Customer Reviews

Remaking America: Public Memory, Commemoration, and Patriotism in the Twentieth Century

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John Bodnar would certainly come down in favor of the construction of public memory. It is what defines American society, he insists, and he believes it can be and has been manipulated and altered as needed over time to serve the interests of the present. That is what commemorations are all about. The author argues in this social history of commemorations in the twentieth century United States that "pride and patriotism" dominated the cultural landscape as unifying elements of this nation. Moreover, Bodnar sees a fundamental divergence between what he calls "official memory," the explication of national themes through government-supported institutions and ceremonies such as those of the National Park Service, and "vernacular memory" expressed through local, grassroots efforts to commemorate some aspect of the past. Those "vernacular" commemorations are often built around local events and specific groups, especially ethnic ones. Through "a communicative process" between these two approaches to history, Bodnar believes, Americans construct their public memory. This is often a tense interaction with conflicting aims and messages surfacing that must be negotiated between the various participants in the commemoration.

Bodnar provides a set of case studies, especially in the American Midwest, exploring these various activities. His concentration on such communities as Indianapolis and Cleveland anchor the study to the large urban centers of Middle America, and his argument's transportability to other regions and groups is appropriate to question. Even so, there is at least some reason to view this dialogue between competing "official" and "vernacular" issues as a national tendency in my experience. I worked with the U.S. Centennial of Flight Commission to commemorate the one-hundredth anniversary of the work of the Wright brothers in 2003. At the national level--an "official" memory of the event--emphasized not only the importance of the Wrights but also celebrated the evolution of flight over a century. Bodnar would see this as in keeping with past commemorative efforts, especially in its basic commitment to the idea of progress and improved well-being of the nation and its citizenry. The national commission worked with organized groups in both Dayton, Ohio, the hometown of the Wright brothers, and North Carolina, where they first successfully flew in 1903. In addition, such entities as aerospace-related professional and trade associations, federal agencies with a role in aerospace such as NASA and the FAA, aerospace corporations, and cultural institutions such as the Library of Congress and the National Park Service as well as state and local groups all had a place in the commemoration. So too did the Wright family. All of these various groups had different reasons for participating in this commemoration, possessed their own goals, and expressed sometimes conflicting priorities. Negotiating the competing voices was never easy, but it was always interesting, and in the end the various commemorative events, the dissemination of publications and educational materials, and the multi-media response was overall quite positive.

It is in the context of these competing "official" and "vernacular" issues and institutions that John Bodnar has raised some of his most interesting but, unfortunately, most problematic issues. He sees the nationally organized "official" commemorative approach as drowning out the "vernacular" perspectives of local groups. He never explicitly states it in these terms, but Bodnar seems to see a large-scale effort, perhaps even what some might characterize as a conspiracy, on the part of the national government to control the memory of these events for the purposes of the present. He suggests that "vernacular" concepts of memory undermine the national consensus attempted through these commemorations, and that simply will not do. Strong efforts from the federal level, therefore, have over time led to a lessening of cultural pluralism. To preserve what remains, and perhaps to retake the memory of our past, he insists, requires diligence on the part of all.

This argument requires that Bodnar establish the presence of an overarching quest for power on the part of Washington overlords taking an Orwellian approach to commemoration: "Those who control the past, control the future; Those who control the future, control the present; Those who control the present, control the past." I just don't see that level of control in any commemoration of which I have ever been a part, and there have been many others in addition to the centennial of flight. Certainly all have had their share of heterogeneous messages. In no case was there any attempt to establish a single message from above and all participating groups were free to approach the subject however they wished. This aspect of "Remaking America" is strong on assertion but short on demonstration.

Two final points in this regard. First, I tend to agree with Charles E. Lindblom who wrote a generation ago about what he characterized as the "science of `muddling through'," (See "The Science of `Muddling Through'," Public Administration Review 19 (1959): 79-88), and there was a fair measure of muddling through present in any commemoration of which I have ever been a part. In such an environment it is hard to accept a contention that there was some "master plan" present for controlling the "take away" memory of the events commemorated. Second, such scholars as Jurgen Habermas and Clifford Geertz have argued convincingly that commemorations allow an opportunity for a multitude of participants to draw diverse meanings from it. That certainly seems to have been the case in my experience as well.

This is a quite provocative and useful study of public memory and commemoration. John Bodnar is to be congratulated for raising these issues. While I do not agree with all of Bodnar's conclusions, his cases studies are outstanding and I certainly welcome his reflective and challenging perspective.