importance of historical monuments essay

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Why Preserving Historical Places and Sites Matters

Tom Mayes is the author of Why Old Places Matter: How Historic Places Affect Our Identity and Wellbeing (Rowman & Littlefield, 2018).

Why do old places matter to people?  Why should old places matter to historians, or to the general public that historians serve? What can we learn from the continued existence of old places in our communities, and in our nation?  Why does it matter if we save these old places or if we don’t?

There are many reasons old places matter, from memory, to civic identity, to history, to architecture, to beauty, to economics.  While even the fourteen reasons I name in Why Old Places Matterdon’t fully capture all the many meanings old places have for people, for the readers of History News Network, I’d like to emphasize one main idea: old places give us an understanding of history that no other documents or evidence possibly can.  

At Civil War battlefields like Antietam, historians and visitors alike can understand how a slight rise in the lay of the land could mean victory or defeat, and how one division was lost, while another survived.  At artists’ homes and studios like Chesterwood, the home of Daniel Chester French, who sculpted the Seated Lincoln, we can understand how a certain quality of light, or a clear mountain view, or the ticking of a clock, may have inspired a painting, poem, or sculpture – and may inspire visitors today. 

At the Lower East Side Tenement Museum, we can understand something profoundly visceral about cramped, dark, and crowded lives of emigrants in New York in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.  

And at dirt-floored, often roughly-built slave dwellings, we can try to glean an inkling of the reality of human bondage that we cannot understand from documents alone.  We experience old places with all of our senses, like full body immersion, and because of that, we understand different aspects of history as it was lived.

This would be enough.  But I believe that these old places play a larger role.  The continued existence of these old places may foster a deeper understanding of history that tells a more full and true story. 

Yes, these places can be manipulated to spin a particular viewpoint, like the way, for many years, the reality of slavery wasn’t acknowledged at plantation houses, or Native American perspectives weren’t expressed at frontier forts, or the way countless workers were left out of the story altogether.  One reason people weren’t acknowledged is that their places were not often recognized, valued, and retained.  These are the places that were easy to erase – to pave over with interstates, sports stadiums, and urban renewal.  Many have literally been erased from our landscape and our memory.  

It’s easier to pretend that slavery was benevolent if the reality of the poor living conditions of slave dwellings isn’t confronting visitors.  Or that labor unrest didn’t happen if the places where it happened are bulldozed.  Erasure of places can serve to hide truths that can’t be hidden if the place survives.  The recognition of sites by the National Trust’s African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund functions as an act of social justice.  As a descendant of the Chinese American builders of an 1850’s Taoist temple in Mendocino, California said to me, the fact that the place exists – a Taoist temple from the 1850s—announces to everyone that “we were here.”

If the place survives, it can also become the vortex and venue for understanding our changing civic and national identity.  The places we choose to save-or not-reflect our identity.  That’s why we see places that are important to the “enemy” being targeted in times of conflict, such as the Mostar Bridge.  The destruction of the old place is tantamount to the destruction of the group identity.  Old places may also be targeted precisely because they tell a deeper, older, and different story, such as the Bamiyan Buddhas, which were destroyed because they represented a different religion, or the archaeological sites of Babylon or Palmyra. 

I don’t want to suggest that we can understand everything about history simply by experiencing the old places where history happened.  In fact, I’d like to emphasize a completely different point.  These old places matter not only for what they can tell us, but precisely because they raise questions.  There are often things about an old building, or a battlefield, or a working landscape that will surprise or puzzle us.  It may only be a quirky door, or the etching of initials on glass, or an unexpected rise in an otherwise flat field, or an unusual place name.  

An old place continues to carry memories of other stories that we don’t necessarily understand today, like the way the bones of our ancestors continue to surface in our cities and towns where we thought there were no people buried, or the way a Hebrew letter on an ancient column reminds us that the Jews of Rome were not always forced to live in the ghetto.  

These puzzles upend what we thought we knew and help us remember that we can never know everything about the past.  These quirks at old places jab us to be less arrogant and remind us to be humble and open as we try to understand the past and what it means for us today.   

Old places matter because they give us a deeper understanding of the past – an understanding no other documents possibly can, while reminding us to be humble about what we know.  

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Why Do Monuments Matter?

By Ruth Steinhardt

From the National Mall outward, Washington, D.C., can feel like a 68-square-mile museum, packed with stone and metal tributes to towering figures in history and the allegorical ideals they represent. But for artist, historian and curator Paul Farber, this year’s William Wilson Corcoran Visiting Professor of Community Engagement at the George Washington University Corcoran School of the Arts and Design, it’s equally important to look at the things and people absent from the monumental stage.

“History lives—not just as something that so-called history buffs reenact, or that we keep behind museum glass, but as a living force that artists help us interpret and that guides the way we think about our current moment,” said Dr. Farber, director and cofounder of nonprofit public art and history organization Monument Lab . “And I’m particularly interested in the way that history lives in public spaces.”

He’ll deliver a virtual lecture on his work’s central question, “What Is a Monument?” at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 13.

Dr. Farber said American monuments exist in part “to create a usable past” for this relatively young country—to tell an easier story than America’s inconvenient, often contradictory history. “Monuments elevate figures and stories without the deeper work of reckoning with the past,” he said. “I think in order to move forward, we have to have a new relationship with our past, to face it directly in order to foster healing and repair.”

In Washington, D.C., where Dr. Farber lived as a doctoral student, he saw firsthand how what we choose to commemorate illustrates what we find socially useful—and obscures historical truths we find dangerous or subversive. While writing his dissertation on American artists and the Berlin Wall, for instance, Dr. Farber found himself encountering pieces of his subject all over the city. The environments in which these fragments were placed implied veneration and historic significance: a fist-sized chunk at the Smithsonian Museum of American History, a graffiti-covered replica at the International Spy Museum.

What Dr. Farber didn’t find in museums was the history of Washington, D.C., as a living city. The 1968 civil unrest after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., for instance, lived vividly in the memories of D.C. artists and writers Dr. Farber spoke to. But Dr. Farber could find just one officially sanctioned site of memory acknowledging those four days of turmoil: a small historical placard near U St., NW.  These events were “living in the consciousness of the city” but were not given the official imprimatur of monumental objects, despite the ongoing “heavy burden of history and healing” they represented in residents’ memories, Dr. Farber said. Meanwhile, the Berlin Wall seemed to be everywhere.

That was understandable, given the wall’s narrative significance as a symbol of communist repression and the District’s symbolic position as a stand-in for Western democracy. (One section of the wall, now standing in a courtyard outside the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, is commemorated in a plaque as “a reminder that freedom can never be taken for granted.”) But the number of concrete fragments from a distant European city was also telling in contrast the absence of public memory spaces dedicated to the on-the-ground history of D.C. itself.

“If these ‘monumental’ pieces of history are installed across the nation's capital, not to mention other places across the country that I was encountering on research trips, what are the histories not being represented in those places?” Dr. Farber said. “It brought home to me that monuments are about representing and drawing attention to significant moments in our history, but also they were vantage points to assess these huge gaps and occlusions.”

More recently, Dr. Farber saw these gaps as co-director of the National Monument Audit , conducted by Monument Lab in partnership with the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Since there is no nationwide agency overseeing the creation and maintenance of historic monuments, the audit’s research team scoured thousands of registers from federal, state, local, tribal, institutional and public sources, focusing its most in-depth investigations on a study set of about 50,000 “conventional monuments” from across the United States.

The audit’s results reflect America’s systemic inequities , Dr. Farber said. Of the top 50 most memorialized historical figures, just three are women (Joan of Arc, Sacagawea and Harriet Tubman) and three are Black or indigenous men (Dr. King, Frederick Douglass and Tecumseh). None of the top 50 are openly LGBTQ+. Of monuments in the study set, there are more than 10 times as many depictions of mermaids (22) than of congresswomen (two). And despite heightened conversation around demands to remove statues of controversial or offensive figures, the audit found that such removals represent only 0.6 percent of the country’s existing monuments.

The report has already had an impact on policymakers. Pennsylvania State Rep. Chris Rabb (D) cited it in a recent proposed bill replacing the Columbus Day state holiday with one for Election Day.

Dr. Farber said the bill is an example of the ways that meaningful systemic change is linked to, but not identical with, changing what we see on public pedestals.

“Statues are highly visible and important places of organizing, and they’re also indications of existing systems that have to be addressed,” he said.

Dr. Farber’s students are colleagues and collaborators in the quest for understanding. His current class, “What Is a Monument?” has both graduate and undergraduate members from across a range of disciplines, and their fieldwork doesn’t stop at the doors of the classroom. They’ve held sessions on the National Mall and other local sites, and Dr. Farber said the opportunity to bring the class into the city—“not just to point off into the distance, but actually proceed out of the building”—is an opportunity he treasures.

“It’s a real full-circle moment for me,” he said.

Paul Farber's virtual lecture on Wednesday, Oct. 13 at 6:30 p.m., What is a Monument? , is open to the public. In addition, an installation about the National Monument Audit is in the Corcoran's Flagg Building atrium (500 17th St., NW) and is open to the GW community from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. every weekday through the fall semester.

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The preservation and restoration of historical buildings and landmarks

Time flows. It keeps flowing and running constantly, and so does the community and the world along with it. There is this debate about what life and death are, and the intermediate catalyst is time, but the whole debate falls short of the hypothesis when it comes to architecture. Architecture – the walls built by the ancestors, the structures which were a refuge for many people, the institutions built to house communities , the tall columns and buttresses which connected the people to Thee, these spatial narratives keep living on and on and on. Architecture is a dead static element in space, the intervention of people is what gets life into it. Architecture at its best represents a balanced, symbiosis of aesthetic values peculiar to works of art and the material requirements of practical utility. To preserve its rich heritage and cultural inheritance becomes of utmost importance.

The Life and Death of Architecture

Over the years, monuments representing the ambitions, aspirations, and beliefs of people have been constructed by civilizations all over the world in a state-of-the-art level of extravagance and immovable scales. These structures are not only valuable in terms of architectural significance but also historical, artistic, and social importance. Many people have survived to the present day and are living proof of the lengthy timeline of human history as well as the numerous ways in which the past has contributed to the present. The survival of this timeless, cultural legacy is currently threatened more than ever before by economic and demographic developments of the world. The preservation and restoration of historical buildings and landmarks are crucial for safeguarding cultural heritage and ensuring the legacy to future generations for appreciation of their valour and grandeur and to learn from the past.

Humankind has always given significance to certain locations or constructions. Others connected them with a specific natural spirit or a divinity – leading to pagan practices and succeeding civilizations with impeccable and intricate architectural structures. There are several locations across the world that exhibit the same type of continuity. In contrast, the temples and long-forgotten empires which were forgotten and vanished later were discovered by archaeologists and unearthed their urns. Even though it would be ethical, it would not be possible to save all. Of the historical buildings. More development and change, as well as new requirements for the ever-growing population of people, would unavoidably eliminate much of the past glory. There may not be much of an aesthetic or historical loss. The choice, though, may be very challenging.

Although there have been fortunate exceptions, the rapid social and economic transformation of the 21 st century , particularly in urban areas, has generally proved to be too much for the communities. In order to ensure that adequate and long-term measures are taken nationally to guarantee the preservation of cultural heritage, nearly all countries have found it necessary to introduce legislation and establish institutions or organizations that are either run by the governing bodies or operate under governmental auspices.

Importance of the Life of Architecture – Living Structures

Cultural Heritage: Physical examples of cultural legacy include historical structures and landmarks . They reflect historical society ideals, workmanship, and different architectural styles. Preserving them allows a scope to comprehend and connect with history, customs and sense by preserving traditions and identity of structures.

Education and Research: For researchers, academics, and students, historical landmarks and buildings become a rich and wide source of information. They provide insights into a variety of historical facets, including social circumstances, stratification, economic conditions, engineering, architecture, politics and the arts. Preservation allows for ongoing research and educational possibilities.

Tourism and the Local Economy: Historical sites frequently draw visitors who support regional economies. The preservation and restoration of these sites can boost tourism, resulting in employment, more capital, income, and a boost to the local economy.

Community and Feeling of a Place: Historical structures and landmarks add to a community’s personality, character and sense of space. They act as anchor points and represent the pride and identity of the community. They provide continuity and communal cohesiveness when they are preserved. 

The Current Scenario and A Plea for Change

But in contrast, historical buildings face various threats such as natural ageing, weathering, pollution, and lack of maintenance. Over time, these factors can lead o decay and deterioration. Securing funding and resources for the upkeep, repair, and conservation of historical buildings can pose significant challenges, especially for public or lesser-known structures. Adapting historical structures to meet modern safety and accessibility standards with respect to age, gender, sex and any factor that drives the 21st-century norms while preserving the landmark’s character can be a delicate balance. Finding solutions for this would indeed be a complex task.

Historically and artistically important buildings have been disappearing at an ever-increasing rate during the 21 st century. The natural processes that turn stone into gravel, sand, clay and soil; lumber into humans; and metals into oxides and salts are partially to blame for such damage or wear. Such materials deteriorate under the influence of geo – and climatological elements. Cataclysms have taken their toll. Floods, earthquakes , volcanic explosions, and violent storms have destroyed a few of the most important structures in the long history of human civilization. Regardless, the most serious threat to these important structures is humankind. Wars, the action of vandalism, negligence and recklessness towards the structures and their maintenance, have razed countless monuments; and economic and social factors pose the biggest challenge to the conservation of the existing material cultural heritage.

The protection of cultural heritage, encouragement of education and research, promotion of tourism and economic progress, and upkeep of a feeling of identity and community all depend on the preservation and conservation of historical structures and landmarks. Although there are obstacles, maintaining these systems is worthwhile for cultures all around the world since the advantages exceed the disadvantages. The vision in the coming days would be imagining, connecting, embracing and respecting the old and new fabric of the city and its architecture. Architects and archaeologists should strive to respect the environment and architecture in its existing beauty and amenities and provide hygienic surroundings, so as to afford and offer its citizens a healthy and active lifestyle.

• Unesdoc.unesco.org. Available at: https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000001105 (Accessed: 10 July 2023). 
• Preserving heritage: 10 restoration projects transforming historic … Available at: https://www.architectandinteriorsindia.com/projects/preserving-heritage-10-restoration-projects-transforming-historic-landmarks (Accessed: 10 July 2023). 
• Admin (2022) The importance of restoring historical monuments, IEREK. Available at: https://www.ierek.com/news/importance-restoring-historical-monuments/ (Accessed: 10 July 2023). 
• Garg, P. (2023) An overview of restoration of monuments in India, RTF | Rethinking The Future. Available at: https://www.re-thinkingthefuture.com/architectural-community/a8485-an-overview-of-restoration-of-monuments-in-india/ (Accessed: 10 July 2023). 
• Jayewardene-Pillai, S., Ranaweera, A. and Kaushalya, B. (2017) Geoffrey Manning Bawa: Decolonizing Architecture. Colombo: The National Trust Sri Lanka. 
• Radnić, J., Matešan, D. and Abaza, A. (2020) Restoration and strengthening of historical buildings: The example of Minceta Fortress in Dubrovnik, Advances in Civil Engineering. Available at: https://www.hindawi.com/journals/ace/2020/8854397/ (Accessed: 10 July 2023). 
• Subcommittee,  the W.H.P. (2023) Historic preservation  , WBDG. Available at: https://www.wbdg.org/design-objectives/historic-preservation (Accessed: 10 July 2023). 
• Ultimate Guide for Saving Historic Buildings (2021) Wolfe House & Building Movers. Available at: https://www.wolfehousebuildingmovers.com/historic-building-preservation-guide/ (Accessed: 10 July 2023).

