Georgia State University ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University History Dissertations Department of History Spring 5-13-2011 Nationalizing the Dead: The Contested Making of an American Commemorative Tradition from the Civil War to the Great War Shannon T. Bontrager Ph.D. Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/history_diss Part of the History Commons Recommended Citation Bontrager, Shannon T. Ph.D., "Nationalizing the Dead: The Contested Making of an American Commemorative Tradition from the Civil War to the Great War." Dissertation, Georgia State University, 2011. https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/history_diss/25 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of History at ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. It has been accepted for inclusion in History Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. For more information, please contact [email protected]. NATIONALIZING THE DEAD: THE CONTESTED MAKING OF AN AMERICAN COMMEMORATIVE TRADITION FROM THE CIVIL WAR TO THE TO THE GREAT WAR by SHANNON T. BONTRAGER Under the Direction of Dr. Ian Christopher Fletcher ABSTRACT In recent years, scholars have emphasized the importance of collective memory in the making of national identity. Where does death fit into the collective memory of American identity, particularly in the economic and social chaos of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries? How did death shape the collective memory of American national identity in the midst of a pluralism brought on by immigration, civil and labor rights, and a transforming culture? On the one hand, the commemorations of public figures such as Ulysses S. Grant, William McKinley, and Theodore Roosevelt constructed an identity based on Anglo-Saxonism, American imperialism, and the ―Strenuous Life.‖ This was reflected in the burial of American soldiers of the Spanish American and Philippine American wars and the First World War. On the other hand, the commemorations of soldiers and sailors from the Civil War, Spanish American War, and Great War created opportunities to both critique and appropriate definitions of national identity. Through a series of case studies, my dissertation brings together cultural and political history to explore the (re)production and (trans)formation of American identity from the Civil War to the Great War. I am particularly interested in the way people used funerals and monuments as tools to produce official and vernacular memory. I argue that both official and vernacular forms of commemoration can help historians understand the social and political tensions of creating national identity in a burgeoning industrial and multicultural society. INDEX WORDS: Death, Burial, Commemoration, Collective memory, Identity, Imagined Community, Tradition, Civil War, Philippines, Cuba, Great War NATIONALIZING THE DEAD: THE CONTESTED MAKING OF AN AMERICAN COMMEMORATIVE TRADITION FROM THE CIVIL WAR TO THE TO THE GREAT WAR by SHANNON T. BONTRAGER A Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the College of Arts and Sciences Georgia State University 2011 Copyright by Shannon Ty Bontrager 2011 NATIONALIZING THE DEAD: THE CONTESTED MAKING OF AN AMERICAN COMMEMORATIVE TRADITION FROM THE CIVIL WAR TO THE TO THE GREAT WAR by SHANNON T. BONTRAGER Committee Chair: Ian Christopher Fletcher Committee: Joe Perry Larry Youngs Michel Reid-Vazquez Electronic Version Approved Office of Graduate Studies College of Arts and Sciences Georgia State University May 2011 iv DEDICATION This dissertation is dedicated to Frank Woodruff Buckles, Charlotte Louise Berry Winters, and all the servicemen and women of the United States Armed Forces who died in anonymity or whose bodies were never recovered. v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This dissertation would not have been possible where it not for the help of many people. The many librarians and archivists at the Library of Congress and at the National Archives gave me invaluable help in navigating the enormous collections at the College Park and Washington, D.C. locations. I would like to extend special thanks to Senior Military Archivist Richard L. Boylan who spent several hours with me helping me fill out request forms, escorting me to the stacks, and alerting me to sources that only someone with his 20-years of experience could locate. I appreciated his willingness to treat a new researcher with the same professionalism and exuberance as that of a seasoned scholar. I would also like to thank Mary Poland, a Library Specialist in Access Services at the Library Technology Center at North Georgia College and State University in Dahlonega, Georgia. Her willingness to work with the Interlibrary Loan officer at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. was invaluable to access the Clara Barton Papers on microfilm. My requests were new opportunities for Mary and she always delivered with consideration of my demanding schedule as an adjunct instructor. I would also like to extend special thanks to Elijah Scott, Director of Libraries at Georgia Highlands College in Cartersville, Georgia. His ability to secure funding and access to JSTOR at a small school during an economic recession was nothing short of brilliant and it made the completion of my dissertation a reality. Many friends and colleagues also have their imprints on this dissertation. Dr. Steve Blankenship, my close friend and colleague at Georgia Highlands College, has read several chapters. We continue the discussion started many years ago as Graduate Teaching Instructors at Georgia State University in Atlanta, Georgia. His friendship and mentoring have made me a better instructor and without his encouragement and critical eye, my work would be much vi poorer. Drs. Abou Bamba and Fakhri Haghani likewise have significantly influenced my work. Their respective postcolonial critiques, as well as their friendship throughout our doctoral programs, proved invaluable. They were, and remain as alumni, treasures of the Georgia State history department. The members of the Trans-Empire Research Cluster also provided valuable assistance and encouragement through this process. The members, too many to name here, always provided critical insights and valuable exchanges of ideas and knowledge. We read each others‘ chapters over coffee and pastries and helped each other move through our respective doctoral and masters programs. I was very happy to participate in this group and I was very happy to get to know all the people who came to the monthly meetings over the years. My colleagues who participate in the Faculty Association for Interdisciplinary Research and Pedagogy at Georgia Highlands College also deserve special mention. It is wonderful to work with fellow historians who support each other and who are willing to work together for the benefit of each other. My colleagues have always been professional and helpful as they too have read chapters and provided many valuable observations that I was able to include in successive drafts. I would like to acknowledge the committee members who worked with me on this project. Without their insights and observations this dissertation would have been much different. Besides the hard work that they put into reading and editing this dissertation, they also put much of their energy into me. I learned many things from Dr. Joe Perry, Dr. Michele Reid Vazquez, Dr. Larry Youngs, and Dr. Ian Christopher Fletcher. Each of these individuals demonstrated not only the skills of successful historians but they also demonstrated the skills of being successful teachers. Without their professionalism and encouragement I would not have completed this degree. I would like to extend a special note of thanks to Dr. Youngs who vii mentored me in the classroom and on the golf course. Without his willingness to go out of his way to connect with me outside of the classroom, I would have never finished. His passion, his interpersonal communication, and his empathy for those going through the graduate school experience match his knowledge of U.S. history and he has been an excellent model of the gentleman-scholar. Dr. Fletcher has likewise been a fine example to learn from. He was willing to step into an advisor role when my two previous advisors left the department to take jobs elsewhere. He helped mold my dissertation (and me) in new and interesting ways that brought new life to my work and new energy to me. It was perhaps one of his more difficult tasks but one that I am thankful he was willing to take on because he was able to completely redefine what I understood to be a student-teacher working relationship. Finally I would like to thank my wife Eleanor, our daughter Mairi, and our new son Adam. Eleanor moved to the United States from her native home of Scotland to be with me. As this doctoral program began to lengthen much longer than we had anticipated, she gave me the encouragement, tenderness, and toughness that I needed. I am very grateful to her willingness to be so steadfast as well as her ability to discuss my dissertation with the level of insight shared by many others mentioned above. Mairi and Adam have provided countless moments of tenderness and comedy that has served me both as a needed distraction and a focus of concentration in completing this dissertation. I am greatly anticipating Mairi‘s rise to big sister and Adam‘s new life that brings a spirit of excitement, anticipation, and a sense of new beginning that I will surely