States of Memory: Continuities, Conflicts, and Transformations in National Retrospection (Politics, History, and Culture) by Jeffrey K. Olick

Author:Jeffrey K. Olick
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Duke University Press
Published: 2003-06-29T16:00:00+00:00

FOUNDING MOMENTS IN NATIONAL COMMEMORATION

The American Revolution resonates as the classically charismatic constitutive moment in national collective memory over two centuries. In both centennial and bicentennial years, history was told mostly as a history of the 1770s, largely distanced from the myriad other significant events and processes of the intervening centuries. The commemorations of 1876 and 1976 were never simply occasions for broader national reflection: they demanded elaborate and rich discourses on the revolutionary period itself.

Revolutionary history was often seen as sacred and always as worthy of reference. As the author of one elaborate volume produced for the commemorative market put it: “Who is there amongst us that, at least, does not revere all matters connected with the birth of his country?” (Brotherhead c. 1872: iii). The Declaration of Independence was central in every speech and ceremony because “it has kept its place in history; . . . it will maintain itself while human interest in human institutions shall endure” (Evarts 1876: 76). References to Washington and the revolutionary period also appeared in most of the unofficial literature of the centennial, in guides, almanacs, poems, and speeches produced by many different groups. Fireworks, interpreted elaborately, included displays like the one that supposedly represented an “Allegory of Independence . . . at the termination of which will appear America, with her right hand pointing to the old Independence Bell” (Centennial Board of Finance 1875: 14).

The revolutionary era also provided a widely used basis for claims to inclusion in the nation. Writers and speakers in a wide range of groups used a link with the founding moment to establish the legitimacy of their participation in the celebration. Catholics pointed to John Carroll’s part in the Revolution (e.g., Clarke 1876: 16); women’s groups drew attention to heroines like Washington’s mother, “who nobly reared Virginia’s godlike chief ” (Ladies’ Centennial Committee of Rhode Island 1875: 1). As did all who could, New Jersey participants in the celebration likened their support to their state’s earlier revolutionary role: “As in the Revolution, when the dark days came, New Jersey made her small subscription at the moment when it was most needed and gave most encouragement” (New Jersey State Centennial Board 1877: 87).

A hundred years later, the nation looked very different, and much had changed in commemorative organization itself. But American commemoration organizers still stressed the revolutionary period when they tried to imagine shared history, despite the fact that a wide variety of more local and vernacular histories were newly available for inclusion in national commemoration (Kammen 1991). So, in a typical story of the event, planners told in their newsletter of how “New Jersey and Pennsylvania are preparing to focus on George Washington’s daring midnight crossing of the semi-frozen Delaware River in the last major reenactment commemorating the nation’s Bicentennial” (ARBA 1977: 389). The Bicentennial Times stressed revolutionary history much more than other available memories: for instance, they told of a new National Guard Heritage Gallery showing displays “with emphasis on the role of the militia

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