We Came, We Civil Warred, We Side-Eyed the Plaque, We Might've Accidentally Learned Something

If you'd told me at the start of this project that I'd walk away from it with something close to a fondness for a group project—a group project—I would've stared at you like you just suggested I major in Econ for fun. I would've collected a hefty pocketful of Middle Path pebbles and prepared to launch dramatically into the Kokosing. And yet, here I am. Admitting, in plain text, that working with Emily, Elliot, and Liv was not only functional, but—unsettlingly—fun. We were randomly assigned, and somehow, what could've easily been four people orbiting their own stress cycles turned into a well-balanced machine powered by caffeine, shared Google Docs, and the quiet, unspoken fear of being the one who forgot the meeting. By the end of the first week, our Monday 1 p.m. meetings were locked into the schedule like we were a tiny cult of punctual archivists. We added a Wednesday or two when needed, and even threw ourselves into a pre-presentation Friday—an act of academic devotion that felt like donating a kidney. Still, no one panicked. No last-minute chaos. No mysterious radio silence. Even when we got feedback that led us to metaphorically incinerate 75% of our precious artifacts, no one blinked. We regrouped, narrowed our focus, and turned our Civil War display into something sharper, more pointed—less collection, more confrontation.

Which, inevitably, brought us face-to-face with a very familiar figure: Rutherford B. Hayes. Kenyon's poster boy. His name, face, and general presidential shape kept reappearing in our materials. He loomed—polished, silent, covered in soft institutional lighting. As Liv put it in her blog: Hayes is remembered for showing up, for being present in a war, for looking appropriately solemn in tintype. He is not remembered for ending Reconstruction with all the resolve of someone backing out of a group chat.

And that became the question that stuck to us like static: why is that the version of Hayes we see? Why are some stories so loud and others nowhere to be found, even when they matter more? Enter Hajar Yazdiha's The Struggle for the People's King. In Chapter 6, she takes a scalpel to the idea of collective memory—not as something shared or sacred, but as something gated, managed, manicured. Memory is power, she writes. And once a version of history gets carved into a statue or laminated in an alumni newsletter, it's nearly impossible to chisel loose. People hold onto the stories that make them feel righteous. The rest gets fogged out like a busted car window in winter. We weren't out to deface Hayes' plaque (tempting, but hey, that's more a Thursday evening kind of thing). What we were trying to do was ask why the plaque exists in the first place. Who decided what belongs on it? Who got cut from the frame? Yazdiha reminded us that history doesn't just survive—it's curated, and more often than not, by the same people who benefit from the final cut.

So we leaned into the uncomfortable questions. We opened the folders labeled "miscellaneous." We side-eyed the commemorative materials. We made a display that didn't tidy things up for comfort's sake. We wanted our work to hold a little weight, to make space for what gets lost when memory gets too neat.

No, we didn't rewrite national history. Hayes still has his plaque. But we read the footnotes. We asked the questions. We built something together that felt honest, a little sharp around the edges, and entirely ours.

And that? That's a better win than whatever's burned onto a bronze plate.