why was the vietnam war memorial so controversial quizlet

In July 1980, Congress passed a bill authorizing three acres on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., to serve as the memorial site. Administered under the Federal Governments National Parks Services, the memorialwas funded by a veterans group called The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund (VVMF). In an article in the Washington Post, writer Tom Wolfe defined the debate over the inclusion of Harts figurative memorial as a story of art experts and the Vietnam veteransand of how the veterans asked for a war memorial and wound up with an enormous pit they now refer to as a tribute to Jane Fonda. Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. Learn more about the In Memory Program. Oncethe memorial was built, however,visitors embraced thesomber, moving experience. Disputes broke among the veterans, some of whom feared this minimalist design would seem defeatist. Not until 1995 did Vietnam release its official estimate of war dead: as many as 2 million civilians on both sides and some 1.1 million North Vietnamese and Viet Cong fighters. Near the end of the war, the Japanese began to promote Vietnamese nationalism and ultimately granted the country nominal independence. After winning the competition, Lin retained the established firm of Cooper Lecky Architects as the architect of record. Another article in the same issue of the Post echoed Wolfes definition of the terms of the debate, commenting that: There is a discordance between the sophisticated wall and the unsophisticated statue. JSTOR is a digital library for scholars, researchers, and students. The debate over Minimalism, applied to Lins design, provided new terms through which to resurrect Americas internal debate over the validity of the Vietnam War. In March 1979, inspired by the Hollywood film The Deer Hunter, Scruggs launched a personal crusade to raise funds for a memorial that would pay tribute to the soldiers who had lost their lives in the war. Meanwhile, outside the convention hall, 10,000 antiwar demonstrators showed up, clashing violently with security forces assembled by Mayor Richard Daley. The Vietnam Womens Memorial was dedicated on November 11, 1993. Following its dedication, Lins memorial quickly became the prototype for American war memorials. These mass-media fictions enabled the very real neglect of veterans by the institutions tasked with tending to their needs. Brigadier General George Price, an African-American four-star general, publicly defended Lin's choice of black. All Rights Reserved. 12. Before World War Two Vietnam . 35, Special Issue: Monumental Histories (Summer, 1991), pp. JSTOR is part of ITHAKA, a not-for-profit organization helping the academic community use digital technologies to preserve the scholarly record and to advance research and teaching in sustainable ways. For her, the design problem was a class project at Yale University. As the commentaries of Wolfe, the New Republic, and the National Review demonstrate, the media was happy to add fuel to the fire of the veterans indignation through editorial contributions and obsessive coverage of the debate. Despite the fact that beyond certain superficial qualities, Lins memorial shared little in common with the work of classic Minimalist artists such as Richard Serra or Donald Judd, critics nonetheless conflated it with Serras equally controversial Tilted Arc, labeling it another example of an inscrutable Minimalist public artwork erected at taxpayers expense. Items left at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial are collected by National Park Service employees and transferred to the NPS Museum Resource Center, which catalogs and stores all items except perishable organic matter and unaltered U.S. flags. Vietnam Memorial Architect: A Scar And A Healing When her entry was chosen by a panel which imagined the memorial as a place of healing. The 1981 competition was anonymous and presented on poster board back then. 10. There are several transportable replicas of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial created so those who are not able to travel to Washington, D.C., would be able to simulate an experience of visiting the Wall. Today when we look at Maya Lin's sketches of abstract forms, comparing her vision with what became the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall, her intention seems clear. On one side were the proponents of Lins memorials, defined in the media and the public imagination as Wolfes elitist art mullahs, draft dodgers, the future New Leftists, and, of course, followers of Jane Fonda (infamously dubbed Hanoi Jane after a trip to North Vietnam, during which she made statements condemning the U.S. military). Some observers attributed this factor to Maya Lins presence on the jurying panel, which also included victims families, political appointees, curators, and other artists.17 It was