Dr. Sarah Beetham is the Chair of Liberal Arts and Assistant Professor of Art History at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, specializing in American art and particularly the monuments erected to citizen soldiers after the Civil War. She holds an M.A. and Ph.D. in art history from the University of Delaware and a B.A. in art history and English from Rutgers University. Her current book project, Monumental Crisis: Accident, Vandalism, and the Civil War Citizen Soldier, considers the long history of damage and alteration of Civil War monuments in the context of the recent debate over Confederate memory.
Dr. Beetham has published work on Civil War monuments and art history pedagogy in Public Art Dialogue, Panorama: Journal of the Association of Historians of American Art, Nierika: Revista de Estudios de Arte, and Common-Place. She has been interviewed regarding her work on Civil War monuments and the current debate over the future of Confederate monuments in several outlets, including the Washington Post, Associated Press, The Guardian, and U.S. News and World Report.
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Scholars, Students React to Removal of ‘Silent Sam’ at UNC (Interview with Tiffany Pennamon and Monica Levitan, Diverse: Issues in Higher Education)
Confederate Monuments and the Power of Absence (Interview with Menachem Wecker, Religion & Politics)
The Sculptures That Unite America (Interview with Ben Luke, The Art Newspaper)
What Should Be Done With All the Empty Confederate Monument Plinths? (Architectural Digest)
After Charlottesville, Schools Take Center Stage in Confederacy Debate (Interview with Lauren Camera, U.S. News and World Report)
The Rise and Fall of Confederate Statues (Interview with Joseph Hong, Diverse: Issues in Higher Education)
What will happen to those Confederate statues they’re taking down? Here are some options (Interview with Meghan Bartels, mic.com)
Why those Confederate soldier statues look a lot like their Union counterparts (Interview with Marc Fisher, Washington Post)
Confederate Monuments and the “Black Lives Matter” Movement (Interview with Marisa Lerer, Public Art Dialogue Newsletter)
Civil War “Silent Sentinels” Still on Guard in North, South (Chris Carola, AP)
Interview with Larry Mendte on “The Delaware Way”:
Sarah Beetham, Ph.D. 
Sarah,
I recently purchased a civil war era piece of art that I would love for you to look at and provide some comments. I searched you out based on your expertise on both the civil war and art. It is a piece of art that is done as a collage and I believe it’s perhaps from the 1850’s. It is very interesting if nothing else. I am not asking for any type of appraisal but rather just feedback from you as to whether you have seen this type of work before and if it was common in that era. I would be happy to forward to you some jpeg files of this piece that I bought from an estate sale. My e-mail address is below and if you responded to me I could forward back a few photographs to you. I appreciate your time and consideration.
Sincerely,
David Soderquist
Watertown, NY
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