Harriet Monroe & the Open Door. Poetry Foundation, Chicago, IL

At the dawn of the twentieth century, the United States transformed the notion of “manifest destiny,” and all the colonial ambitions the term embodied, outside of its natural borders. When Secretary of State John Hay issued his first Open Door Note in 1899 and his second in 1900, he sought to ensure the nation’s ability to be part of the China trade, and the phrase “open door” captured the United States’ desire to exert economic control and access in the world marketplace. The Open Door Policy was all about dominance at the expense of others. Harriet Monroe, founding editor of Poetry: A Magazine of Verse, turned Hay’s notion of the open door on its head with the creation of Poetry. Her “Open Door Policy” dedicated itself to the exploration of contemporary poetry in all its manifestations. No particular approach, school, or authorial stature was to guide the magazine’s editorial stance. In so doing, its openness did not centralize power around a single vision of what poetry should be. Instead, it served, and continues to do so, as a living platform for the world of poets and poetry.

Who was Harriet Monroe and why did she commit to such an enterprise? This question rests at the heart of the exhibition and multiple voices shape the answer to that query. The daughter of a well-off family who pursued poetry as her calling, Monroe found her understanding of the world challenged by the Chicago World’s Fair and Columbian Exposition. This event, which for Monroe culminated in a successful copyright lawsuit and to engaging with challenges to her beliefs, led to the establishment of Poetry in 1912 as an arena for multiple voices to be shared with the world. The exhibition, resting on two engagement platforms, traces this evolution. It includes archival and visual materials drawn from the Poetry Foundation’s archive, the University of Chicago Special Collections, and The Newberry Library, as well as an original graphic mini-novelette by New Yorker and The New York Times illustrator, Lilli Carré, and a land acknowledgement poem by Ester Belin commissioned especially for the exhibition.

The exhibit is comprised of two spaces. Given the limited exhibition space, each of the two spaces is devoted to one half of the story. The formal exhibit space, located to the left of the building entryway, explores Monroe’s encounter with voices challenging the triumphal western view of American expansion and calling for an appreciation of diverse points of view. Her transformative copyright lawsuit is center stage in this portion of the exhibition. The opening panel, the graphic wall art, and the four cases in this section explore Monroe’s own experience of marginalization and her exposure to the ideas of non-western and marginalized thinkers, including Swami Vivekanada, Rabindranath Tagore, Simon Pokagon, and Frederick Douglass.

Asked to write the dedicatory poem to open the Chicago World’s Fair, Monroe learned first-hand that, although a member of the privileged class, she was a second-class citizen in terms of her sex. The Fair’s male Board of Directors subjected her poem The Columbian Ode to unceasing criticism, and she had to fight to keep it her verse, not theirs. The New York newspaper The World, portraying her as a hobbyist poet, published part of her poem without her permission. Stung by the characterization, as she saw poetry as her career, and by the misappropriation of her words without permission, Monroe took The World to court and won an important battle for the rights of authors to control the publication of their work. The arresting graphic wall art and the accompanying mini-graphic novelette featuring the artwork of Lilli Carré capture the spirit of Monroe’s battle, and its ultimate outcome: the launch of Poetry.

Monroe’s Ode was a celebration of the discovery of the Americas and manifest destiny. The blindness of the colonizer permeated her poem as she celebrated Columbus and the spread of white settlement across the United States. At the Fair, however, Monroe’s exposure to dissenting voices, combined with her own experience of marginalization, sowed the seeds of change. The openness to new ideas, such as the importance of inclusivity preached by Vivekanada, and Tagore’s insistence on seeing the world through multiple lenses, captivated her. Pokagon and Douglass challenged her understanding of colonialism. She left the Fair with a sizeable monetary award from her lawsuit and an appreciation for the open exchange of ideas and knowledge that shaped her approach to the creation of Poetry.

In addition to the graphic art of Carré, the exhibition’s other compelling object is in this section. In The Red Man’s Greeting, also known as The Red Man’s Rebuke, Simon Pokagon of the Pokagon Potawatomi spoke out against the theft of Native land. His birchbark letterpress book, which combined traditional and modern technologies, captures the contrasting values Pokagon stressed in his remarks and his rebuke of settler colonialism. Since most of the items in the exhibit are photographs or flat printed material, this birchbark book adds visual depth to this section.

The second part of the exhibition resides in the Poetry Foundation’s library, located on the other side of the building’s entrance. The cases in this section focus on the business of poetry. The text and materials share the story of Poetry’s creation, Monroe’s insistence on opening its pages to all types of poetic endeavors, and the journal’s stature as an important venue for the advancement of poetry as a creative endeavor.

The final element of the exhibition is a specially commissioned poem, Ode in Celebration of Harriet’s Open Door, by Esther Belin, a Diné (Navajo) poet. Her Ode captures the contesting narratives that underlay the Columbian Exposition, turns settler colonialism on its head while at the same time celebrating Monroe for her open door policy. Belin calls out the attempts to erase the Indigenous community, reminds readers of its tenacity, and acknowledges Monroe’s growth in understanding on this issue. She ends her poem: “dear Harriet, may you rest knowing your magazine continues to move toward being a gathering place ‘where the nations of the earth shall meet in joy together.’”¹ Her poem serves as a fitting land acknowledgement statement for the Foundation as well as highlighting the essence of the journal’s approach.

All the exhibit’s elements, from the in-person exhibition to the digital platform, address the dynamism of contesting narratives as well as issues of race, gender, and cultural economics, while celebrating the journal’s 110 years. The logistical challenges of the space and the lack of signage to guide visitors means it is possible to see only half of the exhibition (the portion located in the formal exhibition space), particularly if one does not need to visit the library. In addition, within the library, there is nothing to direct visitors to Belin’s Ode. Visitors on a guided tour or part of a school group—an important audience for this exhibition—will see the exhibit in its entirety. However, a casual visitor might not. Additionally, there is no indication that the exhibition is on the two platforms simultaneously during the life of the exhibition or that the digital platform will continue to live digitally. Finally, it is unlikely that the casual visitor will realize that the graphic mini-novelette is available for them to take home. Signage would have tied all these parts together as well as remind visitors that the digital platform provides greater depth about the topics explored in the on-site exhibition.

The physical and structural constraints aside, Harriet Monroe & the Open Door was smart and insightful. It was a success as the first historical exhibition mounted by the Foundation and as the first exhibit developed by a robust shared authority process. The Harriet Monroe presented here, while celebrated, grappled with new ideas. Her open door project forced her to learn about the economics of publishing and how to deal with authors and critics. It also led her to include diverse voices in the journal which became a hallmark of her publication. The contradictions of Monroe as well as her growth are central to the exhibition’s storyline and embodies the importance of including multiple voices in the telling of the tale.