Srivatsa Koduri is a fresh graduate as an architect from R.V. College of Architecture, Bangalore with a passion for storytelling in architecture and design. With a keen eye for detail and a deep appreciation for design, he delves into the intricacies and the untold stories of buildings - the symbolism and metaphors attached to them, exploring their historical significance and cultural impact concerning the metaphysical aspects of the design. Literature, different art forms, and his love for travel are vital to his architectural perceptions.

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How Monuments Help Us Remember—Or Not Remember—the Past

Andrew shanken on the origins and meanings of central park’s memorials.

Memorials are a tired topic, “dead,” a well-intentioned colleague told me in 2006, a Freudian slip of a word to use for objects or sites that so often bring the living into contact with the dead. I would be better off with a different research topic, she thought.

On the surface, she was right. Scholarship on memorials is a crowded field. With new titles published every year, it has become increasingly difficult to gain a meaningful purchase on the topic. Even the wider public could be excused for tiring of the latest round of memorial proposals. A pandemic memorial, anyone?  The Atlantic Monthly  is already there, as is  Forbes , NBC News, and NPR. Apparently, anticipating memorials is clickbait.

Indeed, we hear quite a lot about those honorific structures, statues, sculptures, plaques, and other objects that serve as memorials, an oddity for a period so willing to forget. Memorials are also commonly encountered as sites of political contestation, places where people go to raise awareness—or to raise hell. The Robert E. Lee equestrian statue in Richmond is a terrific example of the first, while the Lee equestrian statue in Charlottesville is a sad reminder of the second. Both are now gone.  Damnatio memoriae  can backfire and become an  aide memoire .

While memorials are well understood in these two roles—as commemorative and political devices—most of the time they are neither. Most often they are just there, in the way, turned off, or enveloped by the quotidian. Birds rest on generals’ heads. Teens cavort on their steps. Rush hour commuters race around them like any obstacle separating them from their appointments.

Frank O’Hara’s poem “Music” (1954) bares this reality: “If I rest for a moment near The Equestrian / pausing for a liver sausage sandwich in the Mayflower Shoppe, / that angel seems to be leading the horse into Bergdorf’s / and I am naked as a table cloth, my nerves humming.” It is neither the anonymous equestrian, nor the surging angel that sets the narrator’s nerves atwitter. These remain generic, deprived of proper name, in spite of the fame of both subject (General Sherman) and sculptor (Augustus Saint Gaudens). But the Mayflower Shoppe and Bergdorf’s! These O’Hara names. It is the urban scene that grabs him; the memorial is foil. It is a scene, moreover, of bathos born of contrast, of solemn high culture brought low (and adoringly so) by commerce, while the narrator eats the most common of fast foods at the feet of an eternal golden angel.

What city dwellers have not, amid the bustle of urban life, plopped down at a memorial and not bothered to query its identity? Or worse, read the inscription with only dim recognition of the person’s identity or event’s meaning? We are no guiltier of amnesia than those who first erected modern memorials in great numbers in the late 19th century. Mariana Griswold Van Rensselaer, one of the most astute architectural critics of the period, wrote: “If a work of art is agreeable to look upon, we may be glad to possess it even if it commemorates a well-meaning nobody.” She grouped Saint-Gaudens’s Sherman with the American panther in Central Park and, more surprisingly, the monuments at Gettysburg. They belonged together because they were all, in essence, public art. So much for sacred memory or politics.

Art, however, is no less fraught. On aesthetic grounds, memorials met with savage criticism from the moment they began to embellish modern cities. In the mid-19th century Thomas Carlyle called the new population of statues “poor wretches, gradually rusting in the sooty rain; black and dismal.” They “sanction and consecrate artistic botching” and “pretentious futility… No soul looks upon them… without damage, all the deadlier the less he knows of it.” This attitude extended to their sites. What Van Resselaer called “right placing” was a purely aesthetic matter: “A beautiful statue may be shorn of half its effect if badly stationed.” To some critics, places needed protection from memorials. Edgar Degas proposed walling off parks to defend them against the incursion of monuments.

This is one reason why Sherman is poised at the edge of Central Park, rather than being led through it. Frederick Law Olmsted, one of the originators of Central Park, plumped for parks entirely free of memorials. These detracted, he believed, from the pure encounter with nature. He rejected monuments and other intrusions on the natural aspect of his parks, which he called “townlike things.”

The artfulness of the first parks—their pretense of imitating unadulterated nature—attempted to counter the corrupt culture of the city with nature as a place ostensibly free of culture. Olmsted’s position was widely adopted, however ineffectually, across the United States. John McLaren, who served as the Superintendent for Golden Gate Park in San Francisco for over fifty years, famously hid statues behind plantings. To this day, many of them can be seen fighting with foliage. As memorials invaded parks, they populated a landscape intended explicitly as an escape from those associations conjured up by memorials.

Olmsted and his followers obviously fought a losing battle. Memorials are fixtures in parks. They failed to concede to the reality that parks immediately came under immense pressure to serve many purposes. There were precious few civic spaces to absorb the increasingly complex needs of modern urban life. Olmsted’s insistence on unadulterated landscape met great resistance, not least of all from pragmatic reformers who saw the park as open land that could be put to use as a place of “cultural enlightenment,” where they could inculcate values to the masses. Olmsted’s purism surrendered to “museums and conservatories, aquariums, observatories, and zoos,” and other institutions. Playgrounds and monuments further broadened the urban park’s use and meaning.

Central Park bears the marks of these debates. Statuary lines the Mall. Again, Van Renssalear tells us why: “It should be remembered…, as a monument is a palpably artificial thing, the best place for it is where other artificial objects are conspicuous.” She thus supported the Mall in Central Park as a place for monuments because its formality openly acknowledged its artifice, whereas those parts of the park that pretended to naturalness were unsuitable. A bronze faun or a statue of Pomona could appearance in a glade or an orchard, but where parks looked natural, memorials were undesirable.

This explains why so many memorials were pushed to the edge of the park. The Columbus monument stands (for the time being) at the southwest corner, a pendant to Sherman. Other memorials line the edge, in the view of landscape architect George Burnap, turning them into a screen of the park and preventing them from becoming the dominant note. Sherman is a quintessential example and it set a pattern.

The 107th United States Infantry memorial (1927) on the eastern side of the park exemplifies this approach. An ensemble of World War I soldiers advance from the wooded thicket bordering Central Park, as if mounting a charge. The vignette is acutely cut off by Fifth Avenue. Three traffic lights and multiple lanes of traffic thwart their charge down 67th Street. Apparently, the anomalous collision of war and city was less upsetting than a memorial in the park. Behind the soldiers lies a playground, its slides, rocks, and water elements, all obscured from the memorial by the low wall of Central Park, a green buffer between the park and the urban wall of buildings, a curtain to help visitors suspend disbelief.

In  The Everyday Life of Memorials , I write about these boundaries, the way people frequently disregard them, the meaning of where we put memorials, and what we do at them. O’Hara had it right: The liver-sausage sandwich means nothing without Sherman, which is incoherent without Central Park or Bergdorf’s or the teaming masses gawking, flirting, littering, and now texting as they move through the scene. They’re all part of the total meaning of this urban fragment, which flows into other cultural landscapes that give it meaning. Sherman and his golden angel epitomize the formal. Placed by elites and official committees in a formally landscaped entrance to Central Park, they play the didactic role of keepers of memory, arbiters of culture, reminders of American hierarchies. They are symbols of authority, stand-ins for the powers that placed them there.

Yet all of this breaks down in O’Hara’s poem—and in real life. The everyday is not just the spaces in between and the neglected buildings, people, and processes in them, but the entire mixed-up scene. It turns out that the formal ain’t so formal, and the everyday is constantly under pressure to straighten up and tuck in its shirt. The formal Sherman and its formal setting, planned from above and gilded with high-minded allegory, are part of everyday urbanism.

As the geographer Richard Walker has written, largely to prod devotees of the everyday out of their purism: “The city and its monuments are an unending procession of spectacle, high drama, low farce, and play of representations upon the rude stones—fraud on the grandest scale—from classical Athens to Islamic Cairo or from Baron Georges-Eugène Haussmann’s Paris to Frank Gehry’s Los Angeles.”

__________________________________

The Everyday Life of Memorials by Andrew Shanken is available from Zone Books. 

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Why Do Old Places Matter?

• More: Preservation Leadership Forum
• By: Thompson Mayes

photo by: Nick Thompson/Flickr/CC BY NC SA 2.0

Santa Sabina in Rome, Italy.

In 2013 Tom Mayes, deputy general counsel at the National Trust for Historic Preservation, was selected as a winner of the Rome Prize , which is awarded to about 30 emerging artists and scholars who represent the highest standard of excellence.

A lifelong preservationist, Mayes is the principal lawyer for legal matters relating to the National Trust’s 27 historic sites and for historic property real estate transactions, and has expertise in architectural and technical preservation issues, collections management, preservation easements, the Americans with Disabilities Act and historic shipwrecks.

When he isn’t working on legal complexities, Mayes considers the role historic places play in everyday life. This prestigious award sent Mayes to Rome on a six-month tour of discovery where he sought to answer the question: Why Do Old Places Matter? This photo essay presents Mayes’ answers along with links to that longer posts that explore the answers in more depth.

Find Out More

Tom Mayes’ popular Why Old Places Matter series is now available as Why Old Places Matter , the only book that explores the reasons that old places matter to people. Although people often feel very deeply about the old places of their lives, they don’t have the words to express why. This book brings these ideas together in evocative language and with illustrative images for a broad audience. Order your copy today.

Mt. Zion Rosenwald School (1925) was the first public school for African-American students in the Mars Bluff community.

“In a world that is constantly changing, old places provide people with a sense of being part of a continuum that is necessary for them to be psychologically and emotionally healthy.”

Cemetery gate at Ramah Presbyterian Church in Huntersville, North Carolina.

“Old places help us remember. Old places… trigger memories people already have, give specificity to memories, and arouse curiosity about memories people don’t yet know.”

The cedar trees on this pasture at Mayes' family farm creates a sense of individual identity.

Individual Identity

“…[O]ld places…serve as reference points for measuring, refreshing, and recalibrating our identity over time. They are literally the landmarks of our identity.”

photo by: Architect of the Capitol

Exterior of the U.S. Capitol Building.

Civic, State, National, and Universal Identity

“Americans argue vociferously about what our country is, who it is for, and what it means. These debates help reshape and re-form and—hopefully—deepen our understanding of history and identity. The old places that embody our identity are the perfect venues for those discussions and debates.”

Kykuit, a Historic Site of the National Trust in Tarrytown, New York.

“The history of preservation demonstrates a remarkable march of the ugly transforming into the beautiful.”

photo by: Duncan Kendall

The State of Virginia monument at Gettysburg depicts General Robert E. Lee astride his favorite horse, Traveller.

“What is it about old places that give them this unique capacity to ‘convey, embody, or stimulate a relation or reaction’ to history? … [P]eople feel the excitement of experiencing the place where something actually happened, from the shimmering watery fortress of Fort Sumter where the Civil War started, to the quiet rooms of Emily Dickinson’s home in Amherst, Massachusetts.”

photo by: Carol Highsmith

Farnsworth House in Chicago.

Architecture

“These special places, these works of architecture, are works of art. Like painting, music or literature, these buildings help us understand our capacities as humans.”

Acoma Sky City, which includes San Esteban del Rey Mission Church, is a Historic Site of the National Trust.

“…old places that are considered sacred are treasured by the religious and the non-religious. Why? Because these old places provide people with ‘restorative benefits that foster meditation and reflection and … a sense of peace or serenity,’ and with all the other benefits that old places provide—continuity, memory, identity, and beauty—that are psychologically and sociologically beneficial.”

photo by: Rick Smith

The interior of Studio A on Music Row, a National Treasure in Nashville, Tennessee.

“Just as people once traveled on pilgrimages to visit the relics of saints, they now go to visit the places where creative people worked, dreamt and struggled. From Mark Twain’s house in Hartford, Donald Judd’s loft building in Manhattan, Jackson Pollock’s house on Long Island, to William Faulkner’s Rowan Oak, these places attract people who want to connect with the creative power of art and artists.”

Kwan Tai Temple in Mendocino, California.

“Without exactly paying attention to it, we also absorb information about people and how they lived—what they ate, how they worked, how they made money, how they lost money, how they coupled, raised their families, and lived and died. And in learning about others from the past, we learn about ourselves.”

The Wing Luke Museum was awarded the 2014 Trustees Emeritus Award for Excellence in the Stewardship of Historic Sites.

Sustainability

“In trying to envision a world that is more environmentally sustainable, I hope for a world where we are more appreciative of the communities, buildings and things that already exist, and that we continue to use them, so that we’re not constantly tearing buildings down and throwing things away."

Visitors engage with an educator during a tour of the Lower East Side Tenement Museum, a National Trust Historic Site at 97 Orchard Street.

“Old places connect us to our ancestors and our ancestors connect us to old places, giving us a sense of belonging and identity.”

Old places, such as this historic neighborhood in Athens, Georgia, foster community.

“Old places foster community by giving people a sense of shared identity through landmarks, history, memory, and stories, by having the attributes that foster community, such as distinctive character and walkability, and by serving as shared places where people meet and gather.”

photo by: Historic Tennessee Theatre Association

The interior of the Tennessee Threatre in Knoxville, a historic tax credit project.

“Old places support a sound, sustainable and vibrant economy that also fulfills deeper human needs of continuity, identity, belonging, and beauty.”

Tom Mayes, chief legal officer and general counsel, has worked on the full range of National Trust legal issues since he joined the National Trust in 1986. He received the National Endowment for the Arts Rome Prize in Historic Preservation in 2013 and is the author of the book Why Old Places Matter.

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Neag School of Education

Monuments ‘expire’ — but can become powerful history lessons.

• by: Alan Marcus and Walter Woodward
• September 4, 2020

Editor’s Note: The following piece, co-authored by Professor Alan Marcus and Walter Woodward , associate professor in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and Connecticut State historian, was originally published in The Conversation .

Historical monuments are intended to be timeless, but almost all have an expiration date. As society’s values shift, the legitimacy of monuments can and often does erode.

This is because monuments – whether statues, memorials or obelisks – reveal the values of the time in which they were created and advance the agendas of their creators .

Many 9/11 monuments in the U.S., for example, serve both to remember and honor victims of the attacks while promoting national vigilance. These views garnered nearly universal support immediately after the attacks. Over time, however, as the costs and consequences of “homeland security” became clearer, unqualified support for this agenda has waned.

Current debates around racism confirm that Confederate statues and Christopher Columbus statues, both of which effectively commemorate white superiority, have expired , too.

The question then becomes: What’s a nation to do with expired monuments?

“Over the past century, American public officials, citizens and historians have taken one of two paths. They either ignored expired monuments – the 20th-century approach – or, more recently, rejected them . ”

Purpose of monuments

Over the past century, American public officials, citizens and historians have taken one of two paths. They either ignored expired monuments – the 20th-century approach – or, more recently, rejected them.

Ignoring problem monuments left the impression among many that officials endorsed the views they embodied. Today, people who see a host of monuments as illegitimate symbols of racism, authoritarianism and oppression have rejected this official indifference. Through protest or policy change, they have forced more open and productive discussions about race in America. Ultimately, many offensive monuments have been removed .

