Saving Corporal Gresham: An Examination of World War I Hoosier Memorial Culture

Saving Corporal Gresham examines a local hero, Corporal James Bethel Gresham, and the story surrounding the several attempts at building a monument in his hometown of Evansville, Indiana. Using him as a case study, this paper analyzes our collective memory of the First World War, especially during the times in which the monuments were proposed. It also examines the local politics and events that occurred in Evansville, Indiana around the same time as well as the broader scope of how this particular soldier might have fit, or not fit, into American memorial culture. On November 3, 1917 in Artois, France, Corporal Gresham became one of the first three Americans killed in combat during World War I. Over one hundred years after his death and multiple promises of a memorial, he remains buried under a government issued headstone surrounded by dozens of identical ones in the same cemetery intended to be a temporary resting place. Saving Corporal Gresham critically examines the work of scholars such as John Bodnar and Erika Doss who contend that our memorial culture has created a perfect environment for monument building and chooses to build off of the work of those like Steven Trout arguing that the interwar period contributed to an atmosphere that made specific commemoration difficult, exacerbated by local events and politics in Evansville at the time