Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Frederic Remington on Immigrants




I love discovering our "Western Heroes" revealing just how they really feel. Take painter Frederic Remington. As you can see from his work, Remington liked killing things. That evidently included undesirable immigrants too. Here's a quote from 1894:
"Jews, Injuns, Chinamen, Italians, Huns--the rubbish of the earth I hate. I've got some Winchesters and when the massacring beings, I can get my share of 'em, and what's more, I will."
Not only is the art bad, but the person is too. Sadly for him, Remington didn't live long enough to take part in the massacring, having died in 1909 after his appendectomy led to peritonitis. According to Wikipedia at least, his extreme obesity didn't help matters. Maybe the doctor was secretly a Jew or Hun.
Quote is taken from Thomas G. Andrews, "Made By Toile?" Tourism, Labor, and the Construction of the Colorado Landscape, 1858-1917," Journal of American History, 92 (3): December 2005, 837-63. It's a pretty interesting article and I'd recommend it to readers.