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“The Caring Hand,” by Eva Oertli and Beat Huber, sculpture of a hand holding a tree.

Bryan Stevenson Reclaims the Monument, in the Heart of the Deep South

The civil-rights attorney has created a sculpture park, indicting the city of Montgomery—a former capital of the domestic slave trade.
by Doreen St. Félix via The New Yorker on March 25, 2024
Design drawing for the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial Competition, 1947.
original

A Gateway to the Past

The Arch in St. Louis stands as a monument to contradictory histories.
by Ed Ayers on September 13, 2023
Lithograph of the Haymarket riot.

Chicago Never Forgot the Haymarket Martyrs

Ever since the execution of labor radicals in 1886, reactionaries have tried to tarnish their legacy — and leftists have honored them as working-class martyrs.
by Jeff Schuhrke via Jacobin on May 1, 2023
Venable Mound, Morehouse Parish, Louisiana, built ca. 700–1200 CE.

Monuments Upon the Tumultuous Earth

For thousands of years, Indigenous societies were building hundred-foot pyramids along the Mississippi River.
by Boyce Upholt via Emergence Magazine on March 23, 2023
Exhibit

Monument Wars

This exhibit explores discussions about what we choose to memorialize – and why.
The Lady of the Rockies statue. Photo by Doug Zwick/Flickr.

The 90-foot Sentinel of Butte, Montana

What does a statue dedicated to mothers reveal about women’s rights?
by Leah Sottile via High Country News on March 1, 2023
Horatio Greenough's statue of George Washington in a toga.

The First Statue Removed From the Capitol

Long before monuments to enslavers were removed, lawmakers decided to relocate a scandalous, half-naked depiction of George Washington in a toga.
by Ronald G. Shafer via Retropolis on January 22, 2023
A crane removes the Robert E. Lee statue from Monument Avenue in Richmond, 2021.

The Question of the Offensive Monument

A new book asks what we lose by simply removing monuments.
by Erin L. Thompson via The Nation on December 5, 2022
Royal Fusiliers War Memorial, 2011. Photograph by Robert Scarth.

Monuments with Mission Creep

On “all wars” memorials.
by Andrew M. Shanken via Lapham’s Quarterly on October 26, 2022

A Tale of Two Toms

The uses and abuses of history through the "diary" of Thomas Fallon.
by Jenny Hale Pulsipher via Commonplace on July 12, 2022
Stereograph of the original Lincoln Monument, seen from City Hall. (Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division)

The Original Lincoln Memorial Stands Forgotten in D.C.’s Judiciary Square

“It is a better likeness of Lincoln than anything in plaster, stone, marble, or bronze that I have ever seen."
by Jason Emerson via Retropolis on May 29, 2022
The Lincoln Memorial with a crowd of people in front attending its dedication.

A Century Ago, the Lincoln Memorial's Dedication Underscored the Nation's Racial Divide

Seating was segregated, and the ceremony's only Black speaker was forced to drastically revise his speech to avoid spreading "propaganda."
by Kellie B. Gormly via Smithsonian on May 27, 2022
Protesters led by Bad River Anishinaabe activist Mike Forcia toppled this statue of Christopher Columbus on June 10, 2020.

Meet the Indigenous Activist Who Toppled Minnesota's Christopher Columbus Statue

The unauthorized removal of the monument took place during the racial justice protests of summer 2020.
by Erin L. Thompson via Smithsonian on February 3, 2022

Alabama’s Capitol Is a Crime Scene. The Cover-up Has Lasted 120 Years.

How more than a century of whitewashed history poisons Alabama today.
by Kyle Whitmire via al.com on January 12, 2022
Portraits of the top 50 individuals in US public monuments - mostly white men

National Monument Audit

A massive assessment of the nation's current monument landscape, posing questions about common knowledge and debunking misperceptions within public memory.
via Monument Lab on September 29, 2021
Art sculpture "House" by Rachael Whiteread, 1993 (a concrete casting of the inside of a Victorian house).

Monuments for the Interim Twenty-Four Thousand Years.

