2025/11/25 by Scott Hancock · 1 voice
Environmental Science · Psychology · Social Sciences · #American Environmental and Regional History #Historical and Cultural Archaeology Studies #Memory, Trauma, and Commemoration
paper · doi:10.14324/111.444.amps.2025v32i1.004
openalex created_date 2025/11/25 · openalex publication_date 2025/11/25 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/19
The Battle of Gettysburg, fought between 1 and 3 July 1863, occupies a significant place in United States history and memory. Beginning within six weeks after the battle’s conclusion, much of the former battlefield landscape has been, and continues to be, preserved through careful deliberation. This article argues that those preservation efforts have simultaneously frozen the landscape in time while changing it as part of an industry of memory. However, the intentionality of those efforts has, until very recently, removed the presence and stories of African Americans from the landscape, despite the historical reality that African Americans are central to why there was an American Civil War and a battle at Gettysburg. This article concludes by describing incipient efforts, and some challenges to those efforts, to include those stories on the landscape.