Memorializing Knute Rockne at the University of Notre Dame: Collegiate Gothic Architecture and Institutional Identity Author(s): Sherry C. M. Lindquist Source: Winterthur Portfolio, Vol. 46, No. 1 (Spring 2012), pp. 1-24 Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of the Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum, Inc. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/665045 . Accessed: 05/11/2013 20:06 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. The University of Chicago Press and Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum, Inc. are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Winterthur Portfolio. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 35.8.11.3 on Tue, 5 Nov 2013 20:06:57 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Memorializing Knute Rockne at the University of Notre Dame Collegiate Gothic Architecture and Institutional Identity Sherry C. M. Lindquist This article explores how the neo-Gothic building that was eventually built to commemorate Knute Rockne expresses a key moment in which the University of Notre Dame shaped its identity; it considers how the Knute Rockne Memorial Fieldhouse accordingly embodied and negotiated contradictory strains of manliness and civilization, populism and elitism, democracy and church authority. HEN LEGENDARY Notre Dame foot- two canine football mascots associated with Rockne, ball coach Knute Rockne died tragi- and a chapel in Dillon Hall was dedicated to the cally in a plane crash in 1931, President Norwegian St. Olaf in honor of Rockne.3 But plans W 1 Hoover called his loss a “national disaster.” The for a more magnificent monument were swiftly put king of Rockne’s native Norway knighted him into motion, evident in a proposed rendering included posthumously and sent a delegation to his funeral, in a 1931 fund-raising brochure (fig. 2).4 A newly which was attended by tens of thousands of people formed Memorial Association convened a publicity and broadcast on live radio in the United States committee that invited prominent citizens to lend and Europe. Children in Hilbigville, Texas, voted their names to the cause and promised potential to change their town’snameto“Rockne,” and it donors that they would be recorded in the “Book was done.2 Tributes were added to two neo-Gothic of Memory” planned for the entrance hall. The list dorms completed that year at Notre Dame: Alumni of invitees included Admiral Richard E. Byrd, Hall sports a small portrait of Rockne (fig. 1), and Calvin Coolidge, William Randolph Hearst, Charles 3 Clipping, “Dillon Opens This Week,” Notre Dame Scholastic 67 Sherry C. M. Lindquist is an independent scholar and the (October 1931), 10-Di-1 Dillon Hall, PNDP. (Unless otherwise editor of Meanings of Nudity in Medieval Art (Farnham: Ashgate, 2012). noted, archival references are to the University of Notre Dame Ar- The author would like to thank Dennis Doordan, Karl Fugelso, chives [UNDA]. Abbreviations for the collections I consulted there Glenn Hendler, Joanne Mack, Kevin Murphy, Nina Rowe, and are as follows: CWLK [Frank C. Walker Papers, manuscripts]; Elisabeth Perry for lively exchanges that have shaped her thinking GWLK [Frank C. Walker Papers, graphics]; PNDP [Notre Dame Printed]; UPCO [President] Rev. Charles L. O’Donnell, CSC, on this subject. Special thanks are due to Dennis Doordan for his warm 1928–34 encouragement and for pointing the author to relevant material in the ; PFLN [Paul Fenlon Papers]; CJWC [ John W. Cavanaugh Notre Dame Archives. The author would also like to thank the staff of Papers]; and UPWL [President] Rev. Matthew J. Walsh, CSC, 1922–28.) There is a plaque commemorating Rockne in the chapel. the Boston Public Library and the staff of the University of Notre Dame “ Archives, especially Wendy Schlereth and Charles Lamb. She is grateful A write-up on the chapel in the Ecclesiastical Art Review states that like to two anonymous readers for their perceptive comments and sugges- the sterling character of the illustrious football coach to whose mem- ory it is dedicated, this artistic shrine reveals its fundamental excel- tions, which greatly improved the article. ” 1 ’ lence in terms of modest simplicity (undated clipping, Ecclesiastical See the account of Rockne s funeral by John Cavanaugh Art Review, Maginnis and Walsh Collection, Commission 731, Fine (Knute Rockne with John Cavanaugh, The Autobiography of Knute K. Arts Department, Boston Public Library). Rockne, limited Notre Dame ed., ed. Bonnie Skiles Rockne [India- 4 “ ” napolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1931], 248–51). Kickoff of the Million Dollar Rockne Memorial Fund, bro- chure, “Knute Rockne Memorial Fundraising, 1931–1938,” CWLK 2 This is commemorated on a plaque in front of the memorial 112/04. It is not clear who authored the sketch, which was also in- field house. cludedinamorelavishpublicationproducedbytheendofthe B 2012 by The Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum, year, “Rockne of Notre Dame” (South Bend, IN: Knute Rockne Me- Inc. All rights reserved. 