Teresa Bergman - The Commemoration of Women in the United States: Remembering Women in Public Space

The Commemoration of Women in the United States: Remembering Women in Public Space examines the public memorialization of women in the United States over the past century, with a particular focus on the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. The analysis centers on six case examples of memorialization and explores broad themes of cultural representation.

Bergman argues that the construction, or relocation, of a series of prominent national memorials together form a significant moment of change in the ways in which women are commemorated in the United States. The historic and present-day challenges facing such commemoration are examined with reference to broader political debates. The case examples explored are the Eleanor Roosevelt Statue in the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial; the Portrait Monument of Susan B. Anthony, Lucretia Mott, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton; the Womens Rights National Historical Park; the Vietnam Womens Memorial; the Women in Military Service for America Memorial; and the Rosie the Riveter WWII Home Front National Historical Park.

Providing insightful and grounded analysis of the history and practice of the commemoration of women in the United States, this book makes useful reading for a range of scholars and students in subjects including heritage studies, communication studies, womens and gender studies, and public history.

Teresa Bergman is Professor and Chair of the Communication Department at the University of the Pacific in Stockton, California. Her research incorporates an interdisciplinary methodology that includes memory studies, rhetoric, documentary film theory, and critical/cultural studies. Her articles have appeared in Text and Performance Quarterly and the Western Journal of Communication. Her book Exhibiting Patriotism: Creating and Contesting Interpretations of American Historic Sites (2013) won the Jane Jacobs Urban Communication Book Award.

Teresa Bergman

First published 2019

by Routledge

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and by Routledge

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2019 Taylor & Francis

The right of Teresa Bergman to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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A catalog record for this title has been requested

ISBN: 978-1-62958-380-8 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-0-203-70519-3 (ebk)

Typeset in Times New Roman

by Newgen Publishing UK

The origins of this project began with my dear friends and colleagues Drs. Carole Blair, Mary Kahl, and Barbara Biesecker. Each of them provided me with brilliant insights, and continual intellectual and emotional support for this research. They helped me to understand that recognizing the contributions of women in the form of commemoration is truly a movement, and these three women guided me to appreciate its depth, complexity, and importance.

This book also owes its existence to Mitch Allen, former publisher of Left Coast Press. Whoever meets Mitch comes away impressed, and I was lucky to work with him. He is a true intellectual, and although his publishing days are over, he continues his research and support of anyone who values the world in terms of its treatment of people and culture. There can never be enough people like Mitch Allen in the world. Thanks also to Routledge Press for granting permission to reproduce and extend in Rhetorics Haunting the National Mall, edited by Roger Aden and published by Lexington Books, 2018.

I also want to thank all of the dedicated individuals at the many archives and national parks where I conducted my research. I only have words of praise and appreciation for each of them because they are the guardians of the information that makes this country understandable and accessible. I offer special thanks for curator emerita Barbara Wolanin and Jennifer Blancato of the Architect of the Capitol office. They were extremely helpful in helping me locate all of the historical documents relating to the Portrait Monument, in sharing their views on the monuments tortuous past, and including me in their daily office lunches. At the National Capital Planning Commission, Marcella Brown was unfailingly kind and informative. Day after day, she found every document relating to the Vietnam Womens Memorial. For the National Womans Party at the Belmont-Paul Womens Equality Monument, librarian Elsbeth Kursh guided me through their archives and gently pointed me in the direction of documents that would help my research. During my time at the Women in Military Service for America Memorial (WIMSA), I worked closely with curator of collections Britta K. Granrud, who provided me with easy access to WIMSAs files and answered each question and email promptly and happily. Not only do these women know their archives, but their expertise also provided me with invaluable observations into the complications and histories of their sites.

I conducted a fair amount of my research in various National Park Service (NPS) archives, and I want to emphasize that this is a group of extremely dedicated individuals who recognize the importance of preserving, maintaining, and expanding our parks and historical sites even though, year after year, they do not receive nearly enough funding to do so. The NPS is the caretaker of our heritage and deserves our unwavering support. In addition to the wonderful help I received at the Department of the Interiors library from some of the most optimistic librarians that I have ever worked witheven during the budget sequestrationI want to mention several NPS personnel who were kind enough to spend many hours with me explaining their archives and their sites history. Superintendent Vivien Rose at the Womens Rights National Historical Park offered her expertise and insights about the tremendous effort it took for the parks creation. At the Rosie the Riveter WWII Home Front National Historical Park, independent public historian Donna Graves graciously welcomed me into her personal archives and provided insights into the sites history and development. I took several NPS guided tours at the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial, and each ranger patiently answered my questions and never questioned why I wanted to know so much about Eleanor Roosevelt at the FDR Memorial.