In this article two public monuments located at southern cities of Santa Catarina State are analyzed to understand how these cities were engaged with the progress ideals spread in this region as a result of the good performance of the coal industry in the final period of the last century. Public monuments are built to remember certain values to the collectivity and point out them from the polyphony of the urban spaces. References to past and present moments are "places in memory", and in spite of this are used as strategies to forge the identities. For historians, the public monument is equally a document, evidence that consent one to enter and reveal past contexts.
city; monument; identity
