- Franklin Garrett, Atlanta and Environs, Volume II (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1969), 116–17.
- Sheffield Hale, “Presentation: The Atlanta History Center and the Cyclorama,” (Presentation, Atlanta History Center, 2015); Gary Ecelberger, The Day Dixie Died (New York: Thomas Dunne Books, 2010), 229; Hale, “Presentation: The Atlanta History Center and the Cyclorama.”
- Kurtz, The Atlanta Cyclorama, 26; Atlanta Constitution, “The New Cyclorama: ‘The Battle of Atlanta’ Proves Very Popular Here in Atlanta,” February 28, 1892; Atlanta Constitution, “The Battle of Atlanta: This Magnificent Cyclorama Was Being Put Up Yesterday,” February 18, 1892.
- Ecelbarger, The Day Dixie Died, 6–11.
- Andy Ambrose, “Atlanta,” in New Georgia Encyclopedia (August 11, 2015), accessed December 11, 2015, http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/counties-cities-neighborhoods/atlanta; Bridget Cecchini, The Battle of Atlanta Cyclorama as Narrative Indicator of a National Perspective on the Civil War (Master’s Thesis, Rice University, 1998), 9.
- For a meticulous account of the battle, see Gary Ecelbarger, The Day Dixie Died and James McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988). Ecelbarger not-so-jokingly remarks that describing the Battle of Atlanta is a hard task even for the world’s greatest Civil War buff. The primary Union and Confederate armies have names that differ by one word, “the”: Army of Tennessee (Confederate) and Army of the Tennessee (Union). The battle involved a half-failed sneak attack by Confederates, a hurried call for reinforcements by frazzled Union leaders, and at least four brigade and division commanders with the last name Smith. The armies fought from opposite directions on consecutive days. A scene ripe for a Monty Python sketch, had it not been so bloody; Ecelbarger, The Day Dixie Died, 167, 229; “The Troup Hurt House and Degress’ Battery,” in The Battle of Atlanta: A Tour of History and Remembrance (Emory University Digital Scholarship), accessed December 12, 2015, https://battleofatlanta.digitalscholarship.emory.edu/tour/the-battle-of-atlanta/12/; Ecelbarger, The Day Dixie Died, 170–72.
- Ecelbarger, The Day Dixie Died, 185; Kurtz, The Atlanta Cyclorama, 25.
- David Blight, Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2001), 172, 171, 190, 198.
- Sherman hated the press, and made a point of booting them off his campaigns whenever he could. For whatever reason, Davis lucked out; Kurtz, The Atlanta Cyclorama, 24–26.
- Cecchini, The Battle of Atlanta Cyclorama, 68; Indianapolis Sentinel, “Battle of Atlanta: The Opening of the Great Cyclorama in Indianapolis,” June 1, 1888.
- Sheffield Hale, “Presentation: The Atlanta History Center and the Cyclorama.”
- I am working with a slightly modified version of David Blight’s three major visions of Civil War memory: the reconciliationist vision, the white supremacist vision, and the emancipationist vision. Blight argues that all three of these visions were active in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, but that in the end “the forces of reconciliation overwhelmed the emancipationist vision in the national culture, how the inexorable drive for reunion both used and trumped race” (Race and Reunion, 2). My argument here is that in the South, the white supremacist vision of the War (which I mostly refer to as the Lost Cause vision) often trumped both reconciliationist and emancipationist memories, especially during the 1890s. Blight makes a similar argument in chapter 8 of Race and Reunion, “The Lost Cause and Causes Not Lost.” The UDC in particular was instrumental to spreading the Lost Cause to virtually every corner of the South. For a full study of their efforts, and of the gendered politics that came with Lost Cause ideology, see Karen Cox, Dixie’s Daughters: The United Daughters of the Confederacy and the Preservation of Confederate Culture (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2003). Blight, Race and Reunion, 268.
