What Is The Role Of Reconstruction
Through the United Daughters of the Confederacy and other organizations, they built monuments, made speeches, held commemorations, cared for wounded veterans and widows, and oversaw the writing of school textbooks. Their influence on public perceptions of the period was profound. They helped create the Old South of Gone with the Wind, with its mint juleps, fine houses, beautiful belles, kind masters, and happy slaves. They contributed to the vilification of Reconstruction as an era of corruption, debauchery, and violence. They also unflinchingly portrayed the violent overthrow of democratic reforms as honorable acts that were necessary to ‘redeem’ the