Over the Top: The Doughboy in World War I Memorials and Visual Culture

• Published in: American art 2005-06, Vol.19 (2), p.26-47
• Main Author: Wingate, Jennifer
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Advertising campaigns; Civil wars; Feature Article; Monumental sculpture; Sculptors; Sculpture; Soldiers; Statues; War memorials; World wars
• ISSN: 1073-9300; 1549-6503
• DOI: 10.1086/444480

Sculptures of infantrymen—or “doughboys,” as soldiers in the Great War were called—were among the most popular American memorials to World War I. Fighting soldiers, in particular, held special appeal in the 1920s. Their charging figures grace the intersections and parks of hundreds of towns and cities across the United States. Images of the doughboy in the interwar period served important public functions: as an antidote to radicalism, a sign of vigilance and loyalty, and a reassuring vision of American manhood and fitness. Doughboys were also mythologized in magazine illustrations, advertisements, sheet music covers, and posters, which contributed to popular attitudes. The vigilant soldier, the stalwart soldier, and the soldier “going over the top” resonated with the antiradical convictions of the Red Scare and assuaged anxieties about the well being of returning veterans. In addition to serving their communities as sites of mourning and remembrance, these memorials, both mass‐produced designs and individually commissioned works, stood as symbols of loyalty and stability. In Chicago, for example, a memorial to an African American regiment of the Illinois National Guard was deemed incomplete until a fighting black soldier was added several years later. The Chicago memorial is a notable exception to the absence of depictions of African‐American combat soldiers. Despite the art world’s desire that World War memorial makers aspire to loftier forms, the image of the soldier, of “the boy himself,” as one critic suggested, best satisfied the emotional and political needs of the U.S. public in the 1920s.