A Short Review of the Literature on Twentieth and Twenty-First Century Memorials K.C. Clay Oregon State University Department of Speech Communication 5700 words 20th and 21st Century Memorials 1 The United States is rife with monuments and memorials. There are natural landmarks given governmental designation and protection as “monuments” such as Devil’s Tower National Monument, makeshift roadside memorials, and cities filled with statues of renowned people the public has forgotten. 1 Often the public confuses the two designations, monument and memorial, because their function is the same -- preserve memory. The monument preserves the memory of an event or a living person.2 The memorial preserves the memory of a deceased individual or an event in which several people died.3 Perhaps the source of the confusion comes from Washington, D.C. The nation’s capital was designed to pay homage to the greatness of the country, just like the European capitals. The National Park Service (NPS) oversees the memorials and monuments paid for by Federal taxes.4 There are eleven structures, as well as gardens and streets, designated by the federal government as “memorials” and one “monument” (National Park Service, 2016). So when a visitor goes to D.C. and sees the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial, and the Jefferson Memorial, they process each site as an imposing marble or granite building that honors a dead president, therefore a monument means the same as a memorial.5 Building a federal monument or memorial requires an Act of Congress, literally. Congressional approval for a Washington Monument came in 1783, when the general still breathed. Construction did not start until 1848, after Washington’s death (Harvey, 1902). Changing the name to the Washington The president may designate something as a “national monument” using only an Executive Order. Creating National Parks, Preserves, and Forests requires an Act of Congress, so creating monuments has at times been an expedient means of preservation. 2 “Monument” definition from Merriam-Webster.com. 3 “Memorial” definition from Meriwam-Webster.com. 4 There are also District of Columbia monuments and memorials, maintained by the city. 5 AARP’s website lists the top 5 Monuments to visit in D.C. as the Lincoln Memorial, the Jefferson Memorial, the Martin Luther King, Jr memorial, the Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial, and Arlington National Cemetery. It is ironic that the only monument is not even listed, although it is the lead image. 1 5700 words 20th and 21st Century Memorials 2 Memorial would have required another Act of Congress. Therefore, practicality produced designation confusion. Memorials in practice differ from monuments in that they engage the viewer on an emotional level (Doss, 2010). The Washington Monument is the tallest structure in the city, and when built its aluminum cap was considered a precious metal (Harvey, 1902). Truly, anyone can look at it and see that Americans consider Washington was a great man. But a visitor who stands at the foot of the colossus Lincoln and reads the Gettysburg Address, etched in the wall panels, feels that Lincoln was a great man. A Southern sympathizer would probably leave with anger or hatred, but they would respond emotionally to the memorial. Today, Americans create more memorials than monuments, suggesting that contemporary American society is more emotional than in the past or that American society has a different relationship with Death than it did in the past. While death is universal, the activities surrounding it depend on the cultural context, i.e. historical time and place. Therefore all studies of the rituals around death assume a constructivist perspective (Westgaard, 2006). A study of the monuments and memorials, as well as the controversies surrounding them, reveal a reflection of the societies involved (Doss, 2010). It is worth noting that some controversies occur around the time of construction, such as with the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, and others occur years later, when social consciousness has changed, such as with the Columbus statues in Philadelphia (Chang & Smith, 2015). Additionally, studying how a death is memorialized reflects the changes in society. During the American Civil War, pictures of the dead became the norm (Faust, 2008). Today, the captured images of an American death scene are more likely of the mourners than the mourned (Doss, 2010). This paper looks at the literature on Twentieth Century and Twenty-first Century 5700 words 20th and 21st Century Memorials 3 memorials. The area of interest is primarily the United States, but includes brief forays into Northern Europe. The Twentieth and Twenty-first Centuries are marked by their memorial rather than monument building. It is possible that as a society, we are far more emotional today than that society represented