Couldn't the spike in monuments between 1900-1920 have been because that's when civil war veterans were dying? My great5 grandfather fought for the confederates as a young man. He died in 1908. Monuments to dead guys usually require them to be dead. They obviously declined in the 30s because of lacking funds. I do see a possible correlation between the civil rights movement in the 50s-60s. There seems to be a lot of schools being named in that period. I can see racism there. But the largest peak in monuments seems to be simply because after they died their children's generation raised monuments in their honor. I see the second klan emerged as the "invisible empire" around 1915, when monument erection was at a decline. I'd like to see graphs of monuments to other wars to see if there's a noticeable pattern to compare this too.
I think the children of Confederate veterans coming of age (and being able to organize/Marshall resources to build) is another important timeline factor here. People rarely build monuments immediately after wars.
Beekeeper1987 on August 15th, 2017 at 16:24 UTC »
Couldn't the spike in monuments between 1900-1920 have been because that's when civil war veterans were dying? My great5 grandfather fought for the confederates as a young man. He died in 1908. Monuments to dead guys usually require them to be dead. They obviously declined in the 30s because of lacking funds. I do see a possible correlation between the civil rights movement in the 50s-60s. There seems to be a lot of schools being named in that period. I can see racism there. But the largest peak in monuments seems to be simply because after they died their children's generation raised monuments in their honor. I see the second klan emerged as the "invisible empire" around 1915, when monument erection was at a decline. I'd like to see graphs of monuments to other wars to see if there's a noticeable pattern to compare this too.
LosFelizYeast on August 15th, 2017 at 16:31 UTC »
I think the children of Confederate veterans coming of age (and being able to organize/Marshall resources to build) is another important timeline factor here. People rarely build monuments immediately after wars.
cobdale on August 15th, 2017 at 21:32 UTC »
Is 50 years later really that late though? I mean, I wouldn't exactly expect many confederate monuments during reconstruction right after they lost...