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*The Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) was founded on September 10, 1894. UDC is an American neo-Confederate hereditary association for female descendants of Confederate Civil War soldiers.
Established in Nashville, Tennessee, the group venerated the Ku Klux Klan during the Jim Crow era. In 1896, the organization established the Children of the Confederacy to impart similar values to younger generations through a mythical depiction of the American Civil War and the Confederacy. The UDC denies assertions that it promotes white supremacy. In 1926, a local chapter funded the construction of a monument to the Klan. According to the Institute for Southern Studies, the UDC "elevated [the Klan] to a nearly mythical status. It dealt with and preserved Klan artifacts and symbology. It even served as a public relations agency for the terrorist group."
The group was founded by Caroline Meriwether Goodlett and Anna Davenport Raines as the National Association of the Daughters of the Confederacy. The first chapter was formed in Nashville. The name was soon changed to United Daughters of the Confederacy. They intended to "tell of the glorious fight against the greatest odds a nation ever faced, that their hallowed memory should never die." Their primary activity was to support the construction of Confederate memorials. The UDC has said that its members also support U.S. troops and honor veterans of all U.S. wars.
Communications studies scholar W. Stuart Towns notes that UDC's work is one of the "essential elements of perpetuating Confederate mythology." The UDC was incorporated on July 18, 1919. Its headquarters is in the Memorial Building for Women of the Confederacy, Richmond, Virginia, built in the 1950s. The UDC engaged in the commemoration of these ancestors, the funding of monuments to them, and the promotion of the pseudohistorical Lost Cause ideology and corresponding white supremacy.
The organization restricted membership to whites once but later lifted the requirement. As of 2011, there were 23 so-called "Real Daughters" (that is, actual children of Confederate veterans) still living, one of whom was black. There are no longer any living children of Civil War veterans. The last, Irene Triplett, died in 2020. In May 2020, the building was damaged by fire during the George Floyd protests.
