The first general history of the National Mall in Washington, America's most important urban park. The Mall is home to the Smithsonian Institution, the largest museum complex in the world, and it is the location of memorials to America's most important heroes. It has become the nation's center stage as well, the venue for the country's largest demonstrations. The Washington National Mall details the history of the National Mall and its institutions, then tells the stories behind each of the monuments and museums.

Traces the history of the National Mall in Washington, D.C., discussing its plan and structures, and considering how the concept of memorials and memorial space has changed since the nineteenth century.

Describes the history of the National Mall and the buildings around it.

For the city’s first two hundred years, the story told at Washington DC’s symbolic center, the National Mall, was about triumphant American leaders. Since 1982, when the Vietnam Veterans Memorial was dedicated, the narrative has shifted to emphasize the memory of American wars. In the last thirty years, five significant war memorials have been built on, or very nearly on, the Mall. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial, the Korean War Veterans Memorial, the Women in Military Service for America Memorial, The National Japanese American Memorial to Patriotism During WWII, and the National World War II Memorial have not only transformed the physical space of the Mall but have also dramatically rewritten ideas about U.S. nationalism expressed there. In Sacrificing Soldiers on the National Mall, Kristin Ann Hass examines this war memorial boom, the debates about war and race and gender and patriotism that shaped the memorials, and the new narratives about the nature of American citizenship that they spawned. Sacrificing Soldiers on the National Mall explores the meanings we have made in exchange for the lives of our soldiers and asks if we have made good on our enormous responsibility to them.

Rhetorics Haunting the National Mall: Displaced and Ephemeral Public Memories vividly illustrates that a nation’s history is more complicated than the simple binary of remembered/forgotten. Some parts of history, while not formally recognized within a commemorative landscape, haunt those landscapes by virtue of their ephemeral or displaced presence. Rather than being discretely contained within a formal sites, these memories remain public by lingering along the edges and within the crevices of commemorative landscapes. By integrating theories of haunting, place, and public memory, this collection demonstrates that the National Mall, often referred to as “the nation’s front yard,” might better be understood as “the nation’s attic” because it hides those issues we do not want to address but cannot dismiss. The neatly ordered installations and landscaping of the National Mall, if one looks and listens closely, reveal the messiness of US history. From the ephemeral memories of protests on the Mall to the displaced but persistent presences of inequality, each chapter in this book examines the ways in which contemporary public life in the US is haunted by incomplete efforts to close the book on the past.

The National Mall in Washington, D.C., has held an important place in the American psyche since the early nineteenth century. Home to monuments and museums dedicated to the ideals upon which the United States rests, the Mall serves as a gathering place for public protest and celebration. But as the nation ages and the population diversifies, demands for additional structures and uses have sparked debates over the Mall's future and the necessity of preserving its legacy and the vision of its designers. The National Mall addresses these issues with a novel and compelling collection of essays, the work of leading design professionals, historians, and social scientists. Supplemented by eye-catching illustrations and photographs, this cross-disciplinary examination follows the discussion over the Mall's design and use, from its conceptual origins as part of Pierre Charles L'Enfant's vision for the capital to the 1902 McMillan Plan to the present day and beyond. It assesses how architectural, societal, and political changes have altered the park-like space between the Capitol and the Lincoln Memorial and explores the influence that disparate interest groups and creeping corporatism have already had on—and are likely to exert upon—America's public square. The National Mall presents an overarching account of how a democratic society plans, creates, and expands a national ceremonial space, opening the way for a broadly based inquiry into the Mall as it was, is, and will become. Urban planners, architectural and design historians, and engaged citizens will be challenged and well served by the thoughtful essays collected by Nathan Glazer and Cynthia R. Field.

Cover -- Copyright page -- Contents -- Tables and Figures -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- 1. From Grand Avenue to Public Space: A Brief History of the Mall -- PART I: MANAGEMENT CHALLENGES -- 2. Neglecting the Mall -- 3. Managing the Mall -- PART II: USE AND DEVELOPMENT PRESSURES -- 4. Making Space for the Dream -- 5. The Brawl on the Mall -- 6. Securing the Mall -- PART III: PLANNING AND PUBLIC PARTICIPATION -- 7. Whose Mall Is It? -- 8. The Right to the Mall -- 9. Envisioning the Twenty-First-Century Mall -- Conclusion -- Notes -- Index

Books in this series introduce young readers to the United States government through a discussion of our country's patriotic symbols. In The Lincoln Memorial, children learn about Abraham Lincoln and his memorial in Washington, D.C. They also learn how this memorial is a symbol of patriotism for the United States of America. Book jacket.