Date of Graduation

5-2021

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts

Degree Level

Undergraduate

Department

History

Advisor/Mentor

Hancox, Louise

Committee Member/Reader

Pierce, Michael

Committee Member/Second Reader

Johnson, Michele

Abstract

The conversation surrounding Confederate memorialization has become increasingly relevant, especially as it relates to public monuments. One of the groups that perpetuated Confederate memorialization was the United Daughters of the Confederacy. In the early twentieth century, this organization was prolific in not only memorializing the Old South, but also in seeking to vindicate the Confederacy. While this topic has been discussed and analyzed by scholars on the national level, and even regionally, the conversation skips over Fayetteville. Fayetteville’s history is considered more progressive due to the presence of the University, but there is little coverage of Fayetteville’s memorialization of the Lost Cause of the Confederacy. This paper seeks to prove that the local chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) in Fayetteville preserved the legacy of the antebellum South in both visual and written form. The Mildred Lee Chapter vindicated its cause through its extensive preservation of clippings published in Fayetteville newspapers, their promotion of literature through books and textbooks, and its proclivity for “performing” the Confederacy through inanimate objects, the members, and their children. The UDC sought to preserve the cause of the Confederacy in Fayetteville, and although the Mildred Lee chapter erected no statues in the downtown square, they built their version of history into the foundation of the town’s collective psyche through the way they influenced the public’s perception and education surrounding the “War Between the States.”

Keywords

United Daughters of the Confederacy, Mildred Lee Chapter No. 98, Tidball Papers, UDC, Fayetteville

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