Jennifer Wingate – Författare

Redressing the neglect of World War I memorials in art history scholarship and memory studies, Sculpting Doughboys considers the hundreds of sculptures of American soldiers that dominated the nation's sculptural commemorative landscape after World War I. To better understand these 'doughboys', the name given to both members of the American Expeditionary Forces and the memorials erected in their image, this volume also considers their sculptural alternatives, including depictions of motherhood, nude male allegories, and expressions of anti-militarism. It addresses why doughboy sculptures came to occupy such a significant presence in interwar commemoration, even though art critics objected to their unrefined realism, by considering the social upheavals of the Red Scare, America's burgeoning consumer and popular culture, and the ambitions and idiosyncrasies of artists and communities across the country. In doing so, this study also highlights the social and cultural tensions of the period as debates grew over art's changing role in society and as more women and immigrant sculptors vied for a place and a voice in America's public sphere. Finally, Sculpting Doughboys addresses the fate of these memorials nearly a century after they were dedicated and poses questions for reframing our relationship with war memorials today.

Redressing the neglect of World War I memorials in art history scholarship and memory studies, Sculpting Doughboys considers the hundreds of sculptures of American soldiers that dominated the nation's sculptural commemorative landscape after World War I. To better understand these 'doughboys', the name given to both members of the American Expeditionary Forces and the memorials erected in their image, this volume also considers their sculptural alternatives, including depictions of motherhood, nude male allegories, and expressions of anti-militarism. It addresses why doughboy sculptures came to occupy such a significant presence in interwar commemoration, even though art critics objected to their unrefined realism, by considering the social upheavals of the Red Scare, America's burgeoning consumer and popular culture, and the ambitions and idiosyncrasies of artists and communities across the country. In doing so, this study also highlights the social and cultural tensions of the period as debates grew over art's changing role in society and as more women and immigrant sculptors vied for a place and a voice in America's public sphere. Finally, Sculpting Doughboys addresses the fate of these memorials nearly a century after they were dedicated and poses questions for reframing our relationship with war memorials today.

Focusing on photographs depicting the domestic display of three US presidential icons – Franklin Delano Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, and Barack Obama – Jennifer Wingate examines everyday expressions of national pride and belonging alongside the tension that these displays signal about the state of democracy.Wingate explores how, although keeping political portraits in the home is traditionally associated with authoritarian regimes, the United States also has a long history with the practice as both a patriotic and commemorative act. Roosevelt, Kennedy, and Obama are particularly representative of this history, she contends, as the rise of radio, television, and social media respectively allowed them to enter the intimate spaces of our daily lives in unprecedented ways.While photographers and artists such as Jack Delano, Gordon Parks, and Jordan Casteel draw attention to these displays of pride and belonging, they also reveal the tensions that these portraits represent as the artists and their subjects strive to make meaning from national symbols and to locate their place within the imagined community of nationhood. In doing so, Wingate argues, they invite reflection on our hopes and anxieties about the state of our nation’s democracy.