in Grant Wood’s “American Gothic.” Doss attributes the amount of resources used for identifying remains from the World Trade Center (WTC) to the great emotional need the families expressed in wanting the corpus of their loved one returned to their possession (2010).6 Or perhaps there are more memorials because there have been more violent or unexpected deaths in that period than previously in the nation’s history. United States military war deaths alone for the Twentieth Century total more than 600,0007, almost double the amount for its entire history prior to 1900 (Department of Defense, 2010). One must then include the deaths from technological advancements such as automobiles and airplanes. Add to that, the deaths caused by such factors as “natural disasters”, extremism, illegal drugs, or domestic violence. The total would be in the millions, if not billions. Since one of the factors of memorial creation is an unexpected death (Doss, 2002; Santino, 2004; Owens, 2006; Westgaard, 2006; Goldstein & Tye, 2006), the sheer volume of these deaths means there will be far more memorials now than in the past. Another possibility for explaining the plethora of memorials rests in the memorial function to provide a place of mourning when proper burial is not possible (Sapikowski, 2012; 6 There is a legal need for a death certificate to take care of insurance, financial accounts, marital status, etc. which requires an official recognition of the decedent actually being dead. Without a positively identified corpse, the person’s legal status is in the limbo of “missing”. My brother-in-law was missing for three weeks before they found his body, and it was a legal pain for my sister in addition to the emotional one. 7 Confederate dead are not included in this total because they were not part of the United States military rolls. 5700 words 20th and 21st Century Memorials 4 Dorfman, 2006). Over one fourth of the American service members who died in World War I were buried outside of the United States (American Battle Monuments Commission; Department of Defense, 2010). This event had no precedence in American history. The cost of foreign travel precluded even a single visit to their loved one’s grave for most families. A localized memorial could fill the void, and we see a veritable forest of prefabricated statues popping up around the country in what Doss terms “statue mania” (2010). With that foundation, the memorialization movement just snowballed. Most scholars divide memorials into dichotomous groups: official/spontaneous (Santino, 2006), official/vernacular (Marschall, 2013), or permanent/temporary (Doss, 2008). Senie introduces a third group, interim. It is less than permanent but beyond the immediate (2016). In this paper, I use a formal/vernacular classification, but I do not regard them as opposite ends of a spectrum. Rather they are adjacent start and stop points that create a type of color wheel. All formal memorials have similar characteristics. They are established by the elites (Marschall, 2013) for sacralizing individuals, places, or things (Blair, Jeppeson, & Pucci, 1991). Usually, even if a private source funded the memorial, a government or other established organization has charge of its upkeep. An example of this is the official State of Arizona September 11th Memorial. Corporate and private donations paid for its construction, but it is on public land and maintained by the state (Janet Napolitano, 2004). A divergent trend with planners for memorials of recent mass deaths is the inclusion of victims’ families in the planning. This has led to the setting aside portions of the formal, public memorial for only the families of the victims, a situation some scholars are beginning to protest as it places individual tragedy over public tragedy using public property (Senie, 2016; Schwake, 2015; Doss, 2010). 5700 words 20th and 21st Century Memorials 5 Because there is an image to maintain, offerings at formal memorials are restricted. They are either discouraged or limited in type and when a visitor might leave them (Marschall, 2013). A notable exception is the Vietnam Veterans Memorial (VVM). There not only are they allowed, but the NPS collects and archives all items. This practice has led to an exhaustive assemblage of more than 400,000 items and prompted a proposed change in policy that keeps only unique items directly connected to a name on The Wall or the Vietnam War, including protests, activism, and advocacy. It is not known what they will do with unacceptable offerings (National Park Service, 2016). Perhaps NPS will regift the items, as has been done with other assemblages (Marschall, 2013). The items NPS keeps are archived and on display as part of the “Price of Freedom: Americans at War” at the Museum of American History, a part of the Smithsonian Institutions (Hagopian, 1995). Individual object records complete with photograph and