0084-0416/2012/4601-0001$10.00 morial Association, 1931), 30–31. This content downloaded from 35.8.11.3 on Tue, 5 Nov 2013 20:06:57 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 2 Winterthur Portfolio 46:1 Fig. 1. Knute Rockne, Alumni Hall, University of Notre Dame, Maginnis and Walsh, architects, 1931. (Photos by Sherry Lindquist unless otherwise noted.) Lindbergh, Andrew Mellon, General Douglas Knute Rockne after his death. What was it that mo- MacArthur, Will Rogers, and Theodore Roosevelt bilized such an array of forces to memorialize Jr., as well as the mayors of several major cities, the Rockne with a remarkably ambitious building pro- presidents of NBC, CBS, the Rotary Club, Kiwanis, jected to cost a million dollars (a huge sum at the and the Boy Scouts, the International News Service, time and one that was envisaged even in the darkest and the Associated Press.5 By the end of 1931,itwas days of the Great Depression)? This article explores estimated that the Knute Rockne Memorial had how the neo-Gothic building that was eventually been the subject of 15,000 news articles, including built to commemorate Knute Rockne expresses a one from every state of the union, and an impres- key moment in which the University of Notre Dame sive number of radio broadcasts as well.6 By all ac- shaped its identity; it considers how the Knute counts, Knute Rockne was a charismatic speaker, a Rockne Memorial Fieldhouse accordingly embodied tireless, humorous, tough, clean-living, and opti- and negotiated contradictory strains of manliness and mistic character who was an amazingly success- civilization, populism and elitism, democracy and ful football coach.7 Even so, every such admirable church authority.8 person does not merit or receive the type of atten- The decision to build a monument in Knute tion and commemoration lavished on the figure of Rockne’s honor acknowledged the scale of public grief upon Rockne’s death, which staggered even 5 Proposed Advisory Committee of Rockne Memorial Associa- Rockne’s greatest supporters, who labored to find tion, July, 27, 1931, UPCO 7/56. satisfactory explanations. In his funeral sermon, 6 Report of the Publicity Committee, December 8, 1931, the president of Notre Dame, Father Charles Rockne Memorial Association, UPCO 7/72. ’ 7 There is no dearth of biographical material on Rockne; it O Donnell, commented on the torrent of sympathy tends to be celebratory while also situating him in the context of expressed by the media, dignitaries, civic bodies, Notre Dame history and the way football is now played. See John and ordinary citizens, asking, “Was he perhaps a Dennis McCallum and Paul Castner, We Remember Rockne (Hunting- ton, IN: Our Sunday Visitor, 1975); Michael R. Steele, Knute Rockne, martyr who died for some great cause, a patriot aBio-Bibliography(Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1983); Robert M. who laid down his life for his country, a statesman, Quackenbush, Mike Bynum, and Knute Rockne, Knute Rockne, a soldier, an admiral of the fleet, some heaven-born His Life and Legend: Based on the Unfinished Autobiography of Knute Rockne ([United States]: October Football, 1988); Knute Rockne and John Heisler, Quotable Rockne: Words of Wit, Wisdom and Motiva- tion by and about Knute Rockne, Legendary Notre Dame Football Coach 8 For the phrase “manliness and civilization,” see Gail Bederman, (Nashville: TowleHouse, 2001); Ray Robinson, Rockne of Notre Dame: Manliness and Civilization: A Cultural History of Gender and Race in the The Making of a Football Legend (New York: Oxford University Press, United States, 1880–1917 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999). 1995). This content downloaded from 35.8.11.3 on Tue, 5 Nov 2013 20:06:57 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Memorializing Knute Rockne at the University of Notre Dame 3 Fig. 2. “The Rockne Memorial,” 1931. From “Kickoff of the Million Dollar Rockne Memorial Fund” brochure, CWLK 112/04. (University of Notre Dame Archives.) artist, an inventor, a captain of industry or finance? of boys,” a “man builder.” This latter moniker No, he was Knute Rockne, director of athletics and seems to have first appeared in the introduction football coach at Notre Dame.”9 Although O’Donnell to Rockne’s posthumous autobiography; it was then goes on to say that “when we say simply, he was a repeated in subsequent publications with the per- great American, we shall go far towards satisfying sistence of a talking point.11 The Literary Digest, a many, for all of us recognize and love the attributes mass-circulation magazine that eventually merged of the true American character”; in the end he ad- with Time, noted, “Not since the death of Rudolph mits, “I do not know the answer.