Hostname: page-component-7479d7b7d-c9gpj Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-10T23:00:26.108Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

When Do Collective Memories Last?: Founding Moments in the United States and Australia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 January 2016

Lyn Spillman
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

In 1876, there was a huge commemoration of the centennial of American independence. The year was marked in many ways, by many groups, in many parts of the country. The central event, though, was a grand International Exhibition in Philadelphia, four years in the making. Planners first met in 1872 in Independence Hall and spoke at length about the sacredness of the venue: “It is altogether fit and wise that we should take our first step and utter our first words in this hall. There sat John Hancock, presiding over that immortal body. There came Jefferson, Franklin, Adams, Sherman, and Livingston presenting the sacred declaration. There lies the broken and silent bell, which at the word proclaimed liberty throughout the land to all the inhabitants thereof” (USCC 1873: 24-25). The theme was taken up by many others in many different ways. Images of the Liberty Bell, Independence Hall, Washington, and Franklin were scattered throughout centennial ceremonies, buildings, poems, histories, and other documents. The revolution was used as a touchstone in talk about the exhibition and as a rich source of national symbolism.

Type
Research Article
Information
Social Science History , Volume 22 , Issue 4: Memory and the nation , Winter 1998 , pp. 445 - 477
Copyright
Copyright © Social Science History Association 1998 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

ABA. See Australian Bicentennial AuthorityGoogle Scholar
Allen, W. (1890) “Centennial cantata,” in Centennial International Exhibition Commission (1890).Google Scholar
American Revolution Bicentennial Administration (1975) National Bicentennial Ethnic and Racial Council Conference Report, Washington, DC, January 20–22. Washington: GPO.Google Scholar
American Revolution Bicentennial Administration (1977) Bicentennial Times: Commemorative Reprints. Washington: GPO.Google Scholar
Anderson, B. (1991) Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. 2d ed. London: Verso.Google Scholar
Andres, W. D. (1976–77) “Women and the fairs of 1876 and 1893.” Hayes Historical Journal 1:173–83.Google Scholar
ARBA. See American Revolution Bicentennial Administration.Google Scholar
Australian Bicentennial Authority (1981) First Annual Report on Activities to 30 June 1981. Sydney: Australian Bicentennial Authority.Google Scholar
Australian Bicentennial Authority (1983) Third Annual Report on Activities to 30 June 1983. Sydney: Australian Bicentennial Authority.Google Scholar
Australian Bicentennial Authority (1989) Ninth Annual Report 1989: On Activities to 30 June 1988. 2 vols. Edited by Pollock, Bruce. Sydney: Australian Bicentennial Authority.Google Scholar
Benedict, B. (1983) “The anthropology of World’s Fairs,” in Benedict, B. (ed.) The Anthropology of World’s Fairs: San Francisco’s Panama Pacific International Exposition of 1915. London and Berkeley, CA: Lowie Museum of Anthropology in association with Scolar Press: 1–65.Google Scholar
Bennett, S. (1989) Aborigines and Political Power. Sydney: Allen and Unwin.Google Scholar
Bennett, T. (1992) “The shaping of things to come: Expo 88,” in Bennett, T., Buckridge, P., Carter, D., and Mercer, C. (eds.) Celebrating the Nation: A Critical Study of Australia’s Bicentenary. St. Leonards: Allen and Unwin: 123–41.Google Scholar
Bennett, T., Buckridge, P., Carter, D., and Mercer, C., eds. (1992) Celebrating the Nation: A Critical Study of Australia’s Bicentenary. St. Leonards: Allen and Unwin.Google Scholar
Benson, S. P., Brier, S., and Rosenzeig, R., eds. (1986) Presenting the Past: Essays on History and the Public. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.Google Scholar
Bodnar, J. (1992) Remaking America: Public Memory, Commemoration, and Patriotism in the Twentieth Century. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Breckinridge, C. A. (1984) “The aesthetics and politics of colonial collecting: India at World Fairs.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 31: 195–216.Google Scholar
Brody, M. K. (1977) “Sociological theories of symbolic activity: A case study application to the bicentennial observance.” Ph.D. diss., University of Iowa.Google Scholar
