, he needed to find a common ground where the two races could not necessarily agree, but co-exist. A few examples which are summarized in the phrase “Protecting and preserving the welfare of the people of this great nation, no matter their color.” Include Grant sending troops to protect the newly freed slaves from hate groups.

Ultimately expressing President Grants accomplishments and milestones his first few years in office was my goal, and to do so in a small, yet eye catching and unique campaign styled poster. This is my Artist statement for my interpretation for Presidents Grants’ Re-Election Campaign.

https://docs.google.com/a/scienceleadership.org/document/d/1x6WTywuJwnKU8_uyAFMCkHEZfalPvVvYyHY0Q3lV-yY/edit?usp=sharing link to Source Analysis document.