Removal eliminates the symbols of now-rejected values. But as historians and educators who have explored the instructive value of monuments, we believe statue removal can also limit the important conversations underway about their expired agendas.

Monuments provide an especially useful educational service because they serve double duty. They mark historical events or figures – the Battle of Bunker Hill , say, or Martin Luther King Jr. – and reflect the prevailing values of the time in which they were created. Monuments are also unique compared with other forms of cultural expression like art or literature in that they almost always reside in public spaces and are found in practically every town and city in America.

These attributes make monuments ideal launching points for helping society assess its current values and compare them with what mattered in the past.

Expired monuments are a lesson: They teach that people can be tragically wrong about something even when that belief once had widespread public support and official approval. Simultaneously, they show that radical, marginalized or contrary voices can turn out to be right. Or they may be, like their opponents, creatures of a particular moment in time.

Reinventing monuments

We’ve been studying how the function of expired monuments might be entirely reinvented so that their outdated agendas provide a cautionary tale.

Many thinkers, artists and public officials have put forward suggestions .

A common idea is to move expired monuments to museums, where they would be recast as art or as historic artifacts. The most creative proposals include making a Confederate statues “graveyard” or moving expired monuments to a sculpture park .

In all these settings, expired monuments would be stripped of the seal of official endorsement and clearly explained as once-venerated symbols of views now understood to be morally unacceptable. That raises larger questions about how societies can be blind to their own moral failures.

European countries offer some examples of how statues from painful chapters of history can be, as artist Jonathan Keats put it, “ forcefully repositioned in a radically new context .”

Gorky Park in Moscow contains an area displaying old Soviet-era monuments that deprives them of their symbolic power. Statues of dictators Stalin and Lenin are no longer in a prominent public location and are clumped together in an apolitical manner.

In Estonia, old Soviet-era monuments are part of a history-rich museum exhibition that uses these relics of authoritarianism as a warning to future generations.

In post-World War II Germany, virtually all monuments to Hitler and the Third Reich were destroyed; perhaps some crimes are simply too abhorrent to be remembered so soon. But in 1986 an unusual monument against fascism was erected in Hamburg. Each year a portion of this vertical gray column was lowered underground until by 1993 it was completely gone. The 39-foot monument “disappeared” before it could expire.

The sunken monument can still be viewed underground. This tactic communicates that society needs to remember the dangers of fascism, but that a monument is not enough. Ultimately, only engaged citizens can attack injustice.

From valorizing to analyzing

Reinventing expired monuments uses outdated objects to teach about a society’s past values while assessing – and perhaps challenging – its contemporary beliefs. In other words, it moves from valorizing monuments to analyzing them.

That’s rich terrain for educators. Teachers can use reinvented monuments to ask students to consider the validity of what American society believes, says and does.

Monuments expire because views change. But because present-day cultural values are themselves often difficult for people to see from another perspective, analyzing monuments also has the educational value of prompting deliberations about how future generations will reflect upon today’s United States. How did this generation of Americans grapple with issues like racial injustice, climate change and economic inequality?

Future generations will hold current society to account, just as Americans today are scrutinizing the views and actions of past generations.

Reinventing rather than simply removing monuments requires confronting the past, recognizing current conditions and planning for the future – all while embracing the reality that historical change is a complex, messy and malleable process.

The Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP) accredits the Neag School of Education at the University of Connecticut. Read more about CAEP Accreditation, including the programs covered and the accountability measures .

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The Historian Scrutinizing Our Idea of Monuments

On June 17, 2015, Dylann Roof walked into a Bible-study session at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, in Charleston, South Carolina, and opened fire with a handgun, murdering nine Black congregants. Roof’s motivations were clear. He was a white supremacist who wished to start a race war, and he saw his actions as part of a distinctly American legacy. In the weeks before his massacre, Roof posed for photos at a number of Confederate sites, including a graveyard housing the Confederate dead and the Museum and Library of Confederate History, in Greenville, South Carolina. After the murders, officials in states such as Maryland, Missouri, and Louisiana, responding to public outrage, took down eleven monuments to the Confederacy. But, as the art historian Erin L. Thompson notes in her new book, “ Smashing Statues: The Rise and Fall of America’s Public Monuments ,” the monuments didn’t stay out of sight for long. “Six quickly went back on view in different public locations, including cemeteries, battlefield sites, and a museum,” Thompson writes. Another was placed next to a ferry station on the banks of the Potomac. Others are in storage as plans to reërect them get under way.

It’s not hard to put up a monument in the United States, even when the cause it commemorates is long lost. Taking one down is another story. When New Yorkers heard the Declaration of Independence read aloud, on July 9, 1776, they rushed to destroy the equestrian statue of King George III that stood at Bowling Green, cutting off the monarch’s nose, chopping off his head, and parading with his severed limbs through the streets. More recently, though, the act of dismantling monuments has been decried as unpatriotic and an assault on the history they purport to represent, even as we tend to forget, or obscure, the history of the monuments themselves. Stone Mountain, in Georgia, the country’s largest Confederate monument, began, as Thompson writes, “as a pet project of the Ku Klux Klan”; Christopher Columbus, who never set foot in the continental U.S., is celebrated by statues across the country, in spite of the protests from Indigenous communities.

The contradictions that make up so much of American life are right there on display in our public art, which is why it seems to hold clues to our future as a nation, too. In her book, Thompson, a professor at the City University of New York, explores the stories behind a number of American monuments, the people who wanted them up, and the activists and community members who are fighting for them to come down. I recently spoke with her over Zoom to ask her about her discoveries. Our conversation has been edited and condensed.

Let’s start with the Statue of Freedom on top of the Capitol building, and with Philip Reid, one of the workmen responsible for it. A lot of people are probably vaguely aware that there is a statue on top of the Capitol. But I also think they probably don’t know what it represents, and they certainly don’t know the story of how it got there. So tell us: Who was Philip Reid?

He was an enslaved man owned by Clark Mills, who was the sculptor of the very first American bronze monument, a sculpture of Andrew Jackson. And the success of that sculpture—which still stands outside the White House—meant that he got hired for additional commissions, including to cast, in bronze, a statue symbolizing freedom to top the Capitol dome. It was started before the Civil War, and was put up only after the Emancipation Proclamation was signed. So by the time it went up Philip Reid was free, but he worked on it while enslaved. And, in fact, Clark Mills bought additional people from the profits he made from the sculpture of Andrew Jackson.

This is the type of story that led me to write the book. A lot of the debates about monuments have focussed on the character of the person honored—you know, should we be honoring Robert E. Lee or not, et cetera. But I’m more interested in how these objects function as monuments, how they were made, why they were put up, how they’ve been used since. And so Reid’s story seemed really important, because to know that someone was forced to make this representation of a liberty that he didn’t have was deeply compelling to me. And the statue itself was modified under the direction of Jefferson Davis, who would, of course, become the President of the Confederacy—but at that point he was the Secretary of War, charged with supervising the decorations for the Capitol. He made the sculptor change the original design to not include a symbolization of emancipation. He thought that American freedom was the freedom of people who had always been free, had been born free—like him, not like Reid.

The symbol that Davis wanted to replace was a wreath, right?

It was a hat, the Pileus cap. My editor wouldn’t let me say that it’s the type of hat that Smurfs wear. [ Laughs. ]

A liberty cap. And what did they replace it with?

So she wears this Vegas-y headdress, which has an eagle and feathers. And it looks completely ridiculous now.

Right, the irony of trying to craft a symbol of freedom when America was deeply dependent on slavery created actual, practical problems in the representation of freedom.

Exactly. And those problems are hard to see because they were often simply disguised altogether. So it is extremely rare to see a Black person in public art until the twentieth century—even in, say, Northern Civil War memorials, though a large part of the Union forces were African American soldiers.

And, when Black people were included in public art, it seems like they were often included in ways that suggested subservience to their white liberators.

Yeah, and Frederick Douglass, for example, knew that this was a problem as soon as this art went up. He criticized a statue that still stands, in D.C., celebrating Lincoln’s granting of emancipation to African Americans. There’s this grovelling Black man kneeling in front of Lincoln. Ironically enough, that man’s face is modelled after an actual man, who escaped from slavery and then re-escaped after being kidnapped by men who wanted to send him back into slavery. This is Archer Alexander. So he liberated himself twice with no help from Lincoln, but has been made into a powerless recipient of the largesse of white Americans.

It seems like the question of what to do with monuments has sprung into the public eye almost overnight. I was interested to see you write that, before 2015, not a single Confederate monument had come down, but in the year after George Floyd ’s murder, in May of 2020, around a hundred and fifty monuments were destroyed or removed. That’s an enormous shift. I’m wondering whether you had given much thought to America’s monuments before 2020.

I just did the calculations over again, and, as of January 31st, a hundred and forty-two Confederate monuments have been removed since the death of George Floyd, along with seventy-two others, mostly of settlers and Columbus. But just to be picky about removal versus destruction—

Do be picky.

A lot of what I did in this book was ask questions that I thought were stupid. Like, there’s all these news stories of monuments being loaded on the backs of trucks and driven away, so where are those trucks going? And it turns out that no monument has been irrevocably destroyed but one: a single platter-size portrait of Columbus, which was removed from a monument in Connecticut. Otherwise, they’ve all been relocated or are in storage. The Charlottesville Lee monument, which was at the center of the Unite the Right rally in 2017—the city council awarded it to a local nonprofit, which proposed melting it down and giving the bronze to an artist for a new monument. But that process has been stalled by yet another lawsuit from Confederate-heritage groups. So people really, really want to keep these up.

Did I think about monuments before? I didn’t think so much about American monuments. I’m a classicist, and, to me, destroying a monument is a normal part of human life. Practically everything that I studied from ancient sculpture was at one point broken, thrown into a pit, buried, and then dug up again. So when protests started I realized that Americans are in this strange, exceptional period of history where we haven’t replaced a lot of our monuments in a long time, which is very unlike human beings.

The very first equestrian monument that Americans got, a statue of George III, lasted only six years before we tore it down upon reading the Declaration of Independence. So we used to destroy a lot of monuments. In the twentieth century, not so much.

And now there’s this sea change.

I don’t think it’s so much of a sea change. It’s a sea change among a certain audience. Something I did in the book was try and talk to activists who have been protesting particular monuments for, in some cases, decades—their entire adult lives—like Mike Forcia protesting a statue of Columbus in the Twin Cities.

I think the real change has been people who assume that they are praised by these monuments. They’re starting to rethink whether that praise is worth keeping up a monument that pains others.

Another thing that you highlight in your book is how hard it is to remove a monument by any kind of public or legal process. In the past year or two, we’ve seen these dramatic images of protesters tearing down monuments, and people get upset and say that isn’t the right way to go about it. But you write about how, even when people try to approach this in “the right way,” they can’t accomplish anything. I’m thinking specifically of what you write about the Confederate Soldiers and Sailors Monument, in Birmingham, Alabama. Do you want to tell that story?

I’m such a fangirl of Mayor Woodfin.

Birmingham’s Confederate monument celebrated a past that the city didn’t even have—Birmingham was founded well after the Civil War. It was put up in two parts at the turn of the twentieth century, both parts in response to unionization efforts among area miners. These were interracial efforts, and the city’s [leading citizens], who paid for the statue’s base and then the obelisk that went on top, wanted to persuade white workers that keeping within racial boundaries was more important than making a living wage.

By the nineteen-seventies, Birmingham was a majority Black city, and even less willing to have the monument. But, by the time discussion really started about taking it down, the Alabama state legislature had passed a law prohibiting the removal of monuments more than forty years old, which included this monument and almost all of the state’s Confederate monuments.

And there was simply no discussion possible, regardless of the wishes of the community, unless the majority of the state legislature changed the law. And this is true in a surprisingly large number of U.S. jurisdictions—that removal is not up for debate, it’s simply prohibited by law. Even in jurisdictions like New York, where there are no prohibitions, there’s no process for asking for removal or reconsideration of a monument. So these requests get lost in the bureaucratic shuffle.

But shortly after the death of George Floyd, Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin saw protesters trying to take down the monument, essentially with their hands. And he decided—for public safety, and for the soul of Birmingham—to remove it, to break the law in an act of civil disobedience. The law would impose a fine of twenty-five thousand dollars on the city for any modification of the monument, and he decided it was well worth it. Other [Alabama] cities have also taken down Confederate monuments and paid the fine. In reaction, the state legislature has heard proposals to make the law much stricter, to make any officials who authorize removal, or even vote in approval of removal, personally liable for fines. So it’s no surprise to me that, when you have these very punitive laws, the only way out is going to be an act of civil disobedience.

One argument we hear a lot is that, if we remove monuments, we’ll be getting rid of the history that they represent. But it often seems that what they represent is not necessarily history but the time in which they were erected, as in the case of Birmingham. The period after Reconstruction was a major moment for the creation of monuments to the Confederacy. Why was that?

Well, public art has always been a way for humans to shape societies, to tell members of a community what their roles should be. And a lot of Civil War monuments did precisely that. You might think they went up right after the Civil War, but this is not usually true. In the decades immediately following the war, monuments went up in cemeteries; they were monuments of mourning to commemorate personal losses. But the monuments we see today generally went up only starting in the eighteen-nineties, when Reconstruction was over, and when Jim Crow laws had been passed to reduce the possibility of Black engagement in the political and economic life of the South. They went up as a reminder that this is how things should be—a fantasy of antebellum life where everyone knew their places, and no one was trying to ask for more, whether it was Black Southerners trying to ask for political participation or working-class white Southerners trying to gain more wealth.

So, yeah, I think it’s always more interesting to ask how a monument has shaped its society versus what sort of past it’s commemorating. Monuments are not how we learn about the past. Often, they erase the past. A Northern Civil War monument that shows only white soldiers, for example, is erasing the participation of Black soldiers.

You mention working-class whites. I learned from your book about the pose called parade rest. Why was it so important for the makers of so many Confederate monuments to depict Confederate soldiers in parade rest?

The vast majority of Civil War monuments are not of a named officer but of an unnamed low-ranking soldier. Almost all of these are standing in parade rest, which, according to infantry instruction manuals of the period, was a pose soldiers would take not when fighting—not when doing anything heroic—but when listening to a drill instructor.

So it’s a posture celebrating obedience. Soldiers were forbidden to speak when standing in this position. It’s a posture of listening to your betters, your leaders. And it’s no surprise that these monuments went up in periods of labor unrest, when they could try to convince the descendants of soldiers that they were part of a glorious tradition—not of rebellion but of obedience. These sculptures were paid for by factory owners, by white-collar entrepreneurs, at a time when they were trying to control their employees.

Let’s talk about Stone Mountain, the huge Confederate memorial, in Georgia, that depicts Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis, and Stonewall Jackson. One thing I didn’t know was that the person responsible for it also created Mount Rushmore—which, of course, features Abraham Lincoln. What’s the story there?

I really want Gutzon Borglum’s life to be, like, a Netflix miniseries.

Starting with the name.

So what we see today, carved into a mountain outside Georgia, was finished only in the mid-nineteen-seventies. But the project started in the nineteen-tens, when a Confederate widow called in a sculptor to carve a bust of Lee on the mountainside. And that sculptor was Gutzon Borglum, who was a rather strange choice. He was the son of Danish immigrants. He lived in Connecticut. He had made his name sculpting Lincoln, and in fact had named his son Lincoln, during a bid to be hired to make the Lincoln Memorial. He lost out to Daniel Chester French, and defected to the Confederate cause to make Stone Mountain.