written description are available on the website. Formal memorials have a set narrative. Expressing views contrary to those of the official narrative is discouraged. This increases the likelihood of a dissenter using graffiti to get their message heard (Thomas, 2006). Even the memorials within the National Mall are not immune (Samuels, 2013), despite the allowance of formal protests in the park and destruction of Federal property being a felony carrying up to ten years in prison and a $250,000 fine (18 U.S.C. § 1361).8 One of the best known and widespread formal memorials is the cemetery. Although the community graveyard has existed pretty much ever since people started dying, the modern American version comes from Los Angeles. It is marked by a standardization, not just of the 8 After a soldier in my unit was killed by a drunk driver, who received a slap on the wrist, we determined the individual would have received a stiffer penalty had they prosecuted him for destruction of government property, which service members are legally. 5700 words 20th and 21st Century Memorials 6 graves within an individual cemetery, but of cemeteries across locations (Sloane, 2005; Owens, 2006). The cemeteries help remove death from society,9 contributing to the public’s fearful relationship with death (Senie, Mourning in Protest, 2006; Westgaard, 2006; Owens, 2006). The formal memorials of the Twentieth Century can be divided into three styles: classical, modernism, and postmodernity. The majority of the memorials within the nation’s capital are of this style. They are made from marble and have columns that look like anything one might see in Athens or Rome.10 A classical style does not guarantee acceptance of the memorial by the powers in charge or by society. Horatio Greenough’s “Enthroned Washington” depicting a bare-chested Washington à la Zeus offended the piety of the members of Congress who passed it in the Capitol Rotunda (Doss, 2010; Santelli, 2016). The World War II Memorial also received a chilly reception. Based upon classical Roman style, it looked too much like the Nazi monuments, which were also based on classical Rome (Sloane, 2005). Modernism monuments sprung up in the mid-Twentieth Century. Some scholars believe it a product of the time when society venerated rational thinking and technology rather than individuals. For this society, beauty was found in functionality producing a rash of the memorial sports parks, libraries, and named highways throughout the country (Blair, Jeppeson, & Pucci, 1991; Lovell, 2009). Doss disagrees to the origins, attributing the rise of modernism to a backlash against the statue mania following World War I (Doss, 2010). Modernistic memorials continues today, as one can see signs between Corvallis and Portland indicating the roadway is named in honor of soldiers killed in the Global War on Terror or police officers killed in the line of duty. Although one need not leave the Oregon State University campus to find the Memorial Union or any other building named in memory of those who served the school. 9 Where my cousin is buried, you are trespassing unless you are there to visit a specific grave. Except for the notable difference that the DC ones are not in pieces on the ground. 10 5700 words 20th and 21st Century Memorials 7 Postmodernity is the pendulum sweep away from modernity’s dehumanization. The primary characteristics are they engage the emotions and offer multiple messages (Blair, Jeppeson, & Pucci, 1991; Santino, 2004). Additionally, the memorial should address sociopolitical issues. For some scholars, if a memorial does not engage on a socio-political platform it is a failure (Santino, 2006; Doss, 2010). Blair and colleagues consider the VVM as the protopostmodern monument (1991; 2007). The Vietnam Veterans Memorial has strong socio-political comments. The message most discussed by scholars is the open wound in the earth oozing black marble representing the social injury caused by the war (Blair, Jeppeson, & Pucci, 1991; Doss, 2008; Sloane, 2005; Sapikowski, 2012). Doss further calls it a “counter memorial” of the loss of life and defeat in war (Doss, 2002). Unmentioned, and presumably unnoticed, are two messages for veterans. The first message comes from the memorial’s position in relation to the White House. Blair and colleagues note that the trench for the memorial is deep enough that no part of the wall is visible if one approaches from the direction of the White House (1991). The president is the commander-in-chief of the armed forces. The intentional placement of the memorial gives the message that the commander-in-chief does not acknowledge the war or the deaths. In fact, President Reagan did not attend the dedication of The Wall in 1982, despite being a major force behind the memorial, leaving Senator John Warner of Virginia to make the keynote address (CSPAN, 1982). The second is its name. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Scholars make a point of noting the VVM honors the veterans and not the war (Blair & Michel, 2007; Blair, 2001), but they miss a vital connection. A veteran is a specific category that identifies a person who was 5700 words 20th and 21st Century Memorials 8 discharged from military service.11 They receive a specific document that identifies them as such, the Department of Defense Form 214 (DD214). A person who dies while on active duty is not discharged and therefore never becomes a veteran. Those missing from previous conflicts are still on the military rolls and will remain there until they are confirmed killed in action. Initially, the memorial was just black marble with the names of individuals killed in the war, “a symbolic burial place for Americans who died in that much disputed conflict” (Senie, 2016). Yet it was named as a memorial for the living veteran. The VVM conveys to the very people it is supposed to honor that society regards them as dead. This message is part of the reason for the concerted effort to add “The Three Soldiers” statue, which acknowledged an iconic living body. Reagan finally visited the memorial and dedicated the statue on Veteran’s Day 1984. For Doss, the addition was a selling out that weakened the memorial’s intended socio-political statements (2010) despite considering the struggle for recognition an important socio-political part of a memorial (2002). The VVM reintroduced the human element by naming the dead. Blair and colleagues indicate this individualization is a first (1991). Doss points out an earlier European precedence in The Thiepval Memorial to the Missing of Somme built 1928-1932 (2010). This memorial contains the inscribed names of the 72,194 missing and dead soldiers (The Great War, n.d.). There is a U.S. precedent as well, the American Battle Monuments Commission has over 95,000 names of missing soldiers inscribed on their “Missing Walls” (American Battle Monuments Commission). It does not matter who was first, as the naming practice continues as a mainstay for subsequent memorials, most likely following the example of the VVM. 11 Discharge is different from merely separation, although they are sometimes used interchangeably. 5700 words 20th and 21st Century Memorials 9 Prominent memorial scholars expect post-modern memorials to provide a healing function for visitors. The design of the VVM is such that simply going to the memorial and engaging with it heals social and individual wounds (Blair, Jeppeson, & Pucci, 1991; Doss, 2002; Sloane, 2005). Sapikowski challenges the idea that memorials have the capacity for providing therapy (2012). No empirical research supports or negates the healing claim. The VVM is the benchmark for all subsequent formal memorials in architecture and in scholarship. While there is much analysis of Maya Lin’s VVM design, there is little on her Civil Rights Memorial. Usually a mention that she designed it a few years after the VVM suffices (Doss, 2010), as though the characteristics of the designs are similar enough there is no need for further comment. Indeed, her style is so copied that the final designs in the WTC memorial competition were difficult to tell apart and the design chosen by the committee, of which Maya Lin was a member, was near identical to an idea she sketched in September 2002 (Senie, 2016). For this reason, I reference the remaining formal memorials through comparison or contrast to the VVM. Notable post-modern memorials that followed in the wake of the VVM are the Oklahoma City National Memorial and the September 11th memorials in New York City, Washington D.C., and Pennsylvania.12 The Oklahoma City and WTC memorials depart from the VVM in their inclusion. Both name each individual victim (Doss, 2002; 2010), but unlike the VVM, they have reserved spaces where only family members of the deceased can venture (Blair & Michel, 2007). The WTC further excludes the public by displaying the names of victims in groupings according to rationale determined by the victim’s families, but not made known to the public (Senie, 2016). The Oklahoma City National Memorial makes no reference to the politics behind the attack on 12 This paragraph acknowledges the importance of these memorials, but is limited because I still cannot deal with the trauma of 9-11. 