Browse Exhibits (4 total)

Enactments of Private Love in Public Space

This exhibit offers a commentary on some of the questions of power, privacy, and female representation that arise from the Carrie Brown Bajnotti Memorial Fountain.

Commissioned in 1899, erected in 1901, and unveiled in 1902, the Carrie Brown Bajnotti Memorial Fountain was given to the city of Providence by Count Paul Bajnotti in memory of his late wife. Caroline Mathilde Brown Bajnotti was born in Providence, Rhode Island, the granddaughter of Brown University’s namesake benefactor, Nicholas Brown II. She married Count Paul Bajnotti, a Foreign Affairs officer from Turin, Italy, in 1876, and the couple spent the majority of their married life in Italy until Carrie Brown Bajnotti’s death in 1896. To memorialize his wife’s death, Count Bajnotti commissioned three monuments in Providence: Carrie Brown Bajnotti Fountain (Burnside Park), Carrie Tower (Brown University), and the Pancratiast Statue (Roger Williams Park).

allegorical figure, bronze, burnside park, carrie bajnotti, carrie brown, city beautiful, enid yandell, fountain, providence, public grief, rhode island

Korean War Memorial: The Face of Struggle and a Space for Grieving

The Korean War Veterans Memorial adds a more somber and mournful tone to Memorial Park. It is unique from the other monuments in the park, and most war monuments in general. It does not simply laud soldiers’ service and America’s role in the war. The monument also emphasizes the soldiers’ suffering in the Korean War, showing a disheartened man facing miserable weather conditions. The soldier is nondescript - he is meant to be representative of all the soldiers in the war. As such he evokes the adversity that every Korean War soldier experienced. Soldiers in the Korean war had to face particularly harsh weather as depicted in the monument. Senator John H. Chafee, who commanded a rifle company in the Korean War, spoke to these difficult conditions in a speech given at the dedication of a monument at Brown University. He said that American soldiers were not just fighting against North Koreans and the Chinese army, they were also fighting against the weather and the terrain. Senator Chafee told listeners that “the rugged hills and mountains, the scorching hot summers, and subzero winters were challenges that no Marine or soldier who fought there will ever forget. It was aptly called ‘the coldest war.’”[1] The senator praised the soldiers resilience in these conditions, and opined that their endurance was the reason America was able to drive the North Koreans out of South Korea. The soldiers’ courage in the face of great struggle is strongly conveyed by the monument itself.

bronze, casualty lists, figurative statue, korean war, memorial park, providence, public grief, rhode island, robert shure, soldier, veterans, war dead, war memorial

The Rhode Island Holocaust Memorial

According to the Rhode Island Holocaust Memorial’s official website, the monument serves to “Honor(s) the dead and celebrate(s) the living - building a bridge from the past for young people and for all who seek insight, peace, and solace." In this paper, I will focus on how the Holocaust Memorial's intended meaning may have shifted since its dedication in 2015. I will use the social fabric of 2015, marred by Trumpism and the subsequent rise of antisemitism, as the framework through which I discuss the Memorial’s shifting meaning.

granite, holocaust, jonathan bonner, memorial park, pillars, providence, public grief, rhode island, white stone, world war ii

The World War II Memorial in Providence: Untold Stories and Desperate Remembrance

Dedicated on November 11, 2007, Veterans Day, the World War II Memorial in Providence is an elaborate structure that has only stood for fifteen years despite commemorating a war over sixty years old by the dedication date. The space is almost overwhelming in its sheer number of details, from Franklin D. Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy quotes to a Mercator projection map to the names of all 2,560 Rhode Island men and women who perished in WWII. Despite this abundance of features visitors to the memorial face, little-to-no information about it exists outside of its physical structure due to its newness. Information such as who designed it, who built it, why it came to stand when it did, and more are, at present, unclear if not entirely unknown. The few sources available, however, demonstrate that this memorial was built by and for those affected by WWII right as the final members of their generation began to pass away. WWII and Korean War veteran Joseph T. Corrente spearheaded its creation; Rhode Island woman Peggy Swann visited the memorial with the Providence Journal to honor the service of her late father. Though complicated by its rather obscure origins and seemingly limited impact on the Providence public, especially considering the WWI Monument that towers over it from mere feet away, the World War II Memorial appears to fulfill its foremost purpose: to provide a space where WWII veterans and their descendants can remember.

casualty lists, colonnade, fdr, four freedoms, granite, jfk, memorial park, providence, public grief, rhode island, war dead, world war ii

Featured Exhibit

The Hiker Monument: White Manliness, US Imperialism, and Colonial Erasure

Kitson condensed the Spanish-American War, Philippine-American War, and China Relief Expedition by following the popular tradition of centering the white...