Brotherhead, W. (c. 1872) The Centennial Book of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence. Philadelphia: J. M. Stoddart.Google Scholar
Brown, D. (1966) The Year of the Century: 1876. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons.Google Scholar
Bulletin (Sydney) (1888) 4 August.Google Scholar
Campbell, J. W. (c. 1980) America in Her Centennial Year, 1876. Washington: University Press of America.Google Scholar
Celebration in Commemoration of the Centennial of Australia and the Jubilee Year of the Foundation of the Order of the Sisters of Charity in Australia, St. Vincent’s Convent (1888). Sydney: J. G. O’Connor, Nation Office. Held in National Library of Australia, Canberra.Google Scholar
Centennial Board of Finance (1875) Celebration of the Ninety-Ninth Anniversary of American Independence in Fairmount Park, Philadelphia, July 5. Philadelphia: Centennial Board of Finance.Google Scholar
Centennial Eagle (1876) The Centennial Eagle. In Twelve Numbers, July-September. An Illustrated Descriptive History of the Centennial Exhibition. Philadelphia: Centennial Eagle Company.Google Scholar
Centennial International Exhibition Commission (1890) Official Record … Melbourne, 1888-1889, Containing a Sketch of the Industrial and Economic Progress of the Australasian Colonies during the First Century of Their Existence: and of the Exhibition Held in Melbourne, Victoria, to Commemorate the Close of That Period. Melbourne: Sands and McDougall Limited, Printers.Google Scholar
Cérulo, K. (1995) Identity Designs: The Sights and Sounds of a Nation. ASA Rose Book Series. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.Google Scholar
Clarke, W. F. (1876) Centennial Discourse. Delivered July 4, 1876, in St. Joseph’s Church, Philadelphia, by Rev. Clarke, Wm. F. S.J., of Baltimore, MD. Philadelphia: P. F. Cunningham and Son.Google Scholar
Cochrane, P., and Goodman, D. (1988) “The great Australian journey: Cultural logic and nationalism in the postmodern era,” in Janson, S. and Maclntyre, S. (eds.) Making the Bicentenary. Special edition (vol. 23) of Australian Historical Studies: 21–44.Google Scholar
Congressional Record (1973) 93rd Cong., 1st sess., vol. 119, pt. 11.Google Scholar
Craik, J. (1992) “Expo 88: Fashions of sight and politics of site,” in Bennett, T., Buck-ridge, P., Carter, D., and Mercer, C. (eds.) Celebrating the Nation: A Critical Study of Australia’s Bicentenary. St. Leonards: Allen and Unwin: 142–59.Google Scholar
Davison, G. (1988a) “Centennial celebrations,” in Davison, G., McCarty, J. W., and McLeary, A. (eds.) Australians 1888. Sydney: Fairfax, Syme and Weldon: 3–18.Google Scholar
Davison, G. (1988b) “Festivals of nationhood: The international exhibitions,” in Goldberg, S. L. and Smith, F. B. (eds.) Australian Cultural History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 158–77.Google Scholar
Eliade, M. (1959 [1954]) Cosmos and History: The Myth of the Eternal Return. Trans. Trask, Willard R.. New York: Harper and Brothers.Google Scholar
Evarts, W. M. (1876) “Oration, July 4th 1876, Philadelphia,” in His Royal Highness Prince Oscar at the National Celebration of the Centennial Anniversary of American Independence Held in Philadelphia, U.S.A., July 4 1876. Boston: Printed at the Riverside Press for Private Distribution.Google Scholar
Fabre, G., and O’Meally, R., eds. (1994) History and Memory in African-American Culture. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Foner, P. S. (1976) “Black participation in the centennial of 1876.” Negro History Bulletin 39: 532–38.Google Scholar
Gillis, J. R., ed. (1994) Commemorations: The Politics of National Identity. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Glassberg, D. (1990) American Historical Pageantry: The Uses of Tradition in the Early Twentieth Century. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.Google Scholar
Greenhalgh, P. (1988) Ephemeral Vistas: The Expositions Universelles, Great Exhibitions, and World’s Fairs, 1851-1939. Manchester: Manchester University Press.Google Scholar
Griffiths, T. (1987) “Past silences: Aborigines and convicts in our history-making.” Australian Cultural History 6: 18–32.Google Scholar
Halbwachs, M. (1992 [1925]) “The social frameworks of memory,” in Coser, L. (ed.) On Collective Memory. Chicago: University of Chicago Press: 37–189.Google Scholar
Hobsbawm, E., and Ranger, T., eds. (1984) The Invention of Tradition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hutchinson, J. (1992) “State festivals, foundation myths and cultural politics in immigrant nations,” in Bennett, T., Buckridge, P., Carter, D., and Mercer, C. (eds.) Celebrating the Nation: A Critical Study of Australia’s Bicentenary. Sydney: Allen and Unwin: 3–25.Google Scholar
