The History of a Misguided Intention


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North America » United States » Ohio » Columbus
June 7th 2011
Published: March 2nd 2012
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Columbus Art Museum gatewayColumbus Art Museum gatewayColumbus Art Museum gateway

Gateway across a road outside the Columbus Art Museum, by Doris Shlayn
I’m now in the second of Ohio’s three Cs, Columbus.

Today was the day to explore one of the most important historic sites of the trip.

First, however, I went to yet another art museum.

The Columbus Museum of Art is easy to spot for anyone in the correct area, because the road has a huge archway over it that spells out Art.


Columbus Museum of Art




The museum just recently reopened after a major restoration.

The permanent galleries are located in what appears to be the standard for the Midwest, a Beaux Arts building opened in the early 1900s.

On the inside, it features marble and granite lined corridors that really echo when people walk through them.

The ceilings are painted to look like mosaics.





The galleries are organized by topic.

The topics, in turn, are organized in a roughly historic order, but this appears to be a side effect of the design rather than deliberate.

The topics deal with such things as war and peace, expressions of love, landscapes, use of different materials, and abstraction.

This museum is yet another that now uses post-modern curation.
Movement #1 by Arthur DoveMovement #1 by Arthur DoveMovement #1 by Arthur Dove

Columbus Museum of Art

As noted earlier (see There is no Party Like an Art Party) this style of arrangement is very difficult to do properly.

I found rooms where most of the work was from a similar time period to work better; the rest felt like a jumble of vaguely related paintings.





The museum holds some significant work.

The first is an abstract landscape, Movement #1 by Arthur Dove, who helped pioneer abstraction in the US.

The tricky part of this painting is that the museum does not know how to hang it!

The donor of the painting had no record of which side of the painting was up.

The museum currently hangs it the same way the donor did, next to a photo of the painting hung the other way so visitors can compare.

The museum also has the 1919 Weeping Willow from late in Claude Monet’s career

The willow tree is outlined in heavy green and black paint and borders on abstraction.

The museum has a large scale collage of abstractly painted elements, including aluminum, fiberglass, and traditional canvas.

Its called La Vecchia Dell'orto, 3.8x, by Frank Stella.

The work blends traditional painting and sculpture into something that is
Weeping Willow by Claude MonetWeeping Willow by Claude MonetWeeping Willow by Claude Monet

Columbus Museum of Art
both at once.

Finally, the museum has a large-scale painting where the artist laid down layer after layer of acrylic paint, creating a sheet that looks like vinyl, Multibulge #6 by Linda Besemer.

The sheet is hung from a rod on the wall.

Pure paint has been turned into sculpture.





A newer building held temporary shows and something called the Center for Creativity.

The center is a set of rooms for people to look at art work (mostly sculpture) and then experiment creating their own works.

One sculpture was made of precisely folded aluminum sheets.

Next to it was a pile of tinfoil for people to try it themselves.

The results are displayed on shelves on the wall.

The sculptures ranged from things usually seen in a grade school craft project to surprisingly good items.

I enjoyed the center quite a bit.


The Anti-Saloon League




After the museum I headed to one of the most important historic sites in Ohio.

Everyone knows about the Eighteenth Constitutional Amendment that banned alcohol and created Prohibition.

Very few know that the organization that arranged for its
Anti Saloon League headquartersAnti Saloon League headquartersAnti Saloon League headquarters

The former headquarters of the Anti-Saloon League, now part of the Westerville Public Library
passage, the Anti-Saloon League, was based in Westerville near Columbus.

The city library now holds the organization’s papers, and has them on display.

The site is little visited.

This is a pity, because the organization has uncomfortable parallels with current moral crusaders, and Prohibition was a huge failure.





The Anti-Saloon League was founded by Baptist preacher Howard Hyde Russell.

He supposedly had a vision after giving one too many funerals for people who had drunk themselves to death.

Many, but not all, early supporters were also Baptists.

Other temperance organizations already existed; what the league brought was a new level of coordination.

They organized meetings, conducted research to document the extent of the “alcohol problem”, printed so many pamphlets they had their own post office, and got deeply involved in political campaigns.

They ultimately stacked enough state legislatures that the amendment was quickly passed and ratified despite having support from less than half of citizens of voting age.





For anyone with knowledge of current political debates, reading the Anti-Saloon League material is both educational and frightening.

Their pamphlets depict brewery owners and barkeepers as little better than mob bosses,
Anti-Saloon PhampletsAnti-Saloon PhampletsAnti-Saloon Phamplets

A small sample of the phamplets produced by the Anti-Saloon League
stealing money from poor honest families (the irony, of course, is that during Prohibition bar owners really were the mob bosses).

They produced a list of the evils of alcohol, indexed from A to Z.

The display has copies of this one to take home.

One pamphlet deliberately misquotes a speaker from a brewers’ convention, talking about how they have to seduce younger consumers in order to grow the business.

The parallels to current moral debates, such as abortion, are subtle and unavoidable.





Anti-Saloon research was a masterpiece of biased inquiry.

They discovered, for instance, that the number of auto accidents by town tracked pretty closely with alcohol sales.

Naturally, they then concluded this was one more reason to ban alcohol sales rather than that drinking before driving was a bad idea.

They also compared crime rates with the number of bars in a given town, and hospital admissions.

The conclusion for all was that dry towns had fewer issues than wet ones, so everywhere should be dry.

The final result of all this activity was a seven volume encyclopedia on the “alcohol problem” and how to solve it.
Prohibition election posterProhibition election posterProhibition election poster

Anti-Saloon League propaganda at its finest






The display notes some early premonitions of what eventually happened nationwide.

In 1910, Lafayette Ohio, with enthusiastic contributions from the Anti-Saloon League, voted to ban taverns within city limits.

The result was a battle in the street between mobs of temperance supporters and those who wanted a drink.

The Anti-Saloon League naturally ignored this sign of things to come.





This display contains a crucial piece of American history.

Too bad the records are in a room in a public library that few know even exists.

I wish more people understood the importance, for Prohibition still has lessons to teach.

Westerville, incidentally, finally voted to allow taverns three years ago after being dry for one hundred and fifty years.

Be sure to take a minute to toast the Anti-Saloon League’s spectacularly misguided failure while in town.


Additional photos below
Photos: 15, Displayed: 15


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Columbus Art Museum sculptureColumbus Art Museum sculpture
Columbus Art Museum sculpture

Wasahaban by Robert Murray, outside the entrance of the Columbus Art Museum
Multibulge #6 by Linda BesemarMultibulge #6 by Linda Besemar
Multibulge #6 by Linda Besemar

Columbus Museum of Art
Endeavor by Lino TagliapietraEndeavor by Lino Tagliapietra
Endeavor by Lino Tagliapietra

Columbus Museum of Art
Center for CreativityCenter for Creativity
Center for Creativity

Columbus Museum of Art
Alcohol Problem encyclopediaAlcohol Problem encyclopedia
Alcohol Problem encyclopedia

The Anti-Saloon League's magnum opus on why alcohol should be banned
Anti-Saloon CrusadersAnti-Saloon Crusaders
Anti-Saloon Crusaders

Membership cards and pamphlets supporting the anti-alcohol movement
Victory!Victory!
Victory!

Anti-Saloon League newspaper announcing the start of Prohibition


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