Public Art bears an important role in the perpetuation of public narratives in a community. In the wake of the recent anti-racist, decolonization movements, public memorials and monuments are rightly being reconsidered. Historians, artists, politicians, and activists alike are now bringing to light the social and cultural issues that come with commemorating colonizers and white supremacists in controversial public artworks. In my thesis, I will investigate and analyze three different monuments that have been, or currently, are controversial in the eyes of the community. The three monuments that I have chosen to research and analyze are the Captain Cook “Discovery” Statue in Hyde Park in Sydney, Australia, the Cecil Rhodes statue that was central to the Rhodes Must Fall movement in South Africa, and the statue of Winston Churchill in Parliament Park, which was vandalized last year in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement. Each of these monuments plays an impactful role in the communities they inhabit but has or currently is facing a wave of controversy. I will analyze the varying reactions by the public and the controversies surrounding these three individual monuments. My aim is to find that there is a common theme between reactions to colonizer monuments across the world. If there is a common thread between how people everywhere think colonizer monuments should be dealt with, this may lead to more being taken down.

From Anglo-American Martial and Social Culture to a Distinct American Martial and Social Culture is a historical thesis which documents the origins and perspectives of English settlers in North America from 1607 until American independence recognized in the 1783 Treaty of Paris. Over the course of these 176 years, the mindset of those living on the American frontier was analyzed through the martial and social culture that developed. Some examples of Anglo-American adaptations to living on the American frontier were legislative assemblies and a continent-spanning local militia. Questions ranging from why the English settlers chose to live in the Americas to how they overcame sectional differences to form the United States of America were questions that this thesis attempted to answer. The conclusion from analyzing primary and secondary sources shows the initial development of an Anglo-American culture which over the course of more than a century diverges into a unique American identity, distinct from British subjects and agents of empire. Whereas British citizens in the Americas started out as staunch defenders and agents of the global British Empire, this thesis documents the transformation of British citizens in North America from a British cultural identity to a distinct American cultural identity.