even announced at one point that Walkers and Arads design resembled a sketch that Lin had made for the sort of memorial that might be placed at the site.18 Like Lins design for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Reflecting Absence was criticized for failing to incorporate any representations of human figures, its minimal design interpreted as a rejection of codes of heroism.19 In a practical reenactment of the negotiation of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, the addition of a representational statue of three firefighters hoisting a flag at Ground Zero was proposed. But the memorial might not exist in the form we see today if it weren't for the support of architects who defended the young architect's controversial design. Hear phone conversations that reveal his inner torment over the conflict that would become his unwanted legacy. What made it so controversial? By endowing memorials with the ability to accomplish these tasks, we bestow them with an extraordinary amount of power and authority. [] Over the past two months, art mullahs of every description have begun a holy war against the addition of [Harts] statue.8. Among other duties, Healy was the member of Mathias staff who handled memorials and worked as the liaison with the U.S. Department of the Interior. The names are set out chronologically on each wing, starting with the first death in 1959 at the central corner, and concluding there with the last death 1975. Scruggs, Wheeler, and Doubek then scouted the Mall sometimes by bicycle to identify the ideal spot: a stretch of parkland known as Constitution Gardens, located on the National Mall adjacent to the Lincoln Memorial. The winner was Maya Ying Lin, a final-year architecture student at Yale University, just 21 years old. Traffic was stopped for a few hours, and CIA director Richard Helms later remarked that Mayday was one of the things that was putting increasing pressure on the [Nixon] administration to try and find some way to get out of the war., As antiwar fervor grew, in mid-1971, Daniel Ellsberg brought about the publication of the Pentagon Paperswhich revealed previously confidential details about the wars conductand misconduct by government and military officials. Many veterans, politicians, critics, and the general public read its refusal to explicitly glorify the war or frame the listed soldiers sacrifice in recognizably heroic terms as an ideological statement, proof of Linsand the memorialspurported anti-war position. John Wheeler chairman of the veterans group that raised the seven million dollars to build it, suggests, It has to dp with the presence of comrades. 19. Finally, in response to an almost overwhelming antiwar mandate, Nixon announced the effective end to U.S. involvement in Southeast Asia in January 1973. Ho Chi Minh working in the garden of the Presidential Palace in 1957. Ho Chi Minh, the leader of the Viet Minh (Vietnamese Independence League) and the founder of Vietnam's Communist Party, successfully blended . Despite this, the US actively supported the Diem regime as a buttress against Ho Chi Minhs communist forces in the north. Carhart equated artists and their defenders with individuals who engaged in acts of aggression against returned soldiers, and who were thus correlated with the entirety of the anti-war movement. We publish articles grounded in peer-reviewed research and provide free access to that research for all of our readers. John Lennons first song after leaving the Beatles, Give Peace a Chance, hit airwaves in 1966. Not only that, but reactions to both to the design and the designer herself seemed to be informed byracism and sexism. Rather, by honoring those who sacrificed, we hope to provide a symbol of national unity and reconciliation.1. Maya Lin, Vietnam Veterans Memorial, 198182. Because of this, Mathias appointed her to manage the details and to work with Scruggs, Doubek, and Wheeler on the legislation for the memorial. Who designed the Vietnam Veterans Memorial? A Rumor of War, and other . After a brutal confrontation with the soldiers and U.S. Our organization does not have the authority to overrule those who adjudicate these matters. This service is provided free of charge thanks to the many supporters of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund. Cooper Lecky helped Lin battle design modifications and materials. Some people who opposed American involvement in the Vietnam War treated U.S. soldiers and veterans poorly.In some instances, antiwar protesters reportedly spit on returning veterans and called them baby-killers. The Vietnam Wall Controversy, Round 4, 1982, History on Trial, Lehigh University Digital Library, accessed April 21, 2011, https://digital.lib.lehigh.edu/trial/vietnam/r4/1982/. Sturken, 322. In 2002, the group changed its name to the Vietnam Womens Memorial Foundation . 