Article
The Jefferson Davis Highway: Contesting the Confederacy in the Pacific Northwest
Journal of American Studies
(2011)
Abstract
The Jefferson Davis Highway (JDH) is a controversial Confederate memorial. Since 1913 the
United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) have placed markers along roadsides across
America to commemorate the Confederate President. The women’s organization claims that
the JDH stretches over four thousand miles from Alexandria, Virginia to the Pacific coast and
the Canadian border. In 2002, conflict ensued in the Pacific northwestern state of Washington
when a local politician initiated a campaign to remove a granite JDH marker from a state park
where it had been erected by the UDC sixty years previously. This led to dispute over whether
Jefferson Davis should, or should not, be honoured by a commemorative marker on
Washington’s border with Canada. Drawing on contemporary secondary sources to inter-
rogate these contests over the meaning of Jefferson Davis and the Confederate legacy, we
argue that behind the veneer of heritage and genealogical celebration forwarded by groups
such as the UDC there is a neo-Confederate nationalism that works to maintain white
supremacy as a dominant interpretation of US history.
Disciplines
Publication Date
March 29, 2011
DOI
doi:10.1017/S002187581100008
Citation Information
EUAN HAGUE and Edward H. Sebesta. "The Jefferson Davis Highway: Contesting the Confederacy in the Pacific Northwest" Journal of American Studies Vol. 45 Iss. 2 (2011) p. 281 - 301 ISSN: 0021-8758 Available at: http://works.bepress.com/euan_hague/29/