And he upsold the widow rather dramatically. He said that a single bust of Lee would look as insignificant as a dime falling on a rug. Instead, he proposed more than seven hundred figures, all at least thirty-five feet tall, sweeping across the mountain. And he did so because he was in a lot of debt, and he’d get paid a percentage of the cost. So the bigger it was, the more it celebrated the Confederacy, the more money he would make.

What could go wrong?

The story of Stone Mountain has so many wild details. Borglum joined the newly revived Ku Klux Klan to solidify his ties to the patron of the project. He teamed up with Klansmen [who embezzled] donations intended for the sculpture. He was eventually fired, and the head of Lee that he carved on the mountain was blasted off. He almost went under from debt, but, just in time, he signed a contract to make what would become Mount Rushmore.

So I think that Stone Mountain is more a memorial to a con than to the Confederacy. It was in limbo for a long time, and it was only revived in the fifties, when Georgia’s anti-integration governor bought the property for a state park, hoping to make it a rallying point for resistance to integration. The Klan was revived there. Some people debate whether Lee, Jackson, and Davis should be represented, but I don’t really care. This history—the monument as a rallying point for anti-integration, as a birthplace of the Klan not once but twice—seems to me more important for making decisions about what its fate should be.

It’s kind of impossible to talk about Stone Mountain and Mount Rushmore without talking about kitsch. Kitsch seems endemic to the whole form of monuments, maybe because art made for the purpose of veneration can’t admit irony, and I guess kitsch could be described as the ironic total lack of irony.

Are there any monuments you came across that you thought had aesthetic value?

I think monuments have the privilege of boredom. They are designed to give us a view of history and then discourage us from asking further questions. And so in one way they’re easily understood, and in another way they’re totally impenetrable, because you’re not meant to see any of the complexities. So they’re usually not that interesting aesthetically.

They can be very interesting when modified by artists today. But some of them are just not very good at all. In Tompkins Square Park, in New York City, there’s a monument to Samuel Cox, who voted against emancipation as a congressman. And even when the statue went up, in the late nineteenth century, the New York Times said that it was, aesthetically, not very good. It looks like three toddlers in a trenchcoat. But the statue received police protection in 2020.

So monuments get the privilege of preservation by being put in the category of art, and thus get to disseminate ideas even if we mostly all agree that those ideas no longer characterize the community. It doesn’t make sense to me that, just because it’s in bronze or marble, it gets to stay up as a loudspeaker.

Monuments obviously affect people who don’t want to see them. But then there are cases such as Dylann Roof, who visited Confederate landmarks before he committed his massacre, in 2015. It seems like these monuments still have a lot of power, even if for a lot of us they’re background noise. I wouldn’t know, walking through Tompkins Square Park, whom I was passing—I’d probably be looking for whomever I was going to meet. It’s interesting to see which monuments seem to lose their power, and then regain their power, depending on how much attention we’re paying to them at any given moment.

Yeah, monuments can reactivate. And that’s what gives you hope for the future. I think just making a monument vanish does nothing. But taking a monument down, or modifying it in a way that lets us talk about our future, how our community should change, can be incredibly powerful. So these monuments still have a role to play in the shaping of America—but toward equality, not oppression.

What are the most successful instances of what you mentioned before—contemporary artists working to modify or respond to monuments?

I wrote in the book about the Houston Museum of African American Culture, which took in a Confederate monument from a Houston park and had artists respond to it. Willow Curry made a really powerful video in which she’s directly addressing the sculpture, telling it that it can’t intimidate her and her fellow-citizens. That was very powerful.

There’s a sculpture outside the Museum of Fine Arts, in Boston, of a generic Indian on a horse. It isn’t meant to be derogatory, but it’s sort of insultingly nonspecific. The museum commissioned an Indigenous artist, who created a garden around the sculpture, including corn stalks that grew up and partially concealed it. I think it made people curious—why is there corn here, in front of the museum?—and encouraged them to think through what the sculpture was meant to do, what art is meant to do, in terms of representing America to itself.

And I think what we call graffiti on the monuments have been powerful reactions. There are plans under way to put the Jefferson Davis sculpture, from Richmond’s Monument Avenue, back on display, still coated in the pink paint that was thrown on it. That’ll be a reminder of this period of public debate.

Monuments can often seem to be an immovable part of our landscape. Where did you grow up?

Were there any monuments there that were a significant visual presence in your childhood?

Every day on my way to school, we would drive past a Mexican restaurant with a life-size sculpture of a bull and a bullfighter in front of it, in the parking lot. The bull was very anatomically correct, and college students would frequently paint the testicles in different colors, and then the restaurant would have to repaint them black. I was going to this private religious school where life was very restricted, where questioning authority was very much not allowed. And this act of playful vandalism was so encouraging to me as a sign that you could, in fact, question authority—you could make a change in the landscape.

Well, this brings us back to kitsch. A lot of monuments really are funny. I’m thinking of the monument you describe, completed in 1841, of George Washington , by the sculptor Horatio Greenough. Washington is seated, and his head is very clearly the head of George Washington, but he’s in a sort of Zeus pose, with one arm raised, his fingers pointing to the sky, and he’s naked from the waist up, with a torso that is chiselled both literally and figuratively. I think even at the time people thought this was a joke, right?

Yeah. I love how his jowls morph into pecs in this completely unrealistic way. Nobody thought this was a good idea. Well, some people did, but it did not translate well to the public. Which I think is a problem with monuments in general, right? It is difficult to represent the intellectual achievements of someone. Throughout history, intellect, power, or qualities of leadership have just been translated into physical perfection. So you get superhero George Washington instead of an actual portrait.

This sculpture was very interesting to me because it was commissioned for the rotunda of the Capitol, but got kicked out after only a few years. And, when I started writing the book, I thought that there hadn’t been that many removals of public art. In fact, there have been plenty of removals, so long as the art was seen as insulting by people in power. So if congressmen are saying, “We feel like only superheroes can become President if you have this sculpture of the chiselled George Washington in our midst, we don’t like that,” it’s going to go pretty quickly.

It seems to me that we’ve started to move away from figurative monuments. Maya Lin really brought us there with her Vietnam Veterans Memorial , and I’m also thinking of the reflecting pools at the World Trade Center. Is there something useful about the nonfigurative—that it doesn’t put all this weight on the body to represent universal human experience?

It really depends on whom you ask. Right now we’re arguing about what monuments should come down. We’re going to have even bigger arguments when we start to talk about what should replace them.

Very often, people in the art world will propose nonfigurative monuments, because they think those can evoke emotions without running into the problems of discriminatory representation. But, almost always, community groups want a figural monument to commemorate someone who is more important to that community. And this leads to a lot of disputes. Zachary Small in the New York Times wrote an article about a lawsuit over an abolitionist monument in Brooklyn. Essentially, the community group was, like, “Wait, you want this to be nonfigural? No, we are suing to prevent that.” So there’s going to need to be a lot of discussion, which is not what usually happens. Usually, monuments get air-dropped into a community by an arts authority or a funder without any discussion. If I were czar of monuments, they would all be nonfigural. But I am not, fortunately—too many headaches.

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1 Introduction to Memorials and Monuments

In 1841, the British historian Thomas Carlyle posited that the history of the world was really the biography of great men. Ten years later he argued that when an individual seeks to commemorate one of these great men, it reveals as much about them as it does about the object of their veneration: ‘Show me the man you honour, I know by that symptom, better than any other, what kind of man you yourself are’ (Savage, 2009, pp. 8-10). As it is with individuals, so it is with nations.

Memorial or monument?

People regularly use the words ‘memorial’, ‘monument’ and ‘commemoration’ as synonyms. They are all expressions of memory, which can belong to an individual or to a group in the form of a collective memory. Although there is no clean boundary between them, it is often useful to consider them as different, though interrelated terms.

Commemoration  refers to the process whereby individual memories are constructed and repackaged for public consumption. This could take many forms, including an Anzac Day service, an Armistice Day ceremony, or a religious gathering. By watching and participating in a commemorative event, the individual expresses their loyalty to shared views of the past and acknowledges their importance to the present.

Memorial  is a broad term that can encompass any effort at commemorating an event or person, particularly when it is associated with loss. It can be a statue, but might just as easily be a community hall, a town’s swimming pool, a book, a scroll, a road or a bridge.

Monument  is usually used in more narrow terms to describe a built structure which commemorates – though not always celebrates – an event or person.

The placement of memorials and monuments in public spaces recognises that they offer an officially sanctioned view of history. This provides an insight into the values and ideals of the society that constructed them, and which subsequently maintains them or allows them to fall into disrepair. The memorials and monuments are, however, far from being static repositories of a nation’s history. By acting ostensibly as a public noticeboard (Auster, 1997), they become powerful ideological tools that legitimise what is, in reality, an imagined community (Anderson, 1991). For example, the Arc de Triomphe or ‘Triumphal Arch of the Star’ (Figure 1.1) is one of the most famous monuments in Paris and honours those who fought and died for France in the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars.

One of the most common types of public memorials and monuments are those dedicated to commemorating war, and by extension, a vision of citizenship grounded in wartime service and sacrifice. The British Marxist historian Raphael Samuels (1998, p. 8) observes that the role of war in shaping a nation has entered into ‘the very marrow of the national idea’. The Soviet War Memorial ( Figure 1.2 ) is located in the Tiergarten, a large public park to the west of Berlin’s city centre. It is one of several war memorials in Berlin, the capital city of Germany, and was erected by the Soviet Union to commemorate its war dead – particularly the 80,000 soldiers of the Soviet Armed Forces who died during the Battle of Berlin in April and May 1945.

Not all memorials and monuments glorify an event or a person, or affirm an ideology. Counter memorials and monuments often look quite different to traditional memorials and encourage the viewer to think about different perspectives associated with the conflict or person being represented. Counter memorials and monuments also recognise the less celebratory events in a nation’s history (Stevens, et al., 2018). They act to disrupt dominant historical narratives and provide a voice for those marginalised or excluded from the historical record.

For example, the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Holocaust Memorial ( Figure 1.3 ) commemorates gay people killed as part of the systematic state-sponsored murder of six million Jewish people by Nazi Germany and its collaborators during the Second World War. It thereby becomes a universal symbol of the continuing persecution of gay people.

The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin is another example of a counter monument. It is comprised of 2,711 concrete stelae – or slabs – arranged across a five acre space. Peter Eisenman, the designer, adopted a deconstructivist approach – one informed by the paradox that the historical rupture of the Holocaust had made such an architectural representation impossible (Rosenfeld, 2016).

Video 1.3: Holocaust Memorial in Berlin in 3D – VR180

As the Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests in 2020 showed, some memorials and monuments are no longer considered appropriate because they celebrate views and ideals now considered anachronistic and potentially offensive. It is important, therefore, to understand the social, political, cultural and historical context of memorials and monuments to ensure the version of history that is portrayed reflects contemporary and democratic ideals, particularly those related to freedom, gender, and citizenship. Memorials and monuments should be constantly re-evaluated, a process that might result in removal, relocation or the placement of additional signage to ensure their continuing relevance. Memory begins, as William Kidd and Brian Murdoch remind us, more or less contemporaneous with the event or the actions of the individual being remembered. Public commemorative acts – which include the construction of memorials and monuments and the rituals conducted at them – draw at least some of their significance and their ongoing resonance from contemporary narratives and agendas. As James Young (1993) observes, memorials appear to remember everything but their own past. The statue of Albert Pike in Washington DC honours a senior officer of the Confederate States Army. It has attracted considerable controversy over the years and was toppled on June 19 2020 ( Figure 1.5 ) after weeks of protests in response to the killing of George Floyd, an African American man murdered during an arrest.

In the Australian context, the war memorial or monument is the most common and most powerful presence in the commemorative landscape. Yet there is limited research on the use of memorials and monuments in educational settings, particularly at the tertiary level. At a school level, the national curriculum delivers a sequenced and thematic study of history in the primary years – one that is well able to facilitate an understanding of local, regional and national history. As Peter Brett (2014, p. 19) has argued, the Australian Curriculum: History provides a foundation for rich and experiential engagement by children with local history and state and national historical narratives. Yet equally important is his added observation that this needs to be ‘mediated by thoughtful professional decision-making that promotes key aspects of historical literacy’. This is particularly true in the use of local history such as the exploration of memorials and monuments. Griffin (2011, p. 4) argues that teachers often avoid visits to historical sites as they ‘frequently find themselves out of their depth and feel inadequate, even frightened, when conducting excursions’. The authors of this textbook believe that a guide to the use of memorials and monuments which provides a theoretical framework and practical approaches for both specialist and generalist teachers can help to surmount the challenges for educators and students, whether they are based in metropolitan, regional or remote contexts.

Discussion questions

• What is a memorial?
• Why do people build them?
• Can they be private or are they always public?
• What memorials are located near your school or home? What do they commemorate? What message or idea do they communicate to a viewer? Can that message be interpreted in different ways or is their one ‘correct’ reading?
• Do the memorials look ‘old’ or ‘new’? What is it about them that influences your opinion?

Wider reading

Smithsonian Institution. (1995, January/February). Art to zoo: Teaching with the power of objects. Smithsonian Institution. http://www.smithsonianeducation.org/educators/lesson_plans/memorials/ATZ_Memorials_JanFeb1995.pdf

War Memorials Trust. (2017). Importance of war memorials. War Memorials Trust. http://www.warmemorials.org/uploads/publications/64.pdf

Queensland War Memorial Register. (2021). Queensland War Memorials Register. Queensland Government, Department of Environment and Science. https://www.qldwarmemorials.com.au/

Anderson, B. (1991). Imagined communities: Reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism . Verso.

Auster, M. (1997). Monument in a landscape: The question of ‘meaning’. Australian Geographer , 28 (2), 219-227. https://doi.org/10.1080/00049189708703194

Boissy, R. W. (2016). The affordable textbook revolution. Against the Grain , 28(5). https://doi.org/10.7771/2380-176X.7514

Brett, P. (2014). ‘The sacred spark of wonder’: Local museums, Australian curriculum history, and pre-service primary teacher education: A Tasmanian case study. Australian Journal of Teacher Education , 39 (6), 17-29. http://dx.doi.org/10.14221/ajte.2014v39n6.8

Griffin, J. (2011). The museum education mix: Students, teachers and museum educators. In D. Griffin & L. Paroissen (Eds.). Understanding museums: Australian museums and museology. National Museum of Australia. https://www.nma.gov.au/research/understanding-museums/JGriffin_2011.html

Kidd, W. & Murdoch, B. (2004). Introduction. In W. Kidd & B. Murdoch (Eds.), Memory and memorials: The commemorative century . Ashgate.

Peter, S., & Deimann, N. (2013). On the role of openness in education: A historical reconstruction. Open Praxis , 5(1), 7-14. https://doi.org/10.4000/dms.2491

Rosenfeld, G. D. (2016). Deconstructivism and the Holocaust: Peter Eisenman’s Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. In C. Fogu, W. Kansteiner, & T. Presner (Eds.), Probing the ethics of Holocaust culture (pp. 283-303). Harvard University Press.

Samuel, R. (1998).  Island Stories: Unravelling Britain . Verso.

Savage, K. (2009). Monument wars: Washington, D.C., the National Mall, and the transformation of the memorial landscape . University of California Press.

