As a photo historian writing about Cuba, I usually come across an image of the wreck of the USS Maine (1898 – 1912) at least once a week. The thousands, if not tens of thousands, of images still available today indicated that early twentieth-century audiences dwelled upon “the incident” rather extensively. I have no idea why so many people took photographs of the site, but I strongly suspect that both Cuban national and international audiences were actively attempting to understand what the disaster meant to both of these neighboring nations.
I want to explain here, up front, that I sympathize with all parties involved, including the culprits. The shipwreck images remind me of a comparable, but minor, personal incident. As a sixteen-year-old, I blew up my parents’ car. To be clear, unlike the USS Maine, I did not kill anyone –not that my parents saw it that way. I blew up a late 1980s maroon Dodge Caravan. The car, unbeknownst to me, was out of oil, and stalled just in front of a driveway not far from home. Two young men came outside and demanded that I move the stalled Caravan immediately. They were older and cute. I turned the car back on, moved it a few more feet, and then Dodge Caravan died. Smoke poured out of the hood of the car. The smell was awful. My parents barely spoke to me for months afterwards. Worse, then, pretty much anyone I knew teased me about the event. It took a long time for my family to stop mentioning the Caravan explosion incident. A few decades later, I am very happy that there are no photographs of my Dodge Caravan disaster.
“Wreck of the Maine – Los Restos del Maine, Habana.” Postmarked 3 January 1909. Published by The Rotograph Co., N. Y. City. Private Collection.
However, nearly all archives on Cuba have an image of the wreck of the USS Maine. After all, the shipwreck was a spectacle that lingered in Havana Harbor for fourteen years, visible to gawkers of all sorts. The ship exploded there in February 1898. Thereafter, the area near to the wreck became a popular recreational zone. Resident professional and amateur photographers, as well as camera-wielding tourists, visited the site from the nearby shoreline. Some enthusiasts even rented boats to take images. Innumerable picture postcards reveal the ship’s various states of decay until 1912, when United States officials finally hauled the wreck out and dropped it into the depths of the ocean. This massive flood of images made the USS Maine one of the standout icons of twentieth-century United States and Cuban relations, illustrative of both clumsy neighborly mishap and political zeal.
“RESTOS DEL U.S.S. MAINE.” Postmarked 2 December 1904.
Printed by Detroit Photographic Co. Private collection.
The earliest images accompanied popular international press reports that pinpointed Spain as the culprit for the ship’s explosion. These were followed by a few relatively entertaining but implausible U.S. government reports that stealth Spanish divers had planted a naval mine near the ship’s artillery storage. But let’s be realistic for a moment –it was almost certainly human error on the part of one or more of the ship’s crew. No matter the actual cause, the earliest images of the wreck helped to rally Cuban and United States soldiers to end the Spanish colonial presence in Cuba permanently. With the war’s end, the on-going circulation of images of the wrecked ship became increasingly symbolic of henceforth classically bungled Cuban-United States relations.
For fourteen years, the USS Maine was an obstacle in Havana’s harbor. Both Cuban national and international ships entering Havana Harbor had to navigate around both the wreck as well as the visitors bumbling about the site. Comparable to Italy’s 2012 Costa Concordia disaster, local Havana merchants protested the final removal of the sunken ship because it had brought so much interest. Havana city recovered relatively quickly from the Wars for Independence, but, for many audiences, the wreck symbolized the damage caused by the wars across the nation. For some North American expatriates and many tourists, the wreck also underscored the significance of United States aid to Cuba. Many of the U.S. officials living in Cuba protested and even attempted to thwart the removal of the wreck.
“Wreck of the Maine – Los Restos del Maine, Habana.” Postmarked 3 January 1909. Published by The Rotograph Co., N. Y. City. Private Collection.
It is a bit late to convincingly determine the cause of the 1898 USS Maine explosion. Postcards from this time reveal very distinct impressions of the wreckage site. The less expensive postcard prints, in black and white, feature photojournalistic impressions of the wreck. In a few images, visitors stand triumphantly in front of the precarious remains. A few postcards depict the ship’s decayed remnants during the several month process of removal, beginning in 1911. Most popularly, color images feature a romantic setting sun over the ship’s ruins. These images are a curious encounter between military nostalgia and embarrassing incident, with hinting of misunderstandings yet to unfold.
Featured Image: Other postcards featuring the wreck of the Maine, from 1898 to 1912.
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