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The study of memory and its effects on people is becoming a rapidly growing field in the Historical community. Specifically, the study of ‘collective memory’ is becoming much more prominent. The keystone work on this subject is written by a French philosopher named Maurice Hawlbachs. His thesis is that a culture or a society can actually have a group memory that is dependent on the framework in which the society is constructed. He argues that society is full of not just individual memories, but a separate collective memory. Hawlbachs looks particularly about how societies remember episodes of tragedy and trauma. This memory is crucial in forming a national identity.
I believe this thesis can be used to add to Richard Slotkin’s chapter on Myth and Historical Memory. In fact, I believe that you can use Hawlbachs thesis in conjunction with Frederick Jackson Turner’s frontier thesis to help explain why Custer’s Last Stand is mythologized so much in our culture. The Myth of the Frontier is the longest living American myth according to Slotkin. I believe the Frontier Thesis is back this argument up. The ideological underpinnings of the frontier such as “manifest destiny” and “social Darwinism” have helped lay the frameworks for the framework of our culture. Slotkin points to the “laws of capitalist competition” and the system of supply and demand as direct results of the Myth of the Frontier. These ideologies don’t just effect the construction of our society, they also effect our collective memory.
The way we remember Custer’s Last Stand is crucial to our national identity not only because it was fought against Indians, but because it was fought in the new territory of Montana. I believe the environment that the battle was fought in is just as important as the people it was fought against. The fact that the battle took lace in what was considered the frontier at the time is probably what made this such a lasting memory and such an important part of shaping our national identity. I also believe that the time period is another important factor. Custer’s Last Stand occurred right at the end of the Reconstruction period. The country was desperately trying to find a new nationally identity after the devastation of the Civil War. Having a shared memory that all Americans could draw on had to help in this process. Slotkin argues that a term like “last stand” of “frontier” are not historical references. Rather they are metaphors that implicitly connect the events or places they are describing to a value system. In this sense, Custer last Stand is more than just a historical event because of the way we remember it as a nation.
This chapter also compliments Ian’s post on the Literature of the Environment. Ian’s discussion is very similar to mine about how people remember and wrote about their travels on the frontier. There are different individual narratives and reasons for each person who traveled to the frontier. However, as a collective memory, we often just attribute the same reasons for everyone such as manifest destiny. Slotkin’s work ultimately shows the power and the danger of collective memory.