“On a Great Battlefield: The History of Gettysburg National Military Park, 1863–2022” presentation by Dr. Jennifer Murray

On Saturday, January 28, from 1 to 2:30 p.m., Dr. Jennifer Murray author and teaching associate professor at Oklahoma State University (OSU) will present a history of the Gettysburg National Military Park at the Honey Springs Visitor Center.

Dr. Jennifer M. Murray is a military historian specializing in the American Civil War. Murray’s most recent publication is On a Great Battlefield: The Making, Management, and Memory of Gettysburg National Military Park, 1933–2013 (2014, University of Tennessee Press).

Dr. Murray’s program explores the landscape of the infamous battlefield as well as the first preservation and commemorative efforts of the Gettysburg Battlefield Memorial Association and the US War Department. Her main focus is the history of the Gettysburg battlefield in the 20th century, during the administrative era of the National Park Service (1933–present). As Murray describes it, “The history of the Gettysburg battlefield underscores the complicated relationship between race and reunion, public and private interests, between preservation theories and utilitarian uses, between the National Park Service and the American people, and between fact and fiction.”

Murray is also the author of The Civil War Begins (2012). 

For more information regarding the presentation and Honey Springs Battlefield, please contact honeysprings@history.ok.gov, adam.lynn@history.ok.gov, or 918-617-7125.