John Seelye 
Memory’s Nation 
The Place of Plymouth Rock

Long celebrated as a symbol of the country’s origins, Plymouth Rock no longer receives much national attention. In fact, historians now generally agree that the Pilgrims’ storied landing on the Rock never actually took place–the tradition having emerged more than a century after the arrival of the
Mayflower.

In
Memory’s Nation, however, John Seelye is not interested in the factual truth of the landing. He argues that what truly gives Plymouth Rock its significance is more than two centuries of oratorical, literary, and artistic celebrations of the Pilgrims’ arrival. Seelye traces how different political, religious, and social groups used the image of the Rock on behalf of their own specific causes and ideologies. Drawing on a wealth of speeches, paintings, and popular illustrations, he shows how Plymouth Rock changed in meaning over the years, beginning as a symbol of freedom evoked in patriotic sermons at the start of the Revolution and eventually becoming an icon of exclusion during the 1920s.



Originally published in 1998.



A UNC Press Enduring Edition — UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in digital technology to make available again books from our distinguished backlist that were previously out of print. These editions are published unaltered from the original, and are presented in affordable paperback formats, bringing readers both historical and cultural value.

About the author

John Seelye is Graduate Research Professor of American Literature at the University of Florida in Gainesville. He is author of a number of books in the field of American studies, including two volumes on the role of rivers in opening and permitting communications between the territories that became the United States.