Townhouse Notes: The Shoulder We Cry On

In the days after a mob stormed the US Capitol building in an attempt to overturn the results of a fair and legal election, there was a brief flurry of interest in one of the Capitol complex’s lesser-known statues: the 1878 Peace Monument. This statue, standing on the western side of the building at Pennsylvania Avenue and First Street NW, was sculpted by Franklin Simmons to commemorate naval deaths at sea during the US Civil War. Atop the monument are two female figures, both in classical robes. Grief weeps and rests her head on History’s shoulder. History, meanwhile, looks at the stylus and tablet she holds, inscribed with the words “They died that their country might live.” It is a cold comfort that History offers Grief in this statue, one predicated on the promise that events and people will not be forgotten in the future rather than connecting Grief to the past. In this statue, history’s work is future facing, not backward looking.

Historians have been in the position of providing context as well as offering comfort, some sense that we have endured these kinds of crises in the past and come out the other side. Most historians were quick to point out that, in fact, the events at the Capitol on January 6 were not unprecedented in world history (though, perhaps unsurprisingly, we could not agree on the relevant precedents). Throughout COVID-19, historians of medicine have reminded us that we are not experiencing the first, or even the deadliest, pandemic. Labor historians have explained that although this recession is unique in many respects, what working people are experiencing is the product of a series of decisions over generations. I take great personal comfort in knowing that “we are not alone across time” (to quote Bryan Doerries, founder of Theater of War). We turn to history during periods of grief because history holds us in a community of people who survived.