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United Daughters of the Confederacy

The United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) is an American neo-Confederate[1] hereditary association for female descendants of Confederate Civil War soldiers engaging in the commemoration of these ancestors, the funding of monuments to them, and the promotion of the pseudohistorical Lost Cause ideology and corresponding white supremacy.[2][3][4][5][6]

This article is about a neo-Confederate hereditary women's association. For other uses, see UDC (disambiguation).

Abbreviation

UDC

September 10, 1894 (1894-09-10)

54-0631483

19,000

Jinny Widowski

UDC Magazine

Children of the Confederacy

National Association of the Daughters of the Confederacy

Established in Nashville, Tennessee in 1894, the group venerated the Ku Klux Klan during the Jim Crow era, and in 1926, a local chapter funded the construction of a monument to the Klan.[7][8][9] According to the Institute for Southern Studies, the UDC "elevated [the Klan] to a nearly mythical status. It dealt in and preserved Klan artifacts and symbology. It even served as a sort of public relations agency for the terrorist group."[7]


The group's headquarters are in the Memorial to the Women of the Confederacy building in Richmond, Virginia, the former capital city of the Confederate States. In May 2020 the building was damaged by fire during the George Floyd protests.[10][11]

Formation and purpose[edit]

The group was founded on September 10, 1894, by Caroline Meriwether Goodlett and Anna Davenport Raines as the National Association of the Daughters of the Confederacy. The first chapter was formed in Nashville.[12] The name was soon changed to United Daughters of the Confederacy.[3] Their stated intention was to "tell of the glorious fight against the greatest odds a nation ever faced, that their hallowed memory should never die." Their primary activity was to support the construction of Confederate memorials.[13] The UDC has said that its members also support U.S. troops and honor veterans of all U.S. wars.[2]


In 1896, the organization established the Children of the Confederacy to impart similar values to younger generations through a mythical depiction of the Civil War and Confederacy. According to historian Kristina DuRocher, "Like the KKK's children's groups, the UDC utilized the Children of the Confederacy to impart to the rising generations their own white-supremacist vision of the future."[14] The UDC denies assertions that it promotes white supremacy.[15]


The communications studies scholar W. Stuart Towns notes the UDC's role "in demanding textbooks for public schools that told the story of the war and the Confederacy from a definite southern point of view." He adds that their work is one of the "essential elements [of] perpetuating Confederate mythology."[16]


The UDC was incorporated on July 18, 1919. Its headquarters is in the Memorial Building to the Women of the Confederacy, Richmond, Virginia, built in the 1950s.[17][18]

(1864–1929), physician and educator

Annie Lowrie Alexander

schoolteacher and first African-American member of the UDC in Georgia

Georgia Benton

(1870–1941), First Lady of North Carolina and first female president of the North Carolina Railroad

Fanny Yarborough Bickett

(1859–1927), academic and clubwoman

Elizabeth Lee Bloomstein

(1875–1939), social worker

Lena Northern Buckner

(1867–1909), teacher and author

Frances Boyd Calhoun

(1835–1918), author, newspaper editor, librarian, university dean

Florence Anderson Clark

(1825–1915), political hostess and activist in Alabama and Washington, DC.[30]

Virginia Clay-Clopton

(1865–1944), writer and civic leader

Sarah Johnson Cocke

(1869–1947), author

Margaret Wootten Collier

(1861–1930), president, U.D.C.; author and clubwoman

Cola Barr Craig

(1882–1965), writer, teacher, folklorist

Amanda Julia Estill

(1826–1912), socialite and Confederate spy

Sarah Ewing Sims Carter Gaut

(1833–1914), founding president of the UDC

Caroline Meriwether Goodlett

(1859–1931), author[60]

Ethel Hillyer Harris

(1867–1940), president, Alabama Federation of Women's Clubs

Laura Montgomery Henderson

(1863–1950), American educator, the first Dean of Women at Montana State College.[61]

Una B. Herrick

(1869–1961), historian, painter, anti-suffragist, and white supremacist

Mary Hilliard Hinton

(1862–1944), teacher and designer of the Arkansas state flag

Willie Kavanaugh Hocker

(1875–1942), First Lady of North Carolina[62]

Margaret Gardner Hoey

(1876–1967), politician and member of the Arizona House of Representatives

Vernettie O. Ivy

(1916–1993), electrical engineer and the first woman engineer at NACA, the predecessor to NASA.[63]

Kitty O'Brien Joyner

(1848–1935), president of the Texas State Historical Association (1915–1925).[64]

Adele Briscoe Looscan

(1861–1951), educator, social reformer, and ordained Baptist minister

Lena B. Mathes

(1885–1948), politician and first woman elected to the North Carolina State Senate

Gertrude Dills McKee

(1880–1955), painter, humanitarian, and gardener

Corinne Melchers

(1891–1971), newspaper columnist, Jackson Clarion-Ledger, pro-segregation activist.[65][66]

Florence Sillers Ogden

(?–1943), author, editor

Elizabeth Fry Page

(1842–1920), founder and president of the North Carolina Division & Cape Fear Chapter of the UDC

Eliza Hall Nutt Parsley

(1869–1947), second editor of the Confederate Veteran; president of the Nashville No. 1 chapter of the UDC from 1927 to 1930.[67]

Edith D. Pope

(1840–1912), writer

Eugenia Dunlap Potts

(1853–1915), founding vice-president of the UDC

Anna Davenport Raines

(1922–2014), second African American to be recognized as a "Real Daughter of the Confederacy"

Mattie Clyburn Rice

journalist

Lisa Richardson

(1862–1917), historian and propagandist for the Ku Klux Klan

Laura Martin Rose

(1851–1928), educator, writer, and White Supremacist activist

Mildred Lewis Rutherford

(1846–1917), president, Georgia WCTU; president, UDC for Greene County

Jennie Hart Sibley

(1866–1946), State Librarian of Mississippi

Rosa Lee Tucker

(1912–1977), photographer, ceramicist, and historian.[68]

Panthea Twitty

(1840s–1909), author, journalist, editor

Rosa Kershaw Walker

(1885–1969), First Lady of North Carolina

Fay Webb-Gardner

(1827–1913), nurse and hospital foundress

Jane Renwick Smedburg Wilkes

(1842–1911), journalist and publisher

Angelina Virginia Winkler

(1869–1932), educator, journalist, and stenographer

Rosa Louise Woodberry

lineage society leader[69]

Lynn Forney Young

List of monuments erected by the United Daughters of the Confederacy

List of women's organizations

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Official website