Public History & the South
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In Hamilton Basso’s 1954 novel The View From Pompey’s Head, one character, speaking on the nature of being Southern, glibly exclaims, "‘We’re just like the Japanese. All we do is worship our ancestors and eat rice.’"0 While the preponderance of rice in a local diet was traditionally limited to the Low Country and other coastal regions, a fascination - if not fixation - with ancestry and history is pandemic in the South. What country your ancestors arrived from; where the homeplace was; which cousin married a Setzer; who sold the old farm. These were facts of paramount importance passed from one generation to the next. Perhaps because it was an agrarian society where there was nothing else to talk about. Perhaps it was because the South is a large geographical region, and families tended to chose one area and spend a few generations spreading out in it.
This familiarity with the past is expressed eloquently by the Charleston woman June Wells, reported by Tony Horwitz in Confederates in the Attic, who said, "‘We’re close to the past and comfortable with it. We’ve surrounded our lives with the pictures of all these relatives hanging on the walls, and we grow up hearing stories about them. It gives these things a personality beyond just the material they’re made of.’"0
Yet oddly, in another chapter, Horwitz, speaking of genealogy, states, "Tracing pedigree wasn’t new to the South, but it had traditionally been most popular among blue bloods such as the FFVs, or First Families of Virginia."3 Horwitz seems to be disclaiming average Southerners’ traditional intimacy with their history. A similar attitude is found in an essay by
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Robert B. Patterson, Jr. Patterson writes about his experiences starting a local history museum in a Tennessee town where " . . . there seemed to be little public engagement in its colorful past." In the next breath, however, he states ". . . there were two chapters of the Daughters of the American Revolution, a chapter of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, a historical society, and a county historian . . ."4
It is striking that both authors made contradictory comments about the South. Such contradictions are indications of the complexity of the mish-mash of circumstances that form history, and people’s perceptions of history, and therefore public history in and concerning the South.
On no subject is Southern public history more contradictory than the Civil War. To many Americans, the Civil War defines the South. But there is no agreement on what the definition is. To some it was a time of heroism and high idealism. To others it was an evil time when Southerners fought to keep their slaves and in the process killed and tortured thousands of their northern countrymen. Some know very little about either the war or its causes, but find culturally-charged symbols from the era appealing.
John Bodnar states that much of the contemporary idea of the war was actually created late in the nineteenth century, not at the time of the conflict. A "public memory" - an interpretation of the past shared by a population - was conceived to smooth over the bad memories. In Bodnar’s view this was done to facilitate the South’s re-integration to the United States so that economic activity could thrive. "In their attempt to absolve the region of guilt and resume commerce with a growing national economy, they de-emphasized commemorative
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activities centered on grief and sorrow for the dead and defeat itself and fostered a memory
designed to speed the progress of reunification while preserving something of a sense of regional pride."5
The preservation of regional pride might have been too successful, as will be seen.
It was during this process that the romantic ideal of the "Lost Cause" became widespread. In this "memory narrative," as Bodnar describes it, the South fought bravely for a grand ideal but were simply outnumbered by northern troops and resources. As a result of this interpretation of events Robert E. Lee became a Southern patriotic hero, sanctified because he advocated reconciliation after the war, and therefore promoted the desired, eventual economic growth. His portrait was hung in many places including classrooms, his statue became common, and his birthday was a regional holiday. Ironically, the director of historic preservation at his birthplace, Stratford Hall in Virginia, recently commented that because of the contemporary atmosphere of political correctness, it has become virtually anathema to mention Lee’s name.
The Lost Cause mythology has had ramifications which have lasted to the present. It has affected Southerners’ interpretations of themselves and the South’s relation to the rest of the country. It has a defeatist allure, demonstrated by Horwitz’s description of the controversy in Kentucky over the Confederate flag when that state never seceded. Conversely, it has also affected northerners’ views, as evidenced by the Civil War buff Tony Horwitz met at Shiloh, who said, "‘I’ve been to Canada and everyone talks and seems pretty much like me. But down here, it’s like a foreign country.’"6 The Lost Cause may have helped Southerners feel better about the war, but it created differences between the two regions. Perhaps this was caused more
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recently by northern observations of that preserved sense of regional pride. Bodnar writes that Southern centennial commemorations of the Civil War " . . . walked a fine line between expressing loyalty to the symbol of national unity and pride in the Southern cause and soldier. In reality the tension was never actually resolved and, when viewed in retrospect, the South celebrated a regional more than a national past."7 About the ceremony marking Lee’s surrender, Bodnar notes, "Apparently deep interest in purely regional symbols remained despite the official rhetoric of national unity. Even the governor of Virginia, Albertis Harrison, revealed a vague sense of attachment to regional sentiments. He told the crowd that Virginians could recall the surrender of 1865 without bitterness not only because of the passage of time but because ‘beliefs and principles for which the Confederate forces fought are still with us.’"8
The pessimistic view of these comments is that Governor Harrison was referring to the Civil Rights Movement. It is quite a coincidence that both this movement and the Civil War centennial occurred at the same time. Possibly they created fervor about each other. There is no doubt that most of the controversy over the display of the Confederate battle flag stems from this time. According to Shelby Foote, in his interview with Horwitz, the flag had been a symbol of
"‘ . . . law, honor, love of country,’" before the 1960's. But during the civil rights struggle, white supremacists attacked Freedom Riders and demonstrations, displaying the Confederate flag as they did so, and it became "‘a banner of shame and disgrace and hate.’"9
Another remnant of the Civil War which is generally considered a symbol of hate is the Ku Klux Klan. Like the Confederate flag, though, this organization was resurrected in the twentieth century with a new, more virulent agenda.
