Creating Virginia's War Memorial Carillon

A Citizens' Campaign for a Memorial to Call Their Own Virginias War Memorial Carillon in Richmond was erected by the Commonwealth of Virginia as the official state-sponsored monument to memorialize the patriotism and valor of all Virginians who served in the First World War. Since its dedication on 15 October 1932, nearly fourteen years after the end of the war, The Carillon, as it is known today, remains Virginia's official World War I Memorial. Once the competition-winning Virginia Tomb of the Unknown Soldier was revealed, a group of Virginians who had been hoping for a carillon even before the design competition began launched a massive-and successful-public campaign to halt construction on the tomb and build the carillon instead.1 As cities around the nation contemplated memorials to their war dead, art agencies like the American Federation of Arts and the National Commission of Fine Arts published promotional materials to inform citizens about choosing appropriate memorial designs and artists for their communities. Richmond did not yet have a public library, a fact that nearly everyone who wrote in favor of one reiterated, citing both the current need as well as the benefit to the future generations of Virginia.4 Bessie P. Taylor, social director and English teacher at the College of William and Mary, and female representative on the Virginia Education Commission, a state-mandated committee created to study the condition of schools in Virginia, also submitted a letter supporting a library. In the second article, one of the most vocal members of the War Memorial Commission, Senator Mills, stated his own agreement that a carillon would be the best memorial for Virginia, and he proposed that the City of Richmond erect a carillon on its own, despite the results of the statewide design competition.33 The day after the announcement that the Wright-Cret design won, the Times-Dispatch editors published their opinion that it was not, in fact, a funding issue that ruled out a carillon.