This dissertation explores the formation of Civil War memory through a social history of remembering within the Middle Tennessee heartland in the sixty-five years after the war. I tell the story of essentially two competing conceptions of the pasta Union-Emancipationist memory, rooted mainly in the experiences of African Americans, and a Confederate-Reconciliationist tradition championed by whitesand analyze efforts by these groups to locate, articulate, sustain, champion, transfer, and institutionalize memories of the war years. Attention to local circumstances permits me to delineate the process of social memory formation and to detail the ways in which social memories of particular groups either failed to establish themselves in regional consciousness or were championed and institutionalized as a collective memory. By 1890, a Confederate revivalism, which accompanied a resurgence in the politics of white supremacy, dominated cultural representations of the past within the region. I feature the role of what I term memory entrepreneurs, individuals and groupssuch as the United Confederate Veterans and the United Daughters of the Confederacywho worked to attach broad social memories to the identity needs of social and political groups. By the end of the studyin 1920a Confederate-Reconciliationist memory is housed in the regions libraries and archives, funded by State government, taught in the regions colleges and universities, and inscribed upon the landscape in countless memorials and shrines to the Confederate cause. By contrast, constituencies of Union-Emancipationist memory lose their cohesiveness and lack the resources to combat the consolidation of a Confederate memory cult.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:VANDERBILT/oai:VANDERBILTETD:etd-03312008-115238 |
| Date | 23 August 2011 |
| Creators | Harcourt, Edward John |
| Contributors | Professor Don H. Doyle, Professor David L. Carlton, Professor Richard J. Blackett, Professor Larry J. Griffin, Professor Rowena Olegario |
| Publisher | VANDERBILT |
| Source Sets | Vanderbilt University Theses |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.library.vanderbilt.edu/available/etd-03312008-115238/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to Vanderbilt University or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
Page generated in 0.0021 seconds