Research Guides: *Religion: REL 3152: Race &amp; Religion in the U.S.

Religion of the Lost Cause: An example from Florida

For class, you read the scholarly journal article:

Charles Reagan Wilson, “The Religion of the Lost Cause: Ritual and Organization of the Southern Religion, 1865-1920,” Journal of Southern History 46, no. 2 (May 1980): 219-238.

By following Wilson's footnotes, we see some of the evidence he used to support his argument. These primary sources include historical newspaper articles; meeting minutes from social, professional, and political organizations; songs; descriptions of public ceremonies, often published in popular magazines; autobiographies; and personal correspondence.

In the Special Collections & Archives at FSU Libraries, we have an example of a similar primary source:

Lest we Forget: Memorial Address delivered before Anna Dummett Chapter, 1089, United Daughters of the Confederacy
A program from a meeting of the United Daughters of the Confederacy in St. Augustine, Florida. October 1, 1907.
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Susan Bradford Eppes Papers, Special Collections & Archives, Florida State University Libraries, Tallahassee, Florida. http://purl.fcla.edu/fsu/MSS_86-17

Follow the link to see the full, digitized program. As you examine the pages, ask yourself the following questions:

What do we know about this organization, the United Daughters of the Confederacy?

When we encounter a new name or organization in our research, Wikipedia is always a good place to start. There we learn that the United Daughters of the Confederacy is a women's association founded in 1894 to commemorate Confederate Civil War soldiers, fund monuments to them, and promote Lost Cause ideology and white supremacy. Wikipedia offers citations for additional reading.
If we want to learn more from academic sources, we can search for United Daughters of the Confederacy on the FSU Library website. This gives us a selection of books and article both about and written by the UDC. Note the dates of publications to help distinguish between primary sources from the UDC and academic sources written by historians and other scholars. I recommend the book Dixie's Daughters: the United Daughters of the Confederacy and the Preservation of Confederate Culture by historian Karen Cox if you want to read more about the UDC and their promotion of Lost Cause ideology.

Who wrote the Address in this program?

The title page of the program says that the address was delivered by The Historian. On the next page, a dedication to the memory of two Confederate Generals, we see that Sister Esther Carlotta is the Historian of the Anna Dummett Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy.
Sister Esther Carlotta doesn't have a Wikipedia page to learn more, so I searched for "esther carlotta" on the FSU Libraries website. I got lucky and found the 2012 Masters Thesis of a history student, Barrett Codieck, which describes Sister Esther Carlotta as a nun in the Episcopal Church in St. Augustine, Florida. She served in the early 1900s as president of the Florida division of the UDC. I also found her mentioned in several historical Florida newspapers, also acting in her role as head of the Florida UDC.

Who was the intended audience for the Address?

As stated on the title page of the program, this address was delivered on October 7, 1910, to the Anna Dummett Chapter, 1089, of the United Daughters of the Confederacy. We can also safely assume that the audience consisted of members of this UDC chapter. A Google search reveals that the Anna Dummett Chapter was located in St. Augustine, Florida, so we can assume the meeting took place there.
We might be able to find more information, such as the names of people in attendance, in the meeting minutes of the chapter. I couldn't locate these minutes, but the State Archives of Florida has copies of the application materials for all chapters of the UDC Florida Division. The State Archives also has the records of the Anna Jackson Chapter, 224, founded in Tallahassee in 1898.

This program seems to have had another audience in mind. On the cover, it says at the bottom, "Sold for Loring Monument Fund." Apparently copies of this program were for sale to raise money for this monument, so the address may have been read by people not at this UDC meeting. The Loring Monument was indeed built in St. Augustine in 1920, an obelisk dedicated to Confederate General William Loring. Loring's ashes were removed from a New York cemetery and buried under the obelisk when it was first installed. The monument was removed in August 2020, and Loring's ashes were moved to a local cemetery.

What kind of language does the author use, and how is it significant?

In her address, Sister Esther Carlotta argues that the Civil War was not about slavery. Slavery, she claims, would have gone extinct on its own. Instead, Sister Carlotta alleges that the North used slavery as a pretext to deny the South its right to self-government. The author frequently equates the South's fight against tyranny with that of the George Washington and the American Revolution.
In making her argument, Sister Esther Carlotta uses religious language to frame the Confederate soldiers, and calls on Southern women to carry on their memory. She uses words like sacred and pure to describe the cause, entreats the attendees to eulogize and memorialize the dead. She describes the Confederate flag as holy and baptized in blood and tears, and joins Robert E. Lee with George Washington as Avatars of the nation.

Why do you think the author uses this type of language?
Do you think it was effective in 1907?
Is it still effective today?

What else happened at this meeting?

On the last page of the published address we see the full program for the October 7, 1907 meeting. The meeting started with a song to Maryland, followed by a remembrance of Anna Dummett, for whom the chapter is named. Then a reading about one of General Robert E. Lee's battles. Thiw was followed by an honor roll of Confederate soldiers related to members of the chapter. The roll of members was then called, followed by another reading, this time a poem dedicated to the soldiers of St. Augustine. The Historian, Sister Esther Carlotta, then read her address. Finally, the meeting ended with two anthems, one for the state, "Suwanee River," and one for the South, "Dixie," accompanied by piano and violin.

