Year in Review 2020: #3
And then there were three! We’re down to the final three entries on our Top Ten list of most-read ECW posts for 2020.
Our third-most-read post of the year ties back to a post that appeared earlier on our Top Ten list.
On December 15, 2020, Chris Mackowski asked “What happens when a monument cherrypicks its history?” The question was sparked by a question from a few days earlier when Chris asked, “What happens when a monument gets its history wrong?” His question was initially inspired by a visit to the upper river crossing in Fredericksburg on the anniversary of the event—a date that’s listed incorrectly on a monument that sits at the site.
#3: When a Monument Gets Its History Wrong posted by Chris Mackowski on December 11, 2020
The U.S. House of Representatives voted yesterday to remove a statue of Robert E. Lee from Antietam National Battlefield. The statue, erected in 2003 on private property along Route 34 heading into Sharpsburg, was later acquired by the National Park Service when the park acquired the land the statue stood on. The statue has been controversial for years, and while the NPS has made an excellent effort at interpreting it, the fact that it stands in a spot Lee never visited makes the statue a challenge to interpret—and an obvious target….
Why is it necessary for anyone to interpret? And who interprets the interpretation and interpretor?
The statue or monument is itself a form of interpretation.