Whitewashing Blackface and Whistling Dixie : The Commemoration of Dan EmmettMain MenuAbout the AuthorAbout the AuthorIntroduction: Birth of a ProjectPart 1: Understanding Dan EmmettPart I: Understanding Dan EmmettPart 2: Preserving Dan Emmett's Memory, 1895-1935Covers early efforts to commemorate Dan Emmett and Dixie by Mount Vernon locals and southern Confederate heritage groupsPart 3: "A Way of Life In Knox County": Constructing Civic Identity around Dan Emmett and DixieExplores Mount Vernon commemoration of Emmett from the 1940s through the 1970sPart 4: Debating and Defending the Legacy of Dan EmmettExplores the commemoration of Emmett--and challenges to it--in last forty years, as both Dixie and blackface minstrelsy have become clearer symbols of racismEpilogue: Coming Back into HistoryEpilogueMapping Emmett Commemoration in Mount VernonThis map shows the different sites where Dan Emmett and "Dixie" have been commemorated in Mount Vernon, from the early 20th century through today. It includes physical memorials, museums, and streets, schools, and businesses named in honor of EmmettSourcesRenee Romano5fe3dd89d8626712516f143a0d2836783a834539Renee Romano
Mary Darby Fitzhugh
12020-10-19T02:54:40+00:00Renee Romano5fe3dd89d8626712516f143a0d2836783a83453915Mary Darby Fitzhugh birth dateplain2020-10-19T15:40:43+00:00Renee Romano5fe3dd89d8626712516f143a0d2836783a834539Mary Darby Fitzhugh was born in either 1878 or 1879 [check]. There are conflicting birth dates for her in census and other records. It's also not clear when she died, although she was politically active as late as 1945.
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1media/Mary Darby Fitzhugh, Dixie Quotations, DDE Papers MS 335 Box 3 Folder 3 OHC-page-0.jpg2020-10-19T02:32:26+00:00Mary Darby Fitzhugh's Dixie Obsession8Mary Darby Fitzhugh and the campaign for the 1935 Dixie Memorialplain2020-10-26T20:15:25+00:00In 1935, native Kentuckian Mary Darby Fitzhugh journeyed to Mount Vernon with a dream she hoped to make a reality. Fitzhugh was a newspaper woman who was then in her A staunch advocate for women's rights, she had fought for women's suffrage in the early decades of the twentieth century and she later served on committees of the the National Women's Party. In the 1920s and 30s, she worked on campaigns to improve auto safety and x... She was also proud daughter of the South, a member of the Daughters of the Confederacy, whose father, she often explained, had fought for the Confederacy at the Battle of Shiloh.
It's not clear when or why Fitzhugh became fascinated by Daniel Decatur Emmett. Perhaps it was her own background as a composer that first piqued her interest in Emmett. But it is obvious that it was Emmett's most famous composition, "Dixie," that grabbed her attention. For her, Dixie was more than a song; it was a symbol of national unity and reconciliation. It was, in short, the musical theme for the whole narrative of the Lost Cause that former Confederates developed and popularized after the Civil War. No group was more central to that project than the UDC, and for Fitzhugh, no symbol more evocative than than of Dan Emmett and "Dixie." In an undated poem she wrote about the song, she described it as a song that "cements the ties of nationalism." To her and other proponents of the Lost Cause, that this anthem of the South was written by a son of the North was hugely significant...
But by 1935, she had developed a plan and a vision: she would organize the construction of a memorial to Dan Emmett and his famous song, Dixie.
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12020-10-18T23:53:24+00:00Dan Emmett Festival Logo1plain2020-10-18T23:53:24+00:00Dan Emmett Festival Facebook Page2018Dan Emmett Art s and Music Festival
