Politics and Memory: Civil War Monuments in Gilded Age New York

A rich history of Gilded Age partisan politics, aesthetics, and the creation of New York City’s Civil War monuments

In the decades following the Civil War, New York City built more monuments to the Union cause than any other city in the nation outside of Washington, DC. Ranging from simple standing soldiers to grand triumphal arches and temples, these monuments shaped commemorative aesthetics and iconography at the local and national levels. Unlike Confederate monuments, which were mostly initiated by private organizations, New York’s soldiers’ monuments were largely supported through city and state funding. These civic projects attracted the interest of competing groups, including artists, politicians, veterans, and the public, that all sought to influence the growing commemorative landscape. Works such as the Brooklyn Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument outside Prospect Park and the New York Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument in Riverside Park were created in a fractious political landscape and defined as much by municipal maneuvering as by artistic principle.

Illuminating the historical context of Civil War soldiers’ monuments in New York City, Akela Reason explores the complex and fascinating intersection of art, politics, and memory within these works, while also highlighting the ever-changing ways different constituencies have engaged with them in symbolic and physical terms.

Akela Reason is associate professor of history and director of the Museum Studies Certificate Program at the University of Georgia.