The City Beautiful Movement In Bronson Park

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In the Gilded Age, Kalamazoo took on its own interpretation of the City Beautiful in the 1830’s with the creation of Bronson Park. The City Beautiful Movement’s goal was to remodel city space to attract middle class American who now had more leisure time than during the Industrial Age. Bronson Park was named for Kalamazoo’s founder Titus Bronson who donated the land that Bronson Park now sits on. The land was beautified in the ideal of a New England commons. In the 1850’s the land portrayed an image of an actual park, in the modern sense, with fenced off land, flowers, and graveled walkways. The Kalamazoo Library’s postcard of Bronson Park shows off the volumes of flowers that once graced the grounds (see appendix). The people of Kalamazoo …show more content…

All over America monuments were springing up with historical meaning to the nation’s history. The people of Kalamazoo were in favor of these monuments because it symbolized the city’s importance in history. In Kalamazoo, Bronson Park is home to many statues and memorials. Kalamazoo chooses to memorialize many different forms of honor, from military heroes to scholars, each has recognition at Bronson Park. Starting in the early 1900’s, Kalamazoo was feeling the full effect of the memorial movement. More than four monuments were dedicated to Bronson between the years 1913 and 1914. One monument from 1913 commemorates the lives lost on the USS Maine during the Spanish-American war. While this event does not have significant ties to Kalamazoo, it has deep significance to America as a whole. The City of Kalamazoo felt a connection to this event because it was relatively recent, occurring less that 20 years prior. Another monument from the same year named The Volunteer Cavalry Marker honors the 11th Michigan Regiment of the Civil War comprised of 1,500 men who first organized in Kalamazoo. Later the Regiment dissolved and combined with another in 1865. This monument symbolizes the local influence on a national scale. It reminds the people of Kalamazoo what their own people sacrificed for their safety and …show more content…

She joined the fight for women’s education alongside her husband at what would become Kalamazoo College and enforced co-education. After her time as a professor she created educational clubs for women that still exists today. She fought with famous feminists like Susan B. Anthony to ensure the future of women in the United States. Even though she did not live to see women get the right to vote, she symbolizes a piece of the long struggle for women’s suffrage. Kalamazoo feels a sense of pride over their hometown woman who altered American history. Years later, in 1924, The Hiker, a statue by Theo Alice Ruggles Kitson memorializing foot soldiers of the Spanish American War, was dedicated. This was created to remember Kalamazoo Veterans directly tied to this event. The influence of Kalamazoo residents on national history is a point of pride for the city. Many of these monuments remember war heroes, an important subject to Kalamazoo, but among these war monuments, is the dedication to Lucinda Hinsdale, a different type of American

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