Abstract
The following Senior Independent Study examines the expanded involvement of white southern women during and after the American Civil War through the unwitting transformation of traditionally conservative ideals and expectations of womanhood. The creation of Ladies Memorial Associations and the United Daughters of the Confederacy enabled elite southern women to have an impact on how the ideals of the Confederacy were remembered and carried on to future generations. This Senior I.S. focuses on the monuments that were build, how Confederate Memorial Days were organized, and the extent of involvement that women-ran memorial associations had in the rearing of children. The research in this project also examines the success of southern women’s efforts to preserve the overall legacy of the Confederacy. Despite these women’s increased presence in the public sphere being seen as contradictory to the conservative society they lived in, they legitimized their actions under the pretense that they were maintaining traditional female roles and the conservative, patriarchal ideals of the Confederate States of America.
Advisor
Strauch, Tara
Department
History
Recommended Citation
Drushel, Diana R., "“A Moral Heroism Even Greater and Grander Than That of the Soldiers Who Fell:” The Transformation of the Public Sphere for White Southern Women After the Civil War" (2015). Senior Independent Study Theses. Paper 6738.
https://openworks.wooster.edu/independentstudy/6738
Disciplines
American Art and Architecture | Curriculum and Instruction | Curriculum and Social Inquiry | Public History | Social History | United States History | Women's History
Keywords
Ladies Memorial Associations, UDC, Ideals of womanhood, Transformation of Public Sphere, Confederate Monuments, Confederate Memorial Days, Education
Publication Date
2015
Degree Granted
Bachelor of Arts
Document Type
Senior Independent Study Thesis
© Copyright 2015 Diana R. Drushel