5700 words 20th and 21st Century Memorials 10 the Alfred P. Murrach Federal Building, which defeats some scholar’ socio-political expectation (Doss, 2002). The Pentagon memorial combines the individualization of post-modernity with the practicality of modernism. The 169 “Light Benches” provide a welcome respite for the visitor weary from walking all over The Mall, if only they could find the memorial.13 The WTC memorial also claims healing properties, despite keeping the trauma frozen in time, so visitors are continually exposed to it (Sapikowski, 2012) Visitors, on the other hand, are keenly reminded of the trauma and find no sense of healing (Senie, 2016). The Oklahoma City National Memorial does a similar time freeze presentation which has caused Posttraumatic Stress Disorder in NPS rangers assigned there, due to the continual exposure of trauma (Wadkins, 2015). These memorials, unlike the VVM, all began with vernacular memorials that were then supplanted by the formal memorial. Vernacular memorials are those created by the people, for the people, and generally without explicit permission from the ruling authority. There is a marked increase in vernacular memorials in large part to the Cultivation Theory effect of mass media. Vernacular memorials express raw emotions not possible with the constraints of a formal memorial, and these public displays of emotion are like chum for the media (Doss, 2008; 2010; Santino, 2006). The rise in vernacular monuments is not just from media influence. With the industrialization of the death process, the living do not have locations where they can interact with the dead on a personal level (Marschall, 2013; Santino, 2004; Thomas, 2006; Sanchez-Carretero, 2006). The vernacular memorial provides the people with that in a manner the formal memorial does not or cannot. The primary difference between the formal and vernacular memorial is its unofficial status. This has multiple benefits. The first is inclusivity. Unlike formal memorials where a The first listing for the memorial in a Google search of “Light Benches” is on page 3, after weight lifting blogs and merchants selling benches with imbedded LEDs. 13 5700 words 20th and 21st Century Memorials 11 remote ruling body deems the subject worthy of venerating, the vernacular remembers the common individual (Santino, 2006; Lohman J. M., 2001; Marschall, 2013; Owens, 2006; Sanders, 2010; Westgaard, 2006). Formal memorials usually depict the elite, which in the U.S. is accepted as the Anglo-Saxon, Protestant male (Marschall, 2013). Vernacular memorials primarily honor children, teenagers, and young adults. Nor are they honored for their great deeds, but simply for their manner of death – usually sudden and avoidable (Doss, 2002; Santino, 2004; Westgaard, 2006; Owens, 2006; Goldstein & Tye, 2006). The second benefit of a vernacular monument is speed of construction. A formal memorial takes years for securing permits, creating designs, obtaining funding, arguing, and building. From incident to memorial in the Oklahoma City bombing took a quick five years (Oklahoma City National Memorial, 2014-2016). In contrast, the vernacular often exists as soon as an individual takes action to create it (Santino, 2004; Westgaard, 2006). This helps with the need to mourn for both individual tragedies and national ones (Blair & Michel, 2007; Doss, 2002; Senie, 2016). The third benefit related to a vernacular monument is location. The site of a vernacular memorial is not selected at random, but is chosen for functionality of getting the mourning into the public eye (Doss, 2010; Westgaard, 2006). Unlike formal memorials that require the visitor go to them, vernacular memorials are put so visitors must go out of their way not to encounter them (Santino, 2004; Sloane, 2005; Doss, 2008). This makes the memorial participatory in a manner not achievable with a formal memorial (Doss, 2010). A contradictory behavior for some memorials, is the placement in a public venue, but hiding the identity of the victim from the public by use of a single name or nickname (Blair & Michel, 2007; Owens, 2006). When located at the death location, the memorial helps ease the negativity of the site for the survivors, 5700 words 20th and 21st Century Memorials 12 especially if they must pass it on a regular basis (Lohman J. , 2006; Owens, 2006). Some scholars go further indicating the memorial transforms the place of death into a “sacred” space (Doss, 2002; Senie, Mourning in Protest, 2006; Hartley, 2006; Sanchez-Carretero, 2006), an idea also linked with formal memorials such as Gettysburg. The forth benefit, at least as some scholars are concerned, is the vernacular monument can challenge the establishment. For these scholars, by virtue of being unofficial, the vernacular has the obligation of crying out for reform (Santino, 2004; Doss, 2002; Goldstein & Tye, 2006; Sloane, 2005). These scholars lament when their goals of reform are not met by the memorials, but do not say to what extent the memorial should go (Doss, 2010). For example, Goldstein and Tye wrote about a Newfoundland memorial that “the mass-manufactured, supply-oriented, and seemingly non-personal nature of the items (the teddy bears provided by the red cross [sic]…) don’t lend themselves to an activist reading” (2006, p. 242). However, the tightknit community leaving the bears exposed to the Northern Atlantic elements is a powerful, yet subtle, statement of the community’s rejection of outside