Stevens, Q., Franck, K. A., & Fazakerley, R. (2018). Counter-monuments: The anti-monumental and the dialogic. The Journal of Architecture. 23 (5), 718-739. https://doi.org/10.1080/13602365.2012.746035

Young, J. E. (1993). The texture of memory: Holocaust memorials and meaning . Yale University Press.

A Possession Forever Copyright © 2021 by University of Southern Queensland is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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History, Memory, and Monuments:   An Overview of the Scholarly Literature on Commemoration

Kirk Savage, University of Pittsburgh

            “Monuments are good for nothing,” a North Carolina Congressman declared in 1800.    In the founding years of the United States, many argued that democracy and the spread of literacy had made commemorative rituals and monuments obsolete, a leftover from the days of monarchy and superstition.   Reflecting on Congress’s reluctance to fund a monument to George Washington, John Quincy Adams famously observed   that “democracy has no monuments.”    “True memory,” many Americans liked to claim, lay not in a pile of dead stones but in the living hearts of the people.

            Since those early days of the Republic, democracy has changed its tune.   Commemoration has become utterly commonplace, deeply rooted in the cultural practices of the nation.   Not only did Americans come to embrace traditional forms of commemoration, but they pioneered new practices, particularly in the remembrance of war dead.   Today American commemorative practices have multiplied and spread in ways no one could have imagined, extending now even into the solar system (with a monument to the fallen Columbia crew on Mars).

            While commemorative practices have been expanding for nearly two centuries, the academic literature on commemoration has mushroomed in the past twenty years.   So many scholars from such a variety of disciplines have joined the “memory boom” that mapping the field has become effectively impossible.   Moreover, scholars often talk at cross purposes with one another or simply in ignorance of each other’s work.   This essay, while by necessity impressionistic, will try to pinpoint key questions, debates, findings, and trends.

            The first key question might be, what is commemoration?   Dictionary definitions tell us that to commemorate is to “call to remembrance,” to mark an event or a person or a group by a ceremony or an observance or a monument of some kind.   Commemorations might be ephemeral or permanent ;   the key point is that they prod collective memory in some conspicuous way.

            French sociologist Maurice Halbwachs ushered in the modern academic study of collective memory with his book The Social Frameworks of Memory (1925) in which he argued that all memory – even personal memory – is a social process, shaped by the various groups (family, religious, geographical, etc.)   to which individuals belong.   In an even more influential posthumous essay, “Historical Memory and Collective Memory” (1950), published after his death in a Nazi concentration camp, Halbwachs insisted on a distinction between history and collective memory: history aims for a universal, objective truth severed from the psychology of social groups while “every collective memory requires the support of a group delimited in space and time.”   Thus our view of the past does not come primarily from professional historical scholarship but from a much more complicated and interwoven set of relationships to mass media, tourist sites, family tradition, and the spaces of our upbringing with all their regional, ethnic, and class diversity – to name just a few factors.   Just as personal memory is now understood to be a highly selective, adaptive process of reconstructing the past, shaped by present needs and contexts, so collective memory is a product of social groups and their ever evolving character and interests.   Hence the now commonplace notion that collective memory is “constructed,” amidst a perpetual political battleground.   Almost everyone now agrees with American historian Michael Kammen’s assertion, made in his magisterial volume Mystic Chords of Memory (1991) that “societies in fact reconstruct their pasts rather than faithfully record them, and that they do so with the needs of contemporary culture clearly in mind – manipulating the past in order to mold the present.”

            Yet even when collective memory is qualified in this way, many scholars remain skeptical of the notion.   In a 2001 essay on “ The Memory Boom in Contemporary Historical Studies” social historian Jay Winter asserted that we need “a more rigorous and tightly argued set of propositions about what exactly memory is, and what it has been in the past.”   Some scholars even question the existence of collective memory.   The very idea of collective memory seems to assume a unity of purpose – as if many different people somehow share a common mind – that belies the reality of even the smallest family group, let alone a diverse nation like the U.S.   James Wertsch has argued in Voices of Collective Remembering (2002) that collective memory is not a thing in itself but many different acts of remembering, shaped by overarching social forces and cognitive frameworks such as narrative. Susan Sontag in her final book Regarding the Pain of Others (2002) went even further and argued that there isn’t a collective memory at all but there is “collective instruction,” a complex process – left mostly unexplained in her book – by which certain ideas and images become more important than others.

            “We speak so much of memory because there is so little of it left,” French scholar Pierre Nora has famously argued ( Realms of Memory , orig. 1984).   Nora claimed that modern societies invest so heavily in “lieux de memoire” [memory sites, such as monuments, museums, archives, and historic places] because these have replaced “real environments of memory,” the living memory that was once nourished spontaneously in premodern societies.   Nora’s claim echoes the anti-monument rhetoric of early American republicans.   Like the republicans before him, Nora suspected that modern commemorations were invented to make up for a lack of organic unity within modern nations and societies.   David Lowenthal’s book The Past Is a Foreign Country (1985) made a similar point, arguing that modern societies try desperately to resurrect the past because it has already disappeared from living culture.   While this core insight has been productive – modernity does indeed disrupt old patterns of collective memory – it is also reductive, failing to take into account not only the importance of commemoration in premodern societies but also the persistence of the past and “spontaneous” practices of memory in modern societies such as the U.S.  

            Nora’s attention to sites of memory and the politics surrounding them has had a profound influence on American scholarship, but many scholars who cite him simply ignore or overlook the assumptions that underpin his work.   Whatever their theoretical allegiances, scholars keep circling around the same basic questions.   Who guides the process of remembering and towards what ends?   Why do specific commemorative projects take particular forms?   How do commemorative practices actually shape social relations and cultural beliefs (rather than simply reflecting them)?   Inevitably this last question raises the key issue of how conspicuous acts of commemoration like public ceremonies and monument building relate to the more everyday practices of schooling, reminiscing, and unconscious habit that carry knowledge and tradition from one generation to another.   This question is the least directly addressed issue, probably because it is the hardest to research, though it haunts much of the scholarship on memory.

            In the U.S. the “memory boom” seems to have been inspired largely by two phenomena: the coming to grips with the Holocaust, which began in earnest in the 1970s, and the unexpected success of Maya Lin’s Vietnam Veterans Memorial, dedicated in 1982.   While the literature on Holocaust memory is now vast and intricate, James E. Young’s book The Texture of Memory (1993) has become indispensable.   Focusing on the unique problems posed by the trauma of the Holocaust, Young surveyed a range of memorial solutions in Europe and the U.S. from traditional heroic figurative monuments to avant-garde installations that deliberately undermined the very premise that monuments are permanent.   Throughout the book Young argued that monument building is a living process, in some sense always unfinished; no matter how much a monument may pretend to be eternal and unchanging, its meaning always evolves as its viewers bring new concerns and understandings to it.    Since the Holocaust was so clearly an event to be pondered rather than celebrated, monuments could never hope to fix its meaning for all time.

            The phenomenal power and popularity of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial almost immediately revived scholarly interest in the subject of public monuments.   Traditionally, public monuments had been the most prestigious forms of commemoration because they were designed as permanent showcases of public memory, to last for the ages.   But in the twentieth century, scholars came to consider the public monument a dead form.   Lewis Mumford wrote in The Culture of Cities (1938) that “the notion of a modern monument is a veritable contradiction in terms.”   While public monuments did continue to be erected in the mid-20 th century, scholars paid little attention until Maya Lin’s design for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial offered a new, distinctly contemporary memorial format, an open solution – to follow James Young’s suggestion – that deliberately encouraged multiple meanings and uses. This spawned an immense literature on the monument itself and a renewed interest in how monuments and other public practices of commemoration work in modern society.

            Fittingly, one of the most frequently cited books on American public memory, John Bodnar’s Remaking America: Public Memory, Commemoration, and Patriotism in the Twentieth Century (1992), began with a discussion of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.   Bodnar, an eminent social historian of ethnic and immigrant communities, was dissatisfied with the all too frequent assumption that commemorations were top-down affairs imposed by ruling elites on a passive populace.   The success of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial demonstrated to him that commemoration interwove what he called “official” and “vernacular” memory, official memory driven by the need of the state to mythologize itself and maintain the loyalty of its citizens and vernacular memory driven by the need of ordinary people to pursue their social and political concerns in their local communities.   Surveying a broad range of local commemorations including monuments and anniversaries, Bodnar argued that national patriotism worked to “mediate” or reconcile the competing interests of official and vernacular memories.   While Bodnar’s distinction between official and vernacular can break down in practice, his book has helped establish that commemoration “involves a struggle for supremacy between advocates of various political ideas and sentiments.”

            An interesting example that complicates Bodnar’s framework is Melissa Dabakis’s book, Monuments Of Manliness : Visualizing Labor In American Sculpture, 1880-1935 (1998), which studied various intersections of class, gender, and politics in the generally elite form of monumental sculpture.   Her investigation of the competing monuments to the Haymarket protest in Chicago in 1886 – one to the police, one to the anarchists – demonstrated that the “struggle for supremacy” was not only a conflict over which version of events would become officially enshrined in public space but also a shifting political conflict between left-wing and right-wing groups.   Ironically the official police monument had a more “realistic” vernacular form and definite vernacular appeal, at least among police recruits, while the anarchist monument had a more elite form laden with art-historical associations.

            Art historians like Dabakis, trained to study both the patronage and the reception of works of art, have realized for decades that monumental works become especially contested arenas, precisely because the work has a high public profile.   One of the earliest and best studies of U.S. monuments was Michele Bogart’s Public Sculpture and the Civic Ideal in New York City, 1890-1930 (1989).   Bogart’s book centered on the golden age of the public monument, a time when sculptural monuments proliferated not only in New York but throughout cities across the continent.    Her book traced the rise of an unabashedly elite genre of edifying commemoration at the end of the nineteenth century, supplied by well-known artists and their powerful political patrons.   But the story concluded with a fascinating account of how this elite consensus unraveled in the early twentieth century, as various groups – such as newly enfranchised women – began to acquire a voice in the process and to challenge the dominant sculptural language.   Since then that story has been extended by scholars such as Andrew Shanken, whose 2002 essay in Art Bulletin focused on the mid-twentieth century movement to replace sculptural monuments with “living memorials” (utilitarian memorials such as highways, parks, and concert halls).    Throughout the twentieth century memorials increasingly transformed from mere sculptural objects into more complex spaces, often with museum or archival functions.   Benjamin Hufbauer’s book Presidential Temples: How Memorials and Libraries Shape Public Memory (2005) has shown how gargantuan Presidential libraries have become a dominant type, overshadowing or even supplanting the older hero-on-a-pedestal that had once been the preferred type of monument to a great leader.

              As noted above, however, traditional public monuments never disappeared, and they continued to be a powerful form of commemoration even as they lost their appeal to cultural elites.   Karal Ann Marling and John Wetenhall’s Iwo Jima: Monuments, Memories, and the American Hero (1991) is a study of one such monument, the Marine Corps War Memorial erected in Arlington, Virginia in 1954.   Their book embedded the monument within popular culture, where the iconic image originally came from (a wartime newspaper photo) and where it continues to live and thrive.   The phenomenon in which particular monuments have become icons of the nation has been studied in books such as Marvin Trachtenberg’s Statue of Liberty (1976), Rex Alan Smith’s Carving of Mount Rushmore (1985), Christopher A. Thomas’s The Lincoln Memorial and American Life (2002), and most recently Nicolaus Mills’s Their Last Battle: The Fight for the National World War II Memorial (2004).   Albert Boime in The Unveiling of the National Icons: A Plea for Patriotic Iconoclasm in a Nationalist Era (1998) demonstrated the authoritarian and exclusionary character of many of these icons, although he did not fully take into account what Bodnar might call the vernacular attachment to iconic forms of commemorative art.

            Washington, D.C. has received a great deal of attention because it is the commemorative heart of the nation.   The role of the Capitol building in commemorating the western expansion of the nation, and the defeat of Indians who stood in the way, has been examined in Vivien Fryd, Art And Empire : The Politics of Ethnicity in the United States Capitol, 1815-1860 (1992).   Other aspects of the Capitol’s commemorative program have been explored in American Pantheon : Sculptural and Artistic Decoration of the United States Capitol , a collection of essays edited By Donald R. Kennon and Thomas P. Somma (2004).   The development of the “monumental core” of the capital city has been much studied, but the single best volume on the national Mall as a commemorative landscape remains The Mall in Washington, 1791-1991 , edited by Richard Longstreth (1991).    Countless specialized studies on commemorative practices in the capital have been produced – on parades, ceremonies, cemeteries, city plans, outdoor sculpture – but surprisingly few serious synthetic studies of how the city has worked as a commemorative landscape.  

            More scholarly work in this direction is likely as the collective memory field continues to expand beyond its traditional base in sociology, history, and art history and embraces the work of geographers, landscape historians, ethnographers, archaeologists, and other academic practitioners. Richard Handler and Eric Gable’s enthnographic study of America’s most famous living museum, The New History in an Old Museum: Creating the Past at Colonial Williamsburg (1997), is an excellent example, investigating how the historical lessons of this site are continuously reshaped or even ignored as they are put into practice by reenactors and consumed by tourists.    Much of the newer work is in essay form.   Geographer Derek Alderman, for example, has investigated the issue of commemorative street naming focusing on Martin Luther King, Jr., in a series of articles in professional geography journals.   Some recent work has been collected in anthologies, such as Myth, Memory, and the Making of the American Landscape (2001), edited by archaeologist Paul A. Shackel; Social Memory and History: Anthropological Perspectives (2002), edited by Jacob J. Climo and Maria G. Cattell; and Places of Commemoration : Search for Identity and Landscape Design (2001), edited by Joachim Wolschke-Bulmahn.   What all this work tends to have in common is an effort to map individual commemorative sites within larger contexts of remembrance – landscapes, geographic and administrative units, and social networks created by tourism, professions, and other factors.

            This should remind us that commemoration entails not only building, naming, or shaping physical sites.   Commemoration as a practice also involves ritual acts in and occupations of public space as well as other kinds of performance and consumption that may leave no lasting trace on the landscape.   W. Lloyd Warner’s classic study The Living and the Dead: A Study of the Symbolic Life of Americans (1959) was an early examination of the role of patriotic parades and other symbolic observances in civic life.   David Glassberg’s American Historical Pageantry : The Uses of Tradition in the Early Twentieth Century (1990) examined the craze for commemorative pageants in the beginning of the past century, but this phenomenon has a long history in the U.S.   David Waldstreicher’s In the Midst of Perpetual Fetes : The Making of American Nationalism, 1776-1820 (1997) and Sarah J. Purcell’s Sealed with Blood: War, Sacrifice, and Memory in Revolutionary America (2002) both showed that in the early national period, festivals and anniversaries helped overcome partisan and class divisions and cement a national identity.   In our own time, new electronic media have greatly expanded and altered the terrain of commemoration.   Marita Sturken’s Tangled Memories: The Vietnam War, the AIDS Epidemic, and the Politics of Remembering (1997) has made a pioneering contribution in this area; her study examined commemoration across many different media, by charting the ways in which memories of the victims of national crises circulated throughout American culture in films, monuments, medical practices, and domestic grieving turned public.   Yet George Lipsitz’s Time Passages: Collective Memory and American Popular Culture (1990) has argued that even in age dominated by television and commercial culture, popular traditions of storytelling and festivity among disenfranchised groups, such as working-class blacks in New Orleans, have still played a part in upholding their own versions of the past.

