Disasters Worth Remembering

Stories of Destruction and Reconstruction as Told in the Texas Official Historical Markers

Bibliographic Data

ID4489537
AuthorsYusik Choi (0000-0001-8021-2756), Alessandra Giordano (0000-0001-9427-9521), Ronald Hagelman, Ronald R Hagelman
Year2024
Volume114
Issue4
Pages405-425
Publication date2024-08-07
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueGeographical Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0016-7428 • E-ISSN: 1931-0846
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/00167428.2023.2279118
OpenAlexW4388212613
LanguageEN
References cited16

This study examines patterns of disaster commemoration in Texas as witnessed in 1,590 markers erected by the state between 1936 and 2019. In the first half of the analysis, we highlight spatiotemporal trends of commemoration, which focus on a few well-known historic disasters that occurred between 1875 and 1916. From a spatial perspective, markers concentrate in the coastal cities of Galveston, Houston, and Corpus Christi, but no discernible temporal patterns emerge concerning the timing of commemoration—that is, when a marker is erected. After looking at the when and where of commemoration, in the second part of the analysis we look at how each disaster term is described in the text of the markers. Here, the narrative is one of initial destruction quickly followed by recovery and the reestablishment of communities. We also note how the selective nature of commemoration extends to disaster

Aesthetics · Art · Genealogy · Literature · Narrative · Period (music · Perspective (graphical · State (computer science · Visual arts · Computer Science · Disaster Management and Resilience · History · Memory, Trauma, and Commemoration · Rhetoric and Communication Studies

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