- The statue of Lee was the first in a series of Confederate monuments lining a grand avenue in Richmond that was subsequently named “Monument Avenue.” Garrett, Atlanta and Environs Volume II, 310–26.
- Ibid, 359–62.
- The possible exception is Oakland Cemetery, where thousands of dead Confederates lay guarded by the Lion of the Confederacy, a statue carved in 1894, two years after the Cyclorama arrived. In 1916, the UDC tried to commission a relief of confederate greats at Stone Mountain, a massive rock face twenty-five miles northeast of Atlanta, but the project fell apart in the 1920s; Pamphlet for the Atlanta Cyclorama, undated (ca. 1900), Folder 5, Box 1, Battle of Atlanta Cyclorama Collection, MSS1023, Kenan Research Center Atlanta History Center, Atlanta, GA; Atlanta Constitution, “The Cyclorama: As Viewed by a South Carolinian, Confederate Veteran,” August 6, 1898; Atlanta Constitution, “Battle of Atlanta Has Been Bought By Two Well-Known Atlantans: It Will be Added to the Park,” August 10, 1893; Atlanta Constitution, “More Than 50,000 Persons Saw Grant Park Cyclorama,” January 1, 1911; “Henry Grady Monument,” in The Atlanta Public Arts Fund, accessed December 13, 2015: http://www.atlantapublicart.com/henry-grady.php.
- One park pamphlet from the early 1900s did admit that the Union “repulsed” Confederate forces, but not before it called Manigault’s assault “victorious.” Atlanta Constitution, “Story of Cyclorama Now at Grant Park,” July 20, 1898; Pamphlet for the Atlanta Cyclorama, undated (ca. 1900), Folder 5, Box 1, Battle of Atlanta Cyclorama Collection, MSS1023, Kenan Research Center Atlanta History Center, Atlanta, GA; Atlanta Constitution, “The Cyclorama is Now Open: No Visitor Should Leave the City Without Seeing It,” July 20, 1898.
- Edward L. Ayers, The Promise of the New South: Life After Reconstruction (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), 436–37.
- Kevin Kruse, White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of Modern Conservatism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007), 35–40. White flight—white families evacuating Atlanta proper and rushing to white suburban areas to avoid mixed-race neighborhoods—didn’t really pick up speed until the early 1950s. When it did, though, it was a full-blown exodus; Loc. Cit. The legal argument: a primary was a single-party, and therefore private, event.
- Atlanta Constitution, “Plans of Downing for Big Cyclorama Win in Park Board,” August 12, 1920; Atlanta Constitution, “New Cyclorama Building Will Be Formally Opened,” October 1, 1921. Boy scouts and schoolchildren were also present at the ceremony, a nod to the UDC’s effort to indoctrinate white youth into Lost Cause ideology.
- It is interesting to note that the Cyclorama’s renovation was funded by a federal agency created during the New Deal. Just at the Cyclorama first came from a northern studio, here again northern (or at least federal) money helped maintain a painting that had become a symbol of the Lost Cause. As we see later, Gone With the Wind is another example of this trend: Margaret Mitchell’s book was a success, but it was the film—made by filmmakers in Hollywood with no southern affiliation—that drew crowds to Atlanta and bolstered attendance for the Cyclorama. Sheffield Hale, “Presentation: The Atlanta History Center and the Cyclorama”; Loc. Cit; Atlanta Constitution, “Will Become One of the South’s Greatest Attractions,” September 18, 1938; Atlanta Constitution, “‘Wonder of South,’ Hartsfield’s Plans for Cyclorama,” December 10, 1937; Atlanta Constitution, “Will Become One of the South’s Greatest Attractions,” September 18, 1938.
