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Women of the Confederacy Monument, Raleigh, N.C.

Women of the Cofederacy_web

The Women of the Confederacy Monument sits facing Morgan Street, apart from the other memorials on a scuplture-crowded Capitol Square. Many visitors probably never even notice it. So, Flashback Friday will visit the monument this week and reveal its story.

Women of the Cofederacy_back_web

No post date on this week’s card — Apparently it was never mailed. I wonder if Shirley’s ‘folks’ ever received it?

Hello Folks — We are here shopping this weekend & having a swell time — Sort of a second honeymoon. You should see all the nice things we bought — Will write you later & tell you all about it. We’re staying at the Sir Walter Raleigh Hotel [sic].
Love, Shirley

Shirley may have picked up this postcard in the Sir Walter lobby on her weekend shopping spree. She doesn’t mention the monument in her note, and I wonder if she and her husband even saw it on Capitol Square. I doubt it.

The Women of the Confederacy Monument — What It Is, and How It Came to Be

In the early 20th century, memorials to the ‘Lost Cause’ of the Confederacy were being erected on courthouse squares and in cemeteries throughout the South.

By 1912 there were already three such monuments on Capitol Square — the state’s official Confederate Monument (1895) which stands at the head of Hillsboro Street; the Zebulon Vance Monument (1900) which honors North Carolina’s Civil War governor; and the statue of Henry Lawson Wyatt (1912), who was the first North Carolinian to fall at the outset of the war.

At the time, many in North Carolina felt that the women of the Confederacy should also be so honored.

When the state legislature failed to appropriate funds to build a monument dedicated to the women of the Confederacy, a North Carolina Confederate veteran, Ashley Horne, offered the state $10,000 to construct a memorial. Horne wished to recognize the suffering and hardship endured by women during this tragic period in American history.

State Archives of North Carolina

State Archives of North Carolina photo

This is an early proposal for the Women of the Confederacy Monument.

Ultimately, the General Assembly accepted Horne’s generous gift and hired the well-known American sculptor, Henry Augustus Lukeman, to create the monument. Lukeman was active in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and specialized in war memorials and historical subjects.

To complete the setting for the bronze statue and bas-relief panels, architect Henry Bacon was selected as designer. Bacon, who grew up in Wilmington, is best known for his design of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC.

Meanwhile, in Raleigh …

The seven foot tall monument, made possible through a private donation, honors the hardships and sacrifices of North Carolina women during the Civil War. A bronze sculpture depicts an older woman, a grandmotherly figure, holding a book as she sits next to a young boy holding a sword. It sits on top of a granite base with bronze bas-relief plaques. The woman, representing the women in the South as the custodians of history, imparts the history of the Civil War to the boy. The two relief plaques portray the Civil War; the eastern side shows soldiers departing for war and leaving their loved ones behind, while the western side depicts a weary or injured Confederate soldier returning home.

– Courtesy the Commemorative Landscapes webpage

The sculpture sits atop a base of Mount Airy granite. It was the first monument on Capitol Square to be erected  in an architectural plaza-like setting.

State Archives of North Carolina photo

State Archives of North Carolina photo

This photo was taken of the monument soon after its dedication in 1914.

The Women of the Confederacy Monument was dedicated on June 10, 1914. Gov. Locke Craig delivered the dedicatory address. In the typical oratory of the period Gov. Craig described the “epic” significance of the monument’s components with its “themes of heroism and devotion” and the “inheritance of children of the South … from the sacrifice of their grandmothers to the swords of their fathers.”
State Archives of North Carolina photo

State Archives of North Carolina photo

This photo of the Women of the Confederacy Monument dates to the mid 1930s. Notice how much the bronzes had corroded in the 20+ years since its dedication in 1914.

Given all of Gov. Craig’s sentimental accolades in 1914, the Women of the Confederacy Monument is noteworthy, too, in that it was the first memorial in North Carolina erected to honor Southern women, and is the the only monument dedicated to women on Capitol Square.

State Archives of North Carolina

State Archives of North Carolina photo

The Women of the Confederacy Monument as it appears today. All the monuments on Capitol Square were cleaned and restored to their original appearance about 20 years ago.

 

The Women of the Confederacy Monument is a part of the Capitol Square Historic District.  

 

Our Flashback Friday ‘white border linen’ postcard this week was published locally by the Raleigh News Agency. It was printed by Tichnor Brothers of Boston, under the trade name ‘Tichnor Quality Views.’

Tichnor Brothers, Inc.   (1912-1987) Boston and Cambridge, MA

A major publisher and printer of a wide variety of postcards types. Their view-cards were produced on a national level. Their photochomes went under the trade name Lusterchrome. They also produced an early Tichnor Gloss series in offset lithography that was so heavily retouched they floated somewhere between being artist drawn and being a photograph. The company was sold in 1987 to Paper Majic.

Tichnor Bros logo

 

“Flashback Friday” is a weekly feature of Goodnight, Raleigh! in which we showcase vintage postcards depicting our historic capital city. We hope you enjoy this week end treat!