Why Is the Antebellum Era So Often Romanticized? (war, facts, economic)
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Olde South balls are common at a lot college sororities/fraternities, and many women idolize Southern belles as models of respectable womanhood.
In Tennessee, for example, teenage girls visit a Southern belle school where they learn antebellum manners, period dances, and Southern traditions (see video below)
Oh, and let's not forget about "Gone with the Wind."
What is it about the antebellum era that continues to captivate the popular imagination? Why is that period so often romanticized? There's a certain nostalgia that many have for that time period. Why is that?
Because they don't know the true history of the Reconstruction era. Also a lot of the period between 1865-1900 and even after was spent forgetting the Civil War and what you are talking about was among the imaginary images that were created to paper over the harsh reality of the Civil War, Slavery and the "Black problem".
Because they don't know the true history of the Reconstruction era. Also a lot of the period between 1865-1900 and even after was spent forgetting the Civil War and what you are talking about was among the imaginary images that were created to paper over the harsh reality of the Civil War, Slavery and the "Black problem".
It wasn't a "Black problem". It was a Black problem. And it was created by freeing 4 million uneducated, inexperienced, lost black people and giving them no choice but to roam among 5 million worn out, beaten, humiliated, white people.
It was a problem. We could go back and forth and on and on about who was at fault and what else might have been done, but the facts are the facts. It was a terrible, terrible time in the South. My wife's grandfather (long dead) was born in Mississippi in 1888, and I'm telling you, it was every man for himself in those years.
But that was during reconstruction. The Antebellum Era died in 1860 when war arrived, and that is the time romanticized, not reconstruction.
A truer picture of Antebellum Era may be viewed when you consider why the capitol of The Confederacy was moved from Montgomery to Richmond. It was moved because it was too hot in Montgomery!
Makes great pictures, though....
Olde South balls are common at a lot college sororities/fraternities, and many women idolize Southern belles as models of respectable womanhood.
In Tennessee, for example, teenage girls visit a Southern belle school where they learn antebellum manners, period dances, and Southern traditions (see video below)
Oh, and let's not forget about "Gone with the Wind."
What is it about the antebellum era that continues to captivate the popular imagination? Why is that period so often romanticized? There's a certain nostalgia that many have for that time period. Why is that?
Nostalgia for things lost is better fodder for writers, and the South has had some great writers.
But I might also point out to the concerted efforts of the Daughters of the Confederacy whose concerted efforts to mythologize the south should be duly credited.
But an equally important reason was a vigorous, sustained effort by Southerners to literally rewrite history—and among the most ardent revisionists were a group of respectable white Southern matrons known as the United Daughters of the Confederacy.
The UDC sounds like one of those genteel ladies’ organizations that would have quietly passed into oblivion about the time women ditched their girdles and entered the labor market, but they are still around—a group of about twenty thousand ladies dedicated to various educational and historical preservation causes. Since 1955, the UDC has recruited next-generation members through a young persons’ auxiliary called the Children of the Confederacy, which does similar kinds of work. Blight was surprised when I told him in an e-mail that as part of my research I planned to visit the 2008 C of C convention in Fredericksburg, Virginia. “I knew there used to be such an [auxiliary] organization decades ago but did not know that it still exists,†he replied. “Amazing. How I would like to be a fly on the wall there.â€
...........But I might also point out to the concerted efforts of the Daughters of the Confederacy whose concerted efforts to mythologize the south should be duly credited......... The South still lies about the Civil War - Salon.com
Pretty funny stuff in your link. A lot of it was old history, but some of it is important. There are entire websites devoted to Black Confederate soldiers - pictures and everything - which, I have concluded, is pure fabrication and mythology. I can't decide which is worse; knowing nothing at all, or believing the myths.
But then I am left wondering how much I "know" is actually mythology? Any position taken, it seems, can be supported by something found on the internet.
When a civilization is destroyed, and the Antebellum South was a civilization destroyed by the Civil War, its survivors tend to romanticize their past. The post-war South was an economically deprived place for many and the subsequent generations grew up among the decayed grandeur of past days. The landscape was littered with shabby or abandoned plantation houses, historic cities such as Charleston decayed into backwater towns and the memories of past wealth and privilege was still fresh for too many people. The once powerful South, within the context of the post-Civil War United States, became a politically weak and ignored place unable to compete, economically, culturally or politically with the north or the booming midwestern states or California.
You'll find similar romanticizing of other collapses of civilization such as the fascination with the collapse of the Russian aristocracy in 1918.
That aside, my wife once commented that perhaps the real reason the antebellum days are romanticized is because the women wore hoopskirts. The hoopskirted belle is a powerful cultural imagery for many reasons that have little to do with the actual issues surrounding the causes of the civil war and it's the association with wealth, manners and privilege that resonates the most.
When a civilization is destroyed, and the Antebellum South was a civilization destroyed by the Civil War, its survivors tend to romanticize their past.
I find it particularly weird that so-called liberal Hollywood has up until this day has fostered the myth of the romantic rebel, from the Birth of the Nation to AMC's Hell On Wheels, the former confederate is always portrayed as the tortured, but loyal and steadfast anti-hero. Frankly, I can only think of one or two Westerns where Union forces or former union soldiers have been portrayed in a like manner. In fact I can only think of one, Glory and even glory gives us the portrayal of the thieving union officers and soldiers (Bruce Dern).
Anything "lost" is going to be portrayed as having been better than what replaced it. Consider the mythological lost continent, Atlantis. Have you ever seen any sort of depiction or description of the supposed Atlantis which portrayed it as anything other than a more advanced civilization? Ever heard any sort of speculation along the lines of..."Yeah, there was an Atlantis but it was a primitive, backward sort of place, far less developed than the rest of the world at the time of its destruction."
At the start of the Civil War, southerners were full of fire and grits and talking about how one reb could lick ten Yanks, that the Yankees were just a bunch of shopkeepers and mechanics who could not stand up to the flower of Southern manhood etc. etc. Then after those shopkeepers and mechanics had won the war, it became necessary to explain that their victory was the product of overwhelming numbers and resources because otherwise an admission that the South was outfought would be required....an admission that they had been wrong with all their bluster.
Thus was born the "Lost cause" mentality ...our leaders were gentleman, our cause was noble, we fought with chivalry and were beaten by treachery. It was all part of the psychological adjustment to a new reality which the Southerners did not want to embrace.
Naturally when you have portrayed your cause and your people in such a manner, that which was represented by the cause, the Old South, must be depicted as a place of great virtue and happiness. Aristocratic ladies and gentlemen, smiling, obedient slaves, a rural paradise not tainted by the greed and corruption of the wicked Yankee money makers.
If I were to someday write a book on the "YNMYDAY" phenomena ("Why in my day kids respected their elders...why in my day it only cost 5 cents to....etc.) the Gone With the Wind South would get an entire chapter to itself.
I should dress up as Sherman and attend one of these balls
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