The Statue on the High Seminary by Dominick Bucca
Why are there cannons on the lawn? This question led me to uncover the fascinating story behind the statue of Clemson University's namesake, Thomas Green Clemson (1807-1888). Drawing their inspiration from the recent release of a biography of Thomas Clemson by two university professors, Alester Holmes and George Sherrill, the Blue Key Honor Society hired sculptor A. Wolfe Davidson (a former Clemson Alumni) to construct a statue of Thomas Clemson in 1936 (Reel, The High Seminary, 336). However, today's statue standing in front of Tillman Hall is not dated from 1937 but 1966. The question, then, is what happened to the original statue?
Throughout this digital history project, I will answer the above question. In doing so, I will argue that, since its conception in 1936, the statue has served as a lightning rod for criticism—since Thomas Clemson was a slaveholding aristocrat—and local cultural activity (i.e., pranks, and, surprisingly, marriage proposals). My claim is based upon the following sources: photographs, personal letters, and articles found in the student-run newspaper, The Tiger. By examining these works, I hope to fill in some of the historical gaps surrounding the sculpture of Thomas Clemson. That said, I must note that this project does not tell the full story surrounding the monument. I am still unsure why Clemson University—established shortly after Thomas Clemson's death in 1888—took so long to memorialize their namesake. As this project will soon show, the statue almost did not get erected: had it not been for Davidson lowering his sculpting price and local clubs fundraising to pay the bill, the figure of Thomas Clemson might not have arisen.
In the wake of the Great Depression (1929-1933), white communities across America feverishly began to commemorate their past (Kammen, Mystic Chords of Memory, 452). This sudden interest in history reflected President Franklin D. Roosevelt's infatuation with American history, particularly the nineteenth century: trying to rally Republicans and Southern Democrats around his economic relief programs, F.D.R. turned towards Abraham "Lincoln as a political symbol during the mid-and later 1930s" (Kammen, Mystic Chords of Memory, 448). As F.D.R. continued to celebrate Lincoln, Americans—particularly white southerners—began to urge their local officials to memorialize their local past (Kammen, Mystic Chords of Memory, 452). This effort to commemorate the past, however, also coincided with the movement to curtail the expansion of the national government's power under the New Deal: likely aware that the central government was taking away their monopoly on power (i.e., politics), white southerners began to preserve their memories of white supremacy through statues of prominent white male figures (Norrell, The House I Live In, 107, 116-117). In doing so, these monuments of white supremacy transformed the American South into what historian James Loewen calls “a landscape of denial.” (Loewen, Lies Across America, 19). And as this project will show, southerners are still living within this terrain of historical amnesia.
Memories are provisional. This notion is why certain groups seek to “make them permanent by rendering them in physical form (i.e., statues),” writes historian W. Fitzhugh Brundage (Brundage, Where These Memories Grow, 8). It is because of this concept, moreover, that these figures of white supremacy become focal points of cultural activity: once built, these memorials act not only as “repositories of feelings and emotions” but also as lightning rods for both culture and criticism (Doss, Memorial Mania, 13). It is here, within this backdrop, where the construction of the Thomas Green Clemson statue begins.
