Is it right to call a Lincoln impersonator "Honest Abe"?

x
Lady Liberty takes in the great American pastime.
Photo by Greta Pratt

On a recent Friday night, Gallery 13 in Minneapolis was filled to the brim for the opening night of its new show, "Using History." A jug band plays to entertain the crowd, but the audience's eyes are drawn to the photographs by Greta Pratt hanging on the wall.

Moorhead State University art student Valerie Michaelson drove down to Minneapolis for the weekend to check out the gallery scene, and she's thrilled to have stumbled across this exhibit.

x
Photographer Greta Pratt gathered together nine different Abraham Lincoln impersonators for her series of images examining how we interpret history.
MPR Photo/Marianne Combs

An entire wall of the gallery is hung with portraits of Abraham Lincoln impersonators. In one, Lincoln stands next to his RV, which he's outfitted to look like a log cabin. Michaelson thinks it's hilarious, but thought-provoking, too.

"The fact that we can recognize the symbol so readily," says Michaelson. "It doesn't matter who's playing the part. We have that connection with Abe through our money, through the penny... it's a symbol of integrity and yet it's fooling us. It's a juxtaposition between integrity and a joke."

Political Coverage Powered by You

Your gift today creates a more connected Minnesota. MPR News is your trusted resource for election coverage, reporting and breaking news. With your support, MPR News brings accessible, courageous journalism and authentic conversation to everyone - free of paywalls and barriers. Your gift makes a difference.

Michaelson says the exhibit presents a fresh take on historical symbols, juxtaposing their idealism with modern-day commercialism.

A Caucasian family dressed up as American Indians for a local fair is caught afterwards, loading up their grocery cart with Wonder Bread.

A woman dressed convincingly as the Statue of Liberty munches on popcorn while sitting in the bleachers at a baseball game.

x
Photographer Greta Pratt gathered together nine different Abraham Lincoln impersonators for her series of images examining how we interpret history.
Photo by Greta Pratt

Photographer Greta Pratt says she was inspired to create this series of photographs by an image she saw just after the World Trade Center attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. It was a poster of Osama Bin Laden, which said, "Wanted: Dead or Alive."

"I started to realize how that poster could be in a Wild West town, and how those symbols of history -- of which so much of it is mythology -- works to affect Americans today," says Pratt. "Symbols rooted in history create a national identity that binds us together and affects the direction that the country goes in."

Even before 9/11, Pratt had been scouring the United States, looking for fairs and festivals where people relive the past, or reinvent it. She found people dressing up as Black Panthers, Wild West outlaws, and Confederate soldiers.

"I think reliving the history of forefathers is fine, depending on what history you choose to relive," says historian Howard Zinn, the author of "A People's History of the United States."

x
Photographer Greta Pratt spent 10 years traveling the United States, capturing images of people reliving history, or in some cases, reinventing it.
MPR Photo/Marianne Combs

Zinn finds Pratt's photographs provocative. Zinn says he hopes viewers will contemplate why Americans so enjoy re-enacting battles. Zinn says he worries about the consequences of glorifying our military past.

"I think the real danger is the creation of a passive citizenry, that simply accepts uncritically everything that has happened in the past," says Zinn, "that doesn't really look with a very honest eye at the things that have happened in our country which we are not proud of."

Zinn wonders why re-enactors never choose to present the massacre of Indians at Wounded Knee. But to be fair, historical re-enactments are not a convenient arena to debate complex historical issues.

Re-enactors like Eric Ferguson say they're simply trying to offer a snapshot of history. Ferguson used to work at Fort Snelling. He now participates in two volunteer re-enactment groups. One portrays the oft-forgotten War of 1812.

x
A family dressed as Native Americans stops by a grocery store to load their cart up with Wonder bread.
Photo by Greta Pratt

Ferguson says they're attempting to create a point of entry for people from which to explore the story further.

"Some people learn from documentaries, some people do best in a classroom, some people prefer history books. I wouldn't want to replace any of that because I've used all of those myself," says Ferguson. "It's simply another way of doing it. For some people, the book doesn't make sense; you have to put something in their hand."

Ferguson says in his re-enactments of the War of 1812, he plays on the side of the British, who lost. For him, it's a way to see history from the other point of view -- just as the Caucasians in Pratt's photographs are doing when they dress up as Indians.

University of Minnesota art history professor Karal Ann Marling says "playing dress up" is one way in which American society seeks to recreate itself.

"There's something in a way both creepy and delightful about seeing little kids running around dressed as Dakotas or Ojibwes, and the innocence with which they do it," says Marling. "They're not bent on killing a single soul, they're not recreating the great Sioux-U.S. war; they're living imaginatively in the forest. In other words, they've rewritten history through enacting it, and I find that ultimately something to celebrate. "

Celebrate, but also question. Greta Pratt says she hopes her photographs inspire Americans to think about our history and to ask ourselves if the symbols we seem to have chosen really represent our common identity.

The exhibition "Using History" continues at Gallery 13 in Minneapolis through April 23.