
United Daughters of the Confederacy's Lost Soldiers
Clip: Episode 7 | 1m 59sVideo has Closed Captions
United Daughters of the Confederacy had a pivotal role memorializing Confederate soldiers.
This clip takes a look at The United Daughters of the Confederacy and the pivotal role that they played in memorializing Confederate soldiers. This organization, originally comprising female relatives of Civil War soldiers who fought for The South, was instrumental in propagandizing the war and reframing its origins by coining phrases such as “The War of Northern aggression.”
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Iconic America: Our Symbols and Stories with David Rubenstein is a production of Show of Force, DMR Productions, and WETA Washington, D.C. David M. Rubenstein is the host and executive...

United Daughters of the Confederacy's Lost Soldiers
Clip: Episode 7 | 1m 59sVideo has Closed Captions
This clip takes a look at The United Daughters of the Confederacy and the pivotal role that they played in memorializing Confederate soldiers. This organization, originally comprising female relatives of Civil War soldiers who fought for The South, was instrumental in propagandizing the war and reframing its origins by coining phrases such as “The War of Northern aggression.”
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Our Symbols and Stories
David Rubenstein examines the history of America through some of its most iconic symbols, objects and places, in conversation with historical thinkers, community members and other experts. Together, they dive deep into each symbol’s history, using them as a gateway to understanding America’s past and present.Providing Support for PBS.org
Learn Moreabout PBS online sponsorship- The women of the South were in the forefront to memorialize the Confederate veterans.
There's a story told by a federal soldier right after the war and he said, "The Confederate soldiers themselves "are reconciled to the results of the clash of arms."
I think that's how he put it, but the women of the South are bitter and would continue the war on.
The United Daughters of the Confederacy, they were the ones that went out and decorated the graves and started the cemeteries and began the movements to put up memorials and monuments.
These monuments represented a grave marker for the people of the time whose husbands and sons went off to war and never came back.
- I learned a little bit about one of the founding members of The Daughters of the Confederacy whose name was Helen Plane.
She was a Civil War widow.
She was also a Klan sympathizer, but strikes me that much of her fervor might have had initially to do with a sense of personal grief.
"I lost a husband.
"I want to redeem whatever it was "I believe he stood for."
Whether or not that jives with historical fact or political fact.
- [Narrator] The United Daughters of Confederacy became probably the greatest propaganda organization this country has ever seen.
- They literally will create censor boards, a rubric, for determining what kinds of textbooks could go into schools.
It had to talk about the war of Northern aggression.
You had to frame slavery in a particular way.
This reimagining of what the Civil War was.
That only is allowed to gain currency and become part of the dominant narrative because white northerners are willing to go along with it.
An Alternative Rationalization for the Civil War
Video has Closed Captions
Hasan Jeffries explains why some Southerners try to reframe the causes of the Civil War. (3m 2s)
Confederate Monuments as a Constant Reminder of Separatism
Video has Closed Captions
Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith discusses Stone Mountain's psychological toll on Black people (27s)
Meet Stone Mountain Memorial Association's Black Chairman
Video has Closed Captions
The head of Stone Mountain Memorial Association discusses plans for the monument's future. (5m 38s)
Pushback in the Immediate Aftermath of Integration
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Gloria Brown discusses the unfulfilled promises of integration. (23s)
Video has Closed Captions
Should Confederate leaders remain on places like Stone Mountain, or should they be erased? (31s)
Providing Support for PBS.org
Learn Moreabout PBS online sponsorshipIconic America: Our Symbols and Stories with David Rubenstein is a production of Show of Force, DMR Productions, and WETA Washington, D.C. David M. Rubenstein is the host and executive...