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ABSTRACT Title of Dissertation: TEACHERS OF THE LOST CAUSE: THE UNITED DAUGHTERS OF THE CONFEDERACY AND THE RHETORIC OF THEIR CATECHISMS Amy L. Heyse, Doctor of Philosophy, 2006 Dissertation Directed by: Professor James F. Klumpp Department of Communication The decades following the American Civil War marked an uncertain and tumultuous time in United States history. After the war ended in 1865, the country experienced racial discord, economic depression, and social unrest. Such conditions endured well into the twentieth century, especially in the South. Perhaps most devastating to white Southerners during this time were the crises they faced with memory and rhetorical subjectivity. First, ex-Confederates struggled to control how their Southern past would be remembered by present and future publics. Second, they worked to restore rhetorical agency since they could no longer speak and act as a “Confederate people.” Attempting to ameliorate these crises, many white Southern residents embraced a myth known as the “Lost Cause.” Essentially, the rhetoric of the Lost Cause glorified the days of the Confederacy, valorized the men who fought in the war, and declared the South’s innocence in relation to the war and Reconstruction. A major purveyor of the Lost Cause was the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC), the largest and most popular white women’s memorial association in the South during its reign. The UDC formed in 1894 and was involved in a variety of commemorative activities. But perhaps the women’s most powerful rhetorical impact on the South was achieved through their efforts with the Children of the Confederacy (C. of C.), an auxiliary group of the UDC. Besides commemorative work, the highlight of the C. of C. meetings would be learning Southern history from their textbooks or “catechisms” written by the Daughters themselves. My project, then, is a historical-critical analysis of the UDC’s rhetorical strategies in their catechisms for children. I contend that the UDC exploited Southern myths, especially the Lost Cause myth, to construct collective memories of the South’s past. Then, with their mythical memories, I argue that the women constituted the Children as the next generation of “Southern people,” which was an effort to help restore rhetorical collectivity and agency to the defeated South. It is my hope that with this study, we may appreciate the complex rhetorical undertaking the Daughters accomplished with their catechisms for children. Teachers of the Lost Cause: The United Daughters of the Confederacy and the Rhetoric of Their Catechisms by Amy L. Heyse Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Maryland, College Park in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2006 Advisory Committee: Professor James F. Klumpp, Chair Professor Robert N. Gaines Professor Shawn J. Parry-Giles Professor Mari B. Tonn Professor Shirley W. Logan ©Copyright by Amy L. Heyse 2006 Acknowledgements My profound and unending appreciation goes to Dr. James F. Klumpp for advising this dissertation. His wisdom, patience, and unwavering belief in me were invaluable as I worked on this project and found my voice as a scholar. I am also grateful to my dissertation committee, Dr. Shawn J. Parry-Giles, Dr. Robert N. Gaines, Dr. Mari Boor Tonn, and Dr. Shirley W. Logan, for their amazing insights and support throughout this entire process. I also thank the Department of Communication at the University of Maryland, for fostering a resource and support community that has proven invaluable to my graduate career. The community at Maryland consists of so many remarkable people. My gratitude goes to Dr. Edward L. Fink and Dr. Leah Waks for their constant words of encouragement, and to Bonnie Gaines for just about everything, especially for helping me navigate the overwhelming bureaucracy of the University. To my dissertation support group—Leslie Dinauer, Lisa Burns, Leah Tuite, and Laura Janusik—what would I have done without you? These extraordinary women inspired me on every level, whether professional, emotional, or spiritual, and for that I am eternally grateful. Even after some of us graduated and/or moved from Maryland, the community held together and I continued receiving precious support, especially from Diane Blair, Lisa Gring-Pemble, Michael Chambers, Michael Philipp, Bjørn Stillion Southard, Belinda Stillion Southard, Jason Black, Michele Mason, Lisa Corrigan, Neil Mansharamani, and Nacho Córdova. You are all remarkable ii scholars, inspiring teachers, and dear friends. And to my Pisces soul mates, Leslie Dinauer and Michael Phillips, who let me cry on their shoulders, offered sympathetic ears, and then picked me up and sent me back to work, thank you for being the best friends a fish could ever have. I consider myself extremely fortunate because when I moved from Maryland, I found another support community in my colleagues at California State University, Long Beach. I thank especially my department chair, Sharon Downey, who is an amazing source of support, and my colleagues, especially Karen Rasmussen, Dawn Kelsey, Norah Dunbar, Amy Bippus, Jose Rodriguez, Marc Rich, Tim Plax, and Catherine Brooks, all of whom would stop by my office to offer their words of encouragement and advice. Of course, this dissertation would not have existed without the help of the United Daughters of the Confederacy. My infinite thanks go to Ann and Barbara at the UDC headquarters in Richmond, Virginia, who let me scour their collections whenever I needed. Also, I am deeply grateful to Brenda Latham and Kathy Smith Brewer who were invaluable resources in my search for answers. I am also indebted to the many archives and libraries across the country for sharing their treasures with me. I also thank my family for supporting me throughout this process and my new in-law family for always showing interest in my project. I must also thank my feline children, Paloma and Magic, for reminding me to take breaks by “typing” on my keyboard and for never asking: When are you going finish your dissertation? iii Finally, I thank my incredible husband, David Carey, for everything under the sun. You challenge me, inspire me, and encourage me in ways I never thought possible, and your support and love throughout this process have been immense. Thank you for not letting me throw my computer out the window when I was frustrated, for rubbing my feet when I was having a hard day, and for talking about my project with more enthusiasm than I do. You are my everything and I thank you from the bottom of my heart. iv Table of Contents Acknowledgements.......................................................................................................ii Table of Contents .......................................................................................................... v Chapter One: Introduction......................................................................................... 1 Collective Memory.................................................................................................... 7 Defining Collective Memory ................................................................................. 7 How to Find Collective Memory......................................................................... 10 Issues in the Literature........................................................................................ 13 Constituting “the People”........................................................................................ 17 Defining Rhetorical Subjectivity......................................................................... 17 How to Find “the People” .................................................................................. 22 An Issue in the Literature.................................................................................... 24 The Lost Cause and Other Southern Myths ............................................................ 25 UDC Catechisms..................................................................................................... 30 A Brief History of the Catechism Genre ............................................................. 33 A Brief History of the UDC’s Catechisms........................................................... 41 Method and Analysis .............................................................................................. 46 Contextualism...................................................................................................... 47 Analysis Questions and Contributions................................................................ 51 Organization of the Study ....................................................................................... 53 Chapter Two: The Crisis of the Post-War South ........................................................ 57 The Defeated South................................................................................................. 59 Southern Women Respond...................................................................................... 79 The United Daughters of the Confederacy.......................................................... 82 The Children of the Confederacy ........................................................................ 92 Conclusion .............................................................................................................. 99 Chapter Three: Studies of the Era: Interpretations of the Post-bellum South........... 100 Southern Oratory