Confederate Memorial Hall Museum, New Orleans

Confederate Memorial Hall, Howard Memorial Library's Annex
Confederate Battle Flag before the "Battle Abbey of the South"
Confederate Memorial Hall Museum beside the Ogden Museum of Southern Art

Dublin Core

Title

Confederate Memorial Hall Museum, New Orleans

Description

Although not a monument, the Confederate Memorial Hall Museum supports similar narratives to more traditional monuments and arises from similar circumstances. Constructed in 1890 and opened in 1891, the museum is home to the second-largest collection of Confederate artifacts and memorabilia. [1] The collection includes uniforms, flags, weapons, and other personal artifacts donated by Confederate veterans and important figures. The Confederate Memorial Hall Museum was added to the National Register of Historic Places on June 11, 1975. [2] The mission statement of the museum is to collect, preserve, and exhibit Civil War memorabilia in a "non ideological" manner. What this statement hides is that the museum is highly ideological and supports the narrative of the Lost Cause which conjures an erroneous image of the South during and after the Civil War in which the South is not responsible for the evils of slavery and secession was a necessary action done in a manner similar to the American Revolution rather than an attempt to ensure the continuation of slavery as an institution. Historian John Bardes has written astutely about how the museum covertly pursues its goals in the manner it creates its exhibits.

Bardes observed during New Orleans' Lee monument removal process in May 2017, "few took note of the stately brick building behind the warring throngs of protests and counter-protestors: Confederate Memorial Hall, home to the world's second-largest collection of Confederate artifacts." [3] This is intentional by the museum following the approach of Thomas Nelson Page who pushed for Southerners to take hold of the narrative around the Civil War to portray the South in a positive light and to maintain pre-Civil War racial hierarchies.[4] As noted by Bardes, the museum exhibits numerous pieces of Civil War memorabilia with descriptions that use language to evoke emotional nostalgic responses while giving little historical context. Among the exhibits, no mention is made of secession or the reasoning behind it. Slavery is only mentioned in passing, noting that some free black people owned slaves and noted the recruitment of slaves into the Union Army by General Benjamin Butler who is portrayed as deeply racist. These divisive areas are either whitewashed to depict a noble respectable South while ignoring the immeasurable suffering perpetrated under slavery and the plight of African Americans after the Civil War and today. The museum's mission statement obscures its role as a site that maintains the fictitious Lost Cause narrative in the service of white supremacy.

Placing this museum in the context of this archive identifies its role in the perpetuation of the Lost Cause and expands notions around what constitutes a monument. While much attention has been paid to public open-air monuments to Confederate figures, significantly less public attention has been paid to museums and heritage sites. The museum falls into the same niche as the more traditional monuments but uses a different visual language and takes a different shape.[5] In examining this entry, the viewer can better understand the approaches used to manipulate the public into believing false historical narratives and provide resources in the form of endnotes to further explore the topic.

Creator

Thomas O. Sully and Albert Toledano (Architects); Sully & Toledano, New Orleans, La. (Architectural firm); the Louisiana Historical Association, Joseph A. Chalaron, and Frank T. Howard (Sponsors)

Source

  1. Scott, Mike. "The history stored in Memorial Hall is controversial, but the building has a story of its own". The Times-Picaynue. Accessed November 18, 2021. https://www.nola.com/entertainment_life/home_garden/article_c65c1ede-0714-11eb-bf85-a737637cd1f1.html

  2. "Confederate Memorial Hall," National Park Service, accessed November 18, 2021.

  3. John Bardes, “‘Defend with True Hearts unto Death’: Finding Historical Meaning in Confederate Memorial Hall,” in Southern Cultures 23, no. 4 (2017): 30 and 43.

  4. Page, Thomas Nelson. The Negro. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1904. 111-113.

  5. Young, James E. The Stages of Memory: Reflections on Memorial Art, Loss, and the Spaces Between. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2016. 136-139.

Date

January 8, 1891

Contributor

Jon Hall (2020), Monique Corona (2021), Samuel McMillan (2023)

Language

English

Type

Romanesque revival monument building -- pressed brick, Long Meadow brown stone, cypress wood, and stained glass

Identifier

HIST 402A Fall 2020

Geolocation