Monumental Seattle - by Robert Spalding (Paperback)

About the Book

Beginning with a stolen Tlingit totem pole and stretching to a Ken Griffey, Jr. sculpture, Seattle offers an impressive abundance of public monuments, statues, busts, and plaques, and the stories behind them are worth preserving. Monumental Seattle explores the history of these works, including funding, artists, sites, public opinion, and more.

Book Synopsis

Beginning with the 1899 installation of a stolen Tlingit totem pole at Pioneer Square and stretching to artist Lou Cella's Ken Griffey Jr. sculpture erected at Safeco Field in 2017, Seattle offers an impressive abundance of public monuments, statues, busts, and plaques. Whether they evoke curiosity and deeper interaction or elicit only a fleeting glance, the stories behind them are worth preserving.

Private donors and civic groups commissioned prominent national sculptors, as well as local artists like James A. Wehn (who sculpted multiple renderings of Chief Seattle) and Alonzo Victor Lewis, who produced a number of bas-reliefs and statues, including one of the city's most controversial--a World War I soldier known as "The Doughboy." The resulting creations represent diverse perspectives and celebrate a wide array of cultural heroes, dozens of firsts, the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition, aviation, and military and maritime service.

Author Robert Spalding provides the history surrounding these works. Beyond the words chiseled into granite or emblazoned in bronze, he considers the deeper meaning of the heritage markers, exploring how and why people chose to commemorate the past, the selection of sites and artists, and the context of the time period. He also discusses how changing societal values affect public memorials, noting works that are missing or relocated, and how they have been maintained or neglected. An appendix lists the type, year, location, and artist for sixty monuments and statues, and whether each still exists. Another useful appendix offers maritime plaque inscriptions.

Review Quotes

"A fine addition to the study of monuments and memorials as part of material culture. An important and currently relevant work."

--Journal of American Culture

"A marvelous, readable, well-researched compendium of how [Seattle] has marked its heritage and the surprising stories those markers often tell."

--Knute Berger, Crosscut columnist, Seattle Magazine editor-at-large, author of Pugetopolis.

"A well-researched and systematic account of the history of one city's monumental landscape."

--International Journal of Heritage Studies

"I highly recommend [Monumental Seattle]. I learned a lot about our city and local history. Spalding really did his homework."

-- Kirby Wilbur, KVI 570 radio talk show host

"No other book of its kind exists. Spalding has done his homework and dug out many long lost stories. Anyone who picks it up will find delightful facts and figures about Seattle."

--David B. Williams, author of Seattle Walk: Discovering History and Nature in the City and Too High and Too Steep: Reshaping Seattle's Topography