What do you find interesting about the program?
Does these meeting activities remind you of other kinds of social gatherings?

Bonus: How did this program end up in the FSU Archives?

The inscription at the top of the first page gives us a clue. It reads: "Cordial Christmas greetings to you and my Daughters of Anna Jackson Chapter from your friend and President, Sr. E. C. 1913."
It seems that Sister Esther Carlotta, the author of the Address, sent this program to a member of the UDC Anna Jackson Chapter, here in Tallahassee, for Christmas in 1913. The FSU Library webpage for this document says it comes from the Susan Bradford Eppes Papers, 1850-1949. So we can guess that either Susan Bradford Eppes or one of her family members received the program.
The Susan Bradford Eppes Papers is a collection of personal papers donated to FSU Libraries by Joseph Cushman, a former FSU history professor. Cushman was an officer in the Monticello Association, a group of descendants of Thomas Jefferson dedicated to maintaining Jefferson family graveyard at Monticello, Jefferson's primary plantation. The Eppes family are Tallahassee descendants of Thomas Jefferson, and Susan Bradford Eppes was a long-time member of the association.

How to Read Primary Sources

As we did with the UDC program above, ask yourself these questions as you examine and interpret primary sources.

Who is the author or creator of this source?
How do the author's background, social status, profession, ideology, personal interests, or historical context influence this source?
Who do you think was the intended audience?
Why do you think this was source created?
What do you know about the time and place in which this source was created?
How does the historical context help you to understand the meaning of this source?
What other evidence exists to either corroborate this source or to provide alternative perspectives?

Selected Primary Sources

Primary sources can be complex, and require a bit of creativity and background research to interpret. If you're up for a challenge, try one of these sources from famous people in United States history.

"The Negro Christianized," by Cotton Mather. 1706
This famous Puritan minister published in 1706 The Negro Christianized: An essay to excite and assist the good work, the instruction of Negro-servants in Christianity. The work is quite long. Try working with just the first 10 pages.
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Digital text provided by the University of Michigan.
The Poems of Phillis Wheatley
Poetry can be a challenging but rewarding format to interpret historically. Think carefully about who Phillis Wheatley was as you read her poems. I recommend combining the short poem "On Being Brought from Africa to America," originally published in 1773 and on page 12 of this collected edition, with Wheatley's letter to Rev. Samson Occum, published in the Connecticut Gazette in 1774.
The Confession of Nat Turner
Download the PDF to see a facsimile of Nat Turner's "confession" as published in 1831. The confession itself begins on page 7.
“Our Hearts are Sickened”: Letter from Chief John Ross of the Cherokee, Georgia, 1836
Chief John Ross was the principal chief of the Cherokee in Georgia; in this 1836 letter addressed to “the Senate and House of Representatives,” Ross protested as fraudulent the Treaty of New Echota that forced the Cherokee out of Georgia.
"Walker's Appeal, in Four Articles...," by David Walker, 1829.
David Walker, a Black abolitionist living in Boston, Massachusetts, used the U.S. Postal Service to circulate his call for "Coloured Citizens of the World" to unite against slavery.
"VIRGINIA REBELLION. John Brown sentenced to Death." New York Times, November 3, 1859
This article from the New York Times in 1859 reports on the conviction of John Brown in Virginia. John Brown's final speech is included. The speech begins in the first column with "I have, may it please the Court," and ends with "Now, I have done." Consider both the speech and its context in the newspaper article.
The Souls of Black Folks by W. E. B. DuBois. 1907
Consider Chapter I: Of Our Spiritual Strivings.

Primary Source Collections Online

These databases include digital versions of primary sources that may also be useful for your projects.

American Antiquarian Society Historical Periodicals (AAS) (EBSCO) This link opens in a new window
This database includes several collections of magazines published in the United States during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Select one of the collections of religious periodicals and search for descriptions of race and non-white peoples and culture.
- Baptists, Quakers, and Independent Church Periodicals, 1797-1881
- Catholic, Lutheran, Methodist, and Episcopal Periodicals, 1797-1904
- Congregational, Presbyterian, and Reformed Church Periodicals, 1803-1902
Abbreviation: aas
Vendor: EBSCO
Coverage: 1684-1912
Subjects: History
Types: Historical / Primary Sources
African American Newspapers, 1827–1998 This link opens in a new window
This database includes several newspapers published by and for African American communities in the United States. Try searching for news about religious life, including mentions of church, faith, prayer, God, and other spiritual terms. Look for the ways in which these topic intersect with discussions of race, segregation, equality, and politics.
Abbreviation: afamnp
Vendor: NewsBank
Coverage: 1827-1998
Subjects: African-American Studies, Communication, History
Type: Historical / Primary Sources, Newspapers and Newswires

Guide Authors

This lesson plan was developed by Adam Beauchamp for an in-person instruction session to 50 students in REL 3152: Race & Religion in the U.S., taught by Dr. Jamil Drake in September 2021.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.