Mourning the Presidents: Loss and Legacy in American Culture

Hauenstein Center for Presidential Studies
Grand Rapids, MI

The death of a chief executive, regardless of the circumstances, is always a moment of reckoning and reflection. Mourning the Presidents offers a unique approach to understanding American culture and politics by uncovering parallels between different generations of mourners, highlighting distinct experiences, and examining what presidential deaths can tell us about societal fissures at various critical points in the nation’s history, right up to the present moment.