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Home > Monumental AP U.S. History Teaching
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Monumental AP U.S. History Teaching
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by James A. Percoco
West Springfield High School
Springfield, Virginia
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As a teenager, one of my favorite rock bands was Chicago. The band had many pop hits, but its 1974 single "Saturday in the Park" struck a chord with me. In this upbeat tune, the lyrics describe a park where all manner of people are frolicking on a delightful, sunny day. One of the lines in the song refers to "a bronze man" telling his own particular story. The metaphor is clearly that of a statue, similar to the many that dot public parks in large cities and small towns across the United States. Given my proclivity toward this song, it should come as no surprise that I have recruited many of these bronze men -- and women -- from all races and all walks of life into my history curriculum. They have made great allies in the teaching and learning of history.
Field Trips and Public Art
I have used American public sculpture for the past 16 years to augment my class lectures and lesson plans in various ways. Several times a year, I send my students out on what I call individualized field trips, known affectionately as IFTs. The first IFT is tied to the founding period of our nation and is linked to a film based on Joseph Ellis's Pulitzer Prize-winning book, Founding Brothers. On this trip, students visit a national memorial in Washington, D.C., that was unveiled in 2001 and is dedicated to the memory of a founder equally as important as George Washington and Thomas Jefferson but often overlooked: Virginia statesman George Mason, sculpted by Wendy M. Ross.
During our course of study of the Civil War, I dispatch students to the National Gallery of Art to examine the 1901 plaster version of Augustus Saint-Gaudens's heroic tribute to Robert Gould Shaw and the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry. Students then hop on the Metro and head to a site near Howard University, where they study sculptor Ed Hamilton's "The Spirit of Freedom," a national memorial completed in 1997 and dedicated in 1998 to African American soldiers and sailors. Students then compare the two memorials.
As we approach the end of the course, I once again send my students to Washington, D.C., this time to visit Maya Lin's Vietnam Veterans Memorial, more commonly known as The Wall, and complete a name rubbing. Prior to their visit, each student picks the name of a serviceman killed in Vietnam. The names -- taken from the June 27, 1969, issue of Life magazine, which featured 242 men killed in action during the week of May 28, 1969, to June 3, 1969 -- are picked from a Vietnam-era army helmet while I play "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?" in the background.
During each of the IFTs, students are asked to take photographs of themselves at the monuments and then complete a variety of journal entries. The photographs are affixed alongside their writings in their journals.
Part of my agenda is to have students understand that history is not only recorded in books, but also that cultures often choose to illustrate their history on their landscape. Activities such as the IFTs outlined above force students to actively explore history beyond the four walls of a traditional classroom.
Memorials Beyond Washington, D.C.
There's no argument that historic monuments are in abundance in and around our nation's capital, but public and commemorative sculpture can be found in virtually all communities around the United States. Generally, local historical societies or public libraries contain archival material pertinent to the sculpture's creation and its subsequent dedication. Having students actively research and study old newspaper accounts can bring the past very much forward into the present, as students can compare ceremonies of monuments that were dedicated one hundred years ago to those that we erect today. What's more, in recent years many communities have bridged time periods by adding the names of servicemen who died in Vietnam to memorials that were dedicated to the memory of World War I doughboys and World War II GIs.
I live and teach near Washington, D.C., but I have traveled all over the United States photographing slide images of statues commemorating Union and Confederate veterans, cowboys and pioneers, American Indians, explorers, social activists, literary figures, statesmen, assorted military heroes, educators, and inventors and scientists. As part of my efforts, I also conduct research into the history of the monument, often by interviewing local historians. I have now documented enough images to provide extra visual material to supplement nearly every unit I teach.
In addition to learning the hard facts about public sculpture, I've also heard some ironic tales throughout my travels. A statue erected in 1889 in Chicago to commemorate the police officers killed in the 1886 Haymarket Bombing was defaced within 11 years and was considered a traffic hazard, so it was moved. In 1927 -- strangely, on the 41st anniversary of the riot -- the statue was knocked over by a streetcar. It was then moved to a third location. In 1958, it was returned to the Haymarket area. In 1969 and in 1970, radical groups bombed the statue, so it was placed in a secure location inside the lobby of Central Police Headquarters, now located on the grounds of the Police Training Center. If viewers want to see it today, they have to obtain special advance permission.
Pursuing Monuments and Memorials
There are many sources I would recommend you use if you want to learn more about American monuments and memorials. Any American Automobile Association travel guide will have in its index a list of monuments. Another source to consult is the Inventory of American Sculpture, operated by the Smithsonian American Art Museum. This online database is a cornucopia of information relative to all of the outdoor sculpture inventoried by the Save Outdoor Sculpture! project. Each entry contains a cross reference to newspaper articles related to the specific work.
I would also suggest that you consult two reference books: Sculpture in America by Wayne Craven and History of American Sculpture by Lorado Taft.
Finally, "home" in on the sculptors themselves. The National Park Service maintains the home, grounds, and studio of arguably America's greatest sculptor, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, in Cornish, New Hampshire. There are "Teaching With Historic Places" lesson plans for this historic site on the Web. Additionally, The National Trust for Historic Preservation owns and operates Chesterwood, located in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, the home and studio of Daniel Chester French, sculptor of the seated figure of Abraham Lincoln in the Lincoln Memorial. Both sites have extensive research facilities as well as solid educational outreach material.
In the end, sharing my love of commemorative sculpture helps students learn that civic art is meant to do what it was best intended to do: instruct. In learning that, they also come to understand that these tangible testimonies and tributes to the past are meant for more than just pigeons.
James A. Percoco has taught at West Springfield High School in Springfield, Virginia, since 1980. The recipient of numerous education awards, Percoco was selected for the first USA Today All-USA Teacher Team in 1998 and named Outstanding Social Studies Teacher of the Year in 1993 at the Walt Disney Company American Teacher Awards. Percoco is the author of A Passion for the Past: Creative Teaching of U.S. History (winner of the 2000 James Harvey Robinson Prize from the American Historical Association) and Divided We Stand: Teaching About Conflict in U.S. History.
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