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The symbols of Southern culture that provoke the most controversy and heated debate do so because they were taken out of their original context and imbibed with new and powerful - and overwhelmingly negative - resonance. The most recent, vividly remembered wrongs are attributed to the entire history. If Southerners are concerned about the presentation of their past, they are justified. There is always the concern that the wrong history might be displayed.
The South was lulled into the ego-swelling daydream of the Lost Cause to promote reunification and concentrate on growth. However, there were still traces of the original embarrassment and grief of having lost. In addition to this, the myth taught the paradoxical message to be proud of having lost the war. Then, an artifact of the Confederacy, the Klan, was reborn as what was basically a terrorist organization, and the battle flag gained renown as a standard of discrimination, inequality, and lawlessness. The nurture of regional pride, started to begin psychological healing in the decades after the war, may have matured into bravado at the worst time.
To further complicate matters, the flag was eventually adopted by several groups as a general symbol of rebellion. In this context it does not necessarily have any racial overtones, but it might, depending on the case. Harley Riders, NRA supporters, and various products of popular culture have used the flag for different and sometimes conflicting purposes.
In light of all this, it is no surprise that when different people look at the South, they see different things, both from within and without. It may also explain the stereotypical Southern resentment of intrusion from outside. The situation is so complicated, and so contradictory, only an insider could be expected to navigate it. The small town which proves so inflexible over
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changes to their museum in Gerald George’s "The Perils of ‘Public’ History" is in Tennessee.
Unfortunately, the debate involves public history as well as heritage and public memory. Which idea of the South does public history present? The noble men fighting the Southern war for independence, or the despots attempting to evade federal law? It is difficult to conceive of a middle ground between these two extremes without straining out the remaining substance completely. And eventually, isn’t it possible that whatever version public history presents will become the public memory? If generations of children hear the same story on their school field trips to the museum, isn’t that what their collective interpretation of the past will become?
That will determine the heritage of the South; whatever the next public memory concerning the region will be. At this time there are shards of public memory out there. Individuals conceive of the South’s past depending on other factors such as their distrust or acceptance of differentness or authority, or their resentment or satisfaction with their economic status. Those with deep roots in the South hope to see a positive public memory evolve, not one of violence and hate. If Southerners are "close to the past and comfortable with it," as Charleston’s June Wells states, they don’t want to see their close and comfortable life-long companion turned on its head by some new school of interpretation. These concerns explain why a native of the South’s most mysterious and stubborn city said, "‘We just happen to like things exactly the way they are.’"10 The status quo is more desirable than an uncertain future.
Rosenzweig and Thelen state that "Very few white Americans, for example, rooted their basic identities in sets of historical associations with particular places: they tended not to connect the past of their communities with their current lives."11 This may be a common phenomenon in
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this country, but the South is an area where it is more uncommon, although connection to the place may be dying out here as well. To be a Southerner is to be connected to a place; the South, and very likely to a more specific place in the South. In my experience, being Southern means being aware of history, not only personal and family history, but how that fits into the larger
history of the region.
I was raised in the western Piedmont of North Carolina. My ancestors on both my
mother’s and father’s sides moved into that region in the mid-eighteenth century. I grew up hearing about Revolutionary War battles, and being driven to see old houses, and tramping through graveyards to find an ancestor’s tombstone. This is why I have such empathy with Hamilton Basso’s character who compared Southerners to the Japanese. Being raised with such a constant consciousness of the past does seem a little like "ancestor worship." It also seems to be a common Southern experience, although I didn’t hear much about the Civil War. I don’t think losing the war changed anybody’s lifestyles around there, except for the hardships of living through it. I think my people just wanted to forget about it and move on. The Lost Cause myth doesn’t have much resonance for me. I have difficulty trying to imagine a new public memory for the South because of that - I don’t get the old one.
Public history is affected by changes in thought and politics. For example, over the past forty years, antebellum historic sites have striven to include the role of African-Americans in their interpretation, in an effort to be more inclusive and to present a more accurate portrait of the past. However, Southern culture is so stratified and its history has been applied to so many purposes that some feel any change will lead to a landslide. This leads to concerns on behalf of
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Southerners that the familiar history they grew up with may be "interpreted" out of recognition. The heritage of the South could be determined by which shard of public memory out there becomes the dominant paradigm. If postmodern theories can attack creators of Western culture’s foundations as "the oldest dead white men," anything is fair game. These seem like adequate justification for Southerners to be concerned about the perception of their regional identity, and the heritage it leaves behind.

NOTES
1. Hamilton Basso, The View From Pompey’s Head (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1998), 41.
2. Tony Horvitz, Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War (New York: Pantheon, 1998), 53.
3.Ibid., 32.
4.Robert B. Patterson, Jr., "In Local Historical Agencies, Museums, and Societies." James B. Gardner and Peter S. LaPaglia, eds., Public History: Essays from the Field (Malabar, Florida: Krieger Publishing, 1999), 295.
5.John Bodnar, Remaking America: Public History, Commemoration, and Patriotism in the Twentieth Century (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1992), 31.
6.Tony Horvitz, Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War (New York: Pantheon, 1998), 164.
7.John Bodnar, Remaking America: Public History, Commemoration, and Patriotism in the Twentieth Century (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1992), 220.
8. Ibid., 226.
9. Tony Horvitz, Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War (New York: Pantheon, 1998), 153.
10. John Berendt, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil: A Savannah Story (New York: Random House, 1994), 30.
11. Roy Rosenzweig and David Thalen, eds., The Presence of the Past: Popular Uses of History in American Life (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998), 117.