A01=Jean M. O'Brien
A01=Lisa Blee
Author_Jean M. O'Brien
Author_Lisa Blee
bronze statues
Category=AMG
Category=JBSL11
Category=NHK
commemorations in New England
Cyrus Dallin
Dayton
eq_art-fashion-photography
eq_bestseller
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
First Thanksgiving
fraud in the fine arts market
heritage tourism
Improved Order of Red Men
Indian sculpture
Indigenous public history
Kansas City
living history
Massachusetts
Massasoit
memorial landscapes
memorial mania
Missouri art
monuments to American Indians
Ohio art
Pilgrim commemoration
Plimoth Plantation
Plymouth
Provo
Salt Lake City
settler colonialism in New England
souvenirs
Springville
tourism in Plymouth
Utah
Utah artists
Utah State Capital
Wampanoags
Western art
Product details
- ISBN 9781469648408
- Weight: 432g
- Dimensions: 155 x 233mm
- Publication Date: 18 Mar 2019
- Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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Installed at Plymouth, Massachusetts, in 1921 to commemorate the tercentenary of the landing of the Pilgrims, Cyrus Dallin's statue Massasoit was intended to memorialize the Pokanoket Massasoit (leader) as a welcoming diplomat and participant in the mythical first Thanksgiving. But after the statue's unveiling, Massasoit began to move and proliferate in ways one would not expect of generally stationary monuments tethered to place. The plaster model was donated to the artist's home state of Utah and prominently displayed in the state capitol; half a century later, it was caught up in a surprising case of fraud in the fine arts market. Versions of the statue now stand on Brigham Young University's campus; at an urban intersection in Kansas City, Missouri; and in countless homes around the world in the form of souvenir statuettes.
As Lisa Blee and Jean M. O'Brien show in this thought-provoking book, the surprising story of this monumental statue reveals much about the process of creating, commodifying, and reinforcing the historical memory of Indigenous people. Dallin's statue, set alongside the historical memory of the actual Massasoit and his mythic collaboration with the Pilgrims, shows otherwise hidden dimensions of American memorial culture: an elasticity of historical imagination, a tight-knit relationship between consumption and commemoration, and the twin impulses to sanitize and grapple with the meaning of settler-colonialism.
As Lisa Blee and Jean M. O'Brien show in this thought-provoking book, the surprising story of this monumental statue reveals much about the process of creating, commodifying, and reinforcing the historical memory of Indigenous people. Dallin's statue, set alongside the historical memory of the actual Massasoit and his mythic collaboration with the Pilgrims, shows otherwise hidden dimensions of American memorial culture: an elasticity of historical imagination, a tight-knit relationship between consumption and commemoration, and the twin impulses to sanitize and grapple with the meaning of settler-colonialism.
Lisa Blee is associate professor of history at Wake Forest University.
Jean M. O'Brien (White Earth Ojibwe) is the Distinguished McKnight University Professor of History at the University of Minnesota.
Jean M. O'Brien (White Earth Ojibwe) is the Distinguished McKnight University Professor of History at the University of Minnesota.
