Remembering Dixie

Nearly seventy years after the Civil War, Natchez, Mississippi, sold itself to Depression-era tourists as a place “Where the Old South Still Lives.” Tourists flocked to view the town’s decaying antebellum mansions, hoopskirted hostesses, and a pageant saturated in sentimental Lost Cause imagery.

In Remembering Dixie: The Battle to Control Historical Memory in Natchez, Mississippi, 1865–1941, Susa...