ABSTRACT
This chapter analyzes the 1957 National Theodore Roosevelt Centennial Celebration to show how the public image of Roosevelt–as an exceptional citizen circulated through multiple national, local, private, and public agenciesserves as a reiteration of a singular narrative performed in different ways. The Association and other institutions created multiple opportunities for celebrating Roosevelt’s life and legacy, resulting in many public exhibits and ceremonies. Choosing selected local state officials to serve as keynote speakers at exhibit openings was one of the ways these organizations guided the commemorations remembering Roosevelt. Roosevelt’s centennial celebration consisted of the workings of many federal, state, and local institutions participating as interconnected networks to shape Roosevelt’s commemoration. Positioning and examining external and internal assemblages of commemoration networks as central rhetorical agents can better help scholars identify how and to what extent the network’s fashioning and circulation of history becomes fetishized within and between collectives.
