Invention: Compulsory Memorialization

Abstract: This Invention uses memories of growing up in Utah to reflect on the complications of memorializing past events of statecraft. What's at stake for compulsory memorials and commemorations, and how do they obscure and embed ideological content? Using the occasion of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, I examine how Utah's commemoration of the 1847 Mormon Pioneers entering the Salt Lake Valley reimagines and reinvents roots to the foundations of the US government. Indeed, the fourth Mormon Prophet, Wilford Woodruff (1807–98), projected fantastical attachments to historical figures like Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, and dozens of signers of the Declaration, all for whom he was baptized by proxy. Through narrating and investigating these dynamics, we might better conceptualize the excessive, enthusiastic attachments that animate the commemoration of state documents.