Horwitz 6-8


The War of 1861

Back to re-enactors
Is this history from the bottom up?
different ways to experience history:

• re-enacting
• battlefield at dawn
• 
  

history of battle vs. history of how it has been remembered differently through time

• historic memory--the story of how it was remembered
• 1865-1870s: commemorating soldiers who died in the war, origins of Memorial Day
  
• 1870s: waving the bloody shirt: anger, blame, using lingering hostility for political ends
• 1877 reconstruction ends, redeemer movement
  
• 1880s: legends, increasingly political
  
• by late 1890s focus on reconciliation
• 1890s-1910s: many monuments built,
  
• surviving veterans starting to die so want to preserve the memory, firming up the system of segregation, anti-immigrant concerns
• growing sense of denial that they lost, Lost Cause rhetoric grows--making excuses and defending that their cause was right
• Spanish American war and WWI and some going back to the 1890s: belief that the new south has succeed in industrializing (but resistance to change in the social structure and antebellum values), belief that the US is uniting again
  
• 1920s: southern issues spread because of anti-immigrant sentiment, African-Americans are moving north in greater numbers
  
• 1930s: TVA and other big federal government projects to help the south
• FDR supported southern prejudices, New Deal helped whites more than blacks
• southern hostility to big government and the federal government grows
• even though the deck was stacked in favor of those in power in the south, they resented change and increasingly felt that they didn't really lose
  
• WWII and immediately after: lots of army bases in the south, continuation of New Deal
  
• integration of the army immediately after the war
• more criticism of segregation
• African American argued for citizenship because they fought in the war (Double V campaign)
• 1947-1954: red scare and cold war, we need to pull together, but also to demonize people as communists
• Civil rights era:
  
• non-violent resistance by African-Americans makes many people feel segregation is wrong (mostly outside the south)
  
• but others in the south doubled down on fighting change, resurgence of lost cause arguments
• resurgence of states rights argument against the federal government forcing de-segregation
  
• rise of the sunbelt south--more people from other areas moving in
• late 1960s into 1970s: Violent resistance, Malcolm X, Detroit riots, issues become more nationwide
• Reagan/Bush era: conservatives focus on small government, southern values pushed
• Confederate battle flag revived as a political statement
  
• Vietnam: dangers of big government but also loyalty to military values
• media begins to divide politically
• the end of the Cold War 1989: successful succession?
• Neo-Nazi groups in Germany adopted the Confederate flag
• no longer have a big common enemy and no long need big government
  
• 1990s--this book
• Ken Burns Civil War documentary, Sept. 1990--a lot more people became interested
• this leads to the founding of the History Channel and lots of books are published
  
• boom in re-enacting
• the internet is not yet there so extremist ideas spread slowly
  
• How has it changed since this book?
• arguments about removing monuments
• today's white supremacist groups are further developing/making mainstream ideas we see in the confederate enthusiasts in this book
• World Wide Web (and more so the dark web) has made it easier to spread ideas and organize extremists
• National Park Service tried to make a more complex argument, which significant number of people resisted
  

historical debates over what exactly happened





people want to be independent of central authority

For Monday:
Here is the song that Prof. Catalano mentioned in class. It was originally written by Bob McDill.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHdXQAQHjd8
You can find people arguing in the comments on YouTube as well as here: https://www.lyricinterpretations.com/alabama/song-of-the-south