Prior to the nineteenth century, few Americans knew anything more of Egyptian culture
than what could be gained from studying the biblical Exodus. Napoleon’s invasion of
Egypt at the end of the eighteenth century, however, initiated a cultural breakthrough for
Americans as representations of Egyptian culture flooded western museums and publications,
sparking a growing interest in all things Egyptian that was coined Egyptomania.
As Egyptomania swept over the West, a relatively young America began assimilating
Egyptian culture into its own national identity, creating a hybrid national heritage that
would vastly affect the memorial landscape of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Far more than a study of Egyptian revivalism, this book examines the Egyptian style
of commemoration from the rural cemetery to national obelisks to the Sphinx at Mount
Auburn Cemetery. Giguere argues that Americans adopted Egyptian forms of commemoration
as readily as other neoclassical styles such as Greek revivalism, noting that the
American landscape is littered with monuments that define the Egyptian style’s importance
to American national identity. Of particular interest is perhaps America’s greatest
commemorative obelisk: the Washington Monument. Standing at 555 feet high and
constructed entirely of stone—making it the tallest obelisk in the world—the Washington
Monument represents the pinnacle of Egyptian architecture’s influence on America’s desire
to memorialize its national heroes by employing monumental forms associated with
solidity and timelessness. Construction on the monument began in 1848, but controversy
over its design, which at one point included a Greek colonnade surrounding the obelisk,
and the American Civil War halted construction until 1877. Interestingly, Americans saw
the completion of the Washington Monument after the Civil War as a mending of the
nation itself, melding Egyptian commemoration with the reconstruction of America.

As the twentieth century saw the rise of additional commemorative obelisks, the Egyptian
Revival became ensconced in American national identity. Egyptian-style architecture
has been used as a form of commemoration in memorials for World War I and II, the civil
rights movement, and even as recently as the 9/11 remembrances. Giguere places the Egyptian
style in a historical context that demonstrates how Americans actively sought to forge
a national identity reminiscent of Egyptian culture that has endured to the present day.

Joy M. Giguere is an associate professor of history at Penn State, York. Her articles have appeared in the Journal of the Civil War
Era and Markers: The Annual Journal of the Association for Gravestone Studies.

“This book is solidly and intelligently researched. Giguere presents a worthy subject, a reassessment of a variety of memorials constructed amid the Egyptian revival in the United States, and proposes that Egyptian forms, such as the gateway, the obelisk, and the sphinx—once considered pagan and foreign—ultimately left such a strong mark on US memorialization in the nineteenth century that they became “characteristically American.” —Cynthia Mills, former executive editor of American Art