LS
Lafayette Square
A Transatlantic Digital Exhibit
About

About the Project

This website is the first stage of a larger research project that will become a book — written in English and translated into German.

Project overview

The Lafayette Square project examines a single park in front of the White House as a transatlantic memorial landscape. It traces the lives, ideas, and afterlives of four European military figures who helped win American independence — Lafayette, Rochambeau, von Steuben, and Kościuszko — and the immigrant communities who later made them civic icons.

The project combines biography, military history, political thought, public commemoration, immigrant identity, and the politics of historical memory. The digital exhibit is a first draft; a book in English with a German translation will follow.

Research questions

  1. 1Why are these four European figures commemorated in Lafayette Park?
  2. 2How did their contributions shape American independence?
  3. 3How did ideas of liberty, democracy, equality, and national self-determination move between Europe and the United States?
  4. 4How have these men been remembered differently in the United States and Europe?
  5. 5How did immigrant communities use their memory to claim belonging in the United States?
  6. 6What does Lafayette Square reveal about American identity during the 250th anniversary of the United States?

Intended audience

Educated general readers, students, scholars, journalists, museum and cultural institution staff, and members of French-, German-, and Polish-American communities.

Future book version

The exhibit will become a single-author monograph, with chapters mirroring the five modules and full archival apparatus. A German translation is planned.

Contact

Questions, corrections, or collaboration inquiries? Send a note and the project team will follow up.

Bibliography & sources

Primary and secondary sources used across the site.

Browse bibliography →