International Order of Oddfellows, Sovereign General Lodge (1876) Centennial Celebration in Honor of the Anniversary of American Independence. September 1876. Philadelphia: Burk and Caldwell, Printers.Google Scholar
Janson, S., and Maclntyre, S., eds. (1988) Making the Bicentenary. Special issue of Australian Historical Studies 23 (91).Google Scholar
Kammen, M. (1978) A Season of Youth: The American Revolution and the Historical Imagination. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Kammen, M. (1991) Mystic Chords of Memory: The Transformation of Tradition in American Culture. New York: Knopf.Google Scholar
Kertzer, D. (1989) Rituals, Politics, and Power. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Ladies’ Centennial Committee of Rhode Island (1875) Herald of the Centennial.Google Scholar
Lipset, S. M. (1979) The First New Nation: The United States in Comparative and Historical Perspective. New York: Norton.Google Scholar
Litwak, L. (1989) “Trouble in mind: The bicentennial and the Afro-American experience.” Journal of American History 74: 315–37.Google Scholar
Maines, D. R., Sugrue, N. M., and Katovich, M. A. (1983) “The sociological import of G. H. Mead’s theory of the past.” American Sociological Review 48:161–73.Google Scholar
Middleton, D., and Edwards, D. (1990) “Conversational remembering: A social psychological approach,” in Middleton, D. and Edwards, D. (eds.) Collective Remembering. Newbury Park, CA: Sage: 23–59.Google Scholar
Miner, H. C. (1972) “The United States Government Building at the Centennial Exhibition, 1874–77.” Prologue 4: 203–18.Google Scholar
Mitchell, T. (1984) “The world as exhibition.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 31: 217–36.Google Scholar
Moore, J. S. (1888) Memorials of the Celebration of the Australasian Centenary in New South Wales, 1888. Sydney: Charles Potter, Government Printer.Google Scholar
Morrison, W. F. (1888) Aldine Centennial History of New South Wales, vol. 1. Sydney: n.p.Google Scholar
Murphy, J. (1988) “Conscripting the past: The bicentenary and everyday life,” in Janson, S. and Maclntyre, S. (eds.) Making the Bicentenary. Special edition (vol. 23) of Australian Historical Studies: 45–54.Google Scholar
New Jersey State Centennial Board (1877) Report of the New Jersey Commissioners on the Centennial Exhibition. Trenton, NJ: Naar, Day, and Naar, Printers.Google Scholar
Niquette, M., and Buxton, W. J. (1997) “Meet me at the fair: Sociability and reflexivity in nineteenth-century world expositions.” Canadian Journal of Communication 22: 81–113.Google Scholar
Olick, J. K., and Levy, D. (1997) “Collective memory and cultural constraint: Holocaust myth and rationality in German politics.” American Sociological Review 62: 921–36.Google Scholar
People’s Bicentennial Commission (1974) America’s Birthday: A Planning and Activities Guide for Citizens’ Participation during the Bicentennial Year. New York: Simon and Schuster.Google Scholar
Peterson, R. (1994) “Cultural studies through the production perspective: Progress and prospects,” in Crane, D. (ed.) The Sociology of Culture: Emerging Theoretical Perspectives. Oxford: Blackwell: 163–89.Google Scholar
Pettman, J. (1988) “Learning about power and powerlessness: Aborigines and white Australia’s bicentenary.” Race and Class 29: 69–85.Google Scholar
Plummer, J. (1887) Choral Parts of the Centennial Ode. Music by Hugo Alpen. Sydney: John Sands, General Printer.Google Scholar
Randel, W. P. (1969) Centennial: American Life in 1876. Philadelphia and New York: Chilton Book Co.Google Scholar
Rifkin, J. (1975) Commonsense II: The Case against Corporate Tyranny. Boston: People’s Bicentennial Commission.Google Scholar
Roe, M. (1989) “Vandiemenism debated: The filming of ‘His Natural Life,’ 1926–27.” Journal of Australian Studies 24: 35–51.Google Scholar
Rydell, R. (1984) All the World’s a Fair: Visions of Empire at American International Expositions, 1876-1916. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Rydell, R. (1993) World of Fairs: The Century of Progress Exhibitions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Schlereth, T. J. (1980) “The 1876 centennial: A model for comparative American studies,” in Artifacts and the American Past. Nashville: American Association for State and Local History: 130–42.Google Scholar
Schroyer, T. (1982) “Cultural surplus in America.” New German Critique 26: 81–117.Google Scholar
