Departments

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memorials

  • SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
    5/26/2022

    The Monument Controversy We Aren't Discussing

    by Cynthia C. Prescott

    Outside of the former Confederacy, efforts to replace "Pioneer Mother" statues with depictions of Native American women have sparked a backlash including outright theft.

  • SOURCE: Smithsonian
    5/24/2022

    An Exclusive Look at the New WWI Memorial

    Sculptor Sabin Howard's ambitious design for the memorial relied on the modern power of digital photography to capture motion and the old-school forming of clay to freeze it in time. 

  • SOURCE: Washington Post
    1/24/2022

    Post Editors: Statue or No, Teddy Roosevelt's Complex Legacy is Still with Us

    It's appropriate for Theodore Roosevelt's statue to be removed from its position as a figurehead for the Museum of Natural History, but just as appropriate for the statue to be housed in the new Roosevelt Presidential Library where TR's complicated legacy can be more fully addressed, say the Post's editorial board members.

  • SOURCE: Washington Post
    1/23/2022

    Confederate Groups are Keeping the Lost Cause Myth on Life Support

    by Erin L. Thompson

    "Confederate heritage" groups have used their financial resources to bring lawsuits before sympathetic judges to thwart the public's desire to remove monuments to the white supremacist pro-slavery government in public spaces. 

  • SOURCE: AL.com
    1/12/2022

    Alabama's Capitol is a Crime Scene, with a 120 Year Coverup

    The Alabama Capitol in Montgomery was the first seat of the Confederate government and the place where white Democrats ratified a Jim Crow constitution in 1901. You'd learn little of this by touring the museum-like building. 

  • SOURCE: Washington Post
    12/30/2021

    Richmond's Lee Statue, other Confederate Memorials Could go to Black History Museum

    Marland Buckner, interim executive director of the Black History Museum, said in the release that his institution “takes very seriously the responsibility to manage these objects in ways that ensure their origins and purpose are never forgotten: that is the glorification of those who led the fight to enslave African Americans and destroy the Union.”

  • SOURCE: WHYY
    12/3/2021

    Blair Mountain, West Virginia Still Shows the Grip of the Coal Industry

    “It was kind of weird growing up, knowing that there was a war fought here and nobody knew about it, and there’s no monuments to it,” Professor Chuck Keeney said. Others believe the story of the mine wars has been suppressed because it challenges the image of big coal as a benevolent force in the state. 

  • 12/5/2021

    Honoring Memory of the Sand Creek Massacre in the Age of COVID

    by Billy J. Stratton

    The community of descendants of the Sand Creek Massacre maintain rituals of healing that honor the dead while affirming bonds of community that have been tested by a long history of dispossession and the recent trauma of the COVID-19 pandemic.

  • 12/5/2021

    DNA Testing Rescued Pearl Harbor's Dead from Patriotic Mythmaking

    by John Bodnar

    "When family members were asked for DNA samples and learned that long-lost loved ones might be coming home, they began to disclose to reporters aspects of the war’s legacy that had remained outside the glare of large public memorials and celebrations."

  • SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
    11/9/2021

    Colin Powell's Funeral: A Missed Opportunity for Unity

    by Sarah J. Purcell

    Since George Washington's death in 1799, Americans have used the funerals of prominent leaders as occasions to temporarily escape growing factional and partisan division. 

  • SOURCE: New York Times
    10/18/2021

    Jefferson Statue to be Removed from NY City Council Chambers

    "Annette Gordon-Reed, a Harvard Law School professor and a Jefferson expert, objected to the idea of taking down the Jefferson statue, but said that if it were to move to the New-York Historical Society, where she serves as a trustee, it would be a best-case scenario."