Question

the construction of the new south and the myth of the lost cause

discuss

Answer 1

Construction of the new south

The word "New South" refers to the economic shift from an exclusively agrarian society to one that embraced industrial development. Influential southerners such as Atlanta Constitution managing editor Henry W. Grady employed the term in an effort to promote economic investment and industrial growth in the decimated and depressed South, as well as to tap the region's abundant and largely untouched natural resources.

Myth of the lost cause

The Lost Cause interpretation of the Civil War typically includes the following six assertions:

1. Secession, not slavery, caused the Civil War.

2. African Americans were "faithful slaves," loyal to their masters and the Confederate cause and unprepared for the responsibilities of freedom.

3. The Confederacy was defeated militarily only because of the Union's overwhelming advantages in men and resources.

4. Confederate soldiers were heroic and saintly.

5. The most heroic and saintly of all Confederates, perhaps of all Americans, was Robert E. Lee.

6. Southern women were loyal to the Confederate cause and sanctified by the sacrifice of their loved ones.