- Atlanta Constitution, “‘Wonder of South,’ Hartsfield’s Plans for Cyclorama.” Kurtz, who shared Hartsfield’s sentiments, was less veiled. Referring to a guide at the Cyclorama who claimed the painting commemorated the “collective heroism of the confederates,” Kurtz wrote in his personal notes: “needless to say he misused the [painting] here, for if it commemorates anything at all, it’s not the heroism of the confederates. That’s why it irked the good Daughters—they sensed the implications.” Kurtz is referring to members of the UDC whom he observed “heckling the lecturer” at the Cyclorama, demanding a Lost Cause interpretation.
- Kilowatt News, “The Cyclorama,” January, 1945, Box 1, Battle of Atlanta Cyclorama Collection, MSS1023, Kenan Research Center Atlanta History Center, Atlanta, GA; Garrett, Atlanta and Environs, Volume II, 939–42; Atlanta Constitution, “Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh Marvel at Cyclorama,” December 16, 1939.
- DeKalb New Era, “The Cyclorama,” February 9, 1939; Atlanta Constitution, “There’s a Union Suit at Cyclorama But No Clothes ‘Johnny’ Wore,” August 4, 1946; Ernie Pyle, “The Roving Reporter,” in Los Angeles Daily News, March 1, 1939; Atlanta Constitution, “Confederate Vet Takes ‘Whack’ With Cane at Yankee in Cyclorama,” Aug 7, 1939.
- Kruse, White Flight, 26; Atlanta Constitution, “Atlantans Back Hartsfield, Want Costumes of the 60s,” November 17, 1939; Atlanta Constitution, “Battle Relics Being Sought for Cyclorama: Three New Flags of Confederacy Will Be Installed,” November 26, 1940; Atlanta Constitution, “City to Observe Anniversary of Atlanta Battle,” July 21, 1940; Miscellaneous notes by Wilbur G. Kurtz, Boxes 15, 20, 25, 77, 91, Wilbur G. Kurtz, Sr. Papers, MSS 130, Kenan Research Center, Atlanta History Center.
- Mayor William Hartsfield, quoted in Kruse, White Flight, 40; Sheffield Hale, “Presentation: The Atlanta History Center and the Cyclorama.”
- One other factor may have contributed to Atlantans’ renewed interest in the Cyclorama. In the late 1930s, the federal government tried to crack down on racial violence in the South. In 1938, an anti-lynching bill nearly failed only when southern senators staged a successful filibuster. Some historians have argued that southern Democrats used their support of the New Deal as leverage to convince President Roosevelt to scuttle other anti-lynching bills. (See, for example, Ira Katznelson, Fear Itself: The New Deal and the Origins of Our Time [New York: Liverlight, 2013]). Nevertheless, the anti-lynching bills doubtless revived southerners’ fears of federal intervention in race relations, and this fear may have in turn contributed to a revived interest in Confederate symbols like the Cyclorama. Miscellaneous notes by Wilbur G. Kurtz, Boxes 15, 20, 25, 77, 91, Wilbur G. Kurtz, Sr. Papers, MSS 130, Kenan Research Center, Atlanta History Center; Atlanta Constitution, “Cyclorama Draws Crowd of 168,246 in 1949,” January 2, 1950; Advertisement for Wilbur G. Kurtz’s The Atlanta Cyclorama, in Atlanta Constitution, May 7, 1954.
- Some examples of resistance to desegregation: angry white supremacists—mostly midto low-income—fought, sometimes violently, against neighborhood desegregation. Businesses often ignored orders to integrate until blacks protested and Hartsfield grudgingly stepped in. And Hartsfield himself used urban renewal projects to create neighborhoods that were de facto segregated. Kruse, White Flight, 21–23; Ibid., 34–35; Loc. Cit; Daniel Judt, “Limitations of the Past: Atlanta’s Stadium and Atlanta’s Image, 1960–2015,” Yale Historical Review (Spring 2015): 87.
- Atlanta Constitution, “50 Sailors Thrill at Sight of Cyclorama,” November 3, 1945.
