Because Ideas Matter...
The faculty and staff of Butler University's College of Liberal
Arts and Sciences presents
Recommended Readings
The McKinley Monument:
A Tribute to a Fallen President
by Christopher Kenney, The History Press, 2006
Reviewed by George Geib
Public memory is a hot topic today.
Personalities and events that the public remembers, and the ways
people are encouraged to remember them, lie at the center of an
explosion of studies. The accepted wisdom is that the public memory
is normally short and highly selective; certainly American leaders
are constantly seeking ways to capture and hold our attention for
their heroes and values. Public monuments and statuary have come in
for a lot of attention. In The McKinley Monument, museum curator
Christopher Kenney tells an engaging story of constructing,
maintaining, and interpreting the massive Beaux Arts mausoleum in
Canton, Ohio, during a century when the fame of its slain President
waxed and waned. William McKinley was greatly mourned after his
assassination in 1901, but his fame was quickly overshadowed by the
attention given to successor Theodore Roosevelt and later
presidents. McKinley's burial site at first received the attention
of Ohio's elite. But problems soon intruded, ranging from a very
leaky roof to an inadequate endowment. New donors, new managers,
and changing civic interests all played their part. Today
McKinley's mausoleum shares its site with a city museum that
contains a couple of memorial rooms as well as a planetarium, an
interactive dinosaur exhibit, and a model train layout. One can
only wonder if the same will happen to some from our current
political generation.
- George Geib is professor of History at Butler University.