America’s most solemn historical sites rarely offer an honest take on history

“So much of what is wrong with America today began with the Civil War and Reconstruction” – Jason Cochran

In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Jason discuss the monuments at Gettysburg, and the concept of a Civil War “hero” (2:00); the revisionist post-war memorial efforts by Southern organizations (13:00); the concept of memorials, and how they shape memory (26:00); and our relationship with deceased celebrities, and how to interpret America through its monuments (40:00). 

Jason Cochran (@JasCochran), the award-winning author of Here Lies America, has been a travel authority and consumer expert for over 20 years. His work has appeared in such publications as Travel + Leisure, the New York Post, USA Today, and The New York Times. He is currently Editor-in-Chief of Frommers.com and co-host with Pauline Frommer of the weekly Travel Show on WABC. For more about Jason, check out https://jasoncochran.com/. 

Notable Links:

• Battle of Gettysburg
• Andersonville Historical Site
• Reconstruction Era
• Robert E. Lee (Commander of the Confederate Army)
• United Daughters of the Confederacy (association)
• Ladies Memorial Associations (Southern monument effort)
• Ford’ Theatre (site of Lincoln assassination)
• Ken Burns (filmmaker)
• Jim Crow Laws
• National Lynching Memorial
• The Canterbury Tales, by Geoffrey Chaucer (book)
• Negro Leagues Baseball Museum
• USS Maine National Monument
• Grant’s Tomb
• Prison Ship Martyrs’ Monument (Revolutionary War memorial)
• National September 11 Memorial & Museum
• Forest Lawn Memorial Park
• Hollywood Forever Cemetery
• Père Lachaise Cemetery (Paris)
• Tulsa race riot (1921 massacre)
• Haymarket affair (1886 Chicago incident)
• Johnstown Flood
• 1906 San Francisco earthquake
• Vietnam Veterans Memorial
• Battle of Antietam
• Stonewall Jackson (Civil War general)
• Souvenir, by Rolf Potts (book)

This episode is brought to you by AirTreks, an industry leader in multi-stop international travel. If you’ve ever planned a trip with multiple stops, you know that finding the right flights can be difficult. Between balancing travel logistics and cost, it often becomes impossible to build an itinerary that matches your travel goals.  AirTreks is a distributed travel company with employees working from all corners of the world to help with your flight planning, specializing in complex routes with up to 25 stops. The AirTreks website offers suggested pre-planned travel itineraries to help you get started, but can customize to fit your journey.

The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber.

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