Remaking America

John Bodnar’s work, Remaking America: Public Memory, Commemoration, and Patriotism in the Twentieth Century¸ (1992) uses cultural history to study the relationship between social meaning and public ceremony and memorials. Bodnar defines public memory as a system “of beliefs and ideas about the past that help the public or society understand both its past and present and, by implication, its future,” (Bodnar, 15). Although the author does not mention Michel Foucault, Bodnar does seem to use the theorist’s methodology regarding discourse as a multicultural, multivocal act. This discourse revolves around the cultural elite and what Bodnar calls the “ordinary people,” (16). Bodnar argues that the former uses public memory to emphasize as history of unity and nation building; the latter uses history to support its own goals, usually on a much more local level.


Bodnar begins his work by examining public memory at very regional or local levels by exploring and comparing twentieth-century Cleveland, Indianapolis, and different ethnic communities across the Midwest. His last portion of the book explores commemoration on a national level: the National Park Service, the Civil War Centennial, and the American Revolution Bicentennial. Overall Bodnar concludes that at the national level there is a consistent use of history that emphasizes a particular discourse of patriotism that relies heavily on service and sacrifice. On more local levels history is used in multiple ways. An example of this is the 1974 Kansas Wheat Centennial. The centennial celebrated the use of winter wheat which revolutionized Kansas’ economy. The commission pursued rhetoric of nationalism that placed Kansas’ agriculture at the center of nation building. However, Russian Mennonites- who had brought over the winter wheat seeds- used the ceremonies to place their unique contributions to Kansas into a national as well as local past.


Ultimately Remaking America illustrates that government officials and others who benefitted by keeping a status quo use history to their own ends. By examining the local uses of public memory Bodnar argues that history is used by different groups to insert their unique pasts into a nation’s history. This allows the “ordinary people” to feel as though they belong inside the past rather than the nation’s history being an unchanging nebulous of dates, names, and events that may have little or nothing to do with today’s individuals. There is something eloquent about Americans using something that Bodnar argues is highly standardized- US history- to teach a multicultural past.


Bodnar’s book is valuable to those seeking to study a kind of crossroads between social and cultural history. Sometimes his portrayal of the “ordinary people” is a bit too simplistic. It was disappointing that he did not include more research on African Americans’ and their relationship with public memory. His footnotes also suggest that he relied heavily on already published manuscripts, rather than primary sources, for much of his work. While the book is not exactly inspiring it will remain valuable to an audience trying to study public commemorations and their symbolic meanings.

Sanford Levinson

Sanford Levinson’s Written in Stone analyzes monuments and how their interpretation changes over time as cultures evolved. Levinson focuses on the Southern United States primarily. Levinson argues that the messages interpreted by the public are seen as official statements by the state.

Levinson begins by examining the Millennium Monument in Budapest. With each regime change from Habsburg to State to Communist the previous characters on the monument are removed and replaced with whoever is deemed more appropriate at the time. Levinson uses the example of the Millennium Monument is illustrate how commemorative objects can be erased as if the history behind them never happened.

The author then goes on discuss one potential possibility for the state’s role in monuments. As a Constitutional lawyer, Levinson uses Owen Fiss’s argument over true state neutrality. It seems that Fiss (and Levinson) believes that real neutrality would result in the state funding of almost any and all public art or commemorative projects. An interesting example that Fiss makes is that true neutrality would require cities to cease naming streets after Martin Luther King, Jr. and instead also include ones named for Eugene “Bull” Connor (86). Levinson argues that this example reveals that true neutrality is not really accessible. Another possibility for neutrality would be to cease funding of public monuments entirely and even remove already existing ones. Would this solve any problems? Well, it might stop public argument over interpretations but what would a country be without heroes or memorials of important events? Some would argue that there could be no nation-state without people and events to celebrate. What would a national identity be without monuments?

Week Six- Saving South Beach

A week ago Michael Moore’s Capitalism: A Love Story opened in theatres. Allegedly the movie discusses how unrestrained capitalism has led to this country’s current economic frustrations. This week for class M. Barron Stofik’s Saving South Beach traces how capitalism simultaneously jeopardized and revitalized a dying community known as Miami Beach and South Beach in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. Stofik concludes her work by stating that “in the end, capitalism threatened to demolish South Beach; capitalism saved the hotels and apartments, and capitalism had wrought its extreme makeover,” (Stofik, 249). Ultimately, both Stofik and Moore were largely correct.

M. Barron Stofik’s Saving South Beach is a narrative history of how Miami Beach and South Beach were shaped by the three-decade debate over the Art Deco district. In the 1930s a variety of resorts and buildings were constructed to attract any potential customers not made destitute by the Great Depression. In 1966 the architectural style was titled Art Deco. However, by the 1970s many of the buildings were run down and dilapidated. They were also populated by elderly Jewish citizens and Cuban refugees living off of Social Security or pensions; this hurt the city’s possible image as a young, vibrant escape for tourists. Developers wanted to tear down the Art Deco buildings and build newer, sleeker, more expensive hotels and condominiums to attract new clientele. This would force many of the current residents to relocate to unspecified areas. Miami Beach residents saw this as a threat to their community and organized preservation groups to save the Art Deco buildings so that they could save their homes and neighborhoods. In conclusion there were victories and losses. Private hotel owners like Abe Resnick who did not see historic value in buildings only forty years old demolished a prime example of 1930s architecture, like The New Yorker. However, ultimately preservation won out over development and the TV show Miami Vice spiced up the city’s image. Contractors, forced by districting legislation, refurbished and renovated Art Deco buildings. Tourists started to once again flock to Miami Beach and South Beach. It was historic preservation that saved the area and injected millions of dollars in revenue to the city; all that development had been hoping to accomplish.

One lesson for public historians to learn is that of shared authority and how to work with developers and contractors. Barbara Capitman, along with others, started the historic preservation movement in Dade County. However, her brash behavior and “my way or the highway” attitude regularly resulted in conflict between herself, Abe Resnick, city officials, and others. In the end she was hardly ever elected to any position of power, despite her enthusiasm and commitment. Instead Nancy Liebman became the elected face of preservation in the community. Her kind smile won over opponents. The old adage “more flies with honey” certainly rang true for this story.

In the end this story was one of economics and two minorities that developers believed were disposable: elderly Jews on severely limited incomes and Cuban refugees. Legislation that saved Art Deco buildings forced contractors to seek economic opportunity within limitations that proved to save South Beach. This comes as no surprise, similar things happened in Denver, Charleston, Savannah, and other areas around the country that used history to attract consumers. However, unlike Boston or Atlanta that preserved buildings associated with people or events, South Beach did not have historic figures to justify the saving of buildings, only architectural uniqueness and community importance- a much harder sell. Stofik concludes her book by stating that most of the Jewish community has moved on, either through death or economic push outs. Similar fates awaited the Cubans but because they had created neighborhoods of families and kinships Cubans had been much harder to move and some were entering a time of economic stability and prosperity. Incredibly readable, Saving South Beach outlines how communities revolve around buildings and how the constructions become as much a part of the community as the people who inhabit them.