SHAPING MORALITY AND HISTORY: THE RHETORIC AND PUBLIC MEMORY OF THE GEORGIA DIVISIONS OF THE WCTU AND UDC Taryn D. Cooksey A Thesis Submitted to the University of North Carolina Wilmington in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts Department of History University of North Carolina Wilmington 2011 Approved by Advisory Committee Candice Bredbenner Paul Townend Kathleen Berkeley Chair Accepted by Dean, Graduate School TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ..................................................................................................................................iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS .............................................................................................................v INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................................1 “Claiming Authority and Making History: The Scholarship of the Lost Cause, Southern Women’s Organizations, and Public Memory” CHAPTER 1..................................................................................................................................31 “Redeeming Manhood: The Georgia WCTU and UDC’s Efforts to Influence Masculine Morality” CHAPTER 2 .................................................................................................................................62 “Public Amnesia: The Forgotten Efforts and Motives of the Georgia Woman’s Christian Temperance Union” CHAPTER 3 .................................................................................................................................77 “A Lasting Legacy: The Public Memory of UDC Rhetoric and History” CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................94 “Turning Legacy Into History: The Potential of Public History Sites” BIBLIOGRAPHY .........................................................................................................................97 APPENDIX 1 ..............................................................................................................................102 APPENDIX 2 ..............................................................................................................................104 ii ABSTRACT This thesis examines how the differing rhetoric of the Georgia divisions of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union and the United Daughters of the Confederacy in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries influenced how individuals today encounter and remember their efforts. The leaders of the Georgia WCTU adopted openly political rhetoric that challenged southern white men’s authority and ability to lead. This rhetoric was part of an attempt to change dangerous masculine behaviors such as drunkenness or marital infidelity by limiting the range of legal behaviors. Following the repeal of Prohibition, the WCTU began to lose momentum and popularity. As their presence diminished the public lost access to enduring examples of their rhetoric, and in turn lacked information about the breadth and complexity of their goals and activities. Rather than focusing on the social and domestic problems that inspired temperance women to enter into public debates, the current public memory of Prohibition focuses on romantic and nostalgic depictions of cocktails, speakeasies, and jazz. In contrast, the Georgia UDC did not attempt to alter government policy but instead extended feminine rituals of mourning into the public by memorializing the Confederacy and espousing Lost Cause rhetoric. Georgia Daughters’ language did not challenge white masculine authority, but instead enshrined a very specific kind of masculinity. Regardless of historical accuracy, UDC monuments and rhetoric embraced Confederate heroes as Christian men of honor who prized their homes and families above all else, even their own lives. By celebrating an idealized version of masculinity, the UDC sought to give men role models to emulate in their own lives without directly challenging southern white men’s right to power. The monuments and images of virtuous Confederates survived long after the founding Georgia UDC members, and can still be found across metro-Atlanta. However, these monuments currently lack any iii accompanying information that explains the rhetoric, and these sites continue to espouse Lost Cause ideas of gender and morality without question or context. These diverging accounts of rhetoric and memory demonstrate the need and potential for more nuanced content at public history sites. By including more information about these organizations’ rhetoric into site content, public historians would help remedy a lack of thorough information about women’s social and political activity between the end of the Civil War and the ratification of woman’s suffrage. Throughout this period, southern women had to develop creative ways to enter public discourse that drew from their traditional roles as wives and mothers. This aspect of women’s and southern history remains untold in many sites and museums, leaving the public without ways to better understand to complexity of women’s pre- suffrage political activity. However, the presence of WCTU and UDC rhetoric in and around Atlanta presents a strong opportunity to address this gap in public historic content by using the sites and monuments already present throughout the city. iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to take this opportunity to thank first, and foremost, the faculty members that assisted me throughout this project. My chair, Dr. Kathleen Berkeley offered more insight, guidance, and patience than I could have expected or hoped for. Through class discussions, meeting, and countless correspondences she helped me develop my thesis from a vague idea into a completed project with potential for further study. Dr. Candice Bredbenner and Dr. Paul Townend demonstrated their devotion to both history department and its students by serving as committee members and providing their input and ideas throughout the daunting writing and revising process. Each of these committee members demonstrated their commitment to the History Department’s students, and in particular the Public History program, during a period of transition and stress. Though each of these professors specializes in an area outside the scope of public history, each was willing to take on my project without hesitation, and I am incredibly grateful for their wisdom and participation. I also wish to thank Dr. William Moore for his guidance and input in early drafts and his teachings on public memory. Similarly, Dr. Monica Gisolfi assisted me through discussions of my thoughts on southern history and memorialization. Dr. Tammy Gordon introduced me to the key ideas of the Public History program through her graduate seminars, and helped me find multiple opportunities to explore my own interests within the field. I would like to thank Dr. David LaVere and Dr. Lisa Pollard for serving as graduate coordinator and accepting the task of keeping myself and other students on track and informed throughout the long and intimidating thesis-writing process. Finally, I wish to thank the friends, family members, and loved ones who supported me as I wrote. In particular, Mom, Dad, Josh, William, Chelcie, Erica, Faith, Rieddhi, Richard, v Brittany, and Zack: thank you for listening to my rambling thoughts and complaints. Your time, company, and support made this process much easier and kept me motivated when I was struggling for ideas. vi CLAIMING AUTHORITY AND MAKING HISTORY: THE SCHOLARSHIP OF THE LOST CAUSE, SOUTHERN WOMEN’S ORGANIZATIONS, AND PUBLIC MEMORY In the decades following the Civil War, affluent white women in the South lived according to a complex array of cultural expectations that defined appropriate behaviors and determined their role in society. Political disenfranchisement and customs that taught women to concern themselves primarily with domestic affairs left women with limited ways to publically express their thoughts and concerns about southern politics and society. Between 1870 and 1920, in order to exert political and social influence, women of the region participated in a number of clubs and organizations. While suffrage organizations and groups such as the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union organized chapters across the United States including the South, southern women also built regional heritage-based groups like the United Daughters of the Confederacy. As national reform groups campaigned for new legislation to pass woman suffrage and the prohibition of alcohol, members of the UDC and other heritage clubs espoused an ideology that glorified the past and enforced white male supremacy even while they promoted an acceptable public role for women. Though both were women’s organizations, the members of the WCTU and UDC adopted vastly different approaches and rhetoric in claiming public influence, and these approaches shaped how the groups fared in the public’s memory over subsequent generations. Historians and historic sites provide insight into the development and activities of women’s political activism in the late nineteenth century and the public memory of these women. Tracing how different rhetorical approaches impacted the public memory of the WCTU and UDC relies heavily on synthesizing a broad range of scholarship from social and public history. The academic literature on the South after 1865 and ideology of the Lost Cause provided a clear picture of the culture in which