The Seventy Ninth Regiment (Highlanders), New York State Militia (from "Harper's Weekly," Vol. 5, p. 329) 1861

Winslow Homer made this print of the Seventy Ninth Regiment, New York State Militia, for Harper’s Weekly in 1861. He was working at a time when the illustrated press was bringing images of the Civil War into people’s homes. Homer's image shows us the pomp and ceremony of a regiment passing in review. The militiamen are wearing kilts, which tell us of their Scottish origins, a common mark of ethnic pride amongst immigrant communities in 19th-century America. Behind them, we see the stars and stripes fluttering above a crowd of onlookers. But is it really that simple? The question of Scottishness is interesting. Why were they identifying so strongly with Scotland? What political function did this serve? To answer that we might look at newspaper reports, regimental histories, recruitment posters, things like that. Through them we can begin to understand the social conditions that shaped the production of this image, and its reception.