Presidents Memorialized

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Heros deserve to be remembered with style

In a recent episode of a popular American television game show, a nationally known contestant had trouble deciding if Johns Hopkins, Franklin Pierce or Brigham Young was a United States President. The answer, of course, is Pierce. (Hopkins was a famous medical doctor, and Brigham Young was the leader of the Mormon Church.)

While it may be funny to think that this celebrity could not pick out the name of one of the nation’s former presidents, it is certain that she is far from alone among U.S. citizens today. The fact is, a good number of the 43 presidents who have served this nation (as of this writing) have names that are not immediately recognizable to, perhaps, a majority of Americans.

That is a testament to this idea: presidents memorialized are presidents remembered.

All of the 18^th and 19^th century U.S. Presidents who are memorialized with large structures in Washington D.C. are icons of American history that virtually no American alive today has not at least heard of: Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, George Washington. Those names will never be forgotten.

Likewise, the presidents of the 20^th and 21^st centuries are likely to all play rich roles in the memories of future generations thanks to the modern tradition of establishing “presidential libraries” in honor of all modern former presidents. All presidents dating back to Harry S. Truman have large buildings devoted to their memory and to the documenting of their presidency and lives. Especially with these libraries being built in various parts of the country (not necessarily based in Washington D.C.), these presidents are less likely to suffer from the anonymity as more than a dozen of their predecessors.

But a number of presidents such as Pierce have names that are much less recognizable to all but those who have studied history closely. And this can be attributed to a lack of memorials. Relatively few memorials have been built for President Martin Van Buren, or Rutherford Hayes or Chester A. Arthur, for example. Van Buren, the 8^th president served from 1837 -1841, Hayes was president #19 and served from 1877-1881, and Arthur was #21 and served from 1881-1885. (Since Arthur was one of just three vice-presidents to take over for an assisinated president, it seems strange that he would be all-but forgotten by most American. But, alas, he has been. And it is likely that Vice-President Andrew Johnson who succeeded the assassinated Lincoln would have been all-but-forgotten now, if it were not for the numerous scandals in his presidency that lead to the nation's first-ever impeachment trial in Congress.)

Sometimes, presidents who are not well memorialized can be remembered for other reasons – James Madison is perhaps best known today because of his wife's modern namesake, the Dolly Madison cake company, makers of the famous Zingers and other popular snakes. Likewise, James Garfield (who was the second U.S. President to be assassinated) is also probably best remembered today because he shares names with the famous cartoon cat "Garfield."

The modern tradition of remembering presidencies by establishing large libraries seems to be a good one. Future generations of staff members at the Bush libraries will likely work hard to resist any public temptation to associate the two Bush presidencies with the type of plant for which they share a name. Likewise, its to be expected that the people working at the Ford library will do all they can to remind future generations that the president had only a very distant family connection to the famous “Ford Motor Company.”

Preserving a proper respect for historical figures is one of the key functions of any memorial, and it’s clear -- by looking at the way history treats the presidents who are not as well memorialized – that memorializing all U.S. presidents is important for our culture.