Pioneer monuments stand before the North Dakota statehouse and throughout the American West. Tracing changing public responses to these statues reveals both growing contestation and their enduring power in American memory. Learn more about these monuments and how you can help document them and other historic sites during this FREE workshop!
Cynthia Prescott is a professor of History and Chair of the Department of History and American Indian Studies at the University of North Dakota, where she teaches classes on US western and gender history, memory studies, and the history of “stuff.” Through public presentations, a website (PioneerMonuments.net), public and scholarly writing, Cynthia seeks to encourage and inform community conversations about the past and future of US pioneer monuments. She is developing a Reacting to the Past classroom role-playing game that challenges students to debate and negotiate the reinterpretation, relocation, and removal of San Francisco’s Pioneer Monument from diverse local perspectives.