Speaker: Dr. Jennifer Murray

Over 18,000 books and articles have been written on the three-day battle of Gettysburg, but historians have devoted minimal attention to the history of the landscape itself and the complicated, divisive, and controversial nature of preserving, interpreting, and commemorating America’s most hallowed ground.   Dr. Murray’s program explores the first preservation and commemorative efforts of the Gettysburg Battlefield Memorial Association and the U.S War Department.  Murray’s main focus is the history of the Gettysburg battlefield in the 20th century, during the administrative era of the National Park Service (1933-present).   The history of the Gettysburg battlefield underscores the complicated relationship between race and reunion, public and private interests, between preservation theories and utilitarian uses, between the National Park Service and the American people, and between fact and fiction.