This paper explores the contemporaneous effects of Confederate monuments dedicated in the Post-Reconstruction South. I combine monument, election, and census data to create an election-year panel dataset of former Confederate counties between 1878–1912, then exploit the temporally staggered and geographically distributed dedication of monuments using a generalized difference-in-differences design. I find that monuments caused increases in Democratic Party vote share and decreases in voter turnout, with less robust decreases in Black population share. I find some evidence that more intense monument-building is associated with a decrease in Black lynchings. I also find varying effects based on the era of monument dedication, the intensity of monument-building, and monument characteristics. To address potential mechanisms, I present evidence that monuments were associated with increased use of famous Confederate names for children and show that decreases in voter turnout occurred exclusively in areas with larger Black population shares. Overall, my results suggest monuments promoted a distorted view of Civil War history that primarily persuaded southern whites, but also contributed to Black political suppression. The findings have implications for current debates over Confederate monuments in the United States.

中文翻译：

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不朽的影响：重建后南方的邦联纪念碑


本文探讨了重建后南方的邦联纪念碑的当代影响。我结合了纪念碑、选举和人口普查数据，创建了 1878 年至 1912 年间前邦联县的选举年面板数据集，然后使用广义双重差分设计利用纪念碑的时间交错和地理分布的奉献。我发现纪念碑导致民主党选票份额增加和选民投票率下降，而黑人人口份额的下降幅度较小。我发现一些证据表明，更密集的纪念碑建设与黑人私刑的减少有关。我还发现了基于纪念碑奉献时代、纪念碑建造强度和纪念碑特征的不同影响。为了解决潜在的机制，我提供了证据，证明纪念碑与儿童著名的邦联名字的使用增加有关，并表明选民投票率的下降只发生在黑人人口比例较大的地区。总的来说，我的结果表明，纪念碑促进了对内战历史的扭曲看法，这种看法主要说服了南方白人，但也助长了黑人的政治压制。这些发现对美国目前关于邦联纪念碑的辩论具有参考价值。