16. Here are four facts about the provocative memorial. After watching the movie The Deer Hunter, Scruggs apparently stepped up his activism even further, using $2,800 of his own money to form the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund in 1979. April 2023. In 1981, Maya Lin was completing her studies at Yale University by taking a seminar on funeral architecture. Fascinating Posts. The winner of the memorials design, Maya Lin, was just 21 years old. Editors note: This essay was originally published on Art21.org in November 2011. Updated: November 1, 2022 | Original: February 22, 2010. This was accomplished on November 2, 1963, when the CIA aided a group of ARVN officers to overthrow and kill Diem. Following a march by thousands of veterans through the streets of Washington, D.C., to the National Mall site, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial was dedicated on November 13, 1982. Many politicians expressed their support, and the U.S. Congress passed legislation reserving three acres in the northwest corner of the National Mall for a future monument. The memorial was controversial upon unveiling; it was a modern, non-naturalistic, anti-heroic, and included no anthropomorphic figures. See Washington DCs major sites in a fun, unique way aboard an electric cart! She had entered VVMFs contest as part of an assignment in her undergraduate course at Yale, focused on funerary architecture. Craven, Jackie. The committee who chose her design was hesitant and dubious. Ibid. In 1950, to combat the spread of Communism, the United States began supplying the French military in Vietnam with advisers and funding its efforts against the red Viet Minh. Visitors walk down a path beside the wall, so that the noise of the city gradually abates, to be replaced by a growing recognition of the enormity of lives lost. The anti-art art movement Dada was born in 1916 inZurich's Cabaret Voltaire. There is general . This aid nearly extended to direct intervention in 1954, when the use of American forces to relieve Dien Bien Phu was discussed at length. Many people also blamed the soldier for the war, so a veteran built monument didnt sit so easy. Ibid. https://www.thoughtco.com/vietnam-veterans-memorial-winner-178136 (accessed May 2, 2023). Maya Lin's design for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial was simpleperhaps too simple. Representations, No. Though now celebrated for its modern, minimal design and contemplative space, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial was once the subject of heated debates. How do we memorialize a war whose history is highly contested and still in the process of being made? What should memorials look like and by whom should they be made? April 2023. In 1957, a low-level guerrilla movement began to emerge in the south, conducted by Viet Minh units that had not returned north after the accords. At the time of the memorials design, many veterans who had been exposed to Agent Orange, a chemical weapon used by the U.S. military as an herbicide and defoliant, still suffered ongoing health problems. They complained about the walls being black. Interesting. After the groundbreaking, more controversy ensued. ThoughtCo, Aug. 26, 2020, thoughtco.com/vietnam-veterans-memorial-winner-178136. Lin explained her inspiration for the design: I thought about what death is, what loss is. Humphrey lost the 1968 presidential election to Richard M. Nixon, who promised in his campaign to restore law and ordera reference to conflict over antiwar protests as well as the rioting that followed Kings assassination in 1968more effectively than Johnson had. Volunteers, Vietnam vets, family members of the deceased and employees of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund read the names each day over four consecutive days. 450ATTN: PDC-P, Headquarters Air Force Personnel CenterMissing Persons Branch550 C. Street West, Suite 14Randolph AFB, TX 78150-4716. As conservatives sought to consolidate their gains following Reagans election, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial controversy presented an opportunity for conservatives to harness both the affective power of the veterans fury and the resulting public outcry on their behalf. Why was Maya Lin upset about the Vietnam Memorial? A few of the most vocal opponents, including James Webb and H. Ross Perot, had previously been strong supporters of a memorial. After all of the arguments and concern prior to the dedication of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Sturken explains that viewers experience of Lins work seems to have been so powerful for those who have visited it that negative criticism of its design has vanished.. Crowd at the dedication of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, 1982. Maya Lins original competition submission for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. Private Funding No government funds were used to build the memorial, only public land. 17. Black walls, the universal color of shame and sorrow and degradation. HISTORY reviews and updates its content regularly to ensure it is complete and accurate. Dont Miss: Evening Gowns Plus Size Designer. Entry 1026, which was Lin's, included abstract sketches and a one-page description. 