Focus on this artwork and explain the UDC opposition to a women's monument.
The United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) was founded as an organization for young women to support the Confederacy. When it was first established, the UDC primarily raised awareness of Confederate values, tended to needy veterans, and helped maintain cemeteries. When veterans’ campaigns initially proposed a monument to women in 1909, there was pushback from the UDC. Historian Thomas J. Brown explains that the UDC was suspicious of C. Irvine Walker, who led the planning for the monument. Walker's suggestion of a female sculptor for the project may have been designed to placate the organization, but members of the UDC described his praise of Belle Kinney merely as evidence that he was "susceptible to a winning smile and pleasant manner!’”One female Confederate protester, quoted by the scholar Elise L. Smith, stated that she favored a “living” monument as opposed to an “insensate stone or pulseless clay.” Such women believed that the money for the monument would be better spent to actually support the women of the Confederacy rather than celebrate them. Some suggested that the money should be used to help support women’s universities, clubs, or orphanages.In response to the feelings of the UDC, the United Confederate Veterans (UCV) and the Sons of Confederate Veterans defended the idea of a traditional bronze monument. They claimed that they could not raise enough money to follow through with the other suggestions the UDC had provided. Historians Cynthia Mills and Pamela H. Simpson explain how these male, Confederate groups believed that “monuments, if substantially built, would after erection require no further outlaw of money.” Furthermore, the UCV and the Sons of Confederate Veterans claimed that a statue was more sustainable than the UDC's suggestions.
Confederate Veteran United Daughters of the Confederacy United Confederate Veterans Sons of Confederate Veterans Belle Kinney Confederate