Identity, Place, and Public Memory: A Linguistic Analysis of American Civil War Monuments at the Gettysburg Battlefield

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The location of the American Civil War Battle of Gettysburg, now preserved at the Gettysburg National Military Park (GNMP), receives thousands of visitors every year. Visitors to the battlefield interact with over 1,000 monuments across the landscape that both commemorate the actions that took place and memorialize the participants in those actions. Presented here are the preliminary results of a linguistic study of the monument inscriptions. Including both Union and Confederate monuments erected by the National Park Service as well as other organizations, this study uses linguistics to investigate the monuments’ connection to place, how identity is expressed and the use of intertextuality to understand how the events of the battle are commemorated. In addition, this paper addresses battlefield tourism and the impact of the monuments on modern visitors, including the meaning they convey to the public.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 86th Annual Meeting, Online (2021)   •
• SAA 2021: General Sessions

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 33174