My dissertation examines the ways in which Protestant Christian communities in the United States have created institutions of public memory—museums, archives, historical societies, monuments, and more—and the purposes to which they have put these institutions over time. In short, it seeks to understand how and why Protestants have interpreted their pasts in public and the political, social, and cultural work that these interpretations have been made to perform. Tracing these practices from the late nineteenth to the late twentieth centuries, it offers five case studies of different Protestant groups—Presbyterians, Methodists, African Methodist Episcopalians, Mennonites, and evangelicals—and the varied commemorative practices they have undertaken. Ultimately it argues that, across more than a century, public commemoration by Protestants has transformed from a means of claiming cultural authority and prestige to a tool for mobilizing culture warriors.