Memorializing Peace

According to the National Monument Audit (Monument Lab 2025), the United States is home to at least 15,758 war memorials. In contrast, only 1,221 sites are associated with peace. War memorials are sponsored by federal, state, and local agencies, as well as privately-funded ones in cemeteries, city parks, and traffic circles from organi-zations as diverse as the Daughters of the Confederacy, the National Park Service, the Alpha Delta Phi fraternity and the Vietnam Veterans of Oregon. Many of the peace memorials, which represent a little over 2% of the total recorded in the audit, could have just as easily ended up in the war column. They often do double duty – memorial-izing dead soldiers or victims of Hiroshima, Nagasaki, or the Holocaust in order to make a negative plea for peace.