James Grossman - History, Public Memory, Celebration, and/or Commemoration: US Confederate Monuments and Public Policy

History & Policy

James Grossman (American Historical Association): History, Public Memory, Celebration, and/or Commemoration: US Confederate Monuments and Public Policy

Why does it matter whom we choose to memorialize in public spaces? Are military heroism and sacrifice inevitably tied to the purpose of that war?

Jim Grossman is Executive Director of the American Historical Association. He was previously Vice President for Research and Education at the Newberry Library, and has taught at University of Chicago and University of California, San Diego. The author of Land of Hope: Chicago, Black Southerners, and the Great Migration (1989) and A Chance to Make Good: African-Americans, 1900-1929 (1997), Grossman was project director and coeditor of The Encyclopedia of Chicago (2005; online, 2006) and coeditor of the series "Historical Studies of Urban America" (50 vols, 1992-2015 ). His articles and short essays have focused on various aspects of American urban history, African American history, ethnicity, higher education, and the place of history in public culture. Short pieces have appeared in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Time, Chronicle of Higher Education, and elsewhere.

Land of Hope received awards from the Gustavus Myers Center for Human Rights and the Illinois State Historical Society. A Chance to Make Good won awards from the New York Public Library and the National Council for the Social Studies. Grossman was chosen in 2005 as one of seven "Chicagoans of the Year" by Chicago Magazine.

Grossman’s consulting experience includes history-related projects generated by the BBC, Smithsonian, and various theater companies, film makers, museums, and libraries. He serves on the boards of the National Humanities Alliance (Vice President), and American Council of Learned Societies.