Neo-Confederate University

201 W 21st St, Austin, TX 78705

This stop provides a view of the entire South Mall, a moment of reflection on the celebratory vision behind the architectural and commemorative landscape of this iconic part of campus, and insights into the continuing legacy of this space.

Info: The South Mall's Allegiance to a New Nationalism

Littlefield Fountain panorama, 1933, Dolph Briscoe Center for American History

As supplementary material for this stop we provide a video analysis of the complex meaning of the entire South Mall and its statuary. In many ways this analysis can be extended to the entire UT campus, because up to the 1970’s the campus continued to be shaped in the image of its Neo-confederate legacy. As we can be seen through others of the supplemental essays, this legacy maintained its patriarchal, militaristic, and white supremacist core as it changed in subtle but important ways over time.

Bibliography

Correspondence, Mr. William J. Battle to Dr. R.E. Vinson, 22 of September 1921. Box VF/15/C.b, President’s Office Records. Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, The University of Texas at Austin.

Mendoza, Alexander. “Causes Lost but not Forgotten: George Washington Littlefield, Jefferson Davis and Confederate Memories at the University of Texas.” In The Fate of Texas: The Civil War and the Lone Star State, edited by Charles D. Grear, 155–179, Fayetteville, AR: University of Arkansas Press, 2008.

——–“The Vision of Littlefield Preserved: Memorializing the Confederacy at the University of Texas at Austin. “The Journal of the West 51, No. 2 (2012), 49-59.

Images appearing in 360 video:

BlazerMan. “UT Tower Burnt Orange,” Wikimedia, 6 Jan. 2006. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:UT-Tower-BurntOrange.jpg

Transcript

So having said all that, we’re now standing looking towards the tower from Littlefield Fountain. And I think the thing that… This is, again, a site that people have used as the backdrop for thousands of photographs, graduations and otherwise. It’s where we appreciated our national championship from the tower lit up, et cetera.
But one of the things that it tells me when I look up at this configuration of statuary and architecture and all that, is the fact that at least when it was constructed, this university was a Neo-Confederate university. And, importantly, it’s a Neo-Confederate university, not necessarily a Confederate university. So, it’s not one that necessarily has as its objectives a reconstitution of the Antebellum South. And, in fact, it left that behind, but it has as its… It is a celebration and has as its objective the consolidation of a New South and of a new Texas, of a Neo-Confederate one which sees, again, patriarchy, authoritarianism, militarism and white supremacy and a certain kind of predatory industrial capitalism at the center of its project.

Changing...

Effect:

1. Littlefield Mansion
2. Women's Campus
3. Gearing Hall
4. Painter Hall
5. Steps of West Mall
6. South Mall
7. South Plaza Architecture
8. Jefferson Davis and George Washington Statues
9. Albert Sidney Johnston Statue
10. Robert E. Lee Statue
11. Right Side of Littlefield Fountain
12. Neo-Confederate University
13. PCL and Alumni Center
14. Campus Confederate Flags
15. Texas Cowboy Pavilion
16. Simkins and Creekside Residence Halls
17. Robert Lee Moore and Jim Bob Moffett Buildings
18. Conclusion

Next Stop

13. PCL and Alumni Center

1933 architectural planning map of the University of Texas rendered by Paul Philippe Cret, with the location of the Perry-Castañeda Library/Alumni center tour stop marked.