- Coined by Hartsfield in the 1940s, “The City too Busy to Hate” is a nickname with unusual staying power. In 2015, following the Charleston shooting, Hillary Clinton invoked the epithet during a speech about race in America, as an example of what cities should strive to achieve. Clinton’s use of the term ignored, however, a subtle, unintentional implication. Atlanta was still racist; it was just too busy to focus on its hatred. Rebecca Burns, “The Other 284 Days,” Atlanta Magazine, June 21, 2013, http://www.atlantamagazine.com/great-reads/turner-field-development/, accessed December 16, 2015; Kruse, White Flight, 234.
- Ibid., 167; Judt, “Limitations of the Past,” 101; Tammy H. Galloway, “Lemuel Grant (1817–1893),” in New Georgia Encyclopedia (January 10, 2014), accessed December 12, 2015: http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/history-archaeology/lemuel-grant-1817-1893; Moki Macias, “Neighborhood Change and the Politics of Place in Grant Park, Atlanta” (Master’s thesis, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2011), 26–27; Kruse, White Flight, 166.
- Macias, “Neighborhood Change and the Politics of Place in Grant Park, Atlanta,” 38. This was the reverse of neighborhood demographic trends in most other regions of Atlanta. Take Peoplestown, the neighborhood just west of Grant Park. In 1960, Peoplestown was incredibly diverse: 49.8 percent black and 50.2 percent white. By 1970, after a decade of severe white flight and neglectful city policies, it was 89 percent black.
- Kruse recounts a story of a Grant Park tour guide who told his audience in 1966 that “There used to be a swimming pool here … but when the integrationists made us let Nigras in we fixed them by filing it in and now it’s a bear pit.” As Kruse demonstrates, historians also frequently lump Grant Park into the category of white neighborhoods turned completely black. Kruse’s claim that the school board ruling “swept the entire neighborhood into the hands of black buyers” is reflective not of what really happened, but of what whites outside of Grant Park believed; Ibid., 31–35, 167.
- Judt, “Limitations of the Past,” 88; Robert Wernick, “History from a grandstand seat,” Smithsonian Magazine 16, no. 5 (August 1985); Kee Journal, “Battle of Atlanta Not Over Yet,” September 28, 1975.
- This was not the first time an Atlanta resident had proposed such a move. In 1932, when Stone Mountain was nowhere near completion, the Constitution received a letter from one Caroline B. Speer with the same request: “Why cannot the Cyclorama be placed at the foot of Stone mountain? [It] would be singularly appropriate for the Cyclorama,” Speer wrote (Caroline B. Speer, “Suggests Cyclorama Be Moved to Stone Mountain,” letter to Atlanta Constitution, November 20, 1932); Bruce E. Stewart, “Stone Mountain,” in New Georgia Encyclopedia (July 31, 2015), accessed December 16, 2015: http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/geography-environment/stone-mountain; B. G. Harper, “Move Cyclorama to Stone Mountain,” letter to Atlanta Constitution, March 12, 1963; Atlanta Constitution, “Stone Mountain Park Wants to Get Cyclorama Painting,” June 23, 1970.
- Atlanta Constitution, “New Home for Site for Cyclorama Unveiled,” August 10, 1972; Atlanta Constitution, “Massell Says Grant Park His Choice For Cyclorama,” June 8, 1973; Francis Edmonson, “A History of the CRI,” Undated, Folder 9, Box 4 in Cyclorama Restoration, Inc. records, MSS 825, Kenan Research Center at the Atlanta History Center.
- Atlanta Constitution, “Citizens Protest Cyclorama Move,” June 13, 1973.
- Massell ran a blatantly racist campaign against Jackson. “Cheaper to vote than to move,” he warned white voters. Come election day, 95 percent of Atlanta’s black voters cast ballots for Jackson; 83 percent of whites voted for Massell. The election signaled a political turning point: black voters could now unilaterally override whites; Atlanta Constitution, “Cyclorama?” October 26, 1975.
