Norman Rockwell Museum

Stockbridge, Massachusetts is a relatively quiet resort town on the far western edge of the state close to the New York border. There are numerous historical and cultural sites, places for shopping, hotels, and many locations for outdoor activities among the backdrop of the scenic Berkshires.

One very well-known location in Stockbridge is the Norman Rockwell Museum, dedicated to the work of the famed artist who spent the last 25 years of his life there. The museum contains hundreds of paintings and illustrations made by Rockwell, but there’s also an artifact housed there many people might not expect. An old and worn jacket which by itself looks nothing spectacular, but the painting in which it appeared has become one of the most iconic and recognizable works by Rockwell, including many a meme. 

When the United States entered the Second World War in December 1941, Rockwell, like so many artists throughout the country, began to shift focus toward the war effort. Earlier that year during the annual State of the Union address, President Franklin Roosevelt proposed four freedoms everyone in the world has a right to enjoy: freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear. Rockwell took inspiration from Roosevelt’s speech and proceeded to create a collection of paintings titled the Four Freedoms.

The first of his paintings, Freedom of Speech, was published by the Saturday Evening Post on February 20th, 1943. The painting depicts a scene from a 1942 town meeting in Arlington, Vermont, where Rockwell was living at the time, in which local resident Jim Edgerton expresses concern about rebuilding a school which had burned down. Edgerton supported the proposal but was worried about the tax cost, as his farm had recently been ravaged by disease. This moment of expressing a contrary opinion struck Rockwell as the perfect image for his painting and he enlisted his neighbor, Carl Hess, as a model.

Hess is seen wearing a blue plaid shirt and a dirtied suede jacket, which is a stark contrast to the more formal clothing worn by other members of the audience. The painting was well received and used by the US Office of War Information to advertise the purchase of war bonds. Out of all the four freedom paintings Rockwell did, Freedom of Speech became one of the most memorable even enduring into the 21st century in the form of internet memes and image macros.

Rockwell’s works have been criticized by some art critics and historians as being overly sweet, sentimental, and presenting a simplified depiction of American life and culture. Many of his illustrations for the Saturday Evening Post may fall into this category but towards his later years in life, he began focusing on much more mature issues and topics such as anti-racism, racial equality, and civil rights. Rockwell enlisting a German American man to act as his model for Freedom of Speech during a time Americans of German descent were actively being persecuted, is one example of Rockwell’s view for all Americans to have the right to speak and live freely regardless of ethnicity or nationality. He would continue this after the war, tackling the issue of racial segregation with his famed painting of Ruby Bridges, The Problem We All Live With, in 1964. 

If you have an interest in the works of Normal Rockwell and would like to see the jacket, collections of his paintings, illustrations, and even his studio alongside other prominent artists on display, the Norman Rockwell Museum is certainly worth a visit.