Schudson, M. (1989) “The present in the past versus the past in the present.” Communication 11: 105–13.Google Scholar
Schudson, M. (1992) Watergate in American Memory: How We Remember, Forget, and Reconstruct the Past. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Schudson, M. (1994) “Culture and the integration of national societies,” in Crane, D. (ed.) The Sociology of Culture: Emerging Theoretical Perspectives. Oxford: Blackwell: 21–43.Google Scholar
Schultz, A. (1991) “‘The pride of race had been touched’: Norse-American immigration centennial and ethnic identity.” Journal of American History 77:1265–95.Google Scholar
Schuman, H., and Scott, J. (1989) “Generations and collective memories.” American Sociological Review 54: 359–81.Google Scholar
Schwartz, B. (1982) “The social context of commemoration: A study in collective memory.” Social Forces 61: 372–402.Google Scholar
Schwartz, B. (1987) George Washington: The Making of an American Symbol. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Schwartz, B. (1990) “The reconstruction of Abraham Lincoln,” in Middleton, D. and Edwards, D. (eds.) Collective Remembering. Newbury Park, CA: Sage: 81–107.Google Scholar
Schwartz, B. (1991) “Social change and collective memory: The democratization of George Washington.” American Sociological Review 56: 221–36.Google Scholar
Shils, E. (1965) “Charisma, order, and status.” American Sociological Review 30: 199–213.Google Scholar
Shils, E. (1981) Tradition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Shils, E. (1988) “Center and periphery: An idea and its career, 1935-1987,” in Greenfeld, L. and Martin, M. (eds.) Center: Ideas and Institutions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press: 250–82.Google Scholar
Smelser, N. (1976) Comparative Methods in the Social Sciences. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.Google Scholar
Spearritt, P. (1988) “Celebration of a nation: The triumph of spectacle,” in Janson, S. and Maclntyre, S. (eds.) Making the Bicentenary. Special edition (vol. 23) of Australian Historical Studies: 3–20.Google Scholar
Spillman, L. (1997) Nation and Commemoration: Creating National Identities in the United States and Australia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Swidler, A., and Arditi, J. (1994) “The new sociology of knowledge.” Annual Review of Sociology 20: 305–29.Google Scholar
Thelen, D., ed. (1990) Memory and American History. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Treaty 88 Campaign (1988) “Aboriginal sovereignty—never ceded,” in Janson, S. and Maclntyre, S. (eds.) Making the Bicentenary. Special edition (vol. 23) of Australian Historical Studies: 1–2.Google Scholar
Trennert, R. A. (1974) “A grand failure: The Centennial Indian Exhibition of 1876.” Prologue 6:118–29.Google Scholar
Trouillot, M.-R. (1990) “Good day Columbus: Silences, power, and public history (1492–1892).” Public Culture 3:1–24.Google Scholar
Tucker, J. R. (1876) Centennial Celebration of American Independence. Speech of Hon. John Randolph Tucker, of Virginia, in the H.R. 19 January 1876. Washington: GPO.Google Scholar
United States Centennial Commission (1873) The National Celebration of the Centennial Anniversary of the Independence of the United States by an International Universal Exhibition, to be held in Philadelphia in the Year 1876. Accompanied by a Classified Compilation of the Journal of the Proceedings of the Commission and Other Papers. Compiled and arranged by H. D. Pratt. Washington: GPO.Google Scholar
USCC. See United States Centennial Commission.Google Scholar
Warhurst, J. (1987) “The politics and management of Australia’s bicentenary year.” Politics 22: 8–18.Google Scholar
Warner, W. L. (1959) The Living and the Dead: A Study of the Symbolic Life of Americans. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Williams, R. (1973) “Base and superstructure in Marxist cultural theory.” New Left Review 82: 3–16.Google Scholar
Woolls, Rev Dr. (1888) A Sermon on the Centenary of the Colony. Preached in St. Luke’s, Burwood, on Sunday, January 22nd, 1888 by the Rev. Dr. Woolls (A Colonist of 56 years standing). Sydney: Geo. Loxton and C, Printers. Held in Dixson Library, Sydney.Google Scholar
Zelinsky, W. (1988) Nation into State: The Shifting Symbolic Foundations of American Nationalism. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.Google Scholar
Zerubavel, E. (1981) Hidden Rhythms: Schedules and Calendars in Social Life. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar