Mourning the Presidents

The death of a chief executive, regardless of the circumstances—sudden or expected, still in office or decades later—is always a moment of reckoning and reflection. Mourning the Presidents brings together renowned and emerging scholars to examine how different generations and communities of Americans have eulogized and remembered US presidents since George Washington’s death in 1799. Over twelve individually illuminating chapters, this volume offers a unique approach to understanding American culture and politics by uncovering parallels between different generations of mourners, highlighting distinct experiences, and examining what presidential deaths can tell us about societal fissures at various critical points in the nation’s history, right up to the present moment.

Mourning the Presidency is a vital contribution to our understanding of the relationship of the people to the president, a relationship clarified in the outpouring of grief — or at times, the macabre celebration — that accompanies a president’s death. More than that, it is a searching exploration of memory, history, and the complicated process of creating a presidential legacy.

- Nicole Hemmer, Director of the Carolyn T. Robert M. Rogers Center for the American Presidency, Vanderbilt University

This is a valuable volume on meaning and memory. By exploring the public reactions to the deaths of several American presidents, the editors and contributors shed light on the shifting legacies of our national leaders—and on the often complicated feelings of the led.

- Jon Meacham, Rogers Chair in the American Presidency, Vanderbilt University

Very informative and an interesting read, especially since it addresses a topic that many readers of the American presidency might not be aware of given that there is so little research on this topic. It also reminds scholars that the mourning process of presidents can help shape how the American public forms their overall views about the legacies of presidents.

- Congress & the Presidency

Lindsay M. Chervinsky is a presidential historian and author of The Cabinet: George Washington and the Creation of an American Institution.

Matthew R. Costello is Vice President of the David M. Rubenstein National Center for White House History, Senior Historian for the White House Historical Association, and the author of The Property of the Nation: George Washington’s Tomb, Mount Vernon, and the Memory of the First President.

Colleen J. Shogan: Foreword
Lindsay M. Chervinsky: Introduction
1. Mary V. Thompson: "In a Private Manner, Without Parade or Funeral Oration": The Funeral George Washington Wanted, But Didn't Get
2. Andrew M. Davenport: Mourning at Monticello
3. Todd Estes: Joining in the "Sacred Sentiment of Public Gratitude" at the Death of Old Hickory:: Mourning, Partisanship, and Andrew Jackson’s Problematic Legacy
4. Camille Davis: The Mixed Legacy of Zachary Taylor: Mourning a Soldier, Losing a President
5. Martha Hodes: Unimaginable Catastrophe: The Nation’s First Presidential Assassination
6. Brandon Robinson: Andrew Johnson's North Carolina Legacy: How a Southern Capital Remembers its Native Son
7. Matthew R. Costello: "The Old Lion is Dead": Theodore Roosevelt and the Creation of an American Icon
8. Dean J. Kotlowski: Farewell to the Chief: Mourning and Memorializing Herbert Hoover
9. David B. Woolner: "Crushed by the Burdens of War": The Death and Legacy of Franklin D. Roosevelt
10. Sharron Wilkins Conrad: "He Gave His Life for Us": The Civil Rights Martyrdom of John F. Kennedy
11. Chester Pach: The Long Goodbye: Mourning and Remembering Ronald Reagan
12. Warren Finch: Mourning the Death of George H.W. Bush
Jeffrey A. Engel: Conclusion
Notes on Contributors
Index

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