“Much More than a Song”

Abstract

This article explores the ultimately unsuccessful 1935 campaign by Kentuckian Mary Darby Fitzhugh to erect a national memorial to honor the song “Dixie” and its Ohio-born composer, Daniel Decatur Emmett. Locating Fitzhugh’s campaign in the larger effort by Confederate heritage groups to promote a southern perspective on the Civil War, it examines why and how proponents of the Lost Cause came to embrace both the song “Dixie” and blackface performer Dan Emmett as symbols of sectional reconciliation. The story of the “Dixie” memorial also highlights the work of Confederate heritage groups outside the South and the ways in which their efforts shaped the commemorative culture in Emmett’s hometown of Mount Vernon, Ohio.