What do we mean by “public culture”? Most culture is public in some way, in that it involves a set of shared values and communicative symbols that most of us will recognize. But what does that mean? And how does it relate to the way we commemorate history in the United States?
When I finally got around to visiting Harding’s home in Ohio I was reminded about the 29th president’s contrast with Abe Lincoln as well as my own long-standing ignorance of the Teapot Dome scandal.
In Philadelphia’s historic district, just south of the Second Bank of the United States, stands a statue to Robert Morris, someone most of that city’s current residents will never have heard of. But Morris was a very important man in the country’s early history. If Robert Morris had had his way, the nation’s capital today wouldn’t be in Washington, DC. It would be in Philadelphia.
The JFK Library and Museum is like a physical evocation of Kennedy’s “New Frontier.” The whole place so evokes the optimism of that period in American history that I found myself wishing I could be transported back in time to see it for myself.
Dougie Does Monuments 