Women of the South: a Mom-ument

Macon, Georgia

According to some accounts this was the first-ever Confederate monument to women. Construction began in 1905, but various setbacks stalled the project until its dedication in 1911. Part of the problem was that some Macon women didn't want this kind of a monument; they wanted the money to instead go to a school or charity.

Most Lost Cause memorials focus on the masculine effort, as husbands and sons went off to kill Yankees in the Civil War. Women of the South served as nurses or held together the home front.

Also known as the Monument to the Women of the Confederacy, it is a tall Georgia marble obelisk flanked by two groups of marble sculptures carved in Italy: on one, a Mom-of-the-South by a spinning wheel tutors her young daughter at her knee; on the other, a Mom offers water to a wounded young soldier. A bas relief on one side shows a happy Southern farm cabin, on the other side is a relief of woman and man with guns hiding in a smashed forest near the cabin in flames!

In 1934-35, the monument was moved from in front of the county courthouse about 300 feet to a location in a downtown park. In June 2022, the monument was moved to a hill at the entrance of Rose Hill Cemetery.