On the Imperishable Face of Granite: Civil War Monuments and the Evolution of Historical Memory in East Tennessee 1878-1931.

• Main Author: Nelson, Kelli Brooke
• Format: Others
• Published: Digital Commons @ East Tennessee State University 2011
• Subjects: monuments; memory; East Tennessee; Civil War; Arts and Humanities; Cultural History; History; United States History
• Online Access: https://dc.etsu.edu/etd/1389; https://dc.etsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2580&context=etd

After the Civil War individuals throughout the country erected monuments dedicated to the soldiers and events of the conflict. In East Tennessee these memorials allowed some citizens to promote their ideas by invoking both Union and Confederate Civil War sympathies. Initially, East Tennesseans endorsed the creation of a Unionist image to advertise the region's potential for industrialization. By 1910 this depiction waned as local and northern whites joined to promote reconciliation and Confederate sympathizers met less opposition to their ideas than in the past. After 1919 white East Tennesseans, enmeshed in the boom and bust cycles of the national economy, reasserted "traditional" values. Local women of the United Daughters of the Confederacy mythologized Confederate soldiers, antebellum white women, and humble slaves of the past to calm the tensions of the present. By 1931 they ensured that the region's history was unequivocally tied to a Confederate image despite its Unionist heritage.