By Gordon L. Jones | In the 1880s, before the advent of motion pictures, massive 50-foot high 360-degree cyclorama paintings were the virtual reality time machines of their day. The resulting fad produced at least 20 cyclorama paintings of seven different battles – virtually all of them Northern victories. But in the 1890s, cycloramas gave way to nickelodeons and nearly all were lost to fire or decay. Today, only two Civil War cycloramas survive on exhibit: The Battle of Gettysburg and The Battle of Atlanta.
Jones
Produced at the height of the cyclorama craze in 1886 by the American Panorama Company of Milwaukee, The Battle of Atlanta was one of two identical paintings produced. The first – the one that survives today – was exhibited in Minneapolis, Indianapolis, and Chattanooga before coming to Atlanta in February 1892.
Despite a wildly enthusiastic reception, by October 1892 nearly everyone in Atlanta had already seen the great cyclorama that bore the city’s name. Facing bankruptcy, its Chattanooga promoter sold the painting at a fire-sale price and it was moved into a wooden building in Grant Park. In 1898, the failing attraction was donated to the City of Atlanta.
But then, a funny thing happened to this famous Northern victory: white Atlantans, then in the full grip of the Confederate “Lost Cause” myth, adopted The Battle of Atlanta as a symbol of what they saw as a moral victory in a heroic struggle for independence. In 1921, the now-dilapidated wooden building was replaced with a “fireproof” steel and brick building which would also house other Confederate “relics,” including the locomotive Texas.
And so the Atlanta Cyclorama remained until the 1970s. By then, it was experiencing its worst crisis ever: lacking maintenance for nearly 40 years, it was rapidly deteriorating. At the same time, a tectonic shift in city politics resulted in the election of Maynard Jackson, the city’s first African American mayor. Fearing that Jackson would not care for “their” Cyclorama, some Georgia legislators proposed that it be moved to the Confederate memorial park at Stone Mountain. Mayor Maynard Jackson responded: “It’s one battle where the right side won. I’m going to make sure that depiction of that battle is saved.”
Although Mayor Jackson’s initiative 33 years ago saved the Atlanta Cyclorama from immediate destruction, fundamental problems remained. In a building too small for the painting’s circumference (six feet had to be removed in 1921), the canvas today suffers from severe undulations and improper tensioning. After extensive consultations, Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed determined that the best solution for the Cyclorama is a new and larger building at the Atlanta History Center.
In 2013, a gift of $10 million from Lloyd and Mary Ann Whitaker provided not only an endowment for the new addition at the Center, but also served to jump-start a $22.5 million capital campaign for re-housing and restoring this national treasure. The painting and the Texas will be moved to the Center in late 2016, where visitors will be able to see the progress of restoration before its grand opening, complete with four new exhibit galleries, in 2018.
Gordon L. Jones is senior military historian at the Atlanta History Center.
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