The word “Gettysburg” evokes many images—the battle, the town, the film. In this seminal book, Jim Weeks explores the commercialization of the Gettysburg battlefield since the days immediately following that first week of July 1863 through the Heritage Gettysburg phase in the early 21st century.
He comments that, “Not only has Gettysburg been commercially packaged since 1863, but the shrine owes its iconic status to the marketplace.” The intertwining of the battlefield and the market has moved, so far, through several phases from genteel patriotic uplift, monumental contemplation, railroad excursions, automobile quick-stop touring, to heritage tourism. Each generation remade Gettysburg National Memorial Park into its own image of what the battlefield should mean. It is this fluidity that defines “Gettysburg [as] an ongoing project with no final meaning, an American shrine in a continuous state of becoming.”
Within the context of how to market Gettysburg as the quintessential Civil War shrine—one that would appeal to all classes, races, ages, and patriotic bent—the movers and shakers behind the park strove to bring tourists to town. The juxtaposition of the commercial hucksterism with the reverential shrine, while sometimes at odds in the minds of the memorialists, served to keep Gettysburg alive and viable as a multi-faceted tourist attraction for more than 140 years.
Weeks writes about each phase in Gettysburg’s evolution from the bloody carnage picked over by relic hunters to the restoration of the visual landscape back to the day before the war. He explores the relationship between the town and the battlefield, and discusses the national context surrounding Gettysburg.
While the book is a scholarly approach to the marketing of Gettysburg, it is essential reading to understand the changes the land and people have undergone while keeping the idea of Gettysburg as an icon firmly planted in most every American’s mind. The twenty-eight black-and-white photographs and drawings depict the battlefield throughout its history and visually enhance the textual descriptions. This is a welcome addition to the literature on Gettysburg, and recommended reading for the serious student of the aftermath of the battle.