4 (Summer 1996): 685. The origins of American involvement in Vietnam date back to the end of the Second World War, when the Vietnamese were struggling against the continued French colonial presence in their country. Why were people angry about the Vietnam War memorial? Despite the stated wishes of the VVMF, Lins design proved instantaneously divisive. When VVMF announced the selection of Lins design, the initial public reaction was generally positive. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial has been an issue of debate since its beginning, a debate that is far from worthwhile. The controversy over the planned 9/11 memorial at the former site of the World Trade Center in lower Manhattan, which began nearly a decade ago, harkened back to the debates of the early 1980s and heralds the current resurgence of cultural warfare. This division was to last until 1956, when national elections would be held to decide the future of the nation. She created it as part of a college architecture class that challenged students to make an entry for the national design competition for the planned memorial. Marling and Silberman, 11. A compromise was reached by the addition nearby of a conventional figurative sculpture by Fredric Hart: a bronze group of three figures, poised in battle fatigues. And then, after all of the battles and compromises, the design is given to the built environment. One of Mathias early key suggestions was that the memorial should be on the Mall, especially because the anti-war demonstrations had taken place there. On August 14, 1945, Ho Chi Minh launched the August Revolution, which effectively saw the Viet Minh take control of the country. The flag-waving crowds even cheered. Photo by William Bill Lecky. The idea occured to me there on the site. She tried embellishments, but they were distractions. Vietnam War. The plan, however, was eventually scrapped, once the initial haggling over the racial identity of the firefighters gave way to accusations of political correctness on the part of the memorials planners.20. To achieve this effect she chose polished black granite for the walls. Jan was a great spokesperson. Its detractors perceived it as a monument to defeat, one that spoke more directly to a nations guilt than to the honor of the war dead and the veterans, describing it as the black gash of shame, the degrading ditch, and a wailing wall for draft dodgers and New Lefters of the future.4 Responding to its lack of narrative content, Senator James Webb called it nihilistic. Interestingly (given their opposing political positions), both the National Review and the New Republic equated the list of names with a police report on a traffic accident. American Artist discusses science fiction in the context of contemporary art and the concept of Colored Time.. Is there walmart in vietnam? Michael Clark, Remembering Vietnam, Cultural Critique 3 (Spring 1986): 50. The series of events began on Wednesday, November 10, 1982, and culminated with a service at the National Cathedral on Sunday, November14. Also Read: Meditation Space, symbol of peace, UNESCO, Paris. Vietnam veteran Jan Scruggs, the individual to first pitch the idea of a memorial, used $2,800 of his own money to begin the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund in 1979, according to History. Thirty years later, it is difficult to think of her memorial as a controversial work of art. The fact that such nongovernmental entities as the New York Times, CNN, and the Max Protetch Gallery took it upon themselves to solicit designs for both the new World Trade Center buildings and for suitable memorials to the attacks indicates the extent to which the American public writ large was attuned to the sites future. Jan C. Scruggs, a wounded Vietnam War vet, studied what is now called post-traumatic stress disorder upon his return to the United States. They did not like its minimalist design. Thanks to our supporters and volunteers, VVMF provided more than 2,000 free name rubbings for those who couldnt make it to The Wall in 2020. If you are interested in receiving a rubbing of a name on The Wall, please fill out our Name Rubbing Request Form. One needs no artistic education to see this design for what it is, a black trench that scars the Mall. 13. 3. Reagans 1981 inaugural speech exemplified the political rhetoric used by his administration to promote his vision to the American public. In 1949, fighting escalated as Chinese communist forces reached the northern border of Vietnam and opened a pipeline of military supplies to the Viet Minh. You May Like: Designer Second Hand Online Shop. Black walls, the universal color of shame and sorrow and degradation. The shift, however, did not represent a resolved conflict between public art and public memory and memorialization, but merely a temporary relocation of the site of debate. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund receives numerous requests each year from individuals who desire to have particular names placed on the Memorial. People felt the site should host a monument to the Revolutionary War instead. Indirect efforts continued in 1956, when advisers were provided to train the army of the new Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam) with the goal of creating a force capable of resisting Communist aggression. For years, American society as a whole, regardless of political affiliation, had studiously ignored Vietnam veterans, their presence a painful reminder of the wars moral ambiguity. We expect them to do the work of history writing, to draw single comprehensible narratives out of a Gorgons nest of individual, often contradictory, experiences. Select image to open larger view. Memorials are built to give context and, possibly, meaning to suffering that is otherwise incomprehensible. It is the Department of Defense that makes these difficult and often very technical decisions. From 1992 to 2003, selected items from the collection were placed on exhibit at the Smithsonian Institutions National Museum of American History as Personal Legacy: The Healing of a Nation including the Medal of Honor of Charles Liteky, who renounced it in 1986 by placing the medal at the memorial in an envelope addressed to then-president Ronald Reagan. Lower Manhattan must not be transformed into a vast mausoleum, obviously, but neither must it be transformed into a theme park for advanced architectural taste.15, Such rhetoric spilled over from the initial debates surrounding the redevelopment of the site of the Twin Towers to those regarding the design for the memorial. 1. Sturken notes, the memorial was seen as a monument to defeat, one that spoke more directly to a nations guilt than to the honor of the war dead and the veterans. Thedisagreements over the designrevealed anxiety aboutownership of the wars representation. Karal Ann Marling and Robert Silberman, The Statue Near the Wall: The Vietnam Veterans Memorial and the Art of Remembering, Smithsonian Studies in American Art 1, no. Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. https://digital.lib.lehigh.edu/trial/vietnam/r3/october/, https://digital.lib.lehigh.edu/trial/vietnam/r4/1982/, https://millercenter.org/scripps/archive/speeches/detail/3407, Extending Beyond Craftsmanship, into Inquiry and Exploration, Horror, Contemporary Art, and Film: In Conversation with Dan Herschlein and Chad Laird. Bob Hope and other celebrities lent a hand with fundraising, and by 1981 some 275,000 Americans, along with corporations, foundations, veterans groups, civic organizations and labor unions, had given $8.4 million to the project. The causes of the Vietnam War trace their roots back to the end of World War II.A French colony, Indochina (made up of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia) had been occupied by the Japanese during the war.In 1941, a Vietnamese nationalist movement, the Viet Minh, was formed by their leader Ho Chi Minh (1890-1969) to resist the occupiers. But several weeks after the announcement, a handful of people began to protest the design. Why was the Vietnam Way Memorial so controversial? First Inaugural Address (January 20, 1981), Ronald Wilson Reagan, Miller Center For Public Affairs, University of Virginia, accessed April 21, 2011, https://millercenter.org/scripps/archive/speeches/detail/3407. 3 minutes In November of 1982, a processional of thousands of Vietnam veterans marched to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial for its dedication in Washington, D.C. Architectural drawings and a one-page written summary, 1980 or 1981. Throughout the summer of 1955, Communists and other opposition members were jailed and executed. To communicate a vision, the successful architect often will use both writing and sketching, because sometimes a picture is not worth a thousand words. The three of them had different strengths, Healy explained. In 1961, the newly elected John F. Kennedy and his administration promised more aid and additional money, weapons, and supplies were sent with little effect. After visiting the Washington, DC site, Lin's sketches took form. As soon as ground was broken for The Wall in March 1982, planning for its dedication ceremonies began. They opened a design competition for the memorial. Poems by Alice Notley, Fred Moten, C. D. Wright, Jean Valentine, Michael Burkard, and more. Why was the vietnam war memorial so controversial quizlet? In the Rose Garden of the White House, immediately following President Jimmy Carters signing of the bill, Scruggs explained to the press the vision of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund (VVMF), the non-profit organization that