Performing an Act of Justice Too Long Delayed:

History, Commemoration and the Boston

Massacre/Crispus Attucks Monument
Professor Renee Ater, University of Maryland, May 2014
Dedication of the Crispus Attucks Memorial, Boston Common
Boston, Massachusetts, November 14, 1888
Robert Kraus (1850 1901)
Boston Massacre/
Crispus Attucks Monument
1887-88
Boston Common, Boston
Bronze and granite
Height: 7.62 meters
Width: 3.05 meters
Robert Kraus (1850 1901)
Boston Massacre/
Crispus Attucks Monument
1887-88
Boston Common, Boston
Bronze and granite
Height: 7.62 meters
Width: 3.05 meters
Paul Revere
The bloody massacre
perpetrated in King Street
Boston on March 5th 1770 by
a party of the 29th Regt.
1770
Engraving with watercolor
Robert Kraus (1850 1901)
Boston Massacre/
Crispus Attucks Monument
1887-88
Boston Common, Boston
Bronze and granite
Height: 7.62 meters
Width: 3.05 meters
Auguste Dumont
La Geni de la Libert
1833
Franois Rude
Le Dpart des
Volontaires de 1792
1833-36
Eugne Delacroix
La Libert guidant le peuple
1830
The shaping of a past worthy of public commemoration in the present is contested and
involves a struggle for the supremacy between advocates of various political ideas and
sentiments.


Public memory emerges from the intersection of official and vernacular cultural
expressions. The former originates in the concerns of cultural leaders or authorities at all
levels of society. Whether in positions of prominence in small towns, ethnic communities,
or in educational, government, or military bureaucracies, these leaders share a common
interest in social unity, the continuity of existing institutions, and loyalty to the status quo. .
. . It presents the past on an abstract basis of timelessness and sacredness. . . . Vernacular
culture, on the other hand, represents an array of specialized interests that are grounded in
parts of the whole. They are diverse and changing . . . Its very existence threatens the
sacred and the timeless nature of official expressions.

John Bodnar, Remaking America: Public Memory, Commemoration, and Patriotism in the Twentieth
Century (Princeton University Press, 1992)
William Nell Cooper (1816-1874)
African American abolitionist and journalist
Oliver Ames (1831-1895)
35
th
Governor of Massachusetts
Photograph of Robert Kraus from Men of Progress, 1896
Aerial view of Boston Common and Public Garden, Boston, Massachusetts, 2011
Plan of Boston Common and Public Garden, 1890
Robert Kraus (1850 1901)
Boston Massacre/
Crispus Attucks Monument
1887-88
Boston Common, Boston
Bronze and granite
Height: 7.62 meters
Width: 3.05 meters
Robert Kraus
Detail of Boston Massacre/
Crispus Attucks Monument
1887-88
Robert Kraus
Detail of Boston Massacre/
Crispus Attucks Monument
1887-88
Robert Kraus
Detail of Boston Massacre/
Crispus Attucks Monument
1887-88
Robert Kraus
Detail of Boston Massacre/
Crispus Attucks Monument
1887-88
Robert Kraus, Detail of Boston Massacre/Crispus Attucks Monument,1887-88
Robert Kraus, Detail of Boston Massacre/Crispus Attucks Monument,1887-88
Robert Kraus
Detail of Boston Massacre/
Crispus Attucks Monument
1887-88
Robert Kraus
Detail of Boston Massacre/
Crispus Attucks Monument
1887-88
Robert Kraus
Bas-relief on Boston Massacre/
Crispus Attucks Monument
1887-88
From that moment we may
date the severance of the
British empire.
Daniel Webster


On that night the foundation
of American independence
was laid.
John Adams
Robert Kraus
Detail of bas-relief on
Boston Massacre/
Crispus Attucks Monument
1887-88
Robert Kraus, Detail of bas-relief on Boston Massacre/Crispus Attucks Monument, 1887-88
Robert Kraus, Detail of bas-relief on Boston Massacre/Crispus Attucks Monument, 1887-88
Robert Kraus, Detail of bas-reliefdeath of Crispus Attucks
Boston Massacre/Crispus Attucks Monument, 1887-88
Robert Kraus, Detail of bas-reliefdeath of Crispus Attucks
Boston Massacre/Crispus Attucks Monument, 1887-88
Robert Kraus
Detail of bas-relief on
Boston Massacre/
Crispus Attucks Monument
1887-88
Robert Kraus
Detail of bas-relief on
Boston Massacre/
Crispus Attucks Monument
1887-88
Robert Kraus
Detail of bas-relief on
Boston Massacre/
Crispus Attucks Monument
1887-88
Robert Kraus
Detail of bas-relief on
Boston Massacre/
Crispus Attucks Monument
1887-88
Robert Kraus
Detail of bas-relief on
Boston Massacre/
Crispus Attucks Monument
1887-88
Robert Kraus
Bas-relief on Boston Massacre/
Crispus Attucks Monument
1887-88
Colonne de Juillet, Place de Bastille, Paris, 1835-40
Auguste Dumont
La Geni de la Libert
Colonne de Juillet, Paris
Gilt bronze
1833
Franois Rude
Le Dpart des Volontaires
de 1792La Marseilliase
LArc de Triomphe, Paris
1833-36
Limestone
Eugne Delacroix, La Libert guidant le peuple, 1830, oil on canvas
Robert Kraus
Boston Massacre/
Crispus Attucks Monument
1887-88
Boston Common, Boston