My Master's Thesis!
To download and read a copy of "Varina Davis, Beauvoir, and the Fight for Confederate Memory," please click here.
Well everyone, after years of preparation and hard work, my master's thesis is finally complete!
After years of researching across the country, writing, re-writing, editing, and re-writing (and did I mention re-writing?) my thesis, titled "Varina Davis, Beauvoir, and the Fight for Confederate Memory" is ready for popular consumption!
To give a brief summary: Varina Davis was the First Lady of the short-lived Confederate States of America. Her unique position in Southern society before, during, and after the Civil War helped shape her memory of the conflict in its aftermath.
After her husband—Confederate President Jefferson Davis—died in 1889, Varina lived as a surprisingly controversial figure. She "abandoned" the South for New York City, became friends with the widow of another prominent Civil War figure (the dreaded Union general Ulysses S. Grant), and refused to participate in most southern Civil War demonstrations.
Despite her desire to live quietly in New York City, Varina's actions and inactions upset many of the devout followers of the emerging "Lost Cause of the Confederacy," or the southern version of the Civil War. These southerners took issue with a number of the former First Lady's choices. They criticized her openly in newspapers and published letters, and quietly behind closed doors.
Throughout the last decades of her life, Varina grappled with a younger generation of Civil War enthusiasts that seemed to grow more vitriolic with each passing year. She saw new and emerging groups such as the United Daughters of the Confederacy and the Sons of Confederate Veterans changing the Civil War (as she had experienced and remembered it) into something completely different.
Varina battled with these groups over the commemoration of the Civil War. Her primary goal was to ensure that the southern people remembered and commemorated Jefferson for the sacrifices he made on their behalf. She probably envisioned Jefferson ascending to the status that General Lee has in some circles today. However, Varina's desires did not align with the missions of groups like the UDC and SCV.
In one instance, Varina publicly criticized the UDC for its plan to build a memorial arch to Jefferson in Richmond, Virginia. Varina, who wanted to ensure that Jefferson's legacy endured (on her terms), wrote that she opposed the construction of an arch because "a triumphal arch to a man whose cause failed...is an inappropriate expression of respect for his memory."
Language like this, coming from Varina, did much more than challenge the memorial arch in Richmond. To the Lost Cause promoters, Jefferson's "Cause" did not "fail." Quite the opposite, actually. Although the Union's troops had defeated the Confederacy's, they had done it through sheer force of numbers. The "Cause" ("States' Rights"), however, remained alive and well in the 1890s. To the Richmond UDC, a triumphal arch sent exactly the message they wanted to send: the South's military was defeated, but its ideas were not.
Varina, however, had a completely different perspective. Unlike the UDC and SCV members, however, Varina's memory was rooted in actually experiencing the Civil War as it unfolded.
It is this difference that led directly to the recurring battles the former First Lady had with Confederate groups after her husband's death. The most intriguing example of these conflicts is the struggle to sell Beauvoir, her home on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, to the Mississippi division of the SCV as a perpetual shrine to her husband and a home for indigent Confederate veterans. This story frames the narrative of the thesis.
To download and read a copy of "Varina Davis, Beauvoir, and the Fight for Confederate Memory," please click here.
