Class Year

2016

Document Type

Blog Post

Publication Date

11-12-2014

Department 1

Civil War Institute

Abstract

If you were in Gettysburg during the summer of 2013, you surely encountered the ubiquitous 150th Gettysburg logo branded on everything from promotional materials to souvenirs. The latter – tacky at best and irreverent at worst – filled the town to the point of excess, making some of us wonder how many people completely missed the point of the sesquicentennial. Anniversaries exert a powerful force on the American historical psyche, but it is dubious whether Gettysburg’s celebration exerted an appropriate one. The sesquicentennial was a wonderful opportunity to refocus on the events of July 1863, but sadly many businesses in Gettysburg seemed unable to look past their profit margins. [excerpt]

Comments

This blog post originally appeared in The Gettysburg Compiler and was created by students at Gettysburg College.

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