authorities. Other scholars disagree on the need for politicizing trauma and point out that such actions lead to questioning the sincerity of the participant’s grief (Thomas, 2006; Westgaard, 2006). An issue with vernacular memorials is ownership of the property where the memorial is located and ownership of the grief. The first, property ownership is a practical one. Many landowners do not want reminders of a violent death on their property, as it tends to bring down the land value (Owens, 2006). Additionally there are concerns of responsibility should the memorial cause damage or injury and disposal of the waste associated the memorial (Owens, 2006; Senie, 2006; Sloane, 2005). Once an item is placed in an assemblage, it is considered abandoned and the landowner’s responsibility. Most private property owners will not allow 5700 words 20th and 21st Century Memorials 13 memorials. A marked exception was in New York City during September 2001. The property owners generally chose not to contest the space of the vernacular memorials, resulting in almost every available space occupied with some form of a memorial assemblage (Zeitlin, 2006). A claim that Seine disputes (2016). Vernacular memorials run headlong into the issue of who owns the grief. Is it associates, friends, the victim’s parents, the victim’s custodial parent, the victim’s extended family, the perpetrator’s parents, or the community? In law, the next of kin generally has the right for determining issues regarding the deceased. How that applies to vernacular memorials, which generally operate outside official control, is in a state of social negotiation (Doss, 2002; Westgaard, 2006; Lohman J. , 2006; Grider, 2006; Goldstein & Tye, 2006; Thomas, 2006). Vernacular memorials come in a variety of forms. Assemblage memorials are the most well-known, primarily because they receive the most media and scholarly attention. Assemblage memorial subcategories are private and public. Graves are private property, with the cemetery acting like a subdivision or a home owner’s association.14 The practice of leaving items at a grave dates to antiquity. Offerings might be items such tokens, photographs, or notes, that indicate a private communication between the visitor and the deceased, and as such are left alone (Santino, 2004; Sloane, 2005). Private assemblages do not invite outside contributions and doing so is a social misstep. Public assemblage memorials are designed to be seen by other members of the public. Popularized by the VVM, these assemblages are almost a required part of publicized traumas (Marschall, 2013; Senie, 2006). Their aim is at engaging the visitor’s senses in order to evoke a high emotional state (Doss, 2008; Yocum, 2006). Offerings here are generally commercially 14 Unused burial plots are considered financial assets just like land, houses, or vehicles. 5700 words 20th and 21st Century Memorials 14 acquired – bears, flowers, ribbons, candles – or specially prepared texts intended for other visitors to read (Thomas, 2006). The public and some scholars consider the assemblages as sacred and worthy of preservation (Marschall, 2013; Senie, 2006; Schiffrin, 2009). As noted already, this does not often occur, so the items get left to rot (Senie, 2006). Assemblage memorials need not stay within set boundaries of public/private. The private graves for public figures like Elvis or Jim Morrison allows the casual visitor as well as the pilgrim to leave an offering. The rules regarding visitor interaction with the offerings changes, based on those individuals present (Thomas, 2006; Sloane, 2005) The Pentagon assemblage after 9-11 was the reverse. It was on public property, about a public event, but the visitors treated it with the deference afforded a private grave (Yocum, 2006). The reason for this may be that many of the visitors were members of the military community and viewed it as a family memorial (Department of Veterans Affairs, 2015). The AIDS Quilt, controlled by the NAMES Foundation, is a variant of the assemblage memorial. It is a collection of over 10,000 grave-sized quilt blocks that honor the memory of someone who died from AIDS. The blocks are not sewn into a fixed combination, nor do all the blocks get displayed at once. This makes each showing a unique experience (Blair & Michel, 2007). Like the VVM, it names the dead (Blair, Jeppeson, & Pucci, 1991). It elevates the private memories into the public sphere (Sloane, 2005). Doss writes, “The NAMES Project Foundation’s AIDS Memorial Quilt reworked American modes of mourning and revised American national subjectivity by including queers and people with AIDS” (2010, loc. 2139), marking this memorial as one of the few which achieve the scholars’ requirement for social change. 