Historical Fact or Fiction?

Across the Fence #488

Aristotle said that fiction is more important than history, because history shows us only what was, whereas fiction shows us what could be and ought to be.

Pearl Swiggum says in Stump Ridge Forever, her “Pearl A Day Calendar” that I’ve been using since 1996, “Much is lost in the writing of history books because the writer wasn’t there.”

The nice part about writing fiction is that you don’t have to be concerned about the facts. You can manipulate the elements of a story to achieve the outcome you desire. Pretty much the same way politicians do when they spin the facts of an event into fairy tales in order to achieve the results they want. The water of historical fact and fiction often gets muddied and blurred during the telling and spin of a story.

How many of you have told a story over and over and with each telling, the event or object in the story gets bigger and bigger. The 28-inch Musky becomes the 38-inch monster that broke your line and got away. The four-point buck you missed gains another point with each retelling of the story. I rest my case! 

I dealt with the problem of historical fact or fiction with a job I did in the world of art and advertising while living in Madison. It came to a head with three posters I was working on for one of my “former” clients, a large company who shall go unnamed. For several years, I researched, illustrated, and wrote the copy for large posters and educational materials that were used in school systems throughout the country. 

It came to an end when the “fact checkers” who made sure the copy I wrote had the right information, wanted me to change history.

The set of posters I was working on dealt with Pueblo Indian life and how they were affected by the arrival of the Spanish Padres, soldiers, the development of the Spanish Missions, and their conversion to Christianity by the Catholic Priests. I had done the research, and written the copy to go along with my illustrations. The fact checkers then went over the copy and illustrations to make sure I had the facts right. However in this case, we ended up in a tug of war between the Native American fact checkers and the Spanish and Catholic fact checkers. Neither side was happy. The Native Americans didn’t think I was hard enough on how the Spanish priests had treated the Pueblo Indians. The Spanish Mission side wanted me to remove the references to how the Pueblos had been converted by the Catholic Church. I made some small changes, but neither side was happy with them. I finally said, “That’s history; and that’s the way it was. I’m not going to re-write history to satisfy every group who wants to be portrayed in a better light in today’s watered-down, politically correct version of history. That’s what happened and I don’t feel we should be re-writing history.”

Xerox copies of the original color posters.

I then talked with the Marketing Manager who assigned the jobs to artists. I told him that in our attempts to appease everyone, political correctness can go overboard and water down history. I told him that we’ll never please everyone on the issues presented in these posters. The Spanish and Catholics didn’t like the way they were portrayed in their treatment of the Pueblos. But that’s history. I didn’t want to water that area down. Then the Native American fact checker was angry that I didn’t take a hard enough line on how they were treated by the Spanish and the Catholic Church, and wanted me to list more of the abuses they suffered. I told the Marketing Manager there was no way we were going to appease both sides. This was a volatile issue and we’d already seen the deep-seated resentment on one side and the guilt feelings and wanting to keep these issues hidden, on the other side. I felt that many of these issues should be left up to teachers to explain and get discussions going from the points raised in the educational materials. I thought that was the purpose of the posters.

I said, “The fact checkers are not checking facts, they’re re-writing history as they would like it to have been. You can’t change history and I refuse to re-write it.”

That was a hard message to deliver because I enjoyed doing those posters, and felt it was one of the few things I did in my job of art and advertising that made a difference. They were teaching aids, helping to provide “facts” about history to students throughout the country, not just another piece of junk mail that people filed in the trash. But we have to make sure there are a few facts left, and not just watered-down, distorted history. Then we might as well change the name of the class from “History” to “Historical Fiction.” 

That was the last job I did for that client. I did an effective job of cutting my own throat. They found someone else who would re-write history the way they wanted it. It put a big dent in my pocketbook, but sometimes you’ve got to take a stand, tell it like it is, and do what you think is right, even if the consequences hurt you!

*