1st Edition

The Commemoration of Women in the United States Remembering Women in Public Space

By Teresa Bergman Copyright 2019
216 Pages
by Routledge

214 Pages 59 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

214 Pages 59 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

The Commemoration of Women in the United States examines the public memorialization of women in the US over the past century, with a particular focus on the late twentieth century and early twenty first. 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... Read more

Introduction: Beyond Allegory: Actual Women Enter the Commemorative Landscape  1. Eleanor Roosevelt as Coda  2. The Portrait Monument’s Radical Message  3. The Politics of Optimism at the Women’s Rights National Historic Park  4. Women’s Patriotism in War: Vietnam Women's and Women in Military Service for America Memorials  5. Rosie the Riveter/World War II Homefront National Historic Park and the Social Construction of Power  Conclusion: After Absence, the Complications of Presence

Biography

Teresa Bergman is Professor and Chair of the Communication Department at the University of the Pacific in Stockton, California, USA. 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 2013 Jane Jacobs Urban Communication Book Award.

"This book should be useful to public historians looking to engage with the theoretical literature surrounding memorials—an important project at a time when they are the focus of such intense activism and political debate... It seems likely that women’s representation in monuments will expand significantly over the next several years. This book can aid the project of understanding how and why such shifts occur." - Ella Wagner, The Public Historian