5700 words 20th and 21st Century Memorials 15 Scholars debate why people visit public assemblage memorials. Thomas indicates it has become a popular thing to do (2006). Westgaard suggests it is a need to leave an impact on history and to show others the visitor cares (2006). Yocum points out that many people felt a need to just do something in response to 9-11 and walking through an assemblage was all they could do (2006). Doss theorizes it is an attraction for thrill seekers (2010). Since society is a complex system, there is probably no single reason for people visiting assemblage memorials. Roadside shrines are not a new style of memorial. The earliest recorded one for an American automotive fatality was in 1953 (Sloane, 2005). Although strongly linked with the Catholic tradition of erecting shrines for passers-by to pray for those who died without the Last Rites, there is a long non-Catholic history behind the modern markers (Owens, 2006). The shrines memorialize individual trauma rather than mass trauma (Doss, 2010). If the site is close to home (Owens, 2006) a marker is placed at the site of death and maintained by someone close to the deceased (Sloane, 2005). Scholars attribute the roadside shrine’s rise in popularity due to the practice including the family and friends, whereas the industrialized death ritual excludes them (Sloane, 2005; Westgaard, 2006). Further study comparing the number of roadside memorials with changes to funeral practices, such as the requirement for use of a funeral home or hospital, could provide empirical data for validation or disproval. Roadside shrines spawn controversy simply by existing. Some scholars attribute the public’s dislike for the memorials because they are an uncomfortable reminder of the viewer’s own mortality (Westgaard, 2006; Owens, 2006). A survey revealed that the public’s opposition is actually due to safety concerns and because erecting these memorials is not a local custom. Proponents claim the shrines help with public safety because they call attention to dangerous sections of road. Public safety officials express disquiet over individuals walking about those 5700 words 20th and 21st Century Memorials 16 same dangerous spots in order to place and maintain a memorial. Officials further stated that roadside memorials increase the danger level by distracting drivers (Sanders, 2010). Most scholarship on the roadside shrines focuses on who sets up the memorials, where they are located, and why the mourners place them. Sanders is one of few researchers who conducted a survey for looking at how the memorials are received by the community, and it had a limited sample (2010). Additional study could continue along that line of inquiry, do a rhetorical comparison of the shrine elements with advertising practices to see if the shrines do pull a driver’s attention off the road, or comparatively examine why audiences react favorably to photograph exhibits of assemblages (Doss, 2010) but negatively to similar exhibits of roadside shrines (Senie, 2016). On the color wheel of memorials, those for Princess Diana would be towards the center, near where the vernacular bleeds into the formal. The roadside shrine placed near the scene of the accident was still refreshed by visitors over five years after the fatal crash (Thomas, 2006). This longevity reflects the perceived intimacy the people of Paris had with the British princess. In Britain, the people left flowers or notes at places connected with her life, such as Kensington Palace and Buckingham Palace. Those who could not get to any of those sites, left offerings at World War I formal memorials because they were traditional places for mourning someone a loved one when no corpse was available (Phelps, 1998). An increasingly popular vernacular memorial is that of the memorial tattoo. I consider it a vernacular memorial because it done at the individual level with no regulations other than those in place for tattooing. The permanent marking of one’s body as a demonstration of grief dates back to the Stone Age (Grumet, 1983), yet the scholarship on modern memorial tattooing is virtually non-existent. A lone Master’s thesis from 2009 only looks at the role a memorial tattoo 5700 words 20th and 21st Century Memorials 17 has in the grief process and not at the tattoo in its role as a memorial (Schiffrin). Dr. John Troyer from the University of Bath gives lectures on the topic, but has nothing published on memorial tattoos. A Google™ search produced over eleven pages of tattoo parlors offering to ink a memorial tattoo.15 This large of a supply indicates a substantial demand, so a researcher has an ample sample for analysis. The window decal is another fairly new vernacular memorial. These usually have a simple design and message indicating the person’s name, date of birth, and date of death and are displayed on back windows of vehicles. These displays need no further permission than the person who owns the vehicle. It is easily maintained and brings the individual’s grief into the public’s attention (Sloane, 2005). A