            All these diverse commemorative practices come together most powerfully around the remembrance of war.   It is no surprise that much of the literature on commemoration in the U.S. deals with war and its aftermath.   G. Kurt Piehler’s Remembering War the American Way (1995) has remained a useful synthetic study, but the literature has grown to the point where synthesis now seems quixotic.   The memory of the Civil War has stood out as a particularly fertile topic.   In recent years a great deal of work has been done on memory and race, as scholars from numerous angles have shown how the commemoration of the Civil War helped to shape new racial relations within American society – removing African American soldiers from mainstream public memory, defeating the dream of racial equality, and advancing the cause of white supremacy.   David W. Blight’s ambitious synthesis Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory (2001) has become the indispensable reference for this argument.   The book surveys an enormous range of commemorative practices from oratory to pageantry to monuments and beyond.   More specialized studies of the racial relations of war memory include Kirk Savage, Standing Soldiers, Kneeling Slaves: Race, War, and Monument in Nineteenth-Century America (1997), Paul A. Shackel, Memory in Black and White: Race, Commemoration, and the Post-Bellum Landscape (2003), and Mitch Kachun, Festivals of Freedom : Memory and Meaning in African American Emancipation Celebrations, 1808-1915 (2003).   Recent studies have made ever more nuanced analyses that interweave the issue of race with gender, class, and region.   Exemplary collections along these lines include Where These Memories Grow : History, Memory, and Southern Identity (2000), edited by W. Fitzhugh Brundage, and Monuments to the Lost Cause : Women, Art, and the Landscapes of Southern Memory (2003), edited by Cynthia Mills and Pamela H. Simpson.

        In addition to reshaping racial relations and beliefs, the scale of the Civil War dramatically changed and expanded commemorative practices, creating a new cult of the veteran and new modes and technologies of remembering the war dead – innovations that preceded comparable developments in Europe by years or even decades.   For the first time, photographers shot images of battlefield corpses, a profound shift in the understanding and memorialization of warfare analyzed in studies such as Timothy Sweet, Traces of War : Poetry, Photography, and the Crisis of the Union (1990) and Alan Trachtenberg, Reading American Photographs : Images as History, Mathew Brady to Walker Evans (1989).   The emergence of veterans organizations and their role in promoting the memory of the common soldier have been explored in Stuart McConnell’s Glorious Contentment : the Grand Army of the Republic, 1865-1900 (1992) and in Cecilia Elizabeth O'Leary’s To Die For : The Paradox of American Patriotism (1999).    Kirk Savage in Standing Soldiers, Kneeling Slaves has examined the resulting democratization of war memorials, and the phenomenal spread of a new type of ordinary-soldier monument.   Another innovation, the creation of national soldier cemeteries such as Gettysburg, was briefly examined as a precedent for twentieth-century European practices by historian George Mosse’s Fallen Soldiers: Reshaping the Memory of the World Wars (1990).   Since then this line of research has been extended by others such as Susan-Mary Grant in a series of essays, most recently in the journal Nations and Nationalism (2005).

            Battlefields too have been witness to dramatically changing patterns of commemoration, and thus have posed intricate problems for their stewards, most notably the National Park Service.   Edward T. Linenthal in Sacred Ground: Americans and their Battlefields (1991) examined the ways in which battlefields from the Revolution to WWII have been transformed into “sacred” landscapes which various groups fight to protect from political or racial or commercial defilement.   Any commemorative narratives that stray from the narrowly defined script of military heroism become suspect.   For instance the National Park Service’s efforts to expand the historical significance of Civil War battlefields beyond military history into social and political issues such as slavery have encountered resistance both inside and outside the agency, as Paul Shackel has shown in his case study of Manassas ( Memory in Black and White ).   More recently Jim Weeks in Gettysburg : Memory, Market, and an American Shrine (2003) has called into question the notion of the sacred by arguing that tourism and the marketplace have profoundly shaped even the most revered battlefield from its very inception.   He has shown that, as cultural norms have changed, the standards of appropriate commemorative behaviors have also changed – sometimes in surprising ways.   For example, battle reenactments originated as commercial entertainments that elites discouraged as frivolous, but in the past two decades have grown into a wildly popular participatory sport, with ever more stringent standards of authenticity.   Ironically, the hundreds of regimental and officer monuments that were once the heart of the commemorative landscape have now become intrusions into the “authentic” experience of the past!

            Besides battlefield reenactments, another major new participatory phenomenon of memorialization is the spontaneous offering of personal mementos at national memorials, which began in the early 1980s at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.   Kristin Ann Hass has examined the roots and meanings of this phenomenon in Carried to the Wall: American Memory and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial (1998).   At the same time recovery efforts and reverence for the bodies of the war dead have reached new extremes of emotional and financial cost, as Thomas M. Hawley has recently investigated in The Remains of War : Bodies, Politics, and the Search for American Soldiers Unaccounted for in Southeast Asia (2005).   All of these developments indicate an extension and transformation of the popular sphere of memory practices of the late nineteenth century.   Ordinary citizens increasingly have become the subject and the actor in commemorative initiatives, even as the power and cost of the “military-industrial complex” have grown mightily.

            In recent times the remembrance of war has become connected almost inextricably with the issue of trauma.   Once again the Holocaust and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial have served as the key landmarks in this process.   Young’s Texture of Memory and Sturken’s Tangled Memories have shed light on the new importance of victimization within commemorative practices.   Geographer Kenneth E. Foote’s study Shadowed Ground: America's Landscapes of Violence and Tragedy (1997) examined how Americans have dealt with landscapes marked by war, mass murder, and other traumatic events.   In a related development, the remembering and forgetting of Indian removal, confinement, and extermination have become increasingly important subjects in studies of national historic sites such as Dispossessing the Wilderness : Indian Removal and the Making of the National Parks (1999) by Mark David Spence,   and The Politics of Hallowed Ground : Wounded Knee and the Struggle for Indian Sovereignty (1999) by Mario Gonzalez and Elizabeth Cook-Lynn.   Edward Linenthal has created the most extensive body of work on trauma and commemoration, in a series of meticulously researched books on subjects spanning from the late nineteenth century to the beginning of the twenty-first: Sacred Ground , Preserving Memory: The Struggle to Create America's Holocaust Museum (1995), and The Unfinished Bombing: Oklahoma City in American Memory (2001).   Since 9-11, the subject has become even more important, and numerous scholars have already entered the field.   Two new examples include Savage’s study of the “therapeutic memorial” in an essay in the collection Terror, Culture, Politics:   Rethinking 9/11 , edited by Daniel Sherman and Terry Nardin (2006), and Terry Smith’s examination of the contemporary struggle over iconic architecture in Architecture of Aftermath (2006).

            While work on commemoration continues to multiply, and to examine ever more carefully how memory practices penetrate all facets of our collective life, much work remains to be done on the actual impact of all these practices.   Few scholars have attempted to theorize the relationship between commemoration and tradition, what we might call the exterior and interior faces of historical consciousness.   On the one hand are public sites and rituals of memory, and on the other hand are ingrained habits of thought and action that persist in individuals, families, and communities across long spans of time.     While few scholars would agree with Nora that interior memory has disappeared, most scholars have focused on the exterior struggles to construct memory in one form rather than another.   One of the only scholars to argue against this trend has been social scientist Barry Schwartz, who has written a series of articles and books on American Presidents in historical memory.   In Abraham Lincoln and the Forge of National Memory (2000) Schwartz has argued that memory is not constructed anew in each new commemorative project; instead, he has asserted that in a democratic society historical facts have serious weight and help create “core elements” of memory that persist over long periods of time.   Yet his belief in an authentic “core” memory led him, ironically, to downplay certain historical facts, such as the outright fraud and hucksterism involved in “assembling” the log cabin in which Lincoln was supposedly born.   (For more on the log cabin story, see Dwight Pitcaithley’s meticulously researched essay in Shackel’s Myth, Memory, and the Making of the American Landscape .)   In fact, historical errors and deliberate distortions abound in the landscape of commemoration, as James W. Loewen’s amazing study, Lies Across America: What Our Historic Sites Get Wrong (1999), has so amply demonstrated.   But Schwartz’s point remains well taken: scholars must take into account not only the changing politics of commemoration but also the stubborn persistence of traditions and beliefs – some of which persist even when they conflict with historical fact or common sense.  

            This perspective might have helped scholars prepare better for the emotionally charged controversy over the Smithsonian’s ill-fated Enola Gay exhibit, which was intended to mark the 50 th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima by putting the event in historical context.   The controversy was a particularly dramatic example of how the work of historians, based on supposedly apolitical principles of evidence and analysis, came into conflict with powerful “memory constituencies,” whose long-cherished beliefs about the righteousness of the American military cemented their group identities as veterans and patriots.    Edward T. Linenthal and Tom Englehardt’s History Wars: The Enola Gay and Other Battles for the American Past (1998) untangled this controversy and showed how the partisan politics and “culture wars” of the time helped fuel it.   At the same time the book showed how the Enola Gay fiasco was not simply another episode in the “politics of commemoration.”   The controversy transcended the politics of the moment and became a classic confrontation between history and collective memory – anticipated in Halbwachs’ original distinction – where history inevitably loses precisely because it lacks the unshakeable beliefs of psychically invested constituencies.   Some of the contributors to History Wars asked whether the “patriotic” narratives of commemoration could be expanded and humanized to encompass the multiple realities of war, to bring the longstanding traditional stories of triumph into contact with more tragic stories of the human cost and moral ambiguity of warfare.   The question has no easy answer.

            One pioneering effort to integrate the various realms of internal and external memory, of invisible traditions and visible histories, is Martha Norkunas’s Monuments and Memory: History and Representation in Lowell, Massachusetts (2002).   Her book traced the changing relationship between the public, mostly masculine face of memory in Lowell – in honorific monuments and historical sites – and the largely oral traditions, passed on by women, that preserved the memory of those who kept the community intact and functioning outside the public eye.   While her study would benefit from more analysis of the interaction between these realms of memory, her book points in a useful direction.   Likewise, Bodnar’s distinction between vernacular and official memory remains intuitively useful, but needs further refinement, retesting, and revision in order to understand better how these realms of memory interpenetrate one another.   This might help explain, for example, the persistence and power of military commemoration.   How does the inner/vernacular memory of women, ethnic groups, and other ordinary Americans help support the outer/ official   memory of such a quintessentially top-down, masculine institution as the military? Pursuing questions like these would eventually help bridge the gap between the spectacular “politics of commemoration” and the more inconspicuous workings of tradition.   How the past is produced, consumed, internalized, and acted upon will no doubt remain a rich and complex problem for scholars as they work further to extend and integrate the approaches outlined in this essay.

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Essay on “Historical Monuments of India” Complete Essay for Class 10, Class 12 and Graduation and other classes.

Historical monuments of india.

Essay No. 01

Indian History is full of the rise and fall of many kingdoms and empires. Monuments, built y the kings and they perform of every period throw light on the past history of India. these monuments exhibit the glory of India and are part of our cultural heritage. Almost all states of India boast of some or the other important historical monuments. Thousands of tourists visit India to have a glimpse of its important historical places.

Taj Mahal is one of the most famous and beautiful buildings of the world. Taj Mahal was build by Emperor Shah Jahan as the tomb for his wife Mumtaz Mahal. It matchless beauty draws visitors from all parts of the world. The taj mahal got the highest ranking among the Seven Wonders of the World after the biggest online poll at www.new7wonders.com . Part forms Taj Mahal there are other historical monuments in Agra.

Red fort is one of those monuments which enhance the grace of Delhi. Red fort was also built by shah Jahan the Mughal emperor. The architecture of this building has a splendid impact of red stone and marble works. it has delicate carving on every possible surface.

Qutub Miner’s also a significant historical monument. The construction of Qutub Minar was started by Qutub-ud-din Aibek in twelfth century. But it was completed by his successor Iltutmnish. the Minar rises over 230 feet. The walls of the Minar are intricately carved and inscribed with verses from the Holly Quram. It is often viewed as a symbol of the military might of the Turko Afghan dynasty. Delhi also boasts of historical monument like Purana Qila, humayun’s tomb Jantar Mantar and many more.

Hyderabad is famous for its charming minarets Charminar. The city is often identified with the majestic Charminaar which stands at the center of the old city. It was built by Muhammad quil Shah. Charminar with its enormous size and majestic splendor attracts a number of visitors. Hyderabad has many other famous monuments like Golkunda Fort, Purani Haveli Tombs of Qutub Shahi kings etc.

There are a number of such monuments that are not only historically famous but also have religious significance. Puri is well known for a twelfth century temple called Jagannath erected in honour of the Hindu god Vishnu. It begun by king chodagangaeva and completed by king Ananga Bhima Deva iii. it is very vast temple.

Golden Temple of Amritsar is also known as Darbar Sahib. It is a great pilgrimage center of the Sikhs. The holy temple was completed under the direct control and supervision of Guru Arjan Dev. It’s foundation stone was laid by a renowned Muslim divine Main Mir. The Guru intended to keep the temple open to people of all castes creeds and faith a. so it was given four door women each direction. it has a lire pool around it. During Maharaja Ranjit Singh reign the lower half of the temple was decorated with marble while the entire upper half was in laid with copper converted over by gold plate. Hence it is known as golden temple. Some other religious monuments are Badrinath temple, Dilwara temple Dakshineshwara temple,  Kailashnath temple ,Seven pagoda , Lotus temple Rameshwaram temple.

In British era too some important monuments were constructed. These monuments have their own important place in Indian history. India gate was constructed in the memory of those Indian soldiers who were killed in world war i. gateway of India was built to commemorate the visit of the first ever British Monarch King George V and Queen Mary in 1911. There are a number of other monuments built by the British. These are Rashtrapati Bhawan Parliament House Victoria Memorial.

Al these monuments are visited by millions of tourists actors the globe throughout the year. These monuments are among the best a in the world for their archaeological value design and historical significance but it is a disturbing fact that we have no looked after these monuments properly.

The majority of them are in a bad shape. Even the most famous monuments like Taj Mahal , Qutub Minar ,  Lal Qila have been belated. Nearby industrial areas and markets create pollution which is harmful for these monuments. The government must a take initiative to protect these monuments. Proper care of these monuments enhances their life. A committee of experts should be formed to study the present condition of the monuments and the steps needed to be taken to protect them. Proper attention and initiatives of the government can only save these historical monuments from ruining away.

Essay No. 02

The Taj Mahal, popularly considered as one of the wonders of the world, is a remarkable creation synthesized by the human virtues of artistry, endurance, aesthetics and the spirit of adventure; and inspired by the emotions of love and adoration. Situated on the banks of the river Yamuna, it was built by the seventeenth century Mughal Emperor, Shahjahan, in memory of his beloved wife, Mumtaz. The superior craftsmanship of its builders, and the high quality of the materials used to build it, ensure the building against possible ravages by the elements of Nature. The structure, as a whole, retains its luster and reflects its glory to the extent that, it continues to arouse awe and admiration in the numerous people who visit it round the year.

The greatness of the Taj Mahal is not confined to its fantastic beauty, both inside and outside. It is perhaps the only structure of its kind anywhere, in which marble as a building material has been used to create such marvellous effects. While the main ‘onion’ dome, minarets and the outer walls gleam in natural light, the deep-set doors called `aiwans’, and balconies get filled with faint reflected light, which creates an aura of mystery.

Though the. Taj Mahal is visited round the year, it may be seen in all its splendour on moon-lit nights, preferably in winter. It seems as though the charm and beauty of the building is enhanced several times by such a setting. In the rainy season, however, the marble turns to a hazy grey, giving the structure on the whole, a melancholy appearance.

