The Saint Louis Gateway Arch National Park: Tossing Aside the Unfortunate Past
The historical study of urban renewal and gentrification has become highly relevant in the contemporary era, as these often-unfortunate phenomena have increasingly gained the spotlight of national media attention within the past decade. However, the notion that public history endeavors can be the harbinger of this displacement is not new. Seth Bruggeman’s Lost on the Freedom Trail: The National Park Service and Urban Renewal in Boston critically analyzes the complicity of the National Parks Service (NPS) in the gentrification that took place during the planning and execution of the Boston Historic National Park. [1] Within this text, Bruggeman argues that after World War Two, the NPS became an agent of urban renewal in Boston, while also positing that the history produced by the national park in Boston is largely focused on the white narrative of the Revolutionary War. [2] Comparatively, the Gateway Arch National Park in Saint Louis, Missouri is another unfortunate example of public history being the agent of urban renewal. The construction of this park displaced “five thousand workers” and many families to cure the “urban blight” within the riverfront area. [3] Furthermore, the museum does very little to acknowledge the destruction it caused — despite producing strong history regarding Native Americans in the Saint Louis region, the Gateway Arch National Park’s museum shies away from discussions regarding those who were displaced by its creation.
Bruggeman’s organizational history text on the NPS not only examines the gentrification that the Boston Park incited, but also the type of history produced within. He posits that the revolutionary history within the park supports the common Anglo-centric narrative of the war, tossing aside the history of marginalized people within the era. His argument is developed through a chronological account from the birth of the park to the recent superintendent, theorizing that the endeavors of park planners succumbed to economic pressures to gain profit; this corruption led to the park widely ignoring non-white and non-male facets of the Revolutionary War.
The Saint Louis Gateway Arch, completed in 1965, initially started off as a part of the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial and gained status as a national park through the NPS in 2018. The Gateway Museum, also finished in 2018, is comprised of six exhibits, ranging from the colonial era and riverfront era to the inception of the park. Throughout most of these exhibits, as well as the central displays outside of them, there is acknowledgement of controversy between Anglo settlers and Native Americans during the early days of Saint Louis, as well as discussion regarding the role of slavery in the early days of the nation. Furthermore, within the exhibit entitled Manifest Destiny, a specific focus is placed on the notion that land was stolen by Americans. [4] Along the outside of the wall, facing the central walkway, there is a large display that offers the Anglo-centric view of westward expansion, followed by the history of Mexico losing its large swaths of land to America, and capped off by the history of Native Americans being forced to sign treaties. (See photograph below) Thus, it can be seen that the museum generally attempts to produce solid history in regard to Saint Louis’ (as well as the country’s) complex relationship with Native Americans throughout the early days of the Republic.
On the contrary, however, the exhibit entitled Building the Arch fails to produce such complex history — the focus is solely placed on how the Gateway Arch was designed, as well as the creation of the park. [5] Inside the exhibit are several different models of the designs that competed for the contract, with special attention given to the winner, created by Eero Saarinen. There is also a large model of the park’s grounds in the middle of the room, paired with a playable audio track that interprets the history of the Arch’s construction. The audio track discusses the lack of safety regulations during the construction process, highlighting the dangers that workers faced — yet there is no acknowledgment of the people and businesses that this endeavor displaced. This exhibit was a seemingly perfect opportunity to produce history that acknowledges the urban destruction caused by the park’s creation, but instead the planners of the Gateway Arch National Park opted to make similar choices to the ones Bruggeman alleges occurred in Boston.
Thus, the Gateway Arch National Park has created an interesting, perhaps unique dichotomy in which it acknowledges the history of Native Americans of the region yet toss aside the glaring issue created during the conception of the park itself. Building the Arch fashions a narrative that glorifies the creation of the park and monument, as well as the key actors in the process — while ignoring the harm they caused. It is important to consider that those who created this exhibit actively chose to represent the Arch in this specific way. This was a conscious decision to exclude the stories of urban renewal and displacement of many businesses and people. Furthermore, given that the Gateway Arch was intended to signify and memorialize American westward expansion, one could even venture to say that this exhibit glorifies the period in which Anglo settlers displaced innumerable indigenous peoples. When placed side by side, this exhibit could be viewed as the immortalization of America’s oppressive journey west, as well as the habituality of conveniently ignoring a past that may shed a negative light on it. Lastly, one must call attention to the conversation between the exhibits Manifest Destiny and Building the Arch — their messages directly argue with each other over the premise of westward expansion. This argument juxtaposes the glorification of the monument that memorializes the oppressive journey west with acknowledgement of its stolen nature, creating a rather confusing overall message to the public.
It seems that public history has a long way to go in terms of equitable preservation. From Bruggeman’s work, we can see that the NPS brought urban renewal to Boston through the creation of the Boston National Historic Park; by analyzing the Saint Louis Gateway Arch National Park and its museum, one can identify a similar occurrence. Both, unfortunately do little to present the histories of those who were displaced by these efforts, instead opting to produce history that complies with and advances the prevailing narrative of Anglocentric progress. Despite this long road, it is up to the current generation of public historians-in-training to swear allegiance to wholly-encompassing history — that is, to fully reject the economic and bureaucratic pressures that the industry can be plagued with. It is clear, through these two examples, that previous generations of historians have mishandled these types of projects; thus it is up to the next generation to right the previous wrongs and to produce public history that not only refuses to play a role in gentrification, but to produce pluralist public history that gives every group of humans an equitable standing in history.
Bibliography
Bruggeman, Seth C. Lost on the Freedom Trail: The National Park Service and Urban Renewal in Postwar Boston. University of Massachusetts Press, 2022. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv289dp7b.
Campbell, Tracy. The Gateway Arch: A Biography. Yale University Press, 2013. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt32bx4w.
Saint Louis Gateway Arch National Park Museum, Saint Louis, Missouri
[1] Seth C. Bruggeman, Lost on the Freedom Trail: The National Park Service and Urban Renewal in Postwar Boston (University of Massachusetts Press, 2022).
[2] Bruggeman, Lost on the Freedom Trail, 10.
[3] Tracy Campbell, The Gateway Arch: A Biography (Yale University Press, 2014), 35, 26.
[4] Manifest Destiny, Saint Louis Gateway Arch National Park Museum, Saint Louis, Missouri
[5] Building the Arch, Saint Louis Gateway Arch National Park Museum, Saint Louis, Missouri
