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The United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) is a sororal association dedicated to honoring the memory of those who served and died in service to the Confederate States of America (CSA). UDC began as the National Association of the Daughters of the Confederacy, organized in 1894 by Caroline Meriwether Goodlett and Anna Davenport Raines. It traces its lineage to older associations such as the Daughters of the Confederacy in Missouri and the Ladies’ Auxiliary of the Confederate Soldiers Home in Tennessee. The National Association changed its name to the UDC in 1895 and was incorporated under the laws of the District of Columbia in 1919. Its motto is “Love, Live, Pray, Think, Dare”.

Contents 1 Membership 2 Objectives 3 Headquarters 4 Activities 5 McPherson controversy 6 Confederate Memorial Hall 7 See also 8 External links 9 References

Membership

Membership in UDC is open to women at least 16 years old who are of lineal or collateral blood descent from men and women who served honorably in the Army, Navy, or Civil Service of the CSA or are current or former members of UDC.

Membership is through a local chapter usually where the prospective member resides. Local chapters come under the auspices of the state or "Division".

There are currently 33 states with active chapters.

Objectives

The objectives of the organization are Historical, Educational, Benevolent, Memorial and Patriotic: ¹

1. To collect and preserve the material necessary for a truthful history of the American Civil War and to protect, preserve, and mark the places made historic by Confederate valor
2. To assist descendants of worthy Confederates in securing a proper education
3. To fulfill the sacred duty of benevolence toward the survivors of the War and those dependent upon them
4. To honor the memory of those who served and those who fell in the service of the Confederate States of America
5. To record the part played during the War by Southern women, including their patient endurance of hardship, their patriotic devotion during the struggle, and their untiring efforts during the post-War reconstruction of the South
6. To cherish the ties of friendship among the members of the Organization

Headquarters

The headquarters of the UDC, Memorial Hall, is located in Richmond, Virginia. The United Daughters of Confederacy collects and preserves rare books, documents, diaries, letters, and other papers of historical importance that relate to the American Civil War period. The collection is kept in Goodlett Memorial Library at the headquarters.

Activities

During World War I, they supported 70 hospital beds at the American Military Hospital at Neuilly-sur-Seine, France and contributed $82,069 for French and Belgian orphans. At home, the United Daughters of the Confederacy's members purchased $24,843,368 worth of war bonds and savings stamps. They also donated $841,676 dollars to the Red Cross.

The United Daughters of the Confederacy have placed memorials to General Robert E. Lee and General Thomas Jonathan "Stonewall" Jackson in the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. They were placed in 1957. These memorials consist of two tracery windows depicting episodes in the lives of each of the generals.

During World War II the organization assisted the National Nursing Association by donating financially to the student nurses until the Bolton Act, which created the first Cadet Nurse Corps, was passed by the United States Congress. The United Daughters of Confederacy also donated ambulances for use at European battle sites and a blood plasma unit through the Red Cross. They were commended for their outstanding contributions to the war by the Red Cross.

The Daughters of the Confederacy opposed Brown v. Board of Education, the U.S. Supreme Court decision that formally desegregated public schools. In response, it pushed to rename an all-white public school after Nathan Bedford Forrest, Civil War hero and founder of the Ku Klux Klan.²

The United Daughters of the Confederacy offers a number of scholarships including the Annabella Drummond McMath Scholarship, which helps women over the age of 30 begin or continue their education, to those who meet certain criteria.

McPherson controversy

During a radio interview in 1999 the Civil War historian James M. McPherson offended many southern heritage organizations³ when he associated the (UDC) with the neo-confederate movement and described board members of the Museum of the Confederacy in Richmond, Virginia as "undoubtedly neo-Confederate". He further said that the UDC and their equivalent for male descendants, the Sons of Confederate Veterans, have "white supremacy" as their "thinly veiled agendas." The incident outraged some members of the UDC and the SCV who both claim that the two organizations do not have a racist agenda whatsoever. Some SCV and UDC chapters subsequently urged their members to boycott his books and engaged in letter-writing campaigns.⁴ In response to this boycott, McPherson stated that that he did not mean to imply that all SCV or UDC chapters or anyone who belongs to them promote white supremacist agenda. He further stated that [only] some of these people have a hidden agenda.⁴

Confederate Memorial Hall

Recently, the United Daughters of the Confederacy has been engaged in a legal battle with Vanderbilt University, located in Nashville, Tennessee. The name of a building, entitled Confederate Memorial Hall, was removed, in September 2002, despite the protests of the UDC, which had funded approximately a third of the cost, when it was built in 1935. After a lengthy legal process, it was ruled, on May 3, 2005⁵, that Vanderbilt University would be forced to pay a sizeable sum to the UDC if the 'Confederate' aspect of the name was removed from the building. Due to the court ruling, Vanderbilt University has decided that it will not remove the Confederate title from the face of the building. However, Vanderbilt continues to refer to the building as simply Memorial Hall.

See also

• Grand Army of the Republic
• McGavock Confederate Cemetery
• Military Order of the Stars and Bars
• Naming the American Civil War
• Sons of Confederate Veterans
• Southern Cross of Honor

External links

• Official website

References

Wikipedia content modification information:

• This page was last modified on 7 November 2008, at 21:35.

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