Monuments: Conflict and Movement

The removal of Confederate statuary across the United States, and of monuments honouring colonial actors in Britain and Europe, has prompted scholars, local governments, and diverse community groups to debate how best to manage such objects and the oppressive regimes they celebrate. This project seeks to provide a response to the difficult questions raised by public monuments.

Taking American Civil War monuments as its focus, this project’s main aim is to create an online database and interactive website that not only records basic data about a range of public monuments to the Civil War, but also provides interpretive essays which uncover the often neglected and inaccessible histories of commemorative objects across the United States and beyond.

Project members will play a key role in gathering data and researching the narrative lives of Civil War monuments. By contemplating the different forms monuments to the Civil War have taken, and working to redefine a traditional understanding ‘public monuments’ more broadly, they will help to identify a range of different approaches to commemoration taken by marginalised groups, including formerly enslaved communities.

In uncovering neglected contextual, rhetorical, and literary histories of Civil War monuments, students on the project will reflect on the historical narratives and functions underpinning monument creation, and their relevance today. This work will inform and shape the creation of a rich, user-friendly digital resource, which might be used on high school and university courses, in the public history and media sectors, and to inform cultural heritage policies and community action in the US and internationally.