collected and administered the funds for the memorial. Recommended Reading: Best Designer Crossbody Bags For Travel. For the competition, however, Lin needed words to accurately express her design ideas. The memorial is one of the citys most popular monuments attracting between three and five million visitors anually. Nina Simones Backlash Blues (1967) took a civil rights poem by Langston Hughes and adapted it into a protest of Vietnam: Raise my taxes/Freeze my wages/Send my son to Vietnam. Marvin Gayes Whats Going On? from 1971 went on to be one of the most popular songs of all time. "I think it is actually a miracle that the piece ever got built," Lin has said. Although such incidents were rare, the stories were often repeated among U.S. soldiers in Vietnam. Was the Conspiracy That Gripped New York in 1741 Real? They serve as testaments to lives lost, as repositories of grief, and to facilitate processes of mourning. For this reason, in Vietnam today it is known as the American War. Disarming the Japanese, the British used the surrendered weapons to rearm French forces that had been interned during the war. Under the draft system of conscription, as many as 40,000 young men were called into service every month, adding fuel to the fire of the antiwar movement. Craven, Jackie. In most contemporary sculpture, there is one pervasive characteristic: Sculpture, more than painting, appeals to. Under pressure from the Soviet Union, Ho Chi Minh sought to negotiate with the French, who desired to retake possession of their colony. 1 (Spring 1987): 10. he realized that, just as veterans needed psychological healing, so too did the nation. Expert Answer Answer The memorial is a black granite V-shaped wall near the western end of the Mall etched with the names of the nearly 58,000 men and women who we View the full answer Previous question Next question The flags are redistributed through various channels. Their entrance into Vietnam was only permitted by the Viet Minh after assurances had been given that the country would gain independence as part of the French Union. The following year, Nixon claimed in a famous speech that antiwar protesters constituted a smallalbeit vocalminority that should not be allowed to drown out the silent majority of Americans. 4. Memorials have existed in every culture for thousands of years. The National Review commented, The mode of listing the names makes them individual deaths, not deaths in a cause; they might as well have been traffic accidents. Similarly, the New Republic opined: It is an unfortunate choice of memorial. But can America truly mean that we should feel honored by that black pit?6. Bob was the detail person and a good writer. As Michael Clark points out in the essay, Remembering Vietnam, by the late 1960s, Hollywood and the mass media seized on this aspect of the veteran experience, creating variations of a fictionalized veteran who threatened at every moment to bring the war home with him in the form of flashbacks that turned firecrackers into artillery and passersby into the enemy.10 In Clarks analysis, these depictions of veterans served, for nonmilitary American citizens, as a way to launder the violence of the war by relegating it to some other place: Southeast Asia, and the [veterans] psychotic unconscious.11 Such representations enabled film viewers to reframe their experiences of the contemporaneous violence occurring at home, on American soil. In the course of his purges, it is estimated that Diem had up to 12,000 opponents executed and as many as 40,000 jailed. "The Memorial had several purposes," he explained. In November of 1982, a processional of thousands of Vietnam veterans marched to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial for its dedication in Washington, D.C. The antiwar movement began mostly on college campuses, as members of the leftist organization Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) began organizing teach-ins to express their opposition to the way in which it was being conducted. Thirty years later, it is difficult to think of her memorial as a controversial work of art. However, these boy-soldiers, with expressions that are wary, even bewildered, rather than heroic, complement rather than compete with the wall. Washington, D.C. A s memorials are objects of public commemoration, we demand a lot of them. All articles are regularly reviewed and updated by the HISTORY.com team. Swartz, 95. Why was Maya Lin's Vietnam War Memorial initially controversial? Ibid. 12 (2006): 95. Wheeler had the idea to bypass the traditional site selection route and have Congress pass legislation to award a specific area for a memorial site. Thus, it is unsurprising that the first skirmish of the culture wars of the 1980s can be traced back to the public debate that broke out in reaction to Maya Lin 's design for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C.

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