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ABSTRACT

MEMORIALIZATION AND MEMORY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA’S
ST. FRANCIS DAM DISASTER OF 1928

By

Ann C. Stansell

Master of Arts in Anthropology, Public Archaeology

The commemoration of disasters is a product of social, cultural, economic, and

political forces in human society. Southern California's largely unheard-of St. Francis Dam

Disaster of 1928 provides an excellent opportunity to study this complex process of

commemoration, engaging memory within difference frames of reference. In particular,

evaluating how and why this man-made dam disaster has been forgotten on a state and

national level, but tenuously remembered within the flood-zone, allows for consideration of

the diversity of commemorative processes in the construction of memory and heritage related

to major catastrophes. This research synthesizes archival and survey data to better

understand how the disaster and the dead have been commemorated throughout the 54-mile

flood zone: spatially, through state monuments, community memorials, grave markers, and

memorabilia, and conceptually, through poems, songs, and oral histories. Identifying what

parts of the past are remembered, and how they are remembered and interpreted, provides

understanding of how public memory develops. Further, being able to determine the factors

that influence why certain things are remembered and memorialized, while other things are

forgotten, can provide insight into not only the individual motivations and perceptions related

to the creation of memory, but also to the larger issues of how a culture establishes both

legends and traditions.

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