Like any other object of beauty, the Taj Mahal also attracted attention ‘based on two different motives. If some saw it as a culmination of virtuous human endeavour, and, therefore, a source of inspiration, others considered it as a tempting target meant to be exploited. If those in the first category have raised the prestige of the Taj Mahal worldwide, those in the second have vandalized it and deprived it of much of its original beauty. The precious stones and other ornamentation that adorned the Taj Mahal, have from time to time been plundered by the various rulers and dynasties that followed the Mughals.

In modern times, however, the threat to the Taj Mahal is rather indirect. The focus on development in and around the city of Agra is a cause of serious atmospheric pollution in the region. As the main building material of the Taj Mahal is marble, such air pollution can at once cause the decline of its beauty and its physical destruction.

It is a matter of great relief that the people and the authorities have become aware of the modern threats to the Taj Mahal and have started adopting suitable measures to save the monument. It should be the fervent hope of all that the various salvaging ventures succeed. Such a success will ensure that the Taj Mahal as ‘a thing of beauty will remain a joy forever’!

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It is a nice essay .

Super essay

Hmmm…Yes

Waw| This Information Is Very Usefull For 10th and 12th class students. It will help to the students to understand about ancient and Medival history of India.Very effective Information.

This helps me a lot to understand the history of India n Taj Mahal

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The Importance of Preserving and Promoting Historic Buildings

August 30, 2019

Preserving History Through Buildings

Old buildings are witnesses to the aesthetic and cultural history of a city, helping to give people a sense of place and connection to the past. Historic buildings often represent something famous or important to people who live in a city or those visiting. 

Recognizing the importance of old buildings to the public and to the country’s heritage, Congress enacted the National Historic Preservation Act in 1966 . This act works to save historic buildings, explaining, “preservation of this irreplaceable heritage is in the public interest so that its vital legacy of cultural, educational, aesthetic, inspirational, economic, and energy benefits will be maintained and enriched for future generations of Americans.”

Economic Benefits Of Historic Preservation

Older buildings especially those built prior to World War II are often made of higher quality materials. Replacing these buildings with similar rare hardwoods such as heart pine would be impractical and unaffordable. Newer buildings also tend to have a life expectancy of only 30-40 years, whereas many older buildings were made to last. It can make economic sense to retain historic buildings and Improve them to meet modern codes and requirements.

Rehabilitating old buildings to their original appearance not only adds character to the area, but can also help attract investment, as well as tourists if the structures are historically significant. For example, a historic but abandoned industrial building can be turned into small business space, or a mixed-use development – giving new life to a building and even a whole neighborhood.

Aesthetic Importance of Older Buildings

Older buildings often are made with unique, valuable materials such as the heart pine, marble, or old brick. They may have detailing and features that you can’t find anymore like decorative facades,unusual glasswork, or copper lining. Many people feel that because of these, older buildings have their own identity and distinctive character, making them more interesting than modern buildings. An added benefit to retaining and maintaining old buildings old methods of workmanship are also supported.  

Environmental Considerations

The importance of recycling has become more and more understood on a household level, but preserving old buildings is recycling on a larger scale. Repairing and reusing existing buildings uses energy and material resources more efficiently and reduces waste. New materials don’t need to be created, nor older demolished materials thrown away. Plus energy for rebuilding is conserved. Also, tearing down structures releases toxins and pollutants in the environment.    

Historic Preservation in Norwalk

Norwalk combines the character of a historic New England community on the coast of Long Island Sound with a thriving city in the county’s largest metropolitan area. One of the priorities outlined in Norwalk’s 10-year Citywide Plan is enhancing and preserving the city’s historic resources. Historic areas such as South Norwalk have seen investment and growth, while preserving its many historic structures and character. 

The City’s Planning & Zoning Commissions have recently enacted several regulations to encourage the preservation of historic structures. Two areas of the City where this has been realized is in South Norwalk (SSDD Regulations) and the Wall Street area (CBD Regulations). For example, if the historic structures will be preserved, the Commission can reduce the amount of required parking, decrease building setbacks or increase building height or size for recognized historic structures.

Read More about Norwalk’s zoning regulations pertaining to historic preservation

Read More about Norwalk’s historic heritage on page 95 of  the Citywide Plan

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A Visit to a Historical Place Essay [100, 120, 150, 250 Words]

A Visit to a Historical Place Essay: The historical places are much of educational and historical value. n this article, you are going to learn how to write an essay or a paragraph on a visit to a historical place. Here we’ve provided 4 short and long essays (100, 120, 150, and 250 words). These essays/paragraphs will be helpful for the students of all the classes (class 1 to class 12). So, let’s begin.

Table of Contents

A Visit to a Historical Place Essay: 100 Words

Recently our school organized an educational trip to the Taj Mahal, Agra. The Taj Mahal is the most beautiful monument built in the Mughal period. It is one of the wonders of the world. It was built by Emperor Shah Jahan in the memory of his beloved wife, Mumtaz Mahal.

This gateway of Taj Mahal is built with the use of Red Sandstone. There is a beautiful garden that begins at the main gateway and ends at the base of the monument. The building is made of pure white marble. It took twenty thousand workmen and twenty years to build. The monument is built on the bank of the river Yamuna.  It was the most beautiful building I had ever seen.

Also Read: Essay on a Visit to a Hill Station 

A Visit to a Historical Place Essay: 120 Words

Last Sunday, we went to the Red Fort by a specially hired bus. Along the entrance two rows of shops selling various objects of art besides selling handicrafts. During the Mughal times, this was known as Meena Bazaar. After crossing the lawn, we reached the historic building known as ‘Naubat Khana’. Then we saw ‘Diwan-e-Aam’ or the Hall of Public Audience.

Then we went to the ’Rang Mahal’ which was a place of pleasures and richly inlaid with precious stones in the Mughal period. There is a ‘Khas Mahal’ beside the Rang Mahal. It has a beautiful marble screen. The Red Fort also has the War Memorial Museum where weapons used in the First World War are exhibited. We got to see many historical things that we read in our books. We enjoyed the trip very much.

Also Read: Essay on a Visit to a Book Fair

Essay on a Visit to a Historical Place: 150 Words

My dream came true when last month our history teacher arranged a trip to Agra for us. It was 24 October when we reached there. That very afternoon we went to see the famous Taj Mahal. It is a masterpiece of architecture-all in marble. We admired the four more mosques with tall slender minarets and the huge central dome. The surroundings lend beauty to it. The mausoleum stands in the center of a big garden with marble water channels, rows of fountains, and stately cypress trees.

The tombs of Shah Jahan and his wife lie beneath the dome. We went to see the Agra Fort too. When Shah Jahan was confined there, he spent his time gazing at the mausoleum of his creation from his prison window. We saw things that we had read about in our books-the Dewan-i-Am, the Diwan-i-Khas, the Pearl Mosque, and the Shish Mahal. A visit to a place of historical importance does make history real and interesting. It was a wonderful trip.

A Visit to a Historical Place Essay: 200-250 Words

A visit to a historical place is very educative. It instructs as well as entertains us. I am fond of visiting historical buildings. Last year, I went to Agra to see the Taj Mahal. In the evening, we went to see the Taj Mahal. I had heard a lot about the beauty of the Taj Mahal. But reality surpassed the descriptions that had been given to me.

It is a wonder in marble, a specimen of Mughal art. Taj Mahal was built by Shah Jahan in the sweet memory of his wife, Mumtaz Mahal. It was built about three hundred and fifty years ago.  It stands on the right bank of the river Yamuna. The gateway which is made of red stone is very beautiful. The garden is very lovely. The tall dark cypress trees, smooth green lawns, and the beds of flowers are pleasing to the eyes. The fountains flow here and there.

The main building is made of white marble. It stands on a raised platform. At its four corners, there are four stately towers. Inside the tomb, Emperor Shah Jahan and his beloved Mumtaz Mahal lie buried side by side. This monument tells us about the expertise of the artists and craftsmen of that era. The visit to the Taj Mahal was a wonderful experience for us. It was both enjoyable and educational.

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Visual Essay: Holocaust Memorials and Monuments

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How do we keep history alive in our communities? Which events and people are worth remembering, and why? Memorials and monuments reflect, in part, the ways that communities and individuals have answered these questions. The gallery of images below exhibits a variety of memorials and monuments that have been constructed to remember the Holocaust. The introduction that follows explores the complex questions that memorials raise about how we choose to remember history.

Holocaust Memorials and Monuments

Explore images of memorials and monuments to the Holocaust located in Europe and the United States.

Introduction to the Visual Essay

Across Europe, and even around the globe, people have built memorials to commemorate the Holocaust. Each tries to preserve the collective memory of the generation that built the memorial and to shape the memories of generations to come. This visual essay explores several examples of memorials and monuments to the Holocaust and other histories of mass violence. We use the terms monuments and memorials more or less interchangeably. Some people distinguish between the two, saying that memorials are a response to loss and death and that monuments are more commemorative and celebratory in nature. However, when considering traditional memorials and monuments, there are so many exceptions to these definitions that here we will use the terms more loosely.

Memorials raise complex questions about which history we choose to remember. If a memorial cannot tell the whole story, then what part of the story, or whose story, does it tell? Whose memories, whose point of view, and whose values and perspectives will be represented? Memorials must also respond to the question, “Why should we remember?” Writing of memorials in Germany, Ian Buruma distinguishes between a Denkmal , a monument built to glorify a leader, an event, or the nation as a whole, and a Mahnmal , a “monument of warning.” Holocaust memorials, he says, are “monuments of warning.” 1

Memorial makers must also decide how to express complex ideas in the visual vocabulary available to them. Shape, mass, material, imagery, location, and perhaps some words, names, or dates can communicate a memorial’s message. Legal scholar Martha Minow asks,

Should such memorials be literal or abstract? Should they honor the dead or disturb the very possibility of honor in atrocity? Should they be monumental, or instead disavow the monumental image, itself so associated with Nazism? Preserve memories or challenge as pretense the notion that memories ever exist outside the process of constructing them? 2

Some observers wonder if memorials might have unintended consequences, undermining the memories that they are meant to preserve. Critic James Young has said of memorials, “It’s a big rock telling people what to think; it’s a big form that pretends to have a meaning, that sustains itself for eternity, that never changes over time, never evolves—it fixes history, it embalms or somehow stultifies it.” 3 Young has suggested that memorials might actually let viewers become more passive and forgetful, because they “do our memory work for us.” 4 Can monuments suggest closure when none exists and consequently insulate us from history or anesthetize us rather than engaging and challenging us?

With these concerns in mind, some artists have created “counter-memorials” that are designed to change over time, to create an awareness of something that is missing, or even to disappear, provoking viewers to question, think, and connect more actively. In Kassel, Germany, artist Horst Hoheisel created a counter-memorial on the site of a majestic, pyramid-shaped fountain that had been given to the city by a Jewish entrepreneur; the original fountain was demolished by the Nazis in 1939. Rather than restore it, Hoheisel created an underground fountain that is the mirror image of the one the Nazis destroyed. Hoheisel explained:

I have designed the new fountain as a mirror image of the old one, sunk beneath the old place in order to rescue the history of this place as a wound and as an open question, to penetrate the consciousness of the Kassel citizens so that such things never happen again . . . The sunken fountain is not the memorial at all. It is only history turned into a pedestal, an invitation to passersby who stand upon it to search for the memorial in their own heads. For only there is the memorial to be found. 5

Connection Questions

• As you explore the images in the visual essay, consider what message each memorial conveys. Who created and authorized the memorial? Who is the audience for this message? How is the message conveyed? Whose story is the memorial telling? What might the memorial be leaving out?
• What are some key differences among the memorials pictured in the gallery above? What do they have in common? Which one speaks to you most strongly?
• Memorials have many different kinds of goals, including telling an accurate story of the past, expressing nationalist ideas, honoring life, confronting evil, and encouraging reconciliation. Do you see any of these goals reflected in the memorials in the visual essay? What other goals might these memorials reflect?
• What are James Young’s criticisms of memorials? Do any of the memorials in this visual essay reflect his concerns?
• What memorials and monuments do you pass in your daily life? Do they have an impact on you? Why or why not?
• 1 Ian Buruma, The Wages of Guilt: Memories of War in Germany and Japan (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1994), 202.
• 2 Martha Minow, Between Vengeance and Forgiveness: Facing History after Genocide and Mass Violence (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1998), 141.
• 4 James E. Young, “ Memory and Counter-Memory ,” Harvard Design Magazine , Fall 1999, accessed June 3, 2016.
• 5 Quoted in James E. Young, “ Memory and Counter-Memory ,” Harvard Design Magazine , Fall 1999, accessed June 3, 2016.

How to Cite This Reading

Facing History & Ourselves, “ Visual Essay: Holocaust Memorials and Monuments ”, last updated August 2, 2016.

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Why History Matters: Understanding Our Past to Shape Our Future

By: Author Paul Jenkins

Posted on April 6, 2024

Categories Culture , History , Society

History isn’t just a dusty collection of names and dates from the past. It’s a mirror reflecting our societal evolution, a guidebook to our present, and a compass pointing to our future. Let’s explore why history holds the key to understanding ourselves and the world we inhabit.

Key Takeaways

• Historical study fosters an understanding of societal trends and human nature.
• A sense of identity and a shared narrative are cultivated through history.
• History is crucial for developing analytical and critical thinking skills.

Understanding the Value of History

The value of history lies in its power to elucidate the past events, inform the present conditions, and guide future decisions. Through a structured analysis and application of historical context, one appreciates its role as an essential discipline.

Analyzing Past, Present, and Future

History provides a detailed record of past events which significantly influence present societal structures and future trajectories. Historical research identifies patterns that have shaped societies, cultures, and traditions. This analysis allows individuals to learn from past decisions and understand the possible implications for future outcomes.

The Importance of Historical Context

Understanding historical context is crucial for interpreting events accurately. It ensures a nuanced view of past actions and decisions within the context of their time. Recognizing the value of historical context prevents the misrepresentation of events and promotes a deeper appreciation for the complexities of past societies and their decisions.

History as a Discipline

Studying history as a discipline involves meticulous research and fact-checking . It equips historians with frameworks and techniques to construct accurate accounts of the past. This discipline underscores the credibility of historical narratives and validates their relevance to current understandings. It fosters an awareness that present conditions result from human choices that can be influenced by further action.

The Role of History in Society

History serves a critical role in society by fostering informed citizens, preserving the collective memory, and enhancing an understanding of cultural and religious diversity. Each of these aspects contributes to a society that values its past while shaping its future.

Developing Informed Citizens

Informed citizens are the bedrock of a healthy democracy. Historical knowledge equips them with the context necessary to understand current policies and their impact on rights and responsibilities. They learn not only about historical events but also how to engage critically with sources and discern patterns that influence modern governance. Recognizing the evolution of societal norms and laws from historical precedents contributes to a more engaged and analytical electorate.

• Key Point : History teaches critical thinking skills.
• Impact : Engaged citizens contribute to a more robust democracy.

Preserving Collective Memory

Societies with a strong sense of their history possess a collective memory that safeguards against cultural and memory loss. The preservation of this memory through documentation, oral traditions, and historical landmarks helps communities maintain a sense of identity and continuity. Without this, societies risk becoming rootless, lacking the connection to shared experiences that guide collective values and traditions.

