What is Lost Cause (of the Confederacy)

The American Civil War, which occurred over 150 years ago, changed the social, economic, and political nature of the United States. Over the past century, the United States commemorated the Civil War with the development of many national historical battlefield parks. However, the struggle between the different interest groups continue to plague a unified vision of the event. It became clear that commemorating the Civil War is not only about the past but also about the present and the future. Identifying the events that shape the dominant memory and recognizing the undercurrents that challenge the official memory of any event are important for understanding the dynamics in memorialization. What we see on the commemorative landscape today is only one frame of a long filmstrip of changing memory and meaning – one that will be very different a decade or two from today. Understanding the concept of memory is an important vehicle for answering this question.