Cementing Their Heroes: Historical Newspaper Coverage of Confederate Monuments

Abstract

ABSTRACT Following continued conflicts over Confederate monuments in American society, this study explores Civil War memory encapsulated in newspaper coverage of the initial construction and dedication of four Confederate monuments. Discourse and narrative analyses of 258 articles published in seven US newspapers in the 1890s and 1920s examine how the American public negotiated terms of heroes, victims, and villains, largely in a hegemonic “Lost Cause” myth that took primacy over fact, thus distorting collective memory of the war.