Examples of Collective Memory Preservation :

• Historical literature

Understanding Cultural and Religious Diversity

History illuminates the traditions and beliefs of different cultures and religions, revealing the rich tapestry of human experience. By studying the historical contexts of societies, it becomes possible to appreciate the diversity of perspectives and practices that exist. This understanding fosters tolerance and can help mitigate conflicts arising from cultural or religious misunderstandings.

Benefits of Historical Understanding :

• Enhances social cohesion.
• Promotes mutual respect.

Collectively, the role of history in society is multifaceted, playing a pivotal part in shaping the narratives that societies live by, guiding principles of democracy, and contributing to the rich mosaic of human cultures and religions.

Learning from Historical Events

Historical events offer invaluable insights into the complexities of human experience, from the sobering repercussions of wars and conflicts to the transformative power of significant milestones.

Lessons from Wars and Conflicts

Wars and conflicts stand as stark reminders of both human frailty and resilience. For instance:

• The Holocaust encapsulates the extremity of human cruelty and the importance of empathy and courage. Remembering the Holocaust is essential for understanding the impact of prejudice and the necessity of standing up against it.
• Courage is highlighted by stories of resistance and survival, which provide a deeper understanding of the Jewish experience and the capacity for individuals to enact change amidst adversity.

The Impact of Significant Historical Milestones

Significant historical milestones shape the course of world history and inform current societal norms. They are moments that echo through time, prompting reflection and adaptation.

• The end of slavery in the United States marked a drastic turn in human rights and freedoms, encouraging a global reassessment of racial equality.
• Signified the end of the Cold War and the start of a new era in international relations, and it serves as a potent symbol of liberation and the desire for unity.

Connecting Personal and Collective Histories

Connecting personal and collective histories enhances understanding of societies by intertwining individual experiences with broader historical narratives. This synthesis fosters empathy and helps individuals appreciate the depth of the human experience.

Embracing a Broader Human Experience

Individuals often perceive history through the lens of their personal stories, which are fundamentally tied to the larger tapestry of society’s past. For instance, the Holocaust is not merely a chapter in a history book, but a profound part of many personal histories that still resonate today. Examining both personal memories and collective histories allows people to engage more deeply with being human. Such engagement provides grounding, as histories give context to present circumstances, ensuring that individuals are not rootless but connected to a continuum that defines cultures and communities.

The Dangers of Historical Amnesia

Forgetting or ignoring the past, a condition akin to societal memory loss, poses a significant risk to societies. It is crucial to remember the trials and lessons of history, such as the horrors of the Holocaust, to build resilience against repeating past atrocities. Neglecting to connect personal experiences with the collective memory of societies can lead to a lack of empathy and understanding. This disconnect also stymies learning and growth, as historical amnesia prevents societies from effectively rooting themselves in history, which can guide better decision-making and foster a more inclusive understanding of the human experience.

Educational Perspectives on History

The study of history occupies a crucial role in academic curriculums, offering methodologies that cross into various disciplines and fostering a wide range of competencies critical to intellectual development.

History’s Place in Academic Curriculums

History, as an academic discipline, grounds students in the temporal dimensions of human experience. Educational systems globally include history to various extents, recognizing its role in cultivating critical thinking and an understanding of how societies have evolved. The reasons to include history in curriculums hinge on its ability to provide context for current events and to enhance civic literacy .

Methodologies and Approaches in Historical Studies

Historical research harnesses diverse methodologies ranging from diachronic analysis , which tracks changes and continuities over time, to comparative historical study , which juxtaposes past and present to foster deeper understanding. The approach to studying history typically emphasizes the diachro-mesh of events, ideas, and figures, offering students a toolkit for discerning and interpreting complex narratives.

The Interplay between History and Other Academic Disciplines

History does not exist in isolation. It actively engages with and enriches other fields, like economics, literature, and political science. This interplay underscores the multidisciplinary essence of historical education, thereby illuminating the interconnectedness of knowledge and the multiplicity of perspectives. By situating historical events within broader intellectual landscapes , students learn to appreciate the nuanced interdependencies that have shaped human societies.

Essay on Historical Monuments: Explore the Importance of Historical Monuments

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Essay on Historical Monuments under 150 Words

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Essay on Historical Monuments: Historical monuments are significant landmarks that represent the past and reflect the cultural, social, and economic aspects of a particular era. They are a source of inspiration and knowledge for the present and future generations, and they are essential in preserving the cultural heritage of a region or a country. India, being a culturally diverse country, is home to a wide range of historical monuments that are spread across the country, each with its own unique architecture, design, and historical significance.

In this article, you will learn how to write essay on historical monuments in different word range.

Essay on Historical Monuments in 350 words

In India, historical monuments can be traced back to ancient times, where kings, emperors, and rulers built them to showcase their power and wealth. These monuments were built using various techniques and styles, such as Mughal, Rajput, Buddhist, and Jain, to name a few. Some of the most popular and well-known historical monuments in India include the Taj Mahal, Qutub Minar, Red Fort, and many more.

The Taj Mahal, located in Agra, Uttar Pradesh, is one of the most popular and recognizable historical monuments in the world. It was built by Mughal emperor Shah Jahan in memory of his beloved wife Mumtaz Mahal. The Taj Mahal is known for its white marble architecture and intricate carvings, and it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It is a symbol of love and devotion, and it attracts millions of tourists from all over the world every year.

In addition to the Taj Mahal, there are several other historical monuments near Uttar Pradesh that are equally significant. For example, Jhansi Fort, located in the city of Jhansi, is a popular tourist destination and is known for its association with Rani Laxmi Bai, a warrior queen who fought against the British. Other popular historical monuments near Uttar Pradesh include Fatehpur Sikri, Khajuraho, and Sanchi Stupa, to name a few.

Delhi, the capital of India, is home to several historical monuments, each with its own unique history and significance. These monuments include the Red Fort, Jama Masjid, India Gate, and Humayun’s Tomb, among others. The Red Fort, built by Mughal emperor Shah Jahan, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and is known for its stunning architecture and design. India Gate, on the other hand, is a war memorial that pays tribute to the Indian soldiers who died in World War I.

In conclusion, historical monuments play a crucial role in preserving the cultural heritage of a region or a country. They are a source of inspiration and knowledge for the present and future generations, and they help us understand our past and the people who lived before us. It is important that we protect and preserve these monuments for future generations to come so that they can learn from them and appreciate their cultural significance.

Historical monuments are not just structures, but they are an integral part of our collective heritage. They represent our past and offer valuable insights into our history and culture. The importance of preserving these monuments cannot be overstated. These structures need to be protected and maintained so that future generations can continue to appreciate and learn from them.

India is home to several historical monuments that are a testament to the country’s rich cultural heritage. Monuments like the Taj Mahal, the Jhansi Fort, and the Red Fort are significant tourist attractions that bring millions of visitors to India every year. The government and the public should work together to preserve these historical monuments so that they can continue to inspire and educate future generations.

Historical monuments are an integral part of India’s heritage and culture. They not only serve as a testament to the country’s rich history but also attract tourists from all over the world. Delhi, being the capital of India, is home to several historical monuments that reflect the city’s glorious past. The Red Fort, Qutub Minar, Humayun’s Tomb, and Jama Masjid are some of the famous historical monuments in Delhi that are a must-visit for tourists who want to experience the rich history and culture of India.

Delhi, the capital of India, is a city rich in history and culture. The city is home to several historical monuments that reflect the glorious past of India. These monuments are not just architectural marvels, but they also hold great significance in the Indian history and culture. In this essay, we will explore some of the famous historical monuments in Delhi.

Red Fort: The Red Fort, also known as the Lal Qila, is one of the most famous historical monuments in Delhi. Built by the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan in the 17th century, the Red Fort is made of red sandstone and is a fine example of Mughal architecture. The fort is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and attracts tourists from all over the world.

Qutub Minar: The Qutub Minar is a 73-meter-high minaret that was built in the 12th century by Qutb-ud-din Aibak. The minaret is made of red sandstone and marble and is considered to be one of the finest examples of Indo-Islamic architecture. The Qutub Minar is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and is visited by millions of tourists every year.

Humayun’s Tomb: Humayun’s Tomb is a magnificent mausoleum built in the 16th century for the Mughal emperor Humayun. The tomb is made of red sandstone and white marble and is considered to be the first garden-tomb in India. The tomb is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and is known for its beautiful architecture and lush gardens.

Jama Masjid: The Jama Masjid is one of the largest mosques in India and was built by the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan in the 17th century. The mosque is made of red sandstone and white marble and can accommodate over 25,000 worshippers at a time. The Jama Masjid is a must-visit for tourists who want to experience the rich Islamic culture of India.

Apart from these monuments, Delhi is also home to other historical landmarks such as India Gate, Lotus Temple, and the Akshardham Temple. These monuments not only reflect the architectural and cultural richness of India but also serve as a reminder of the country’s glorious past.

India is home to some of the world’s most magnificent and historically significant monuments. Indian historical monuments are a testament to the country’s rich cultural and architectural heritage. These monuments have stood the test of time and have become an integral part of India’s identity.

The importance of Indian historical monuments cannot be overstated. They not only serve as reminders of India’s glorious past but also attract millions of tourists every year. The tourism industry has become a significant contributor to India’s economy, and historical monuments play a crucial role in this.

The history of historical monuments in India dates back to ancient times. India has been home to several empires and civilizations, each leaving behind their unique mark on the country’s landscape. The monuments from different eras and cultures offer a glimpse into India’s diverse and rich past.

Also read, Invest in our Planet Essay .

The Taj Mahal is undoubtedly one of the most iconic historical monuments in India. Located in Agra, Uttar Pradesh, the Taj Mahal was built by Emperor Shah Jahan in memory of his beloved wife Mumtaz Mahal. The monument is a masterpiece of Mughal architecture and is recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The Taj Mahal is not just a symbol of love but also represents the pinnacle of Mughal architecture. The monument is a fusion of Indian, Persian, and Islamic architectural styles, making it a unique structure. The Taj Mahal is made of white marble and is adorned with intricate carvings and inlays of precious stones.

The significance of the Taj Mahal goes beyond its architectural and design features. The monument is a symbol of India’s rich cultural heritage and attracts millions of tourists every year. The Taj Mahal is a testament to the enduring power of love and serves as a reminder of the importance of preserving our historical monuments.

Uttar Pradesh is home to several historical monuments that are worth visiting. One such monument is the Jhansi Fort, which played a crucial role in India’s struggle for independence. The fort is located in Jhansi, Uttar Pradesh and is a significant tourist attraction.

The Jhansi Fort is an excellent example of medieval Indian architecture. The fort’s design is a blend of Rajput and Mughal architectural styles, making it a unique structure. The fort’s history is closely linked to the legendary Rani Lakshmibai, who fought against the British during the Indian Rebellion of 1857.

Another historical monument near Uttar Pradesh is the Khajuraho Group of Monuments. Located in Madhya Pradesh, these monuments are famous for their erotic sculptures and intricate carvings. The Khajuraho Group of Monuments is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and attracts tourists from all over the world.

Historical monuments are structures or sites that have significant historical, cultural, or architectural value. These monuments are often symbols of the past, representing a particular era or civilization. They serve as a reminder of our ancestors and their achievements, and their preservation is crucial for future generations to understand and appreciate our collective history. This essay aims to explore the importance of historical monuments, with a specific focus on Indian monuments such as the Taj Mahal, as well as monuments near Uttar Pradesh and in Delhi.

Essay on Monuments of India

Students are often asked to write an essay on Monuments of India in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Monuments of India

Introduction.

India is a country rich in history and culture. This is reflected in the numerous monuments found across the nation. These monuments are a testament to India’s glorious past.

The Taj Mahal

The Taj Mahal, located in Agra, is one of India’s most famous monuments. It’s an ivory-white marble mausoleum built by Emperor Shah Jahan in memory of his wife.

Qutub Minar

In Delhi, Qutub Minar stands tall. This UNESCO World Heritage Site is the world’s tallest brick minaret, showcasing the architectural brilliance of the Mughal era.

These monuments are not just structures, but symbols of India’s rich heritage and diverse culture. They remind us of the country’s historical journey.

250 Words Essay on Monuments of India

Architectural diversity.

Indian monuments, ranging from the ancient Indus Valley Civilization sites to the majestic Mughal and British-era edifices, showcase the country’s architectural diversity. The intricate carvings of Ajanta and Ellora caves, the grandeur of the Taj Mahal, and the imposing forts of Rajasthan are testament to the exceptional craftsmanship of the bygone eras.

Symbol of Cultural Heritage

Monuments serve as symbols of India’s cultural heritage. They embody the traditions, beliefs, and values of the people who built them. For instance, the Konark Sun Temple in Odisha, with its exquisite stone carvings, is a testament to the Sun-worshipping culture prevalent during its construction.

Monuments and National Identity

Monuments also contribute to the formation of national identity. They remind us of historical events, instilling a sense of pride and unity. The India Gate, a war memorial in Delhi, is one such monument that evokes nationalistic sentiments.

Preservation Challenges

Despite their significance, many Indian monuments face preservation challenges due to factors like pollution, vandalism, and lack of maintenance. It’s crucial to address these issues to ensure that these symbols of our past continue to inspire future generations.

In conclusion, monuments of India are more than just architectural structures; they are tangible links to the country’s rich past, reflecting the diverse cultures, traditions, and historical events that have shaped the nation’s identity.

500 Words Essay on Monuments of India

The grandeur of mughal architecture.

The Mughal era, known for its opulence and grandeur, has left an indelible mark on India’s architectural landscape. The Taj Mahal, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of the Seven Wonders of the World, is a testament to the Mughal’s architectural acumen. Built by Emperor Shah Jahan in memory of his beloved wife Mumtaz Mahal, this white marble mausoleum symbolizes the zenith of Mughal art and culture.

The Red Fort in Delhi, another iconic Mughal monument, stands as a symbol of India’s struggle for freedom. It was from this fort that the first Prime Minister of independent India, Jawaharlal Nehru, hoisted the national flag on August 15, 1947.

The Magnificence of Ancient Temples

The Brihadeshwara Temple in Tamil Nadu, built during the Chola dynasty, is another architectural wonder. The temple’s vimana (tower) stands at an astonishing height of 216 feet, and the shadow of the vimana never falls on the ground, a feat that continues to baffle architects and historians.

Monuments as a Reflection of Cultural Diversity

India’s monuments are not just architectural masterpieces but also mirrors reflecting the country’s cultural diversity. The Sanchi Stupa, a Buddhist monument, is an emblem of peace and harmony. The Ajanta and Ellora caves, with their intricate paintings and sculptures, showcase the coexistence of Buddhism, Jainism, and Hinduism, underlining India’s pluralistic cultural fabric.

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Monuments Essay

Monuments are the buildings or any infrastructural structures that were built-in history. They have archeological and social importance. Monuments are the cultural heritage of a particular place or region. Monuments are the structure that is built thousands of years ago.

Monuments reflect the civilization or the particular dynasty in which they were built. Prehistoric period’s buildings are also excavated and discovered, they also have equal importance as the medieval or ancient period monuments.

The Archeological Survey of any country has the legal right to protect the ancient buildings and they also take care of the place where such monuments are found. In India, the Harappa Civilization excavations are the oldest form of monuments we found.

The Mohenjo-Daro, Kalibangan, and Dholavira bricks and some historical buildings are important. The Seven Wonders of the World and all the monuments that have social and cultural importance have come under the world or national level monument.

They are important for the tourism point of view, some of the monuments are declared as the world heritage by UNESCO. Monuments are more than the tourism spot, they carry the tales from the past and the age in which they are built.

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