An account of the long-lasting effects of nuclear energy in the US.
by Annie Simpson via Southern Cultures on August 23, 2021
Statue on blue background

History Was Never Subject to Democratic Control

Elite merchants put up a statue of a British slave trader. A band of protesters toppled it. Who decides what happens now?
by Helen Lewis via The Atlantic on August 9, 2021
Workers cover a statue of Christopher Columbus in Chicago before the start of a Juneteenth march on June 19, 2020. The memorial was later removed.

When Monuments Go Bad

The Chicago Monuments Project is searching for ways to resolve its landscape of problematic statues and make room for a new, different kind of public memorial.
by Zach Mortice via CityLab on June 8, 2021
The Equestrian statue, depicting a man on a horse.

The Racist History Behind El Paso’s XII Travelers Memorial

Protesters in El Paso have focused on toppling The Equestrian, a monument to a racist colonizer. But the story behind the monument goes deeper.
by David Dorado Romo via The Texas Observer on September 28, 2020
Graffitied Robert E. Lee Statue with child playing basketball.

The New Monuments That America Needs

Every statue defends an idea about history, but what if those ideas are wrong?
by Hua Hsu via The New Yorker on September 15, 2020
Workers removing a Confederate statue

Take it From a Historian. We Don't Owe Anything to Confederate Monuments.

Trump spends so much time defending statues not because he cares about history, but precisely because he doesn’t
by Timothy Snyder via The Guardian on July 23, 2020
An image of the J. E. B. Stuart statue on Richmond's Monument Avenue being removed, its pedestal covered in graffiti.

All Statues Are Local

The Great Toppling of 2020 and the rebirth of civic imagination.
by Siddhartha Mitter via The Intercept on July 19, 2020

The Question of Monuments

Despite our long history of interrogating the memorial landscape, no movement has been able to dislodge it.
by Kirk Savage via Lapham’s Quarterly on July 13, 2020
Formal photograph of Ulysses S. Grant.

Public Monuments and Ulysses S. Grant’s Contested Legacy

It is fair to ask whether Grant’s prewar experiences define the entirety of his character, and who sets the bar for which public figures deserve commemoration.
by Nick Sacco via Muster on July 7, 2020
Statue of Francis Scott Key in San Francisco, knocked off its pedastal

whentheycamedown

A collaborative project that set out in the summer of 2020 to document the removal of monuments through both official and unofficial channels.
via whentheycamedown.com on July 1, 2020
Emancipation Memorial seen through fence grating

What Frederick Douglass Had to Say About Monuments

In a newly discovered letter, the famed abolitionist wrote that ‘no one monument could be made to tell the whole truth'
by Jonathan W. White, Scott Sandage via Smithsonian on June 30, 2020
Statue of George Washington with an American flag tied to his face to cover his nose and mouth, like a covid mask or a gag.

Direct Action and the Rejection of Monumental History

As people have gathered across the country to oppose police violence, they have targeted statues, monuments, and buildings commemorating white supremacy.
by Jacob F. Lee, Mathew E. Stanley via CounterPunch on June 5, 2020
Historical marker in Artillery Park.

Cast in Iron?

Rethinking our historical monuments.
by Jaime Fuller via AdirondackLife on June 1, 2020
Statue of Hannah Duston frowning, pointing, and wielding an axe.

The White Heroine Who Legitimized Racial Aggression

White racial violence in America has never been a random collection of individual or unrelated crimes of passion against minorities.
by Gregory Rodriguez via Contra Mundum on February 29, 2020
Left: Place de la Concorde. Number 6 in the series Curiosités Parisiennes, early 20th century. Postcard; offset lithography. Courtesy Leonard A. Lauder. Right: Monolite Mussolini Dux, via Wikimedia Commons

The 20th-Century Obelisk, From Imperialist Icon to Phallic Symbol

Amid all the imperial aspiration, wooly-minded New Age mythologizing, and pure unadulterated commerce, the obelisk stands tall.
by Anthony Grafton, Brian A. Curran, Pamela O. Long, Benjamin Weiss via The MIT Press Reader on December 16, 2019
The Memorial Chapel of the Épinal American Cemetery in Lorraine, France.

How the U.S. Designed Overseas Cemeteries to Win the Cold War

Building large memorials to display power and dominance, the US government hoped to inspire Judeo-Christian and capitalist ideals with their cemeteries.
by Kate Clarke Lemay via What It Means to Be American on February 14, 2019
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