Google™ search produced over seventeen pages of sources for purchasing a memorial window decal.16 There is one article on memorialization of death that acknowledges the existence of the window decal memorial and that they normally remember young men (Dickinson, 2012), but no further scholarship is available on the topic. Scholars should take note and at a minimum evaluate whether or not the memorial decal is a fad. Memorial wall murals are an urban vernacular memorial. This type subdivides into street art or graffiti and formal murals. The street art version is generally done in spray paint and without permission of the wall owner (Lohman, 2001). These started in the slums of New York City and spread to other urban centers (Lohman, 2006). In the immediate post-9-11 period, walls in New York City had street art murals memorializing the loss of the Twin Towers (Otto, 2014), but few scholars make reference to them. The formal version of the memorial wall mural is commissioned or otherwise permitted by the property owner. Studies indicate a mural deters 15 16 Results using “memorial tattoo” on 7 March 2016. Results using “memory decal” on 7 March 2016. 5700 words 20th and 21st Century Memorials 18 graffiti (Craw, Leland, Bussell, Munday, & Walsh, 2006), which raises property values and makes these memorials potentially more attractive than other vernacular memorials. The people put “on the wall” are products of the neighborhood, meaning they may have engaged in criminal activity or otherwise had a hand in the events leading to their deaths (Lohman J. , 2006). This is different from suburban memorials where the deceased are portrayed as innocent victims (Goldstein & Tye, 2006). These memorials more than any other, except perhaps the AIDS quilt, brings the cause of death up and questions the status quo, yet there is no additional academic writing on mural walls than what Lohman has done. The City of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program which funded the mural Loman used in his study does not have an image of the wall or mention it on their website (City of Philadelphia, 2016). The organization that sponsored the mural request, Families are Victims Too, is a two person operation whose only internet presence is a listing in a directory (Lohman, 2006).17 The dearth of scholarship on this topic may be that the memorial wall mural is not that common, the locations are deemed too dangerous by scholars, or there is no interest in the subject. An emerging kind of vernacular memorial is the virtual memorial. These memorials exist only in the virtual world of the internet. An example of a simple form is a statue of Spock, which appeared on the planet Vulcan, in the virtual world of Star Trek Online, the day after the actor Leonard Nimoy died. More often though, the virtual memorials are political in nature, usually for showing a solidarity with victims after an attack. The “We Are Not Afraid” virtual memorial was a website with pictures of people holding signs with “We Are Not Afraid” on it. The site appeared after the 7/7 bombings in London and was for showing a united stance against terrorism (Doss, 2010). The website is no longer active.18 The #JesuisCharlie spread through 17 18 Google™ search of “Families Are Victims Too” + Philadelphia on 7 March 2016. As of 8 March 2016. 5700 words 20th and 21st Century Memorials 19 social media and prompted solidarity marches throughout France and memorabilia sales after the January 2015 attack on the newspaper Charlie Hebdo. Controversy at the time included use of the event for personal or commercial gain (Robinson, 2015) and lack of social inclusion for Muslims in France (Fassin, 2015). After the November 2015 Paris attacks, Facebook offered a French flag overlay for profile images. This move left one critic questioning if using a profile overlay actually meant anything other than the individual was too lazy to get involved (Pappas, 2015). These virtual memorials may not fit in the structure of the current scholarship on memorials, but the rising use of social media and virtual communication predicts that more users will turn to that media for expression of their grief. Memorial scholars have focused much effort in studying post-VVM formal memorials as well as vernacular assemblages and roadside shrines. These memorials are only a sliver in the pie chart of available memorials. As society changes it methods of self-expression, the nature of its memorials will also change. If scholars do not pay attention to more of the current array of memorials, the field of memorial scholarship will find itself outdated to the point of irrelevance. 20th and 21st Century Memorials 20 5700 words Works Cited 18 U.S.C. § 1361. (n.d.). 1666. Destruction Of Government Property . American Battle Monuments Commission. (n.d.). Burial and Memorialization Statistics. 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