- The Cyclorama had desegregated slightly in 1970, when the museum hired a twenty-three-year-old black woman, a Mrs. Culpepper, to lecture on the painting. But even Culpepper readily admitted that she had never seen the painting before she got her job, and that the few blacks who did visit often left when “Dixie” began to blare over the speakers; “Cyclorama Restoration Inc., Board of Directors, 1976–77,” in Cyclorama Restoration, Inc. records, MSS 825, Kenan Research Center at the Atlanta History Center.
- “July 1976 CRI Progress Report”, folder 10, box 3 in Cyclorama Restoration, Inc. records, MSS 825, Kenan Research Center at the Atlanta History Center; CRI, “Cyclorama Needs Friends: press release” (undated), folder 2, box 4 in Cyclorama Restoration, Inc. records, MSS 825, Kenan Research Center at the Atlanta History Center; CRI Executive Committee Meeting Minutes (November 22, 1977), folder 8, box 1 in Cyclorama Restoration, Inc. records, MSS 825, Kenan Research Center at the Atlanta History Center.
- It’s difficult not to read racism into some of the survey responders’ comments. Jackson had been elected in 1974; the Cyclorama had been in a state of emergency since 1968. And yet it was only Jackson, the first black mayor, whom white southerners and Atlantans blamed for letting the [End Page 47] painting rot. Black Atlanta was throwing away the South’s history; Atlanta Daily World, “$10 Million Sought to Save Cyclorama,” July 24, 1975; Atlanta Constitution, “Cyclorama Gets Higher Priority,” October 5, 1976.
- Loc. Cit; Atlanta Constitution, “$2-Million Gift May Save the Cyclorama” February 27, 1979; The total cost for restoration ended up being closer to $11 million (Sheffield Hale, “Presentation: The Atlanta History Center and the Cyclorama.”); T. L. Wells, “Officials Gather ‘Round for Preview of Cyclorama,” in Atlanta Constitution, December 15, 1981.
- Of course, there were exceptions: “With Atlanta went the South’s last real hope for independence,” wrote an Anniston Star reporter, signaling that the Lost Cause still lurked; Atlanta Constitution, “Yankees Had a Lot to Do with the Cyclorama,” May 30, 1982; Celestine Sibley, “Re–Cyclorama is Better, and Made Me Cry,” letter in Atlanta Constitution, May 28, 1982.
- Tom Wolfe, A Man in Full (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1998), 28.
- Sheffield Hale, “Presentation: The Atlanta History Center and the Cyclorama”; Maria Saporta, “A $10 Million Gift by Lloyd and Mary Ann Whitaker Led to Cyclorama Moving to Atlanta History Center,” Saporta Report, July 24, 2014: http://saportareport.com/a-10-million-gift-by-lloyd-and-mary-ann-whitaker-led-to-cyclorama-moving-to-atlanta-history-center/.
- Sheffield Hale, “Presentation: The Atlanta History Center and the Cyclorama”; “Cyclorama at Atlanta History Center Fact Sheet,” Atlanta History Center: http://www.atlantahistorycenter.com/cyclorama-atlanta-history-center-fact-sheet.
- Dr. Gordon Jones, the Senior Military Curator at the Atlanta History Center, prefers “demythologized” to “dead,” but agrees with my assessment of the History Center’s goal for the Cyclorama. Stone Mountain, too, is facing severe criticism from many who feel it is as close to a Confederate Shrine as monuments get. In November 2015, Stone Mountain officials announced they were considering placing a “freedom bell” on top of the mountain, a nod to a line in Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech: “Let freedom ring from the Stone Mountain of Georgia!”
- Raf Sanchez and Peter Foster, “‘You rape our women and are taking over our country,’ Charleston church gunman told black victims,” The Telegraph, June 18, 2015: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/11684957/You-rape-our-women-and-are-taking-over-our-country-Charleston-church-gunman-told-black-victims.html; “Marion Square,” U.S. National Park Service, accessed December 17; 2015: http://www.nps.gov/nr/travel/charleston/mar.htm.
