Summary Of The Lost Cause Myth

The second interpretation regarding the popularity of the Lost Cause is that it gained prominence during the Reconstruction Era. This viewpoint is given by Sarah E Gardner in Blood & irony : Southern white women's narratives of the Civil War, 1861-1937, which focuses on the role of white women in the spread of the Lost Cause myth. In it, she states “Reconstruction left white southerners with remarkably little to claim in the present. Many could, however, see hope for the future, and they could at least take comfort in a resplendent antebellum past that white southerners were constantly creating and revising.” Finally, the third analysis of the Lost Cause myth builds on the two previous ones, but also claims that the Lost Cause myth was popularized …show more content…
Stuart Towns writes that “the rhetoric of the Lost Cause spread its net widely, capturing the culture of the white South in so many of its various manifestations. These speakers and their Lost Cause rhetoric about the postwar era fostered and reinforced the demagogues and racists of the mid-twentieth century as much as or more than did their oratory about the war itself.” Additionally, this point of view also highlights the continuance of the Lost Cause myth today: Towns writing that “the breadth and depth of the Lost Cause formed and shaped the South for decades to come— many would say even into the twenty-first century.” This paper aligns most closely with the beliefs of W. Stuart Towns. The Major Components of the Lost Cause Myth Before diving into why the Lost Cause myth is so popular, it will be useful to define the core beliefs of the myth. The term “Lost Cause” originates in the 1866 history book The Lost Cause by Edward A. Pollard, and embodies many of the main characteristics of the Lost Cause myth. First, Lost Cause believers deny that the Civil War was fought over slavery, but rather understand it as a war fought to protect the rights and liberties of the Southern states against the tyranny of the

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